Epaper_22-12-24 LHR

LAHore/iSLAMABAD

following his conditional restorat on by a larger bench of the lahore high Court on Friday Punjab Chief minister Per vaiz elahi reiterated that the Punjab Assembly will be dissolved in line with Pakistan tehreek-e-insaf (Pti) Chairman imran khan’s directives the decision to dissolve assemblies is final and this dec sion of imran khan wil be mplemented the chief m nister wrote on his official twitter handle after the lhC restored him as the chief m nister fol owing an undertaking submitted by h m stating that he would not d ssolve the provincial assembly Cm elahi sa d that the mported government ” is running from elections, but the Punjab government wil ensure that it is presented in the people s court earlier today, the lahore high Court (lhC) restored e ahi as the chief m nister follow ng an undertaking subm tted by h m, stat ng that he would not d ssolve the prov ncial assembly before elahi, Pti senior vice-President Fawad Chaudhr y ins sted that provincial assembl es will be disso ved in any case “ the undertak ng Ch Per vaiz elahi submitted in the court s a techn cal issue and it s not necessar y the Pti agree with it Assemb ies w l be d ssolved in any case Fawad told journalists in lahore

LHC L arger BenCH Hearing: A fivemember bench of lhC headed by justice Abid Aziz sheikh and comprising justice Chaudhr y muhammad iqbal justice tariq sa eem sheikh justice Asim hafeez and justice muzamil Akhtar shabir heard the pet tion filed by Ch Per vaiz elah against his denotification by Pun ab governor bal ghur rehman during the hearing the court to d Ali zafar, counse for the petitioner that the lhC wanted an undertaking from Ch elah that he would not dissolve the assembly as any such move wou d deepen the ongoing pol tical turmoi in the prov nce the court took two breaks of 10 minutes and an hour and asked elah ’s counse barr ster Ali zafar to consu t his cl ent about the undertaking

Following the assurance of not d ssolving from the Pml-Q leader, the court reinstated him as the chief min ster the lhC also issued notices to a l the parties in the case and summoned them on januar y 11 the court also did not make it compulsor y for the chief m nister to take a vote of confidence on the Punjab governor ’s orders the written order said the governor s dec 19 and dec 22 orders were he d in abeyance until the next hearing and the Pml-Q leader as we l as the cabinet were restored as an interim measure

“however, this order w ll not prec ude the petitioner from taking vote of confidence on his own accord,” the order said on thursday n ght the Pun ab governor sprang into action and denotified elahi as ch ef min ster of the argest province in a b d to forestall ousted premier imran khan s plan to dissolve the Punjab Assembly (PA) in h s order dated dec 22 the governor said that since the ch ef minister had refra ned from taking a vote of conf dence at the appointed day and time he ceased to ho d the office rehman, however asked e ahi to cont nue working as chief minister unt l his successor takes charge subsequently elahi approached the court earlier Friday, saying the move

was unconstitut ona unlawful and of no legal effect ”

the hearing was put off for an hour after the court asked e ahi s counsel barrister Ali zafar, to seek an assurance from h s client with regards to not d ssolving the assemb y when the hearing resumed elahi, through h s counsel submitted an undertak ng where n he said he would not dissolve the provincial assembly until the next hearing

“ if me and my cabinet are re nstated then i will not send the assembly dissolut on summar y to the governor til the next hearing,” the undertaking, which was read aloud by Ali zafar in the courtroom ”

subsequent y the court re nstated e ahi as the Punjab chief minister and directed the respondents to submit a reply at the next hearing scheduled for januar y 11

speaking to the med a outside the courtroom e ahi s son moonis elahi said that the Pml-Q respected the judic ar y “ we w ll seek a vote of confidence and wi l dissolve the assembly the same day,” he said

For his part elahi said that the decis i o n t o d i s s o v e t h e a s s e m b l y w a s “ f i n a l ” , a d d i n g t h a t P t i c h e f i m r a n khan s decis on in this regard would be “ fully mplemented ”

the imported government wants to run away from elections we will present the imported government in the people s court and the people wi l make the final dec sion,” he said

Assemb ies have to be dissolved speaking to the media shortly after the court ’s verdict, Pti v ce President Fawad Chaudhr y accompanied by Pti s hammad Azhar said that rumours suggested that the provincial chief secretar y was coerced into signing the notification that was issued after the governor de-notified elahi Fawad Ch sa d the court has proved today that the Pti’s stance was right, and t nu lified the governor s notif cat on to remove elahi the governor w ll be summoned to Punjab Assembly for question ng about the not fication Fawad Ch, who was informat on minister in the previous government, also said that e ahi was ready to take the vote of confidence and that maybe he would ask the speaker to summon a session in th s regard within a week our only demand was that the sess on takes place once our lawmakers who are abroad return

the senior Pti leader added that Punjab Assembly speaker sibtain khan would wr te a letter to Pres dent Arif A vi for the removal of rehman “ the detai s w l come out [ ] the way signature was taken from h m and the way that t is be ng said that he was locked in h s office and who meted out th s treatment to the chief secretar y the province s top bureaucrat hopefully, he will raise his voice and elaborate on who did it the Pti svP lamented that the Constitution had been abandoned and the law of “ might is r ght ” was prevailing in the countr y regarding the lhC verdict, Fawad Ch said t had r ghtly re ected the governor s move to dism ss the Punjab chief minister “ we have given an undertak ng to the court that we will not dissolve the assembly ti l the next date,” Fawad said, adding that the court had ra sed concerns about the assembly being dissolved after e ahi was reinstated

Chaudhr y sa d that the Pti did not agree with the court s reasoning but u timately dec ded to subm t an undertaking for one date [but] not beyond that

S anaullah to elahi: You got ‘ interim relief ’ , will have to take vote of confidence

LAHORE: Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has said that the Lahore High Court (LHC) has only given “interim relief” to Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leader Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi by reinstating him as Punjab chief minister on Friday

Speaking to a private TV channel, he said that Elahi has given assurance to the court that he would not dissolve the Punjab Assembly, adding that the court would give its verdict on January 11 after listening to both parties

“The chief minister will have to take a vote of confidence on the governor ’s advice I am confident that he would do so after the court’s decision After taking the vote of confidence, it is your decision whether to dissolve the assembly or not,” he added On the suicide car bomb attack in Islamabad’s I-10 sector earlier in the day, Sanaullah said that more than just worrying about terrorism, we should stay alert to avoid terror incidents from happening He lauded the police officer who was martyred during the terrorist attack

Earlier, LHC restored Elahi as the provincial chief minister after getting assurance from the PML-Q leader that he would not dissolve the Punjab Assembly

Headed by Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh, a five-member bench heard the petition filed by Elahi challenging Governor Punjab Balighur Rehman’s act of de-notifying him as the provincial chief minister

Announcing its orders, the court also reinstated the Punjab cabinet after the PTI leader submitted an undertaking that he would not dissolve the provincial assembly until January 11 The court adjourned its hearing to January 11 s ta f f r e p o

the sindh h gh Court (shC) struck down on Friday a 10% super tax imposed by the federal government ear ier this year, terming it discr minator y this move wi deprive the government of almost rs 247 b llion of revenue super tax is evied upon a certain class of taxpayers in the rates between 1% to 10% on income groups who earn at least rs 150 m llion it was first introduced after section 4b of the income tax ordinance (ito) of 2001 for the rehab litat on of d sp aced persons was ntroduced through the Finance Act of 2015 this year in 2022 another

sect on 4C of the ito of 2001 was introduced that mposed a super tax on h gh earn ng persons through F nance Act, 2022

it included 13 sectors including beverages automobiles air ines cement chemicals, cigarette and tobacco, ferti iser ron and steel lng terminal oil marketing, oil refining, petro eum and gas exp orat on and production pharmaceuticals sugar and textiles the rate of tax shall be 10% where the income exceeds rs 300 mil ion

the shC termed the government s decision to charge 10% tax on 13 selected sectors as discr m nator y the petit oners challenge the egality of section 4C of the ito “ upon grounds that the same un awfully viti-

ates vested rights accrued in past and closed transactions; is d scriminator y confiscator y; demonstrably devoid of any intelligible d fferent a ”

At the start of financ al year 202223 the government set a target to collect rs 215 b llion to rs 247 billion with super taxes the shC order will now adversely impact the annua tax col ection target of rs 7 47 trillion out of rs 247 bill on the Fbr had estimated to col ect rs 180 bi lion in december, out rs 87 bil ion were expected to be paid by the government owned companies

it is reported that the Fbr requested the f nance minister to play his role in convincing the government-owned ent t es to pay 10% super tax but that won’t be possible after the shC s decis on

PA K I S tA n tA K I n g M E A S u R E S t O A u g M E n t t R A D E w I t H I R A n : D A R

ISLAMABAD

FE D E R A L Minister for Finance and Revenue

Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar said here on Friday that Pakistan was committed to take all possible measures for resolving the bottlenecks to significantly augment bilateral trade volume with Iran Talking to Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Pakistan, Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini who called on him the minister said the current trade volume between the two countries was not

at the optimal level

He highlighted deep rooted cordial and fraternal relations between Pakistan and Iran based on centuries old religious and cultural affinities

He also emphasized that Pakistan always highly values its brotherly relations with its neighboring country On the occasion, the ambassador extended felicitations to the finance minister on assuming the charge of Finance Ministry and appreciated the economic policies of the government

The minister also underscored the deep-rooted historical cultural economic trade and political

bilateral relations between the two countries and discussed various avenues for enhancing fraternal relations

He further stressed that the two countries have great potential for extensive collaboration in the fields of energy trade and other areas They also discussed the opening of border markets, barter trade, free trade agreement and mutual investment to enhance the volume of trade between the two countries They expressed their satisfaction on mutual bilateral relations and showed keen intention for enhancing collaboration in various areas of common interest

ICT LG Amend Bill 2022 sails through Senate amid PTI protest

S ta f f R e p o R t

Punjab police unveils new plan for Christmas

R AwA L p I n D I: The police in Rawalpindi have devised a security plan to avoid any untoward situation on the eve of the Christmas festival, announcing it would deploy 3,200 police for the purpose Under the plan, all 159 churches across the district have been divided into three categories and personnel, including commandos, would be deployed to provide security to visitors According to a spokesman for the police, no one would be allowed to park vehicles near churches Walk-through gates and close-circuit television cameras will be installed at the entrance and the visitors would be checked through metal detectors The security petrol at public places such as parks would be made more effective, he said Security had also been heightened at the entry and exit points of the city and special checking was ordered for the occasion He said the chief of city police Syed Shehzad Nadeem had directed the force to ensure effective patrolling in their respective localities Plain-clothed and well-equipped policemen would perform duties near churches and public places, he added The security of the churches would be monitored through CCTV cameras In addition, a dedicated control room would be set up where representatives of all departments would jointly work to keep an eye on security a p p

Medical Equipment Import: IHC summons CEO DRAP in person

ISLAMABAD S ta f f R e p o R t

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday summoned CEO DRAP in personal capacity in a petition seeking permission to import medical equipment A single bench of IHC Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb heard the petition filed by the Health Care Devices Association The petitioner adopted the stance that the medical equipment was used to be imported from abroad to meet the local requirements The medical equipment was necessary for the treatment of patients across the country, it said, adding that the delay in the provision of the equipment could make the health sector unoperational which may put thousands of lives at risk The petitioner said that it was the responsibility of the Drugs Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP) to grant permission for the import of medical equipment The applications were moved to the authority in this regard but these couldn’t be decided in time The court adjourned further hearing till January 10, with the above instructions

The Senate on Friday passed the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2002, increasing the number of union councils from 101 to 125 amid strong protest by the opposition PTI senators The bill was moved by Minister of State for Law and Justice Shahadat Awan

According to the amended bill the number of union councils has been enhanced from 101 to 125 within the Islamabad Capital Territory to cater to its existing population while the mayor and deputy mayor

will be directly elected as joint candidates by the voters

Under the amendment, the Federal Government has been authorised to increase or decrease the number of union councils from time to time

“If the office of the mayor of local government f a l l s v a c a n t d u r i n g t h e t e r m o f t h e c o u n c i l f o r a n y reason the Election Commission shall hold a fresh e l e c t i o n t o t h e o ff i c e o f t h e h e a d o f t h e l o c a l government,” the bill reads According to the statement of Objects and Reasons, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Local Government Act was promulgated in 2015 to establish

Foreign National acc uses c ustoms of money-making at Islamabad Airpor t

ISLAMABAD

S h a h z a d pa R ac h a

A foreign national has revealed in his complaint addressed to the Deputy Collector Customs Airport Islamabad that a customs official at airport Islamabad used to regularly take a hefty amount of bribe money from him in return for passing the personal goods accompanying him during his frequent travels to Islamabad

According to details, the foreign national informed the Deputy Collector Customs through his complaint that a custom official named Muslim used to be kind to him in passing his personal baggage from the airport without any hassle in return for huge amounts of bribe money taken from him

In one of his landings at the a i r p o r t I s l a m a b a d t h e f o r e i g n national stated in his complaint, Muslim took bribe money from him but assigned his facilitation t o a n o t h e r c u s t o m o ff i c i a l n a m e d Z i a w h o a g a i n c h a rg e d h i m t h e b r i b e m o n e y t h u s d o u b l i n g t h e c o s t o f h i s facilitation at the airport

The foreign national requested in his complaint to the Deputy Collector that he was ready to pay a good amount of money at airport Islamabad in return for passing his excess baggage but not the double amount of money he had to pay to

the two customs officials

He said it was better for him to pay the single amount to one custom official than paying the double amount to the two

Sources said that the custom department had fallen into a mad money making spree everywhere, on roads by facilitating smuggling of contraband goods and on custom stations by facilitating valuation frauds and by clearing imported goods against locally fabricated invoice values

Sources said that the former as well as incumbent high ups of Customs collectorate Islamabad are fully backing few chosen Junior staff posted at different positions and complaints against the custom officials were being assigned to dustbins

Meanwhile, it has also been surfaced that Customs collectorate Islamabad has given three important charges including Unaccompanied Baggage, Export and AFU warehouse to another member Raja Fayyaz of chosen

The Chief Collector Islamabad

asked this scribe to contact relevant additional collectors or Collector to verify the details

Additional Deputy Collector I s l a m a b a d r e p l i e d t h a t t h i s i s before I got posted but he shared d e t a i l s o f o n e a n o t h e r s i m i l a r i n c i d e n t i n w h i c h o n e f o r e i g n n a t i o n a l m i s b e h a v e d w i t h t h e c u s t o m s s t a ff p o s t e d a t Islamabad airport

“Customs authorities detained 32 wine bottles from foreign national adding that he claimed that the foreign national misbehaved with staff but the same were not released as I had strictly ordered for zero tolerance”, he added

He said that a report is being submitted to collector Islamabad about the whole incident

an elected local government system to devolve political, administrative and financial authority in order to promote good governance and effective service delivery through the institutionalized participation and involvement of people in day to day governance

Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) is a municipal body established under the ICT Local Government (Amendment) Act 2022

Administrator MCI has proposed amendments in sections 6,12 and 29 of the Act to increase the number of UCs to cater to the existing population of Islamabad and to improve the procedure of mayor and deputy mayor ’s election

Scientists discover rocks and inver tebrate fossils collection

80 specimens of Gastropods

corals

65 specimens of

been collected Different Rock samples of Gaj Formation (Miocene age)

collected to cover all the

facies variations from bottom to top for further laboratory analysis The PMNH carried out 11 days geological and paleontological studies at coast line of Karachi and adjacent areas, Pakistan from November 30 to December 10 The study was carried out by two researchers from Earth Science Division Aamir Yaseen, Curator and Khalil-ur-Rehman, Associate Curator for collection of invertebrate fossils, Fossil corals and rock samples of Gaj Formation of Miocene age and other exposed Geological Formations in coastal areas of Karachi, Pakistan The PMNH was established in 1976, under the patronage of Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF), Ministry of Science and Technology, Pakistan It has four divisions namely Botanical Sciences, Earth Sciences, Zoological Sciences and Public Services S ta f f R e p o R t

KP deput y speaker sur vives attempt on life

PESHAWAR S ta f

Deputy Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Mahmood Jan remained unhurt after some unknown miscreants opened fire at him in the Regi Lalama area here Friday Police said the attackers escaped after retaliatory firing by the deputy speaker ’s security staff Mahmood Jan narrowly escaped The deputy speaker was addressing a function of the livestock department when came under fire Police have started an investigation

GB government hires ser vices of 66 consultants of S hifa Int ’l Hospital for one year

ISLAMABAD

In a unique arrangement for meeting shortage of specialized doctors in Gilgit Baltistan (GB), the Government of GB has signed an agreement with a top private hospital, Shifa International Hospital, for provision of services of 66 consultants of the hospital to the region initially for one year

According to officials, under the agreement signed on Thursday, Shifa Hospital would provide services of the consultants in various hospitals of GB and in return, the regional government would pay the salaries/perks to the private hospital directly “The medical consultants, while remaining employees of Shifa Hospital,

would be serving in GB, said Chief Secretary GB Muhyuddin Wani while talking to this scribe “The medical specialists of Shifa Hospital are ready to serve in selected major hospitals of GB ” he said, adding that the regional government would not be bearing employment/service related issues with consultants as they would be employees of the private hospitals

The agreement between GB and the private hospital was formally signed at Shifa International Hospital Islamabad The agreement was reached after numerous consultative meetings and other formalities of the bidding process in order to ensure transparency and trust

The agreement has been signed between Gilgit-Baltistan Rural Support Program

(GBRSP)/Department of Health (DoH), Gilgit-Baltistan and m/s Shifa Foundation Islamabad, Shifa International Hospitals Limited Islamabad, and eShifa (Siht Private Limited) Islamabad This significant agreement signing ceremony was attended by Deputy Speaker GBLA, Advocate Nazir Ahmad Finance Minister GB Mr Javed Manwa, and women parliamentarians of Gilgit-Baltistan

As per the agreement the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan will hire the services of 66 consultant doctors of various specialties as per the need identified by Health Department GB Earlier detailed deliberations were made between the parties to make the agreement successful and build long-lasting mutual trust

The agreement has initially been made

for one year extendable further for another year The agreement provides high incentives to the specialist doctors so that they may go to those distant areas where currently even the services of medical officers are not available let alone the services of specialist doctors

According to officials during the discussion it has been decided that apart from rotation of specialist doctors in GilgitBaltistan special attention would also be given to impart training for paramedics, biomedical technicians, nursing staff, housekeeping etc of Gilgit-Baltistan

The Chief Secretary GB assured the senior management of Shifa International Hospital that direct monitoring would be made by himself to make this partnership a

successful one and to ensure that best medical services be provided to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan at their door steps

The political leadership of GilgitBaltistan present at the signing ceremony hoped that this connectivity over the period of time will grow stronger wherein the Govt of Gilgit-Baltistan would also think to avail the best facilities of Shifa International Hospital like Tele-ICU, Tele-Radiology, Tele-Pathology etc

This agreement is aimed at augmenting the health sector of Gilgit-Baltistan in providing the best medical facilities to the poor people of remote areas as owing to lack of specialist doctors people had to travel to bigger cities to avail the services of specialist doctors for minor medical problems

ISLAMABAD

group The high ups of Customs collectorate Islamabad including Collector Customs Hasan Saqib did not reply on this matter

Imran Mohmand

ISLAMABAD: Scientists at Pakistan Museum of Natural History (PMNH) on Wednesday has discovered collection of rocks and invertebrate fossils from coastal line of Karachi and adjacent areas According to the PMNH, the study resulted in collection of 3265 well-preserved large and small foraminifera s specimens of different species

and

fossil

have

were

lithological and

REMOvAl OF ‘CROOKS gOvt’ MuSt tO SAvE PAKIStAn FROM MA JOR DISAStER: PtI

Chairman

Mazari and

President Fawad Ch strongly condemned the suicide attack in federal capital and said that fast deteriorating law and order situation across the country was a clear reflection of total failure of imported government and intelligence agencies

PTI Chairman, in a statement on Friday, strongly condemned the suicide terrorist attack in Islamabad “Salute the brave police officer who embraced martyrdom, saving lives and greater destruction ” he added Imran Khan stated: “The law and order situation is deteriorating rapidly across the country reflecting total failure of imported government and intelligence agencies ” Reacting over the terrorist attack in the

federal capital Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhary said that Nero was playing flute, as monster of terrorism once again reached Islamabad Fawad Chaudhry, in a statement o n F r i d a y, s a i d t h a t t h e s u i c i d e a t t a c k i n t h e f e d e r a l c a p i t a l s h o u l d b e e n o u g h t o open the “closed eyes ”

He stated that the rulers were imposed o n t h e n a t i o n t h r o u g h t h e p o w e r o f g u n s a n d t h e y h a d n o t h i n g t o d o w i t h t h e p e o p l e , a s t h i s g a n g o f t h i e v e s w a s m e r e busy in ending their corruption cases

F a w a d C h s t r e s s e d t h e n e e d : “ I f w e w a n t t o s a v e P a k i s t a n f r o m a m a j o r d i s a s t e r w e w i l l h a v e t o g e t r i d o f t h e current rulers and have to surrender before the people’s decisions ”

He went on to say that a cabinet with 60% of its ministers facing criminal cases w a s o n l y f o c u s e d o n c l o s i n g t h e i r c o r r u p t i o n c a s e s a n d f o r e i g n t o u r s Therefore, Fawad stated that it was in the interest of the country to get rid of them Ta l k i n g a b o u t g o v e r n o r P u n j a b ’s notification, Fawad Ch said that the power to make and remove the chief minister was w i t h t h e e l e c t e d r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s o f t h e people He stated that the governor and the c h i e f s e c r e t a r y v i o l a t e d t h e p r i v i l e g e s o f the members of the assembly The Punjab A s s e m b l y s h o u l d s u m m o n t h e G o v e r n o r and the Chief Secretary and punish both of t h e m f o r t h i s u n c o n s t i t u t i o n a l a c t i o n according to the rules so that no one dares to do such things in the future

‘ S tAt e M u S t A n S w e R t o q u e S t I o n R e g A R D I n g B A j wAH A q q A n I n e x u S ’ : P T I S e n i o r Vi c e P r e s i d e n t D r S h i r e e n M a z a r i t h e s t a t e must answer to the question pertaining to B a j w a - H a q q a n i n e x u s t h a t w h o w a s a u t h o r i s i n g p a y m e n t s t o H a q q a n i f r o m government funds for regime change when e v e n t h e t h e n f o r e i g n m i n i s t e r k n e w nothing of this enterprise P T I S e n i o r Vi c e P r e s i d e n t , i n a s t a t e m e n t o n F r i d a y, s a i d t h a t s t a t e m u s t answer the question regarding nexus: who was authorising payments to Haqqani from g o v e r n m e n t f u n d s f o r r e g i m e c h a n g e against PM Imran Khan s government?

She raised question: “At who’s behest w a s t h i s b e i n g d o n e w h e n F M k n e w

nothing of this enterprise ostensibly set up under ministry of foreign affairs?

Reacting to the Governor Punjab s notification, Dr Mazari stated that this was an illegal notification which would not hold One more game being played within the new definition our State has given to the word ‘neutral’,” she added Dr Mazari raised question that perhaps a little questioning of this illegal order rather than just displaying it?

Condemning the Islamabad terrorist attack, PTI Senior Vice President said that terrorist attack in capital but federal government and state busy in derailing democracy in Punjab and plotting against Imran Khan, PTI and ally PML-Q “Intelligence agencies who should be focusing on intelligence to preemptively nab terrorists too busy doctoring audios/videos and obsessing against PTI

China, Pak istan youth communit y brings warmth to GB

C

living i n t e n t s a n d m a k e s h i f t w o o d e n h o u s e s a s t h e i r h o m e s h a v e b e e n d e v a s t a t e d b y t h e deluge S t a n d i n g b y t h e p e o p l e o f G B t h e

Community distributed the second batch of relief supplies to Gilgit supported by the Te n c e n t C h a r i t a b l e F o u n d a t i o n a n d t h e China Foundation for Rural Development, CEN reported

Relief supplies were distributed in the areas of Gilgit, Ghizer, Khunjerab, Hunza, Nagar and other areas

A c c o m p a n i e d b y o ff i c i a l s f r o m t h e l o c a l g o v e r n m e n t s a n d c h a m b e r s o f commerce, the community drove for nearly f o u r h o u r s t o t h e G h i z e r d i s t r i c t , t o d i s t r i b u t e a n t i - d i s a s t e r a n d c o l d - w e a t h e r

Iranian minister says spoke to Saudi counterpar t at Jordan conference

TEHRAN aG e n c e S

Iran s foreign minister said on Wednesday he spoke with his Saudi counterpart on the sidelines of a conference in Jordan the previous day, the highestlevel encounter reported between officials from the rival states since they cut ties in 2016 The Middle East s leading Shi ite and Sunni Muslim powers Saudi Arabia and Iran have been on opposing sides of conflicts across the region including in Syria and Yemen Iraq has hosted five meetings between Saudi and Iranian officials since last year in a bid to ease tensions, the last of which was in April Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, tweeting in Arabic, on Wednesday listed his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud as one of several foreign ministers with whom he had the chance to hold “friendly talks” on the sidelines of the Jordan conference My Saudi counterpart assured me of his country’s willingness to continue the dialog with Iran,” Amirabdollahian wrote The Saudi foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have ticked higher since the eruption of protests in Iran, with the Revolutionary Guards telling Saudi Arabia to control its media and the Iranian intelligence minister warning Riyadh there was no guarantee of Tehran continuing its “strategic patience ” Iran has accused its foreign foes of fomenting the protests, in which Iranians from all walks have life have taken part A top general in Iran s Revolutionary Guards, Esmail Ghaani on Tuesday referred to Saudi Arabia a long-standing ally of the United States as “a scum and not worthy of being an enemy ” Iran’s disputed nuclear program has also added to tensions, with talks between Tehran and world powers on reviving Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement at a standstill since September Prince Faisal said earlier in December that the signs were not very positive unfortunately ” and that Gulf Arab states would act to shore up their security if Tehran were to obtain nuclear weapons, which Tehran says it is not seeking

supplies to 800 families

Q u r b a n A l i , C h a i r m a n o f t h e F e d e r a t i o n o f P a k i s t a n C h a m b e r s o f C o m m e r c e a n d I n d u s t r y ( F P C C I ) C a p i t a l O ff i c e , l a u d e d t h e C h i n a - P a k i s t a n Yo u t h E x c h a n g e C o m m u n i t y f o r i t s l o n g - t e r m assistance to Pakistan

The community was warmly welcomed a n d r e c e i v e d a t t h e o ff i c e o f t h e G B D i s a s t e r M a n a g e m e n t A u t h o r i t y ( G BD M A ) Z a h e e r U d d i n B a b a r, D e p u t y D i r e c t o r o f t h e A u t h o r i t y, b r i e f e d t h e c o m m u n i t y o n t h e s i t u a t i o n i n G i l g i t a n d t h e d i ff i c u l t i e s f a c e d b y t h e a ff e c t e d

p e o p l e H e a l s o r e v e a l e d t h e m e a s u r e s t a k e n b y t h e G i l g i t g o v e r n m e n t t o rehabilitate the flood victims

H e h o p e d t h a t t h e c o m m u n i t y c o u l d c o o p e r a t e w i t h m o r e p u b l i c w e l f a r e o rg a n i z a t i o n s t o h e l p t h e a ff e c t e d Pakistanis in their long-term recovery In Nagar district, where a large number of houses and buildings were destroyed by t h e f l o o d s , t h e c o m m unity distributed materials to 400 affected families Relief supplies were also provided to 500 affected families in Hunza, Khunjerab Irshad Sadan, Vice President of the

KP striving hard to address longstanding deprivation of tribal people: CM

Khyber

Friday launched the second phase of Insaf Rozgar Scheme’ with a total cost of Rs700 million, to offer interest-free loans ranging from Rs50,000 to Rs1 million to jobless people of newly-merged districts

Under the scheme, permanent residents of the newly-merged districts, aged between 18-50 years, are eligible to apply for the loan

Briefing the participants on ‘Insaf Rozgar Scheme’, Bank of Khyber Managing Director said that the first phase was launched in June 2020 with a cost of Rs1 1 billion In the first phase 4 576 jobless people had been provided with interest free loans enabling them to start their own business He further said that the scheme proved as the most feasible and result oriented initiative of the provincial government adding that 90 percent

recovery of the loans, provided in the first phase, had been made Under the second phase of the scheme, additional 3,000 jobless people would get interest free loans for starting their own business The chief minister extended his heartiest felicitations to the relevant stakeholders on the successful completion of the first phase as well as launching of the second phase of ‘Insaf Rozgar Scheme ’ He said, “The scheme is undoubtedly a poor friendly initiative of the provincial government which has resulted in providing self-employment opportunities to the jobless citizens of the merged areas ”

The KP government has gone all out to create employment opportunities in the province with special focus on newly merged tribal areas”, he added Mahmood Khan reiterated, The top most priority of his government is to address the longstanding deprivations of tribal people Despite numerous challenges, work on welfare and developmental activities are in full swing in the merged districts ”

BISP decides to unblock c ards of beneficiaries blocked in PTI tenure

The Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) has decided to unblock majority of the beneficiaries cards which were blocked by the previous government of PTI

Minister of State Ministry of Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Pakistan Faisal Karim Kundi informed the media that BISP board has given approval to open majority of those cards, which were blocked by last government tenure

It is pertinent to mention here that the federal cabinet under the chair of former PM Imran Khan had given approval removing over 800,000 beneficiaries of the BISP

BISP had removed them from list after checking foreign travel, Ownership of motor vehicle, monthly PTCL as well as mobile bills Passport processing through Executive Centers by beneficiary or spouse with payment of extra fees and obtaining of CNIC through executive processing of three or more family members of beneficiaries from National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA)

Faisal Karim Kundi said the department has been reexamining the cases of beneficiaries expelled from BISP in the past and majority of genuine beneficiaries will be included again

Faisal Karim Kundi has said that most of the government officials, who were getting the amount as

beneficiary also challenged their termination in courts and courts in some cases gave relief to them as former management had fired most of them from job without giving chance of personal hearing

He also said that we are going to start a dynamic survey across the country to check the actual beneficiaries as people badly affected by the flood

This dynamic survey would be different from the previous one as we will establish centers in Tehsil or districts in flood affected areas and we will ensure transparency in registration, he added

There will be an open banking system and beneficiaries can open accounts in any bank Kundi informed the reporters

The federal government has also disbursed Rs70 billion in flood affected areas to give relief to people he informed

The State Minister said that we have been starting work to conduct surveys in merger areas of KP The survey had not been conducted in the past citing the lack of internet facilities in those areas, he said Our Division had also briefed members of parliamentarians on this matter, he informed

The state minister also said that BISP has also registered more than 200 FIRs on account of deductions made by agents in rural areas of Sindh While replying to one question, he said that We want to give exit policy to those beneficiaries who have been well-off after getting the amount in recent years

Nagar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, expressed his gratitude to the community for the timely help extended by China to the people of Gilgit

“This event exhibits a strong brotherly friendship between China and Pakistan I hope the baton of love from China will help them rebuild their homeland as soon as possible I also hope that this love can cascade into the sea of charity and strengthen the deep friendship between China and Pakistan, concluded Ma Bin, the focal person of the China-Pakistan Youth Exchange Community

ISLAMABAD S ta f f R e p o R t

PA K I S TA N Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)

Imran Khan Shireen

Senior Vice

PESHAWAR

Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on

ISLAMABAD

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FAWA D C H R E G R E TS ‘N E R O P L AY I N G F LU T E’ W H I L E M O N S T E R O F T E R R O R I S M R E AC H E D I S L A M A B A D

OppOsitiOn nOt interested in debate On l aw, Order: sherry

ISLAMABAD

FE D E R A L Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman on Friday said the opposition was not interested in debating the law and order situation in the country, particularly the recent wave of terrorism

Speaking in the Senate, she said the session of the Upper House of Parliament was requisitioned in

the wake of increasing incidents of terrorism, especially the attack on Counter-Terrorism Department in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa

She said though the opposition members attended the session but they avoided discussing the law and order situation They were rather more interested in destabilizing the country she added

They must answer the question that who was sponsoring terrorism in the country and who was interested in instability the minister said

D e n s e fo g g y co n d i t i o n s to co nt i n u e i n co u nt r y ’s p l a i n a re a s d u r i n g co m i n g d ay s

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Dense foggy conditions engulfing plain areas of the country in the coming days would affect transportation means and air quality, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD)

The PMD in its advisory issued on Friday revealed that dense foggy conditions will prevail in the coming days “The travelers

are advised to remain cautious to avoid any untoward situation Air quality may be unhealthy for sensitive groups”, the met office said

Very cold weather conditions in Murree, Galiyat, Gilgit Baltistan, Kashmir, North Balochistan and parts of upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Due to persistent dry weather, dense foggy conditions are likely to continue in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Peshawar, Rashakai,

Mardan, Charsadda, Swabi, Nowshera and Dera Ismail Khan, Punjab including Jhelum Lahore Gujranwala, Narowal, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Jhang, Sargodha, Mianwali, Toba Tek Singh, Okara, Sahiwal, Bhakkar, Layyah, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Multan, Rahimyar Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan and Sindh including Sukkur, Larkana, Hyderabad Mohenjo-Daro and surrounding areas particularly from (2000 hrs PST to 1200 hrs PST)

Pakistan, Turkey celebrate diplomatic relations at c ultural night

ISLAMABAD

a n a d o l u ag e n c y

Pakistan and Turkey celebrated the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries through a cultural night held in Ankara

After beginning with the playing of Turkey and Pakistan’s national anthems, the program continued with a performance by Turkish musicians singing songs in both the Urdu and Turkish languages

Ali Sahin, a member of the Turkish parliament and former deputy minister of the European Union, gave the opening speech at the event

We organised this cultural night to show you how proud we are to celebrate the excellent level of bilateral relations,” said Sahin

Pakistan has always had a special place in the hearts and minds of our nation, and we know that Turkey has a unique place in the hearts and minds of the Pakistani brothers and sisters ”

Speaking at the event, Pakistan’s Ambassador to

Turkey, Yousaf Junaid, underscored that relations between the two countries are 75 years old, adding: “The relationship between our two nations goes well beyond the establishment of our two republics ”

Our special relationship is embedded in common cultural, religious and spiritual heritage, transcending boundaries of time, geography and politics,” he emphasised “We look at our relations as a sacred trust that has been passed on to us by our forefathers and which we are pledged to hand over to our succeeding generations,” he said, referring to the support given by both Ankara and Islamabad to each other when faced with harsh times The event ended after Qawwali singers took to the stage to sing traditional songs in their native dress

Qawwali music is a unique Sufi-Islamic devotional music “based on mysticism and spiritualism” as Junaid described

Relations between the two countries have developed on the basis of close friendship and brotherhood since the establishment of Pakistan as an independent

NADR A, CMOs ink contrac t: Telecos star t SIMs issuance through MBVS

ISLAMABAD

The Telecom industry has started issuing SIMs through an enhanced version of the Biometric Verification System (BVS) called Multi Finger Biometric Verification System (MBVS)

In this regard, a contract between NADRA and Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) was signed at the PTA headquarters, said a news release on Friday

The BVS devices available at sale channels have been upgraded to meet the requirements of the new system through NADRA and CMOs The new system requires impressions of multiple fingers for authentication and applicant antecedents while issuing new or duplicate SIM

Moreover, the control for the choice of fingers for verification purposes has been shifted from the seller representative to the system which asks for two

different fingers’ impressions randomly The implementation of a new system will make the illegal use of fake fingerprints impossible

The signing ceremony was attended by Chairman PTA, Maj General Amir Azeem Bajwa (R) Chairman NADRA, Muhammad Tariq Malik; Member (Compliance & Enforcement) PTA Dr Khawar Siddique Khokhar; Additional Director General FIA and representatives from CMOs

Chairman PTA, while lauding the untiring efforts of CMOs and NADRA in the upgradation of MBVS, said that the new system will be a catalyst in controlling the sales of SIMs issued illegally

Speaking at the occasion, Chairman NADRA said that MBVS has the immense potential to keep fraudsters and scammers away He said MBVS is a smart solution that uses an indigenous smart algorithm where a choice of a finger is proposed by the

system rather than prefixed finger positions

“The MBVS will not only eliminate siliconbased fingerprints used for the issuance of mobile phone SIMs but also will hamper the attempts to purchase illegal SIMs The new MBVS system will combat fake SIM issuance, and ID fraud, protect privacy and strengthen the national security of Pakistan , he added

MBVS has been made possible due to the strenuous and continued efforts of the teams from PTA, NADRA and CMOs

It is pertinent to mention that BVS was implemented in 2014 to offer secure online biometric verification for each SIMrelated transaction as well as assign a Unique Sale ID and logging of each transaction so that the person responsible for misuse is identifiable However, to further enhance the system and counter problems regarding SIMs issued using illegal means, MBVS has been introduced

C h i n e s e C o m pa n y t o p r o v i d e f r e e C a n C e r s C r e e n i n g s f o r 1 0 , 0 0 0 pa k i s ta n i w o m e n

BEIJING

LA N D I N G Med, a medical technology company based in Wuhan China dispatched three self-developed cervical cancer screening devices along with 5 000 sets of supporting consumable items to Pakistan

With these AI-powered devices, 10,000 Pakistani women will receive free cervical cancer screening and early diagnosis of tumors, China Economic Net (CEN) reported on Friday This is the first batch of devices under the China-Pakistan AI Cervical Cancer Screening Program In the future, more will be provided to Pakistan

Landing Med will also establish a Cloud Diagnostic Research Center for Akbar Niazi Teaching Hospital to provide nationwide

cervical cancer screening in Pakistan

Compared with artificial diagnosis, AI screening excels in speed and accuracy Even an experienced pathologist can only examine up to 100 cell slides a day

In addition some pathological cells that do not show obvious changes in the early stage may be missed when being observed through the microscope

The AI-powered screening device, on the other hand, can automatically find traces of cancer cells in digitized images within minutes based on decades of manually accumulated diagnosis data and algorithm models

According to Sun Xiaorong, founder and President of Landing Med, as Pakistan has a huge population, there is a large number of women who need cervical cancer screening In this regard, efficient testing methods are required to enhance coverage

To benefit women in remote areas with scarce medical resources, the company has developed a 5G+AI cloud diagnosis platform where experts from over ten countries can hold consultations on reports uploaded to the cloud platform which saves patients the trouble of repeatedly visiting the hospital for sample collection and report analysis

The China-Pakistan AI Cervical Cancer Screening Program started in 2019 on the ninth meeting of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Joint Cooperation Committee when two think tanks of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences signed an MoU with Pakistan s Ministry of Health to jointly provide AI cervical cancer screening services in Gwadar Port and other cities in Pakistan Landing Med signed an agreement with its Pakistani partner in November 2021 to execute the program

Elahi reiterates PA dissolution af ter ‘conditional’ restoration as CM IHC suspends CDA’s notice to seal A zam Swati ’s farmhouse

CoNtINuED froM pAGE 01

Ultimately the assemblies have to be dissolved you can take a week or 1 5 weeks but the matter will not stretch beyond that The assemblies have to dissolve and elections have to happen

He said the PTI was “confident” about the vote of confidence and had only asked for time so that its lawmakers abroad could return to the country

“The restoration [of the chief minister] has proved that the governor ’s notification was unconstitutional [ ] an unelected and selected governor can’t send an elected chief minister home,” he said P R O C E E D I N G S O F P E T I T I O N: At the outset of the hearing, Zafar presented his arguments, saying that his client was elected as the chief minister on July 22 “He got the required number of votes in the assembly but the then deputy speaker had removed 10 votes The matter was then taken to the Supreme Court

The top court, in its verdict, had invalidated the deputy speaker ’s decision and said that Pervaiz Elahi was, lawfully, the chief minister of Punjab,” he said Zafar contended that a chief minister could only be removed from the post through a no-confidence vote “A [no-trust] motion can be tabled with the signatures of 20 MPAs

He stressed that a chief minister was elected by assembly members and could only be removed by them If the governor thinks that the chief minister has lost his majority he can call for a vote of confidence and a separate session can be held for it ”

However, Zafar argued, the governor could not determine the day and time for the vote of confidence Here, the court asked that if a timeframe of three to seven days could be given for a vote of noconfidence then why not for a vote of confidence?

Elahi’s counsel responded that there was a “procedure established for the vote of confidence under which members are given a notice

Here, the court asked if voting could take place on the same day the notices were issued

The speaker has the authority to issue notices and hold the voting on the same day,” Zafar replied

He elaborated that if the speaker sets a day for the vote of confidence and the chief minister refuses to attend it, “only then can the governor pass orders”

However the lawyer argued that Elahi never objected to a vote of confidence “The assembly has to be called by the speaker as the chief minister can not do the same But when a session was not held how can the governor issue orders?

“It is like two people are fighting but the third person is being punished

Here, Justice Shaikh observed: “If the governor has called for a vote of confidence, his orders should have been implemented

He said that the entire business of calling the assembly session for a vote of confidence could still be held, adding that the “crisis can end if a time for voting is given But this is only possible if the denotification order is annulled ” Zafar argued

To that, Justice Shaikh said that the court would decide on this matter according to the law

At one point during the hearing Zafar said that Punjab was the biggest province of the country and there were multiple projects underway in the Punjab cabinet If the chief minister stays the cabinet would stay ”

However, the judge pointed out that the governor had instructed Elahi to stay in office until a new chief minister was elected

He also asked: “If we suspend the de-notification order and restore Elahi as the chief minister what are the chances that you [PML-Q] will dissolve the assembly?”

At that laughter broke out in the courtroom

“We will look into this if you give an undertaking regarding the assembly dissolution,” Justice Shaikh said He asked Zafar to consult with his client and seek his assurance that the assembly would not be dissolved until the confidence vote is sought

C h a N G E I N b E N C h a F T E R j u D G E E xC u S E S F R O m h E a R I N G : After the petition was filed the court constituted a larger bench to hear the plea The bench was headed by Justice Abid Aziz Shaikh and comprised Justices Chaudhry Muhammad Iqbal Tariq Saleem Sheikh Farooq Haider and Muzamil Akhtar Shabir

The bench was dissolved around an hour later when Justice Haider recused himself from hearing the case as the court took up the plea Justice Abid explained the reason behind Justice Haider s decision, saying that he had been a counsel for the petitioner in the past “We have sent the case file to the [LHC] chief justice for the constitution of a new bench, he added

When Elahi’s lawyer requested that the hearing of the plea be scheduled for today, Justice Abid said this request would also be forwarded to LHC Chief Justice (CJ) Ameer Bhatti

Later, the LHC CJ reconstituted the bench, replacing Justice Haider with Justice Asim Hafeez C R I S I S I N P u N j a b : After Imran’s announcement of the assemblies’ dissolution, the coalition leaders had sprung into action to prevent Punjab Chief Minister Parvez Elahi from dissolving the Punjab Assembly

In a double-edged move on Monday, the Punjab governor asked the chief minister to obtain a vote of confidence from the Punjab Assembly, while PMLN and PPP lawmakers submitted a separate no-trust resolution against him in a bid to bar him from dissolving the assembly

However, Punjab Assembly Speaker Sibtain Khan termed the governor ’s orders as “illegal against the provisions of the Constitution and thus stand disposed of In his two-page ruling the speaker maintained that the governor ’s orders were not in accordance with Article 54(3) and Article 127 The house is in session since Oct 23 2022 and under Articles 54(3) and 127 No fresh session can be convened unless and until the current one ends,” the order read Subsequently on Wednesday the Punjab governor termed the speaker ’s ruling “unconstitutional” In his order, the governor said under Article 130(7) of the Constitution that PA speaker s ruling had no bearing on his order and termed it unconstitutional The governor said the speaker ’s ruling was also in violation of Rule 209 of the Rules of Procedure of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab, 1997 Lawyers reached by Dawn for their comments differ on the governor s orders issued to the chief minister, they were unanimous that a legal battle appears to be the only way forward for the resolution of the current crisis in Punjab

In a late-night move on Thursday, the governor de-notified Elahi In an order, he said: “Consequent to the facts that Ch Parvez Elahi refrained from obtaining the vote of confidence at 1600 hours yesterday (Wednesday), in line with an order under Article 130(7) of the Constitution issued under my hand on Dec 19, 2022, in line with Rule 22(7) of the Rules of Procedure of provincial assembly of Punjab, 1997 and that he still has not done so even after the lapse of another 24 hours, I am satisfied that he does not command the confidence of the majority of the members of the Punjab Assembly, and therefore ceases to hold his office with immediate effect ”

As a result, “the provincial cabinet stands dissolved forthwith , he said

In terms of Article 133 of the Constitution, Mr Elahi, “former Punjab CM, is hereby asked to continue to hold office until his successor enters upon the office of the chief minister”, the governor said However, it remains to be seen whether the governor s late-night order will hold the field or not aSSEmbLY PaSSES RESOLuTION aGaINST GOVERNOR: The Punjab Assembly earlier passed a resolution, deploring Governor Rehman s illegal move to remove Elahi as the chief minister

PTI MPA Mian Muhammad Aslam Iqbal moved the resolution, calling on President Arif Alvi to take action against the province’s governor

The resolution mentioned that the “imported government in the centre has attacked Punjab and an attempt is also being made to destabilise the province In response to the resolution, the chief minister said it holds importance and in light of it, he called on the president to take action against the governor for “misconduct”

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The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday suspended the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) notice to seal Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI) Senator Azam Swati s farmhouse As per details, Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir heard the petition filed by Azam Swati’s wife in IHC The court issued notices to all the parties and stopped them from taking any further measures CDA didn’t issue any notice prior to sealing the farmhouse the petitioner s counsel told the court and requested the court to stop CDA from taking any further measures The court adjourned the hearing for an indefinite time Earlier the Capital Development Authority (CDA) sealed farmhouses owned by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Senator Azam Swati, after ‘non-compliance’ with the notice issued to his wife The notice stated that two basements a ground floor and guard rooms were illegally constructed in the farmhouses The CDA asked Swati to demolish the illegal constructions, otherwise, the farmhouses will be vacated for not complying with the orders

S ec tion 144 imposed in federal c apital for two weeks

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The District Administration Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) has imposed section 144 in the Federal Capital for a period of two weeks, with immediate effect in the backdrop of a suicide bomb attack early Friday According to a notification issued here, the district magistrate ICT under Section 144 of CrPC prohibited all kinds of corner meetings, jalsa, public gatherings and congregation in the Federal Capital, especially in the wake of upcoming local government elections It said recent threat alerts issued by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and attack on Police in the Federal Capital, the security of ICT has been beefed up to obviate the threats Thus immediate prevention and speedy remedy were required and directions appearing were necessary to protect public life and property

S

GENEVA

The UN Human Rights Office on Monday condemned Israel’s recent deportation of Palestinian-French human rights defender Salah Hammouri to France “We are deeply concerned by the chilling message this sends to those working on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory UN Human Rights spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said in a statement after the decision issued on Sunday The Human Rights Office said Israeli authorities revoked Hammouri s residency in occupied East Jerusalem based on a “breach of allegiance to the State of Israel ”

Increase in IC T UCs: IHC directs ECP to reconsider matter after hearing Federation

for

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday set aside the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) decision whereby it had rejection of the Federal Government’s notification for an increase in the number of union councils in the Islamabad capital territory (ICT)

The court directed the ECP to decide the matter again after hearing the respondents by December 27

IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq heard identical petitions regarding the increase in the number of union councils and changes in the voter lists in the ICT Attorney General

During the hearing, Jahangir Jadoon argued that the Interior Ministry had issued a notification on December 19, regarding the increase in the number of union councils but the ECP had rejected by using its suo-moto powers The ECP neither heard the Federation nor the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation he added

He said the Federal Capital had been divided in 125 union councils, and it was the ECP’s responsibility to conduct delimitation

The chief justice remarked that an in-

crease in the number would reduce the size of union councils, and asked whether it would not affect the local area Advocate General Islamabad said the delimitation of UCs would be done by the ECP on the basis of population and it would not affect local area

AGP Ashtar Ausaf adopted the stance that the ECP was bound to conduct delimitation after the increase in the number of UCs and voters lists would also be changed accordingly

The additional attorney general informed the court that the local government bill had been approved by the National Assembly and it would now be presented in the Senate Under the new law mayor and deputy mayors would be elected directly, he added

He asked whether the ECP had the authority to disobey the notification of the Federal Government

The chief justice remarked that the ECP was of the view that the number of UCs was increased after the local government elections schedule was announced and that the next elections could be conducted as per the new UCs To a query related to the changes in voter lists the DG Legal ECP said the process in that regard had been done He also produced the record related to the amendments in voter lists

The petitioners lawyer adopted the stance that the voters of Golra UC had been shifted to Rawat UC and same complaints were found in other UCs as well The ECP

had stated that corrections in the voters’ lists could not be made after the announcement of election schedule, he added

He said the voters could not be deprived of their right to vote The election would not be free and fair if it were conducted with a lot of mistakes in the voters’ lists he added

The ECP DG said the complainants were lodged too late, which should have been made at the time of preparation of voters’ lists The LG polls should be held on time, he added The chief justice remarked that all political parties during their stint in power did not show interest in holding LG elections The polls should have been conducted when the tenure of the last LG bodies was completed in 2020

ISLAMABAD

Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf Additional Attorney General Munawar Dogal, Advocate General Jahangir Jadoon, Director General Legal ECP Ali Nawaz Awan and others appeared before the court

UN rights office condemns Israel’s deportation of Palestinian-French human rights defender

The ar t of intelligence

THE blast in Islamabad’s I-10 cannot be dissociated from the Bannu Counter-Terrorism Department siege, which only ended on Wednesday with the killing of 33 Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants and two soldiers, a horrific carnage by any standards, and which indicated that the SSG unit deployed to clear out the militants, was obliged to conduct a scorched-earth policy Whether the unit conducting the operation refused to give any quarter or whether none of the militants were ready to surrender, it established that whatever way had been settled to deal with the TTP had failed dismally The TTP has shown itself able to attack a Department which is at the cutting edge of the fight against it, while the Islamabad shows that even the federal capital is vulnerable

Overall, it shows that the Taliban in Afghanistan have not proven effective in helping the Pakistani state tackle the terrorist menace neither have they prevented their soil being used for terrorism, not have they used their good offices to help Pakistan to deal with the TTP All of the optimism, even joy, expressed at their taking power in Kabul, all of the crowing at their having expelled the Americans have gone to nothing, for their inability to govern has meant the resurgence of the terrorist threat This merely adds to the burden of the Coalition government, which has also to tackle such gigantic issues as the current political instability, the economic malaise and the other crises bedeviling the state, not least being its own survival

It is perhaps unfair to lay all the blame at the Taliban door Those responsible on our side to deal with the fallout perhaps underestimated it and were too busy celebrating the US ouster from Afghanistan, as was visible especially in the case of the establishment, to notice the imminent threat posed by the TTP The USA is again taking an interest, and the last thing Pakistan needs is US interference on the excuse of nuclear safety All that talk of mainstreaming now seems fatuous, especially since the TTP continues to make impossible demands The Afghan policy should no longer remain a sacred cow, but must be opened to civilian influence, and not just from the Foreign Office The problem is one of violence, but it is a political problem, and demands a political solution At a bare minimum the forum of the nSC should be revived and used to bring all stakeholders together to discuss a way forward

IT i s i n t e r e s t i n g t o f i n d o u t t h e w a y P a ki s t a n s i n t e l l i g e n c e a g e n c i e s p e r f o r m t h e t a s k o f s p y i n g T h e y u s e p u b l i c f u n d s t o s p y o n l o c a l p o l i t i c i a n s , e s p e c i a l l y t h e d et r a c t o r s W h e r e a s w i l l i n g p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n t h e C o l d Wa r ( 1 9 4 5 - 1 9 9 1 ) m a d e P a k i s t a n ’s i nt e l l i g e n c e a g e n c i e s c a p a b l e o f p h o n e t a p p i n g , t h e p o s t - 2 0 1 8 f i f t h - g e n e r a t i o n ( h y b r i d ) w a r f a r e h a s e n a b l e d t h e a g e n c i e s t o l e a k t o t h e p u b l i c t h e r e c o r d e d c o n v e r s a t i o n ( o r v i d e o s ) s p o r a d i c a l l y T h i s i s h o w P a k i s t a n h a s s u c c e s s f u l l y t r a n sf o r m e d i t s s t a t i c i n t e l l i g e n c e i n t o a p p l i e d i n t e ll i g e n c e , t h e r e b y p e r f e c t i n g t h e a r t o f i n t e l l i g e n c e W h a t a f e a t !

Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan must have annoyed the country’s political custodians who resorted to tapping his phone conversations with this or that person The purpose was not to dig into the chat to figure out if there was any threat to Pakistan s security but the objective was to blackmail the conversers nevertheless, the whole exercise of leaks is done on the presumption that military cantonments are free of debauchery and that there is no practice of roving prostitution there The bar of moral standards is meant for application equally

How to hone the skill of blackmailing is an added faculty which Pakistan has added to its arsenal Blackmailing has been in use to manipulate the system In 2007, the Pakistanis learnt that Pakistan’s prime intelligence agency was instrumental in spying on the judges of the Supreme Court The agency was active in recording videos of the judges in compromised positions

The judges saw the threat of moral corruption detrimental to their career and fame, and hence they remained amenable to submission consequentially This was how the function of the country was carried out The pretext of spying must be national security nevertheless, the pretext of blackmailing the

judges must also be national security Certainly, nothing falls out of the ambit of national security

T h e c u r r e n t s p a t e o f m a k i n g p u b l i c t h e r e c o r d e d v i d e o s a n d a u d i o s m e a n t h a t s p y i n g i s b a c k i n b u s i n e s s a n d t h i s t i m e i n t h e g a r b o f b l a c k m a i l i n g w h i c h i s n o w a m e a n s t o m a n i pu l a t e p o l i t i c s T h e t a r g e t i s K h a n , w h o a nn o y e d t h e a r m y s t o p l e a d e r s h i p w i t h h i s s t a t e m e n t s b r i m m i n g w i t h a l l e g a t i o n s R e t i r e d a r m y c h i e f G e n ( r e t d ) Q a m a r J a v e d B a j w a ’s a d m i s s i o n t h a t t h e A r m y h a d b e e n i n v o l v e d i n p o l i t i c s t i l l F e b r u a r y 2 0 2 1 a d d e d f u e l t o f i r e T h e p o i n t i s s i m p l e : w h e n t h e A r m y p o k e d i t s n o s e i n t o p o l i t i c s , i t c o u l d n o t s t a y c l e a r o f p ol i t i c a l f i l t h

Woefully, Pakistan’s spy model relies on using less brain and more equipment

The model remains anxious about internal defying situations and has left external threats to their own devices

Eastern border is calm with the fencing of the Line of Control finished in September 2004 Only some troubles are coming from across the Durand Line (northwestern border) which is almost fenced The border with Iran is still not hostile The north is calm, so is the south

n o w, i n t e r n a l t o t h e s e l i n e s , P a k i s t a n i n v i t e s a tt e n t i o n w h i c h i s j u d ic i o u s l y b e i n g g i v e n b y u p p i n g t h e a n t e o f s p y i n g focusing mostly on the talk abutting promiscuity What a priority!

Wi t h i n t h e r e a l m o f i nt e l l i g e n c e , t h e d e b a t e b et w e e n b r a i n a n d b r a w n h a s b e e n t r y i n g t o a d d r e s s t h e question whether or not int e l l i g e n c e b e i m p r o v e d b y s o l v i n g p u z z l e s p u b l i s h e d b y b o o k d e p o t s o f U r d u Bazar, Lahore The overwhelming answer is in the n e g a t i v e T h e p r i n c i p l e i s s i m p l e : i f t h e a n s w e r t o a g i v e n i n t e l l i g e n c e p u z z l e i s k n o w n ( o r g i v e n i n t h e b o o k ) , t h e c h a l l e n g e o f t h e u n k n o w n i s a b s e n t a n d h e n c e f a c u l t i e s o f t h e b r a i n c a n n o t b e e nh a n c e d S u c h e x e r c i s e s m a y h e l p o n e g e t i n d u c t e d i n t o a s p y a g e n c y, b u t t h e e x e r c i s e s c a n n o t m a k e o n e i n t e l l i g e n t I f a p r o b l e m i s k n o w n a n d i t s a nswer is also known the practice of solving it again a n d a g a i n c a n m a k e o n e a p a r r o t b u t n o t a n i n t e lligent creature To reiterate, the cramming practice m a y h e l p o n e t o b e e n r o l l e d i n t h e a r m y o r a s p y a g e n c y b u t i t c a n n o t m a k e o n e i n t e l l i g e n t I n t e l l i g e n c e i s a b o u t d e a l i n g w i t h u n k n o w n p r o b l e m s ( o r p u z z l e s ) t h e a n s w e r t o w h i c h a r e u n k n o w n F o r i n s t a n c e , h o w c a n S i a c h e n

H e i g h t s b e t a k e n b a c k ? H o w c a n I n d i a b e p e rs u a d e d ( o r c o e r c e d ) t o r e v e r t t o t h e p r e - A u g u s t 2 0 1 9 s i t u a t i o n i n K a s h m i r ? I n t h e s e i n s t a n c e s a t l e a s t p r o b l e m s a r e k n o w n , b u t n o t t h e i r s o l ut i o n s A n y m i n d w h i c h i s n o t i m a g i n a t i v e a n d i nn o v a t i v e i s n o t i n t e l l i g e n t I t i s a p a r r o t W h e n p a r r o t s r u n i n t e l l i g e n c e a g e n c i e s , t h e y r e l y o n i ns t r u m e n t s a n d n o t o n t h e b r a i n s T h i s i s w h e r e i n t e l l i g e n c e i s h o b b l e d

After the dreadful incident of 9/11, the United States (US) transformed its intelligence agencies and employed imaginative and innovative individuals in top positions The objective was to employ the brains which could foresee threats and devise new strategies to counter the (unforeseen) dangers Such brains had not to rely on equipment which can be deceived by counter-equipment and counter-strategies, as happened on 9/11

R e g a r d i n g K h a n , i t i s k n o w n t h a t h e i s n o t a p o l i t i c i a n . H e h a s n o w o u t g r o w n t h e h y b r i d r e g i m e f o r m u l a . I t i s n o w t o o l a t e t o r e v e r s e t h e t i d e . D r o p c h e a p w a y s o f t a k i n g r e v e n g e A u d i o - v i d e o l e a k s a r e a n e x p r e s s i o n o f w e a k n e s s . N o s p y a g e n c y n e e d s t o b e a m o r a l i t y p o l i c e

Taking a leaf from that event, on 2 May 2011, Paki s t a n s s p y m a s t e r s c o u l d not foresee that the US helicopters could cros s w es te r n b o r d e r t o r e a c h A b b o t t a b a d t o s n u ff o u t Osama bin Laden Pakistan w a s s t u n n e d t o f i n d i t s e l f i n s u c h a n e m b a r r a s s i n g s i t u a t i o n t h a t i t h a d n o t c o u n t e r e d b e f o r e P a kistan’s spy agencies failed t o d e t e c t m o v e m e n t f r o m across the border Pakistan h a d t e c h n o l o g y t o d e t e c t t h e m o v e m e n t , b u t P a kistan had no brain power to f o r e s e e o r i m a g i n e Te x tbook intelligence mortified and botched Pakistan then and there E v e n e a r l i e r , p o s t2 0 0 1 , P a k i s t a n s s p y a g e n c i e s f a i l e d t o i m a gi n e t h a t b i n L a d e n c o u l d t a k e r e f u g e i n t h e m a i nl a n d S i m i l a r l y, i n m i d2 0 1 5 , w h e n P a k i s t a n w a s h o s t i n g p e a c e t a l k s i n M u r r e e a s a p a r a l l e l d e v e l o p m e n t t o t h e D o h a t a l k s , m u c h t o t h e c o n s t e r n a t i o n o f t h e C h i n e s e g u e s t s , P a k i s t a n ’s s p y a g e n c i e s d i d n o t k n o w t h a t M u l l a h U m a r h a d d i e d t w o y e a r s b ef o r e T h e t a l k s e n d e d a b r u p t l y w i t h t h i s d i sc o m f i t u r e

Regarding Khan, it is known that he is not a politician He has now outgrown the hybrid regime formula It is now too late to reverse the tide Drop cheap ways of taking revenge Audio-video leaks are an expression of weakness no spy agency needs to be a morality police

The writer can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo com

On this the 28th anniversary of the Budapest memorandum, if we analyze the decision of Ukraine to surrender its nuclear stockpiles in exchange for security assurance and get political and economic assistance, was beneficial for Ukraine or whether it suffered in the long run On 5 December 1994 the Budapest Memorandum was signed by Ukraine to get assured its territorial integrity

and sovereignty

In order to get itself internationally recognized, Ukraine was demanded to jointhe nPT The nPT is a legally-binding instrument that recognizes only five countries as legitimate holders of nuclear weapons: China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US All other countries are banned from developing a nuclear arsenal and those that have, including India, Pakistan, Israel, and north Korea, are not parties to the nPT

To follow the pursuit Ukraine gave up its nuclear stockpiles in exchange for security agreements and guarantees from Russia, the UK, and the USA If we talk about the initial gains it did get international recognition, and financial, and political assistance But in the long term, in the light of Ukraine’s experience, the pursuit of nuclear weapons to safeguard one s sovereignty and independence may be seen as more legitimate If Ukraine had been a nuclear power then the situation might be different It has negative implications for the nuclear arms control regime

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a serious violation of the Budapest Memorandum Even the US and UK responses to the Russian invasion was not up to the mark, as they placed economic sanctions on Russia but they were insufficient to halt the aggressive behaviour of Russia The international community was reluctant to not get involved in other countries’ war The Ukrainian leaders and public feel betrayed and consider that the security assurances they were promised under the Budapest Memorandum are not worth more than a piece of paper

The economic sanctions imposed on Russia are not followed by many countries, particularly India Its trade with Russia doubled after the economic sanctions imposed on Russia India’s oil imports from Russia in-

creased from 1 percent to 20 percent after the Ukraine invasion They are willing to bolster economic ties with Russia as they are strategic partners India as the US key ally is not aligned with the US stance on Russia The European Union is still having trade relations with Russia, their bilateral trade actually having increased during the period January-July 2022, according to the report of Eurostat Trade turnover for the period reached €171 4 billion Russia is also having trade relations with GCC countries Russia’s trade with the GCC was valued at $3 billion a year in 2016 and $5 billion in 2021

The economic sanctions the USA imposed on countries as a part of the stick-and-carrot approach failed in the case of the Russia-Ukraine war The security guarantees under the Budapest Memorandum have not been fulfilled in the Ukraine invasion They were using these security agreements as a bargaining tool in the past to distract countries like Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine from the nuclear arms race

Their failure in the Budapest Memorandum raises a

big questionabout US credibility as in the future its security agreements and guarantees would not be considered reliable by other states The USA should take into account that in a globalized world, and states are not US puppets

The key US ally, India is not willing to implement a trade ban on Russia so in the future, they should not expect India to be working on their agenda in the South Asian region They would not oblige with whatever comes in contradiction to their national interest

The Budapest Memorandum depicts the failure of the international community to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine Although Russia still flourishes in trade relations with other states so the US should not expect other states ro feel obliged to meet US demands in the international arena

The author is a Research Officer at the Center for International Strategic Studies CISS AJK She is a NESA Alumni She tweets tehmii Syed

D r Q a i s a r r a s h i D

Yousaf Nizami Editor

M A Niazi Joint Editor

Umar Aziz Executive

Bangladesh to 'Smar t Bangladesh'

facturing and industrial systems using modern smart technologies This revolution marks the breakthrough era of robotics, artificial intelligence nanotechnology quantum computing biotechnology, Internet of Things, 3D printing, fully autonomous vehicles and emerging technologies The fourth industrial revolution is now on the world’s threshold The use of advanced technology in production, marketing and consumption is one of its impacts It is changing people's way of thinking, producing products and providing services

possible to increase the amount of foreign exchange currently earned

Currently, unskilled, uneducated workers without technical knowledge have to work for much less salary than the skilled, experienced and educated workers of other countries But Bangladesh could earn a huge amount of foreign exchange from this sector If iyts workers can go abroad with such suitable jobs after getting a technical education Bangladeshis work hard, but due to lack of technical education they get unskilled or semi-skilled jobs Due to their own limitations and weaknesses, they have to be satisfied with low paid jobs

Getting free from the shackles of dollar

THE United States, using its massive economy and the power of dollar as the global currency, easily slaps sanctions on countries it does not like for one reason or the other Likewise it passes on all kinds of favours to the countries it likes for one reason or the other For instance, the US imposed an economic ban on Iran in 2012 in the name of the latter ’s alleged nuclear ambitions Israel on the other hand is having great fun all this while despite having similar intentions north Korea and Russia also find themselves in the American bad books The fact that the European Union and the West at large allow the US to lead the joint front only underlines the American hegemony and geopolitical influence that forces even the developed world to directly or indirectly help the US in achieving its national gains at the global level

History bears testimony to the flaws in the US decision-making process that has left it scratching its head in, say, Vietnam and Afghanistan, or has resulted in utter chaos in the occupied lands, like, say, Iraq, Syria, Libya and many others

The thing to do for the global community is what China, Russia and a few other countries are already doing; trying to find an alternative to the US dollar that dictates global trade When executed, such a policy will provide an alternative to nations crumbling under US sanctions

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) working paper, ‘The Stealth Erosion of Dollar Dominance: Active Diversifiers and the Rise of nontraditional Reserve Currencies’, the biggest source of dollar erosion is yuan, the Chinese currency

According to America’s prominent and well-known investor James Rogers, “the dollar may have ruled the world for decades, but today it, through its sanctions and its monetary policy, is shooting itself in the foot

One might imagine that the fall of the dollar is far but the process has surely begun In 2002, the dollar’s share in global central banks, which used to be 71 per cent, dropped to 59pc The dollar share was at a 25-year low mark on the Global Foreign Exchange Reserves in the fourth quarter of 2020

THE Bangladesh government has set a target to build 'Smart Bangladesh by 2041 Work on this has already started After the formation of 'Smart Bangladesh Task Force' under the leadership of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, an executive committee of this task force has also been formed

Meanwhile, the ruling party has also announced that its slogan in the next election will be 'Smart Bangladesh' The party s General Secretary said this at a press conference The executive committee formed recently will make recommendations to establish Smart Bangladesh 2041' as a knowledge-based economy and innovative nation It means building smart citizens, society economy and government Activities in education, health, agriculture and finance will be transformed into smart systems

Thus integrated activities will be undertaken ito modernize government management and build an efficient and transparent management structure Besides various activities will be digitized Tthe committee will adopt short, medium and long-term plans to implement 'Smart Bangladesh' create legal and technical infrastructure and give directions for its implementation at all stages

Alsothis, formulation and implementation of a time-bound action plan for transforming education, health, agriculture and financial sectors into a smart system, formulation of informationtechnology regulations in the economic, social, commercial and scientific spheres so as to build a smart and omnipresent governmen Even though the whole world is going through an economic recession, the country's economy is still quite dynamic Per capita income stands at $2824 Bangladesh is moving along with the rest of the world The country has reached today's stage after many ups and downs Bangladesh was once generally known as poverty-stricken drought- and flood-affected, and distressed But over the last few decades, the people have achieved many impossible things now Bangladesh is considered as a role model of development Digital Bangladesh has shown remarkable success in implementation over the past decade The use of digital technology in the fields of living, commerce, banking, financial transactions education health medicine agriculture industry, communication, entertainment, research and so on has made everything easy and smooth

The Smart Bangladesh concept will take the country to new heights Various preparatory activities have already started But to build a smart Bangladesh a lot of things are required which is still not 100 percent confirmed First of all, it is necessary to ensure an uninterrupted power supply system extraction of internal resources of the country and their proper use

The fourth industrial revolution is the automated contemporary version of ongoing manu-

The ability of the world's statesmen is being severely tested It is also important to make everyone able benefits from the fourth industrial revolution Proper development of technical education is necessary, so as to master all aspects of modern information technology But most young people are very interested in modern information technology A kind of enthusiasm is being observed among them to study this subject It can undoubtedly be said to be of great help in building a smart Bangladesh The development of modern information technology and its balanced use has accelerated people s political, social and economic development Mobile banking has revolutionized the economy The competitive spirit of various mobile banking service providers has encouraged all Bangladesh is now on the highway of development From low income country to lower middle-income Then from middle income country to developing now Bangladesh is dreaming of becoming a developed country The current government aims to make the country a developed country by 2041 With less land per capita, no other country could make such a history in economic development like Bangladesh That is why it needs to become increasingly connected to the global economy

One thing everyone must consider seriously, if Bangladesh cannot convert its huge population into manpower or public resources Its economic, social and political structure will be disrupted in many ways under the pressure of the huge burden of population Day by day a dire crisis will come before us Socio-political unrest, criminality, degradation of values, drug addiction etc will continue to increase unabated

If most of the citizens of a populous country are able to work and earn money, the economic base is bound to be strong naturally Bangladesh has to try to transform its population into manpower Then it will become a public resource

We all have to come forward consciously with the goal of transforming the human power into a public resource by enriching it with technical knowledge It is the right way to move the country forward If the talent labour and mindset of the unemployed, unskilled youth are not utilized properly many more disasters can befall Bangladesh If the country is to be led towards a prosperous and bright future, the huge population burden should be considered a blessing rather than a curse

There is no alternative to the expansion of technical education Technically educated youth can further change the face of our economy. Not only in the country,but all over the world They can easily find suitable and well-paying job opportunities in the international labour market Thus, a huge tide can be created in our expatriate remittance stream

Bangladesh is progressing through various stage At one time Bangladesh was called a bottomless basket But the progress of Bangladesh in the last few decades is easy to see The development of Bangladesh is now a matter of global discussion, and has created a surprise in the international arena

Currently the total population of Bangladesh is 160 million As the population pressure is higher than the total volume, scarcity, poverty, unemployment naturally remain Bangladesh is not able to move forward at the same speed as different countries are The economy of Bangladesh was once completely dependent on agriculture But now the garment industry is making an important contribution Bangladesh has reached a brilliant position as one of the world's leading garment exporter Through this, Bangladesh continues to exceed the previous record of foreign exchange earnings every year Also new items are being added to our export product list nowadays various industrial goods, electronics products manufactured in Bangladesh, are going to many countries The global categorization of Bangladesh as an agricultural country has changed with time now the global value of technical knowhow is easily seen More than 10 million Bangladeshis are working abroad Remittances have boosted the economy for a long time It is

There is no alternative to the expansion of technical education Technically educated youth can further change the face of our economy not only in the country,but all over the world They can easily find suitable and well-paying job opportunities in the international labour market Thus, a huge tide can be created in our expatriate remittance stream

For this, people from different sectors should be involved in integrated activities with the aim of building a properly developed modern Bangladesh without limiting it to the election slogans or imagination of a particular party or group Talented people scattered in different parts of the country should be found and their talent and qualifications should be properly evaluated Many talented people of this country migrate to different countries due to not getting proper evaluation They should be encouraged to work within the country Bigotry superstition terrorism, militancy, sick political cultural practices, extortion, social injustice, discrimination, exploitation-deprivation arbitrariness irregularity undemocratic attitudes, corruption must be eradicated by establishing a state system based on social justice Therefore if the entire program is conducted with a specific political party or group, it will not be possible to reach the main destination in any way Smart Bangladesh is not just a program of a group or a political party, it should be the focus of the thoughts and thoughts of the entire 160 million people of Bangladesh Everyone must be sincere about this

The writer is a freelance columnist

The biggest credit for this goes to the rise of other currencies, such as euro and yuan, which is officially called renminbi Owing to the RussiaUkraine war several accounts of top Russian billionaires were frozen as they had to circulate through Federal Reserve Bank of new York

Therefore, China and Russia have collectively made a system, called the system for transfer of financial messages (SPFS) In 2015 the Chinese central bank launched the crossborder interbank payment system in which 600 banks have participated by now

Besides there are a few other elements that indicate a possible fall of the US dollar The US is a consumer-based economy With a GDP of $23 trillion and a debt of $30 trillion, it is the largest debtor nation in the world Even though the US printed dollars in surplus which is the core issue of immediate inflation, 40pc of existing dollars in the global market were printed during the Covid crisis

India s trade in ruble with Russia and Saudi Arabia s acceptance of Chinese payment for oil in yuan clearly signify major advances towards controlling the hegemonic power of the US dollar In the great game of geopolitics every blessed favour is linked with some future-based profit Pakistan’s state institutions should consider these concerns as they will ultimately leave a crucial impact The country has to ensure a diplomatic and neutralist stance in the geopolitical arena Each decision should be made in the national interest so that the struggling economy may survive well in the years ahead

SAJID ALI NAICH KHAIRPUR NATHAN SHAH

Fruits of patriarchy have a foul taste

MAnY people in Pakistan raise a lot of hue and cry when someone talks about femi-nism and women’s rights These people believe that a meagre set of rights are enough for women Men in many conser-vative regions across the country define women’s jurisdictions confine them to live within those boundaries, and raise voice on their behalf, if at all needed

On the other hand, some people, mostly in urban areas, want to promote the real idea of feminism its actual message actual themes and why this movement was initiated in the first place

A report recently released by the United nations Population Fund (UnFPA) on gender-based violence should have set off alarm bells in the country, but that has not been the case largely The report must be discussed in educational institutions throughout the country if we really want practical solutions to these problems Changing attitudes at a young age is essential for a long-term move towards rationality on the matter

The Un report highlighted that 40 per cent of ever-married women in Pakistan have experienced physical sexual or emotional abuse at the hands of their spouses A staggering 32pc of women have experienced physical violence in their lives

These statistics suggest that there are three types of men in our society The first group consists of those who know and accept the faults of the existing patriarchal system, and condemn its dominance over vulnerable segments of society These people try to empower marginalised communities and strive to end women’s plight that has gone from bad to worse with the passage of time

Fear of divorce based on the social stigma attached to it also compels women to bear all kinds of excesses, brutalities and atrocities of their spouses Lack of financial independence of women is another major contributing factor

While the urban areas of the country have reported progress, the ideology of gender-equality has failed to penetrate the rural areas of Pakistan even after all these years It is an understatement to say that women in rural areas live in vulnerable conditions

There is no magical solution to these misogynistic approaches Equal oppor-tunities and meritocratic systems for all human beings can address the disparities between the male-dominated setup and the marginalised segments If the government is genuinely interested in eradicating genderbased violence and misogynistic mindset it needs to educate the young generation and hold awareness campaigns in areas where women are the most affected Indeed, this centuries-old patriarchal society cannot transform within minutes; it will take time and strenuous efforts to end the misery of our womenfolk But the time to make an informed and sincere beginning is now

SHAFA ISFAHANI LAHORE

samina akhTer

The potential is there by S amina Akhter

The secreT hisTory of poliTical isl am

described their opponents as essentially atheist, though most professed that they remained believers

The ongoing focus of both media and academia on the Muslim Brotherhood as the origin of “political Islam” belies the movement’s roots in the fierce debate over secularism and religion in the Ottoman empire’s final days It’s become fairly typical to consider the OttomanTurkish sphere as a category apart when it comes to political, religious and other affairs in the Middle east, as if only the Arabic element counts as authentic, and crossovers don t count But this approach - which reflects the world view of modern nationalism - has obscured the process through which Islamist political ideology emerged from the premodern Islamic tradition in all its complexity european secular nationalism - especially Auguste Comte’s anti-religion positivism - spread throughout various elite groups of Ottoman society in the late 19th century, not least the military, setting the scene for a showdown with clerics and devout intellectuals after the Young Turk revolution of 1908

The debate quickly degenerated into extreme positions The religious lobby - sensing that not only religious institutions but faith itself was under attack -

In this context, in 1913 nationalist intellectual Ziya Gokalp coined the terms Islamism (İslamcılık) and Islamist (İslamcı) in an effort to undercut the claim of these traditionalist clerics and their allies among devout intellectuals that one side was Muslim and the other was not - introducing this terminology decades before it became commonplace in regional political discourse

LOSING BATTLE: In 1918, the Islamist position was defined further in a remarkable book by Said halim Pasha, who, as Ottoman prime minister during the First World War, had fought a losing battle against ideologues of the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) over the role of Islam in education

The book, İslamlaşmak (To Become Islamic), talked in the most explicit terms yet about Islam as a totality covering all aspects of modern life and the need of modern Muslims to take positive action to establish their Islamicness in the face of a state that as he put it had “distanced itself from Islam”

These ideas were elaborated further in a 1923 book published in Arabic and Turkish in Istanbul by egyptian cleric Abd al-Aziz Jawish, in collaboration with Turkish poet Mehmet Akif ersoy, which gave Islamic prescrip-

tions for understanding everything from family and food to architecture and history here we have the basics of ideas later developed by figures such as hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb in egypt and Abul A la Mawdudi and Muhammad Iqbal in India and Pakistan, the essence of which was that the nature of liberal western political, economic and social systems is such that the faith of the Muslim living under their jurisdiction is in jeopardy The response, they agreed, must be political

Until the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, the Ottoman Islamist lobby held out hope that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk would lean into Islamic faith and institutions to shore up identity and legitimacy in the new state

The most prominent figures then fled abroad as sharia courts were closed, Arabic script was banned and the call to prayer rendered in Turkish - winning, of course western praise Those exiles had a deep impact in egypt in particular, where they and the Turkish students they attracted to study with them moved within the circles of al-Banna s new Muslim Brotherhood organisation established in 1928

From his new home in Cairo, Mustafa Sabri, the Ottoman grand mufti from 1919-1920 who remained Ataturk’s most vocal critic in the diaspora, wrote a searing critique of liberal constitutionalism as an arbitrary system subject to political whimtitled The Definitive Word

RESERVATIONS: But even al-Banna, despite paying the costs of publishing the book in 1943, expressed reservations over Sabri’s view that the liberal Muslim intellectuals who were ascendant in egypt at that time had in

The histor y of predicting the future

effect exited Islam through their support for the secular view that all knowledge must be empirically provable metaphysics be damned

Sayyid Qutb - who mixed with Sabri in Cairo literary salons before Sabri s death in 1954 - had no such compunction In the early 1950s, Qutb took those radical arguments and similar ideas developed by Mawdudi and began to reformulate them as a comprehensive attack on western modernity and its local facilitators in a series of works culminating with his famous book Milestones published in 1964 So from 1908 the trajectory of what we now call political Islam, or Islamism, can be traced in the Sunni sphere from Ottoman Istanbul to egypt to India to Pakistan The Turkish republic stopped the first round of debate dead in its tracks and subsequent thinking on post-Ottoman Islam in Turkey served effectively to obscure its memory

Not only that - Turkish students in Cairo returned to Istanbul to propagate the works of al-Banna and Qutb, which were translated into Turkish in the 1960s and 1970s and accorded a hallowed place in the Turkish Islamist movement led by the late Necmettin erbakan

In short the notion of a sharp rupture in Islamic thought between the era of empires and that of the modern nation-state appears to have been overstated, in that some of the key arguments of modern Islamism were formed earlier than imagined, in the final years of the Ottoman polity

Andrew Hammond currently teaches Turkish history at Oxford university He is the author of Popular Culture in North Africa and the Middle East

pacity to be deterministic Ultimately, neither approach is necessarily more useful than the other and that’s because they both share the same fatal flaw the people framing them

Wired A m A n dA R e e s

The future has a history The good news is that it’s one from which we can learn; the bad news is that we very rarely do That s because the clearest lesson from the history of the future is that knowing the future isn’t necessarily very useful But that has yet to stop humans from trying

Take Peter Turchin’s famed prediction for 2020 In 2010 he developed a quantitative analysis of history, known as cliodynamics, that allowed him to predict that the West would experience political chaos a decade later Unfortunately, no one was able to act on that prophecy in order to prevent damage to US democracy And of course, if they had Turchin’s prediction would have been relegated to the ranks of failed futures This situation is not an aberration

Rulers from Mesopotamia to Manhattan have sought knowledge of the future in order to obtain strategic advantages but time and again, they have failed to interpret it correctly, or they have failed to grasp either the political motives or the speculative limitations of those who proffer it More often than not, they have also chosen to ignore futures that force them to face uncomfortable truths even the technological innovations of the 21st century have failed to change these basic problems the results of computer programs are, after all, only as accurate as their data input

There is an assumption that the more scientific the approach to predictions, the more accurate forecasts will be But this belief causes more problems than it solves not least because it often either ignores or excludes the lived diversity of human experience Despite the promise of more accurate and intelligent technology there is little reason to think the increased deployment of AI in forecasting will make prognostication any more useful than it has been throughout human history

People have long tried to find out more about the shape of things to come These efforts, while aimed at the same goal have differed across time and space in several significant ways, with the most obvious being

methodology that is, how predictions were made and interpreted Since the earliest civilizations, the most important distinction in this practice has been between individuals who have an intrinsic gift or ability to predict the future, and systems that provide rules for calculating futures The predictions of oracles, shamans, and prophets, for example, depended on the capacity of these individuals to access other planes of being and receive divine inspiration Strategies of divination such as astrology, palmistry, numerology, and Tarot, however, depend on the practitioner ’s mastery of a complex theoretical rule-based (and sometimes highly mathematical) system, and their ability to interpret and apply it to particular cases Interpreting dreams or the practice of necromancy might lie somewhere between these two extremes, depending partly on innate ability partly on acquired expertise And there are plenty of examples, in the past and present, that involve both strategies for predicting the future Any internet search on “dream interpretation” or “horoscope calculation” will throw up millions of hits

In the last century, technology legitimized the latter approach as developments in IT (predicted at least to some extent, by Moore’s law) provided more powerful tools and systems for forecasting In the 1940s, the analog computer MONIAC had to use actual tanks and pipes of colored water to model the UK economy By the 1970s, the Club of Rome could turn to the World3 computer simulation to model the flow of energy through human and natural systems via key variables such as industrialization, environmental loss, and population growth Its report, Limits to Growth became a best seller despite the sustained criticism it received for the assumptions at the core of the model and the quality of the data that was fed into it

At the same time rather than depending on technological advances, other forecasters have turned to the strategy of crowdsourcing predictions of the future Polling public and private opinions for example depends on something very simple asking people what they intend to do or what they think will happen It then requires careful interpretation whether based in quantitative (like polls of voter intention) or qualitative (like the Rand corporation’s DeLPhI technique) analysis The latter strategy harnesses the wisdom of highly specific crowds Assembling a panel of experts to discuss a given topic, the thinking goes, is likely to be more accurate than individual prognostication

This approach resonates in many ways with yet another forecasting method war-gaming Beginning in the 20th century, military field exercises and maneuvers were increasingly supplemented and sometimes replaced, by simulation Undertaken both by human beings and by computer models such as the RAND Strategy Assessment Center this strategy is no longer confined to the military, but is now used extensively in politics, commerce, and industry The goal is to increase present resilience and efficiency as much as it is to plan for futures Some simulations have been very accurate in predicting and planning for possible outcomes, particularly when

undertaken close to the projected events like the Sigma war game exercises conducted by the Pentagon in the context of the developing Vietnam War, for example, or the Desert Crossing 1999 games played by United States Central Command in relation to Saddam hussein’s Iraq

As these strategies have continued to evolve, two very different philosophies for predicting communal futures have emerged, particularly at the global, national, and corporate level each reflects different assumptions about the nature of the relationship between fate, fluidity, and human agency

Understanding previous events as indicators of what s to come has allowed some forecasters to treat human history as a series of patterns, where clear cycles, waves, or sequences can be identified in the past and can therefore be expected to recur in the future This is based on the success of the natural sciences in crafting general laws from accumulated empirical evidence Followers of this approach included scholars as diverse as Auguste Comte Karl Marx, Oswald Spengler, Arnold Tonynbee, Nicolai Kondratiev, and, of course, Turchin But whether they were predicting the decline of the West the emergence of a communist or scientific utopia, or the likely recurrence of global economic waves, their success has been limited

More recently research at MIT has focused on developing algorithms to predict the future based on the past, at least in the extremely short term By teaching computers what has “usually” happened next in a given situation will people hug or shake hands when they meet? researchers are echoing this search for historical patterns But as is often a flaw in this approach to predictions, it leaves little room, at least at this stage of technological development, to expect the unexpected

Another set of forecasters meanwhile argue that the pace and scope of techno-economic innovation are creating a future that will be qualitatively different from past and present Followers of this approach search not for patterns, but for emergent variables from which futures can be extrapolated So rather than predicting one definitive future it becomes easier to model a set of possibilities that become more or less likely, depending on the choices that are made examples of this would include simulations like World3 and the war games mentioned earlier Many science fiction writers and futurologists also use this strategy to map the future In the 1930s, for instance h G Wells took to the BBC to broadcast a call for “professors of forethought,” rather than of history he argued that this was the way to prepare the country for unexpected changes such as those brought by the automobile Similarly, writers going back to Alvin and heidi Toffler have extrapolated from developments in information technology cloning AI genetic modification, and ecological science to explore a range of potential desirable, dangerous, or even post-human futures

But if predictions based on past experience have limited capacity to anticipate the unforeseen, extrapolations from techno-scientific innovations have a distressing ca-

Whatever the approach of the forecaster and however sophisticated their tools, the trouble with predictions is their proximity to power Throughout history, futures have tended to be made by white well-connected cis-male people This homogeneity has had the result of limiting the framing of the future, and, as a result, the actions then taken to shape it Further predictions resulting in expensive or undesirable outcomes, like Turchin’s, tend to be ignored by those making the ultimate decisions This was the case with the nearly two decades worth of pandemic war-gaming that preceded the emergence of Covid-19 Reports in both the US and the UK, for example, stressed the significance of public health systems in responding effectively to a global crisis, but they did not convince either country to bolster their systems What’s more, no one predicted the extent to which political leaders would be unwilling to listen to scientific advice even when futures did have the advantage of taking into account human error, they still produced predictions that were systematically disregarded where they conflicted with political strategies

Which brings us to the crucial question of who and what predictions are for Those who can influence what people think will be the future are often the same people able to command considerable resources in the present, which in turn help determine the future But very rarely do we hear the voices of the populations governed by the decisionmakers It’s often at the regional or municipal level that we see efforts by ordinary people to predict and shape their own communal and familial futures, often in response to the need to distribute scarce resources or to limit exposure to potential harms Both issues are becoming ever more pressing in the presently unfolding climate catastrophe

The central message sent from the history of the future is that it’s not helpful to think about “the Future ” A much more productive strategy is to think about futures; rather than prediction, it pays to think probabilistically about a range of potential outcomes and evaluate them against a range of different sources Technology has a significant role to play here, but it s critical to bear in mind the lessons from World3 and Limits to Growth about the impact that assumptions have on eventual outcomes The danger is that modern predictions with an AI imprint are considered more scientific, and hence more likely to be accurate, than those produced by older systems of divination But the assumptions underpinning the algorithms that forecast criminal activity, or identify potential customer disloyalty, often reflect the expectations of their coders in much the same way as earlier methods of prediction did

Rather than depending purely on innovation to map the future, it s more sensible to borrow from history, and combine newer techniques with a slightly older model of forecasting one that combines scientific expertise with artistic interpretation It would perhaps be more helpful to think in terms of diagnosis rather than prediction, when it comes to imagining or improving future human histories

Amanda Rees is a historian of science based at the University of York who works on the history of the future, human-animal relationships and science outside the lab Her most recent book was Human a short response to post-humanism, published by Reaktion Press in 2020

Middle east eye A n d R e w H A m m o n d

S O M E O F T H E K E Y A R G U M E N T S O F M O D E R N I S L A M I S M W E R E F O R M E D E A R L I E R T H A N I M AG I N E D, I N T H E F I N A L Y E A R S O F T H E OT TO M A N P O L I T Y

UNTIL THE ABOLITION OF THE CALIPHATE IN 1924, THE OT TOMAN ISLAMIST LOBBY HELD OUT HOPE THAT ATATURK WOULD LEAN INTO ISLAMIC FAITH AND INSTITUTIONS TO SHORE UP IDENTIT Y AND LEGITIMACY IN THE NE W STATE

H U M A N S H AV E LO N G T R I E D TO D E T E R M I N E T H E S H A P E O F W H AT ’ S TO CO M E. B U T E V E N T H E M O S T A D VA N C E D T E C H N O LO G Y C A N ’ T S O LV E T H E F U N DA M E N TA L I S S U E S W I T H P R E D I C T I O N S

corporate corner Climate Challenge needs Coordinated aCtions by stakeholders: oiCCi

KArAchI

ation

held

oV E R S E A S Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) the collective body of over 200 foreign investors, launched a whitepaper titled “Synergizing the Climate Ambition: A Blueprint for Achieving NDCs through Private Sector Engagement in Pakistan” The paper was presented at a Round Table which featured Dr Shamshad Akhtar, Waqar Hussain Pulpoto Ali Tauqeer and experts from academia, corporates, and social sector organizations

The white paper incorporates the key learnings and insights from Pakistan Climate Conference 2022, organized by OICCI in Karachi on March 16, 2022 The conference brought together global climate experts, policy makers and corporate decision-makers including global CEOs, Mr Alan Jope

(Unilever) Mr Jesper Brodin (IKEA) Mr Bill Winters (Standard Chartered Bank), and Mr Alok Sharma, President COP26 This white paper also showcases the best practices from the industry, highlights the commitment of OICCI members such as Chevron Indus Motors, Engro Corporation and Unilever etc to promote positive climate actions accompanied by an outline for action to boost public-private investment in climate change adaptation and resilience

Pakistan made an ambitious commitment, according to the OICCI white paper of reducing 50% emissions by 2030 in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) targets presented at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) Under Pakistan’s NDCs, about 15% of the total proposed emissions reduction is unconditional whereas the remaining 35% is to be achieved subject to conditional support from bilateral and multilateral sources

Dr Shamshad Akhtar while addressing the round table mentioned, “PSX launched ESG taskforce and interaction with all the corporates in Pakistan ESG compliance is very important for attracting foreign direct investment and is a very attractive instrument to attract long term investment ”

With ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat the past eight years have been the warmest on record Heatwaves, droughts and floods have affected millions making it evident that climate change is a grave and mounting threat globally said Vice President OICCI and CEO Unilever Pakistan Amir Paracha during the report launch event Pakistan is the 5th most vulnerable country despite having less than 1% greenhouse gas emissions Taking the right actions now can move us towards a fairer, more sustainable world by addressing climate change”, he added The industries will require as per

OICCI white paper transforming business models that could open new revenue streams and drive innovation However the industry partners cannot work alone without the support from government, civil society, and consumer bodies Coordinated actions behavioral change, financial commitments, and compliance with regulatory frameworks will be needed highlights the white paper

The OICCI’s recommended roadmap aims at harmonizing the efforts, sharing learnings of OICCI members such as Shell Pakistan, Siemens Total Parco and Nestle etc and lead the way for other industry players The monitoring and evaluation mechanism suggested in the working paper will help consolidate data and efforts for promoting collaborations as well as support the industry and government stakeholders to streamline the projection and demonstration of their work

K a r a c h i: 34th Convocation Ceremony of Pakistan Navy Engineering College (PNEC) was held at Karachi Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Muhammad Amjad Khan Niazi graced the occasion as Chief Guest Naval Chief conferred 382 graduates with PhDs, Masters and Bachelor degrees whereas 41 medals were also awarded to students in various academic disciplines for outstanding performances While addressing the audience, Chief of the Naval Staff highlighted Pakistan Navy commitment to train its officers at par with regional and international navies The Admiral appreciated that the growing number of foreign students is a testimony to the college s credentials in the engineering sector Naval Chief extended his heartiest felicitations to the graduating students for earning honours and distinctions for their outstanding performance in academics During welcome address Commandant PNEC highlighted that Collegeis imparting quality education in the field of engineering and its graduates are spread across the globe in top organizations of the world P R

Funeral prayer of mar tyred policeman offered at Police Lines Headquar ters

SSGC hosts open cour t to address c ustomers complaints

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Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) provided an open forum for complaint redressal to its customers by convening a Physical / In-person Khulli Kachehri session on December 23, 2022 at Company's Head Office Auditorium Imran Maniar, MD SSGC and concerned senior executives heard the pre-registered customers’ gas-related queries, one by one in orderly manner

The Managing Director assured the customers that SSGC will make every possible effort to address the customers' grievances even though the Company is faced with an uphill challenge of ensuring sustainable gas supplies during this winter season amidst huge gas shortages in its system Apart from Mr Maniar the senior management officials from Distribution and Customer Services including Adnan Sagheer Siddiqui ASGM (Distribution) Fasihuddin Fawad, ASGM (Customer Service), Mohammad Riaz AGM (Sales), Ismail Dilwash DGM (Billing) and others participated in the Kachehri Salman A Siddiqui, Head of Corporate Communications moderated the session

Physical and online Khulli Kachehris entitled as Ruburu sessions are regularly being organized under the directives of Prime Minister ’s Delivery

Unit (PMDU) to provide customers a transparent platform to register their complaints and get realtime resolution on the queries

This latest walk-in open forum was organized by Company’s Corporate Communication Department Customers were informed of the physical session at SSGC Head Office through Company’s social media platforms whereby interested individuals were requested to fill in their key details on a Google Form for registering themselves A Facilitation Counter was also set up at the Head Office atrium to welcome and guide the customers after verification of their identity and complaints

In addition to the regular on-line sessions chaired by senior SSGC management at the Head Office to address customers' queries, regional EKachehri sessions are also held every month at district levels in Karachi along with sessions in Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Nawabshah, Quetta, Hala, Mirpurkhas, Thatta, Badin, Dadu, Kotri and all other zonal offices across Company’s franchise provinces of Sindh and Balochistan Since the idea of Khulli Kachehri was floated by PMDU in 2020 like several public sector companies, SSGC too has organized a few physical sessions in Karachi and Hyderabad, besides the online forums

IC AP holds Grand Finale of National Finance Olympiad 2022

i s l a m a b a d: A

Adeel

offered at

lines headquarters, a

public relations officer said He said that, in a funeral prayer a large number of police personnel including Secretary Interior, IGP Islamabad, CPO Operations, civil administration, Pak rangers and other senior police officers attended the funeral prayers of martyred police officer at police line headquarters Later, the body of the martyr has been sent to his native village Pakpattan, where he will be buried with full police honors He is survived by a widow, two sons and a daughter According to details, security was kept on high alert in Islamabad and strict checking was going on at the entry and exit points of the city and the inner city On Friday, the Eagle Squad officials signaled to stop a suspicious taxi on the I-14 sector Service Road After which the suicide bomber present inside a vehicle blew himself up Police officer Head Constable Adeel Hussain was killed on the spot while four policemen were injured in the blast The injured were shifted to nearby hospital for immediate treatment P R

Beaconhouse organizes Quiz Contest – 'Ubhartay Sitaray ’

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Beaconhouse Pakistan s largest network of priv a t e e d u c a t i o n a l i n s t i t u t i o n s o rg a n i z e d a q u i z c o m p e t i t i o n t i t l e d ‘ U b h a r t a y S i t a r a y ’ a t t h e Wa l t o n C a m p u s T h e q u i z w a s b a s e d o n t h e g e n e r a l k n o w l e d g e c u r r i c u l u m f o r C l a s s e s I a n d I I i n a c c o r d a n c e w i t h t h e ' N a t i o n a l C u rr i c u l u m o f P a k i s t a n It is the first time that Beaconhouse has added an additional school subject in Urdu, which addresses key concepts from General Science, Social Sciences and Ethics This competition was designed to provide students with an opportunity to showcase their newly-learned skills and celebrate their Urdu language competency

Chief Guest, Prof Dr Taimur Rehman from

LUMS along with Principal Beaconhouse Walton Campus Miss Tehmina Lodhi, students, parents and teachers attended the competition Four teams from Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan and Islamabad reached the final round Lahore Model Town G17 campus team won the competition

The quiz competition was based on an innovative interdisciplinary approach that combined the subjects of Urdu language and General Knowledge Such competitions allow students to get a deeper understanding of concepts and learn better ways to express them

B e a c o n h o u s e h a s a l w a y s e m p h a s i z e d t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f t h e U r d u l a n g u a g e a n d h a s i nvested heavily in teacher development as well as in developing high quality material for use by teachers

Experts stress learning about Qauid to transform Pakistan into vision of Jinnah

ISLAMABAD

People of Pakistan are far ahead of their leaders They are waiting for leaders with Mr Jinnah's vision and integrity ” These were some of the thoughts shared by speakers at the Special Seminar titled: “Muhammad Ali Jinnah: His Vision and Struggle” organised by the Centre for Aerospace & Security Studies (CASS), here in the capital today

The eminent panel included Senator (R) Javed Jabbar Former Federal Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Government of Pakistan; Prof Dr Riaz Ahmad, President Anjuman Faiz-ul-Islam; and Prof Dr Iqbal Chawla, Former Dean Faculty of Arts & Humanities, University of Punjab, Lahore CASS Research Assistant Shaza Arif deliv-

ered the introductory remarks and moderated the proceedings She stressed that every generation in Pakistan needs to learn about Muhammad Ali Jinnah, given that a firm grasp on Pakistan s history and a clear direction of the state’s future remains weak without understanding him Senator Javed Jabbar, in his Keynote Address shared that Jinnah s vision of Pakistan evolved decades before the word Pakistan was even conceived or the freedom movement even began

In fact, his concept of what ‘Muslims’ were or should be, did not begin with the Lahore Resolution Senator Jabbar observed that one only needs to look at Jinnah’s speeches of over 42 years to see how futuristic he was, his acute clarity of thought desire for change combined with willingness to be pragmatic rather than obstinate

He argued that one major example of Jinnah’s vision can be seen from the fact that he stressed on the importance of compulsory elementary education for all children in the subcontinent at a time when no-one was interested in such a model

K a r a c h i : T h e I n s t i t u t e o f C h a r t e r e d A c c o u n t a n t s o f Pa k i s t a n ( I C A P ) i n c o l l a b o ra t i o n w i t h U n i l e ve r Pa k i s t a n o r g a n i ze d t h e G ra n d F i n a l e o f t h e a n n u a l m e g a f i n a n c e c o m p e t i t i o n , N a t i o n a l F i n a n c e O l y m p i a d 2 0 2 2 t o b r i n g t o t h e l i m e l i g h t , t h e f i n a n c e t a l e n t o f t h e c o u n t r y a t a l o c a l h o t e l i n Ka ra c h i T h e N a t i o n a l F i n a n c e O l y m p i a d 2 0 2 2 s t a r t e d w i t h r e g i s t ra t i o n s o f 4 0 t e a m s r e p r e s e n t e d b y 1 2 0 C h a r t e r e d A c c o u n t a n t s a n d F i n a n c e p r o f e s s i o n a l s f r o m r e n o w n e d p r i va t e a n d p u b l i c s e c t o r o r g a n i z a t i o n s a c r o s s Pa k i s t a n T h e e ve n t c o m p r i s e d 3 r o u n d s i e t h e i n i t i a l q u a l i fy i n g r o u n d w h e r e I C A P wa s s u p p o r t e d b y l e a d i ng professional firms as Technical Partners, The second round had Harvard Simulation and Behavioral Assessment, which was led by Karachi School of Business Leadership (KSBL) as ICAP’s learning partners In the final round, the top six teams i e K Electric, Unilever, Midas Safety, Shan Foods Private Limited, Lucky Cement Limited, and The Professionals Academy of Commerce, competed to lift the NFO Trophy The Grand Finale encompassed three intriguing rounds, the Buzzer round, The Board Room, and 100- seconds P R

The Keynote Speaker further shared that more than equality equity was the cardinal principle of the Quaid’s political life, vision and thinking, be it political, gender or institutional equity On the current and future trajectory, Mr Jabbar strongly urged that political equity for Pakistan could only come through electoral reforms

He also called for direct political representation of women and the need to practice austerity following Jinnah s model in the current economic crisis

‘People of Pakistan are far ahead of their leaders They are waiting for leaders with Mr Jinnah’s vision and integrity,’ he concluded

Prf Dr Riaz Ahmad, President Anjuman Faiz-ul-Islam giving an account of Jinnah s struggle, political journey and case for Pakistan, informed the audience that Quaid-i-

Azam learnt politics from spending hours and hours in parliament observing how politicians argued in parliamentary debates According to the speaker, Jinnah as ‘Quaid’ was exceptional but the legal acumen high sense of integrity, responsibility and sound character displayed by young Jinnah, was also extraordinary

Quoting Jinnah, Dr Riaz Ahmad said that ‘Pakistan not only means freedom and independence it is a Muslim ideology which has to be safeguarded ‘Pakistan is Jinnah’s precious gift and treasure to us which we must protect he reminded Prof Dr Iqbal Chawla lamented that as a state, Pakistan had failed to safeguard its hard-won freedoms and taken an endless series of wrong turns in every sphere of life and thus totally shunned the spirit, which led to Pakistan

funeral prayer of martyred Head Constable

Hussain

police

police

34th convoc

ceremony

at Pakistan Nav y Engineering College

K a r a c h i: FPCCI Sindh Law & Order Committee under the Convener Naveed Wahid, held awareness session titled: Law on Women Rights & Real Estate" at The Federation House

Photo shows VP Shukat Ali Suleman, guest speaker Rana Saifullah, Saleem Mangrio, Syeda Raafia Mamujee, Coordinator, Muhammad Yousuf Viceroy and Usman Saeed P R

CDA was asked to undertake seasonal pruning of trees in F 8/1 but instead they chopped neighborhood huge trees as it would give them the woods for selling out This act of CDA environment wing has not only destroyed the nesting birds places but have also jeopardized neighborhood ambience and privacy Action should be taken against the miscreant and ignorant CDA Environment Wing employees PR

C A p I T o l r I o T pA n E l ’ s F I n A l r E p o r T s ET s o u T C A s E T o T r y T r u m p

TH E congressional panel probing the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol released its final report late on Thursday, outlining its case that former President Donald Trump should face criminal charges of inciting the deadly riot The House of Representatives Select Committee also made public the transcripts of a number of its interviews and witness testimonies earlier on Thursday and on Wednesday

The report, which runs to more than 800 pages, is based on nearly 1 200 interviews over 18 months and hundreds of thousands of documents, as well as the rulings of more than 60 federal and state courts

The report lists 17 specific findings, discusses the legal implications of actions by Trump and some of his associates and includes criminal referrals to the Justice Department of Trump and other individuals, according to an executive summary released earlier this week It report also lists legislative recommendations to help avert another such attack

On Monday, the committee asked federal prosecutors to charge the Republican former president with four crimes, including obstruction and insurrection, for what they said were efforts to overturn the results of

the November 2020 election and sparking the attack on the seat of government

Rather than honour his constitutional obligation to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome,” the House panel had said earlier in a 160page summary of its report

In comments posted on his Truth Social network after the final report’s release, Trump called it “highly partisan” and a “witch hunt” He said it failed to “study the reason for the (January 6) protest election fraud

The request by the Democratic-led panel to the

Justice Department does not compel federal prosecutors to act but marked the first time in history that Congress had referred a former president for criminal prosecution Trump announced in November that he would run for president again

Among the transcripts released on Wednesday and Thursday was one that showed a former lawyer for exWhite House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told her to “downplay” her knowledge of events leading to the Capitol riot, telling her the less you remember the better Attorney Stefan Passantino advised Hutchinson in preparing for a February deposition before the panel to say that she could not recall certain events she told the committee in September, according to the transcript of her testimony

Trump gave a fiery speech to his supporters near the White House the morning of January 6, and publicly chastised his vice president Mike Pence for not going along with his plan to reject ballots cast for Democrat Joe Biden The former president then waited hours to make a public statement as thousands of his supporters raged through the Capitol, assaulting police and threatening to hang Pence

The 2020 election results were being certified by Pence and lawmakers when the Capitol was attacked after weeks of false claims by Trump that he had won that election

At l e a s t t wo ki l l e d, s e ve ra l i n j u re d a f te r s h o o t i n g i n c i d e nt i n ce nt ra l Pa r i s

PARIS

TEHRAN Ag e n c i e s

The Iranian foreign minister said on Thursday that Europe’s unilateral approach toward Iran’s issues and its continued interference in the country s internal affairs is “unacceptable ” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in a phone call with his Spanish counterpart Jose Manuel Albares, in which the two sides also discussed issues of common interest according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s website Slamming the “incorrect” move by some Western states to expel Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), Amir-Abdollahian said the action was an attempt to eliminate the opportunity for dialogue During their talk, the Iranian top diplomat called for further expansion of relations between Tehran and Madrid in 2023

Albares underlined his government’s determination to continue dialogue with Iran and improve bilateral relations On December 14 the UN Economic and Social Council adopted a U S -proposed resolution to remove Iran from the CSW Protests have erupted in Iran after 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini died in a Tehran hospital on September 16, a few days after her collapse at a police station Iran has accused the United States and some other Western countries of “inciting riots and supporting terrorists in the country

A shooter killed two people and wounded four others in a gun attack near a Kurdish cultural centre in Paris on Friday the prosecutor ’s office said Multiple gunshots were fired in the Rue d’Enghien, a street lined with small shops and cafes in the capital s 10th arrondissement sowing panic Armed police guarded a security cordon and several ambulances were at the scene live television images showed “A gun attack has taken place Thank you to the security forces for their swift action,” tweeted deputy Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire “Thoughts for the victims and those who witnessed this drama An investigation into

murder, manslaughter and aggravated violence has been opened the Paris prosecutor ’s office said A 69-year-old man had been arrested and was in detention, the prosecutor ’s office added The incident was over, it said Police did not indicate the

NEW YORK

The increase in COVID-19 and drug overdose deaths have pushed U S life expectancy to the lowest level since 1996, according to a new report released Thursday by the U S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

There were 3,464,231 total deaths in the United States during 2021, 80,502 more than the total reported in 2020, according to the CDC

Life expectancy at birth for the U S population decreased from 77 years in 2020 to 76 4 years in 2021 a decline for the second consecutive year according to the CDC

Heart disease remained the leading cause of death in the United States last year followed by cancer and COVID-19

In 2021, nearly 107,000 Americans died of drug overdose, an increase of nearly 16 percent over 2020, according to the CDC Drug overdose deaths have risen five-fold over the past two decades in the country

#saltlife: Turkish celebrit y chef at centre of FIFA probe

ISTANBUL

A F P

Celebrity chef and social media meme Nusret Gokce better known as “Salt Bae” has turned his singular way of seasoning a steak into global fame and outsized wealth The 39-year-old Turkish fitness fanatic first gained renown a decade ago with YouTube videos showing him pouring salt on a cut of meat down his bare arm with an overtly sexual pout

His 50 million Instagram followers can now see him posing in his trademark dark glasses and slicked-back hair with the FIFA World Cup and some Argentinian football stars

How Salt Bae actually got to touch the golden trophy after Argentina’s win over France is the focus of a formal FIFA probe

Viral social media images show the diminutive chef trying to fight his way through a swarm of security personnel towards Argentina’s captain Lionel Messi on the pitch after the match

One clip shows Messi seemingly brushing away Salt Bae and attempting to walk away

But a picture subsequently posted on Salt Bae’s Instagram account shows him clasping Messi’s hand and gesturing triumphantly towards the camera

“You’re the man, Messi,” Salt Bae wrote next to the photograph in Turkish

The picture included the hashtag #saltlife

That life is being chronicled by smartly-dressed social media assistants that Salt Bae hires to follow him around and record his every step

G o l d l e a f s t e a k Salt Bae s carefully crafted persona revolves around machismo and phenomenal endurance and skill

The chef generally does not speak

He occasionally growls a satisfied but barely distinguishable word following a long night that he crowns with a cigar puffed after performing a few acrobatic tricks with a golden lighter

His juggling acts with a razor-sharp knife and huge slabs of very expensive meat made his career launched in a lowly butcher shop on the Asian side of Istanbul

Salt Bae told AFP in 2020 that he still views the Turkish megalopolis as the capital of the world

But he now heads a global chain stretching from Las Vegas to London that serves $1,000 gold leaf steaks to a clientele made up of fellow trendsetters and celebrities Salt Bae can still occasionally be seen jogging around Istanbul’s more upscale neighbourhoods with impressive weights strapped around his bulging calves and arms

His attention to his own physique is part of the chef ’s peculiar charm

His early morning workouts are chronicled in great detail and include endless flexes of his biceps for the camera But this self-aggrandisement is laced with boundless irony that shines through when he happily posts some of the most scathing reviews of his food and general behaviour

Critics have roundly panned his London Nusr-Et outpost one of 22 he now has around the world

The Guardian’s food critic called it “a ludicrous restaurant” GQ magazine agreed that the steak Salt Bae serves in New York is mundane somewhat tough and rather bland”

Wa n g u r g e s U S t o s t o p ‘c o n t a i n i n g C h i n a w h i l e c a l l i n g f o r d i a l o g u e

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a phone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday, during which Wang called on the US to stop its old tricks of unilateral bullying and containing China’s development Analysts said that the US needs to strengthen the credibility of its China policy, control the negative factors and actively maintain the trend of positive cooperation brought by the latest meeting between the heads of state, which is in line with the interests of both China and the US as well as the rest of the world

Wang told Blinken in the phone call that the two countries should focus on turning the consensus reached by the top leaders into tangible policies and actions

In November, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with US President Joe Biden in Bali, Indonesia, putting forward strategic guidance for bilateral ties to return to a

healthy track, and working teams from the two countries also had a series of beneficial engagements However, US politicians have repeatedly smeared China’s COVID-19 control policies, suppressed China more vigorously on chip exports and increased arms sales to China s Taiwan region

The US should not call for dialogue while at the same time containing China, or talk about cooperation but putting a knife in China this is not managing disputes but intensifying conflicts, Wang said Wang said that the US is still doing its old trick of imposing unilateral bullying, and China will continue to defend its sovereignty and development interests The US must pay attention to China’s justified concerns and stop containing China and especially not challenge China’s red line as if it were “slicing salami ”

Wang’s remarks showed that China is expressing its dissatisfaction over the US’ “saying one thing and doing another” in a

more candid and frank way, Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Friday

On December 6, the Biden administration signed off on two new significant arms sales of more than $425 million in spare aircraft parts to support Taiwan island’s USsupplied weapons systems Blinken told Wang in the phone call that the US continues to uphold the one-China policy and does not support “Taiwan independence ”

The US previously made some provocations against China to gain so-called bargaining chips before important visits and meetings However, “a friendly atmosphere can only be created with efforts from both sides said Xin

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that the phone call may be aimed at

laying the groundwork for a possible visit by Blinken to China early next year

During the phone conversation, the Chinese side pointed out the status of China-US relations, existing problems, plans for future relations and concrete steps to realize these plans Li said adding that the phone call shows the reality that China and the US have broad common interests and space for cooperation It also makes clear that the current crux in China-US ties is Washington’s unilateral bullying mentality ”

Wang’s remarks show that China is willing to shoulder its historical responsibility and handle China-US relations in a responsible manner However, US policy toward China lacks consistency and credibility, which is why Wang was being tough in reminding Blinken, experts said

Wang and Blinken’s conversation took place on the same day that China imposed sanctions on Yu Maochun, known as Miles

Yu in the US, and Todd Stein, deputy staff director of the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, as countermeasures to illegal US sanctions placed on two Chinese officials on December 9

China will freeze all Chinese assets of both Yu and Stein and ban any organization or individual within China from engaging with them Both men and their immediate family members are also banned from entering China according to the Foreign Ministry statement

According to Li, China’s sanction against Yu and Stein as countermeasures ahead of the Wang-Blinken call serves as a reminder to Blinken to do more for the benefit of China-US relations, not the opposite ”

The Chinese government will not tolerate anyone who undermines China-US relations or undermines China’s major interests, nor can the US seek cooperation with China while at the same time harming China’s interests, Li said Ag e n c e s

WASHINGTON R e u t e R s

R e u t e R s

motives of the alleged shooter

One witness told French news agency AFP that seven or eight shots had been fired A second witness, speaking to BFM TV, said the suspected gunman was a white man who opened fire in silence

COVID-19, drug overdose deaths push US life expectancy to lowest since 1996

’

Iran says Europe’s unilateral approach, interference ‘unacceptable’

NatioNal teams of iNdia , afghaNistaN, others to pl ay iN 15th West asia BaseBall Cup

tH e national baseball teams of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Afghanistan are expected to participate in 15th West Asia Baseball Cup scheduled to take place from January 26 to February 2, 2023 in Islamabad

These views were expressed by Sindh Baseball Association President engr Muhammad Mohsin Khan, Secretary Pervez Ahmad Sheikh, Vice President Aisha Irum while talking to President Pakistan Federation Baseball (PFB) Syed Fakhar Ali Shah, said a statement issued here on Friday

In a conversation after the start of the coaching camp of the Pakistan baseball team at the Pakistan Sports Complex Islamabad under the Pakistan Sports Board for the preparations to participate in the

15th

psf National squash Championship 2022 kicks off

ISLAMABAD

The PSF National Squash Championship 2022 rolled into action at Mushaf Squash Complex, here on Monday

The event has been organized by Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) as part of its efforts to promote the game of squash in the country The championship is taking place in various categories – the senior events, which include men seniors, women seniors and the 1st National Masters Championship are scheduled from December 23-25

The junior boys and girls events will be played from December 25-28 The junior boys’ event includes U-11, U-13, U-15, U-17, and U-19 categories whereas junior girls event will be played in U-15 and U-19 age groups An amount of Rs 900,000/- will be distributed as prize money amongst players

The 1st and 2nd round matches of senior events were played on Friday Following are the results: Men Senior Round 1: Noor Zaman (KP) bt Abdullah (Army) 11/5, 12/10, 11/9 (25 min), Tanveer (KP) bt Kamran (KP) 12/10, 9/11, 12/10 11/7 (28 Min), Faraz (Navy) bt Arbab Mehran (KP) 11/8, 11/5, 11/3 (17 min), Samiulah (KP) bt Naveed Rehman (Sindh) 10/12, 11/3, 11/9, 6/11, 11/8 (41 min), Hamza Khan (Army) bt Zain Ramzan ((PB) 9/5 (Retd), Waqar Mehboob (KP) bt Fawad (KP) 11/8, 11/3, 11/8 (20 min), Ashar Butt (PB) bt Wajihullah (KP) 11/2, 11/4, 11/3 17Min, Zeeshan zeb (KP) by Mehmood Mehboob (PB) 11/2, 11/4, 11/3 18 Min, Nasir Ibqal (Wapda) bt Anas Ali (KP) 12/10 11/3 11/8 15 Min Abdul Qadir (PB) bt Khaqan Malik (PB) 8/11, 9/11, 11/5, 11/5, 11/2 25 Min, Sadam Ul Haq (Army) bt Varun Asif (PB) 11/4 11/1 11/9 18 Min Bilal Zakir (Army) bt Abdullah (KP) 11/7, 11/3, 11/4 17m, Salman Saleem (PB) bt Jawad (KP) 11/5, 11/7, 11/9, 19 Min, Mutahir Ali (KP) bt Owais Mastor (Sindh) 11/3, 11/8, 11/2 28 Min, Kushal Riaz (KP) bt Usman Nadeem (PB) 11/5 10/12 11/1 4/11, 11/2, Farhan Zaman (PAF bt Abdullah Nadeem (PB), 9/11, 11/9, 11/7, 11/6 22 Min Round 2: Noor Zaman (KP) bt Tanveer Khan (KP) 11/3, 11/8, 11/5 15 Min, Faraz (Navy) bt Naveed Rehman (Sindh) 11/9, 11/6, 11/7 27 Min, Waqar Mehboob (KP) bt Zain Ramzan (PB) 11/9, 11/3, 11/4 17 Min, Zeeshan Zeb (KP) bt Ashar Butt (PB) 11/4, 11/8, 11/2 18 Min, Nasir Iqbal (Wapda) bt Abdul Qadir (PB) 11/1,

They

boring countries They thanked the Secretary Sports and Director General PSB on the approval of this mega event preparation and coaching camp of one month Syed Fakhar Ali Shah said that we have organized many international events in Pakistan before and considering our past performance and services, all other teams including India will come to Pakistan for participation Secretary of PFB Women’s Wing Aisha Irum said that the Federation has organized several international events and matches in Pakistan under the leadership of late Syed Khawar Shah in the past In which the Indian team has also been participating and this year, under the leadership of President Syed Fakhar Ali Shah, the Malaysian women’s team has been invited to Pakistan and held a successful series so the West Asia Cup will also be held successfully

PCB Management Committee plans to add Quetta as a venue for HBL PSL 8

LAHORE

s ta f f r e p o r t

T h e n e w l y a p p o i n t e d C h a i r m a n o f t h e M a n a g e m e n t c o m m i t t e e o f t h e P a k i s t a n C r i c k e t B o a r d , N a j a m S e t h i c h a i r e d t h e f i r s t m e e t i n g o f t h e C o m m i t t e e h e r e a t t h e N at i o n a l H i g h P e r f o r m a n c e C e n t r e o n F r i d a y T h e M a n a g e m e n t C o m m i t t e e r e c e i v e d a d e t a i l e d u p d a t e o n t h e H B L P a k i s t a n S u p e r L e a g u e 8 a n d d e s i r e d t o a d d Q u e t t a a s t h e f i f t h v e n u e f o r t h e e i g h t h e d i t i o n o f t h e P C B ’s a n n u a l m a r q u e e e v e n t , w h i c h i s s c h e d u l e d t o b e h e l d f r o m 1 3 F e b r u a r y t o 1 9 M a r c h To e n s u r e B u g t i S t a d i u m w a s r e a d y t o h o s t t h e H B L P S L 8 m a t c h e s t h e C o m m i t t e e a g r e e d

t h a t P C B w i l l w o r k c l o s e l y w i t h t h e l o c a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n f o r u p g r ad a t i o n a n d r e n o v a t i o n o f t h e B u g t i S t a d i u m , w h i l e s e p a r a t e d i s c u ss i o n s w i l l t a k e p l a c e b e t w e e n P C B s e c u r i t y e x p e r t s a n d l o c a l a u t h o r i t i e s t o e n s u r e t h e s a f e t y a n d s e c u r i t y o f a l l t h e p a r t i c i -

p a n t s o ff i c i a l s a n d s p e c t a t o r s N a j a m S e t h i s a i d : “ I a m d el i g h t e d t h a t s e v e n y e a r s a f t e r l a u n c h i n g t h e H B L P a k i s t a n S u p e r L e a g u e , I a m t o d a y a nn o u n c i n g o u r c o m m i t m e n t t o a d d B u g t i S t a d i u m i n Q u e t t a a s t h e f i f t h v e n u e f o r o u r m a r q u e e e v e n t B u g t i S t a d i u m i s t h e h o m e g r o u n d o f Q u e t t a G l a d i a t o r s a n d w e s t i l l r e m e m b e r t h e i n c r e d i b l e s c e n e s w h e n t h e G l a d i a t o r s v i s i t e d t h e c i t y a f t e r w i n n i n g t h e 2 0 1 9 t o u rn a m e n t “ T h e p a s s i o n a t e c r i c k e t f a n s o f Q u e t t a h a v e b e e n w a i t i n g f o r l o n g t o w a t c h h i g h - p r o f i l e c r i c k e t i n t h e i r b a c k y a r d a n d I a m p l e a s e d t h a t w e w i l l n o w b r i n g H B L P S L m a t c h e s t o t h e i r d o o r s I n t h i s r el a t i o n , I h a v e a l r e a d y s p o k e n w i t h i n f l u e n t i a l o ff i c i a l s i n t h e B a l o c h i s t a n p r o v i n c e , w h o h a v e a s s u r e d m e o f t h e i r c o m p l e t e s u pp o r t f r o m e v e n t d e l i v e r y p e r s p e ct i v e s ”

T h e C o m m i t t e e a l s o d i s c u s s e d P e s h a w a r a s a p o t e n t i a l v e n u e t o s t a g e H B L P S L a n d i n t e r n a t i o n a l

m a t c h e s a n d a g r e e d t h a t s u b j e c t t o t h e r e b e i n g n o r e s t r i c t i o n s i mp o s e d b y t h e p r o v i n c i a l a n d f e de r a l g o v e r n m e n t s a n d t h e s t a d i a b o a s t i n g i n t e r n a t i o n a l s t a n d a r d f ac i l i t i e s f o r c r i c k e t , b r o a d c a s t , s p e c t a t o r s a n d m e d i a , m a t c h e s w i l l b e h e l d i n t h e K h y b e r P a k h t u n k h w a c a p i t a l T h e M a n a g e m e n t C o m m i t t e e a l s o h e l d p r e l i m i n a r y d i s c u s s i o n s o n T h e Wo m e n s L e a g u e w i t h f u rt h e r d i s c u s s i o n s t o t a k e p l a c e i n d u e c o u r s e T h e M a n a g e m e n t C o m m i t t e e d i s c u s s e d t h e d o m e s t i c c r i c k e t s t r u c t u r e u n d e r t h e P C B C o n s t i t ut i o n 2 0 1 4 a n d , i n t h e b e s t i n t e r e s t o f t h e p l a y e r s a n d e v e n t , d e c i d e d t o l e t t h e P a k i s t a n C u p c o m p l e t e o n 3 J a n u a r y O n t h e d o m e s t i c s t r u c t u r e , w h i c h m i r r o r s t h e P C B C o n s t i t ut i o n 2 0 1 4 , i t w a s a g r e e d N a j a m S e t h i , S h a k i l S h e i k h a n d H a r o o n R a s h i d w i l l p r e p a r e t h e f i r s t d r a f t , w h i c h w i l l b e s h a r e d w i t h t h e C o m m i t t e e f o r f u r t h e r d i s c u ss i o n s

66th dha National mens senior Wrestling Championship

66th

22 A total of 10 teams (4 Provincials, WAPDA, Army, Police, HeC Pakistan Railways and Federal Area Islamabad with 100 Wrestlers would participate in different weight categories The matches would be conducted as per World Wrestling Federation and Olympic rules by professionals of the field He then thanked the Administration of DHA Lahore which has been playing an active role in promoting sports in Pakistan It is pertinent to mention within the Span of one year DHA Lahore sponsored and conducted 7 National level sports Championships

aqeel to face shoaib in Begum Kulsum saifullah tennis tournament final

ISLAMABAD

Top seed Aqeel Khan and second seed Muhammad Shoaib made it to the final of men’s singles of the 8th Begum Kulsum Saifullah Khan National Ranking Tennis Tournament 2022 after notching up wins in the semifinals at the PTF-SDA Tennis Complex

Islamabad on Friday Aqeel dispatched Muzammil Murtaza in straight sets 7-5, 6-1, while Shoaib prevailed against Muhammad Abid 6-2, 6-2 In the ladies singles first semi-final seasoned Sarah Mahboob outmaneuvered Natalia Zaman 6-2, 6-1 to take on Noor Malik in the final, who in the other semifinal outplayed Meheq Khokhar 6-2, 6-3 The finals of both categories will be held on Saturday Competitions were also held in other categories on Friday

Following are the complete results: Men’s Singles Semi-Finals: Aqeel Khan bt Muzammil Murtaza 75,6-1; M Shoaib bt M Abid 6-2,6-2

Men’s Doubles Fourth Quarter-Finals: Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi / Aqeel Khan bt Bilal Asim / Mahatir Muhammad 6-0,6-0

Ladies Singles Semi-Finals: Sarah Mahboob bt Natalia Zaman 6-2, 6-1: Noor Malik bt Meheq Khokhar 6-2,6-3

Manuel Carranza

superb seven goals steered Diamond Paints/Sheikhoo Steel outclass Salam Polo by a good margin of 10-4 in the first semifinal Nicolas Antinori the foreign player of Diamond Paints/Sheikhoo Steel, got injured at the end of the first round and was replaced by Manuel Carranza, who remained instrumental throughout the next three rounds

Carranza emerged as top scorer with a classic contribution of seven goals while his teammates Nicolas An-

tinori, Mir Huzaifa Ahmed and Omar Asjad Malhi scored one goal each from the winning side Nicolas Ruiz Guinazu and Hamza Ali Hakeem banged in a brace for Salam Polo

Tomas Marin Moreni fired in fabulous five goals in FG/Din Polo’s convincing 7-5 triumph over Diamond Paints in the second semifinal of the day Moreno was top scorer from the winning side with a contribution of five goals while his teammates Shah Shamyl Alam and Mian Abbas Mukhtar converted one goal apiece Lt Col Omer Minhas (R) cracked a quartet and Mir Shoaib Ahmed struck one goal for Diamond Paints

The main final of the prestigious tournament will be played between Diamond Paints/Sheikhoo Steel and FG/Din Polo at 3:00 pm while the subsidiary final will be contested between Master Paints Black and Remington Pharma on Sunday (December 25) at 1:30 pm

Boys Singles Quarter Finals: Hamid Israr bt Hamza Roman 6-2,6-3; M Talha Khan bt Mahatir Muhammad 6-1,4-6,7-5; Sami Zeb Khan bt Ahmed Nael Qureshi 6-4, 6-4; Bilal Asim bt Farman Shakeel 3-6,6-3,3-0 (retd)

Boys 14& Under Singles Quarter-Finals: Abdul Basit bt Taimoor Ansari 4-2,5-3; Abubakar Talha bt Nabeel Ali Qayum 4-1,4-0; Sameer Zaman bt Haziq Asim 42 4-2; Amir Mazari bt Muzammil Bhand 4-2 4-2

Girls 14& Under Singles Semi-Finals: Soha Ali bt Lalarukh Sajid 4-0,4-0; Zunaisha Noor bt Mahrukh Sajid 4-2,1-4,4-0;

Boys / Girls 12&Under Singles Quarter-Finals: Hajra bt M Arsalan 4-2,4-2; Razik Sultan bt Ihsanullah Kabir 4-1,3-5,4-1; Hassan Usmani bt Shayan Afridi 54(4); 2-4,5-4(3); Abdur Rehman bt Haziq Areejo 4-0 4-1

par

The 54 holes tournament will be played for three days, following the rules and regulations

of Pakistan Golf Federation (PGF) Final round will be played on Sunday 25th December and will decide the Winner for this year The greens at DHA Golf Club are in best shape and Karachi’s weather is suitable for the play

President Sindh Golf Association – Khurram Khan said, “Golf is helpful in maintaining both physical and mental fitness It changes the way you think and helps in focussing On behalf of SGA, I would like to welcome all participants from different areas of Pakistan in this championship ”

DHA National Mens Senior Wrestling Championship is being held at Captain Fasih Babar Amin Shaheed Sports Complex, Phase VI, DHA Lahore The event officially kicked off with a press brief of officials from Pakistan Wrestling Federation Mr, Arshad Sattar, Senior Vice President Pakistan Wrestling Federation explained the schedule of the championship from 24 Dec 22 to 25 Dec

KARACHI

First round of the 12th engro SGA President Cup 2022 was played on Friday at Defence Authority Golf Club Saim Shazli and Yashal Shah both from KGC are leading In the main Amateurs

with a joint score of

under

M A Manan, Vivek Anand and Arsalan Mughal are following the duo with 74 two over par In the Veterans 75 years and above, Col Shahid Mahboob from DHA and Group Captain

Aftab A Khan from KGC are at top with joint score of 41 Dr Zubair Mirza is at third in this category on first day Major Rizwan Farooq of DHA Club is leading in Veterans 70-75 years category, with Brig Naveed Nasar following him In the Juniors under 14 category, Waleed Bilal from KGC is leading on first day with 85, 13 over par Nyle Aurangzeb is following him with 87, 15 over

KARACHI

West Asia Baseball cup to be held in Islamabad in January they said that these are efforts of PFB President that the Baseball Federation of Asia (BFA) has given the hosting to Pakistan

said the participation of national baseball teams of India Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Afghanistan in the event will lead to improvement in relations with other neigh-

Grows by 51.7%

tH e past fiscal year has seen a massive increase in the size of the digital payments ecosystem, the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) Annual Payment Systems Review for 2021-22 revealed The report says that mobile phone banking increased by 100 4% to 387 5 million, while internet banking grew by 51 7% to 141 7 million during the year

The impressive numbers come on the back of an important year for the ecosystem that saw a number of milestones With the SBP backed Raast getting traction and electronic money institutions (eMIs) gaining popularity among customers, the signs are pointing towards money quickly becoming digital Cash transactions have also gained momentum with ATM networks proliferating and cash withdrawals from ATMs also posting double digit growth over last year The tools for growth

By value, mobile phone banking and internet banking grew strongly by 141 1% and 81 1% thus reaching to Rs11 9 trillion and Rs10 2 trillion respectively ecommerce transactions also witnessed similar trends as the volume grew by 107 4% to 45 5 million and the value by 74 9% to Rs106 billion

During FY22, a total of 32,958 Point of Sales (POS) machines were deployed in the country which led to an expansion of its network by 45 8% to 104 865 The total number of transactions through POS, 137 5 million, were 54 5% higher than previous fiscal year with transaction value reaching Rs0 7 trillion growing by 56 1% e-commerce merchants registered with the banks increased to 4,887 in FY21-22, from 3,003 merchants during the previous year In continuation of its efforts to promote and enhance the digital payment system in the country SBP launched Raast Person-to-Person (P2P) which enabled payments among individuals, businesses and other entities to settle transactions in real-time According to the report as of June-22 there were 15 million registered P2P Raast users, carrying out 7 9 million transactions amounting to Rs 102 1 billion in value Raast was launched in November last year

The number of large-value transactions through the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system of Pak-

istan reached 4 37 million by FY22 amounting to Rs 681 6 trillion with an annual growth of 53 3% in value

During FY22, paper-based transactions declined by 1 0% in volume though its value grew to Rs 190 4 trillion, almost 25 6% higher than last year

According to the State Bank’s Annual Payment Systems Review the number of conventional bank account holders increased by 4 5 million, from 63 million account holders in 2021 to 67 5 million in 2022 On the other hand branchless banking accounts increased from 74 6 million to 88 5 million, a growth of 18 6% Give me the cash, but digitally

Considering cash transactions are still predominant, the ATM network in Pakistan needs to be strong to cater to needs The ATMs network in the country also grew by 4 8% during the year reaching 17,133 ATMs

A total of 692 3 million transactions were carried out through ATMs which amounted to Rs 9 6 trillion 19 2% higher than FY21 Meanwhile, cash withdrawals from ATMs picked up from 577 3 million in volume and Rs7 29 trillion in value in 2020-21, to 670 6 million in volume and Rs8 6 trillion in value That s a growth of 16 1% in volume and 18% in value over the previous year

Plastic money on my mind

There were 42 4 million payment cards in circulation in FY22 including 71 1% or 30 16 million debit cards; 24 3% or 10 3 million social welfare cards; 4 2% or 1 79 million credit cards and the rest were prepaid and ATM only cards The overall number of payment cards, however, decreased during the year, from 45 9 million in 2020-21 to 42 4 million in 2021-22 Bring in the fintech

According to the State Bank s annual report the four fully licensed eMIs (electronic money institution); Sadapay, Nayapay, Finja and CMPeCC, combined had 262 558 total active accounts and 514 961 payment cards issued to their customers Last year ’s numbers on eMIs were not available for a comparison on how these numbers have grown

The SBP has in the past has often emphasised on the potential fintech can play to boost digital payments

and financial inclusion

During his speech at the Institute of Banking Pakistan Annual Award Ceremony, Jameel Ahmad, Governor SBP stressed on the need for banks to revisit their traditional approach to service delivery and adapt quickly as digitalization shifts the balance of power from banks to tech savvy entities hinting at the growing trend in fintech “Leveraging digital technology is essential not only to promote financial inclusion, but also to ensure that the industry keeps pace with emerging global trends,” opined Ahmed

Speaking on the importance of technology, Ahmad quotes M-Pesa, a Kenyan fintech “An oftencited success story is that of M-Pesa in Kenya, where it single-handedly drove mobile financial services availability and successfully raised financial services access in Kenya “

Ahmad pointed out that a number of factors already exist in Pakistan that can help drive digital financial innovation and proliferation of a tech-based financial ecosystem He pointed out that the nation has a fully functional digital ID system, ubiquity of mobile devices, penetration of mobile and broadband services, availability of faster payment rails, remote account opening process, and facilitative regulatory environment for enabling the entry of non-bank entities into the financial arena The Central Banker also points out that while fintech has brought competition, it also presents the sector with an opportunity to create synergies and mutually beneficial partnerships

“Banks and Fintechs can partner with each other to provide innovative products for customers that are otherwise not viable on a standalone basis For banks, such partnerships can help with penetration in untapped segments like retail businesses and Micro and Small Medium enterprises, yielding beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders he said encouraging the banks that are yet to make consistent and sustained moves toward technological transformation, Ahmad told them to make use of the digital bank frameworks and the instant payment system RAAST to position themselves for the future

O pposition withdraws no -trust motion against Elahi af ter ‘sec uring’ Punjab

LAHore

Gov t appoints Mansoor Awan as new Attorney General

Opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) parties have withdrawn the motion seeking a no-confidence vote against Chaudhry Pervaiz elahi, hours after the governor de-notified” the leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) as chief minister of Punjab, a minister said Friday

In a tweet Khawaja Saad Rafique, the minister for aviation and railways, justified the move by saying their objective has been achieved since “both Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa legislatures are now secure ”

“PTI should perform in their remaining governments instead of making unsuccessful attempts to trigger agitation and chaos,” he said referring to Pakistan

Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party

Separately, a group of opposition lawmakers, headed by Tahir Khalil Sindhu of PML-N, reached Punjab Assembly to withdraw the motion they had submitted late on Monday The notification of Baligh urRehman governor of Punjab to sack elahi made the notice “infructuous,” he said

The party, however, clarified that only the no-trust motion moved against elahi had been withdrawn, and the ones against Sibtain Khan, speaker of the Punjab Assembly and Wasiq Qayyum Abbasi, the deputy speaker, would remain Meanwhile, elahi and other lawmakers of the PML-N and PML-Q started arriving at the Punjab Assembly on Friday afternoon to attend an ongoing session scheduled for today

The confidence motion card was played to prevent former

prime minister Imran Khan, who is backing elahi in the provincial parliament, from going ahead with the scheduled dissolution of the assembly today

Khan announced last week he would dissolve two provincial assemblies Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday earlier than scheduled, in an attempt to build pressure on the federal government to hold snap elections

Once that was done, he had said his party would also resign from the National Assembly that is run by a unity government consisting of his opposition parties

That scenario would have vacated over 60 percent of the parliamentary seats to make Khan’s snap polls case stronger Khan has been demanding snap polls since he was ousted in April after he lost a parliament’s vote of confidence, and led countrywide rallies to mount pressure on the government

us says in contact with Pakistan to ‘discuss ways’ to combat ttP

WASHiNGtoN

The United States said it eyed a “strong partnership” with Pakistan in the arena of counter-terrorism and that it was continuing to discuss ways that we can be most effective” to eliminate every regional and global threat of militancy When asked to comment on Washington’s calls to assist Islamabad to deal with Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) amid a spike in attacks, a State Department spokesperson, in an email to Geo TV, said: “We seek a strong partnership with Pakistan on counterterrorism and expect sustained action against all militant and terrorist groups without distinction

Since mid-November, the Afghanistan-based group has launched a series of deadly attacks, killing dozens of security personnel and injuring many more On Monday militants took hostages after seizing a counter-terrorism and interrogation centre in the town of Bannu

The resurgence contradicts claims by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and other authorities as recently as September that the threat of terrorism was just an “exaggeration ” Responding to the situation, Washington said that both nations have suffered terribly from the scourge of terrorism

“We look forward to cooperative efforts to eliminate all regional and global terrorist threats and are continuing to discuss ways that we can be most effective in this regard,” the spokesperson added

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the US has been tracking the TTP for at least a decade and a half, long before they radicalised and trained Faisal Shazad for his brazen attack of setting fire to a vehicle in New York’s Times Square in 2010

Following the Times Square attack, the TTP was designated a terrorist organisation and is still considered a threat to US interests

Subsequently, on December 1, the State Department labeled the TTP “specially designated global terrorists ”

This was a meaningful diplomatic success for Pakistan insofar as further support from the Afghan Taliban for the TTP will translate into Kabul’s official support for terrorism And while Islamabad is keen to play down the threat from the group Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan said Pakistan can “fully” control conflict with the TTP and describes conversations with the group during the ceasefire as talks “which are held in a state of war” its control of the situation pivots on the TTP remaining within Pakistan s borders

suleman granted bail in money-laundering case

An accountability court in Islamabad on Friday granted until January 7 interim pre-arrest bail to Suleman Shehbaz, son of the prime minister, in two cases of money laundering and accumulating assets beyond known sources of income Shehbaz, who returned to Pakistan earlier this month after four years in London in self-imposed exile, is a suspect in an Rs16 billion money laundering case registered with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) while the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has accused him of being in possession of assets beyond his declared sources of income He has been declared a proclaimed offender in both investigations Prior to his return, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) restrained the two agencies from arresting him paving way for his safe return

On Friday, accountability judge Raja Qamar uz-Zaman approved the request of Shehbaz against surety bonds worth Rs500 000 He also barred NAB from arresting him in the case

In his petition, filed the petition through Amjad Parvez, Shehbaz argued he was booked in the case without any evidence He also insisted he was declared proclaimed offender without any prior information claiming he did not receive any notice from the court

COA S c o m m e n d s h i g h m o r a l e, i n d o m i t a b l e s p i r i t o f t ro o p s at Pa k-Afg h a n b o rd e r

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Syed Asim Munir on Friday commended their professionalism, high morale and operational readiness during interaction with frontline troops deployed along Pakistan-Afghanistan Border, said an Inter Services Public Relations news release

According to ISPR news release Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Syed Asim Munir visited Miranshah – North Waziristan and Tarbela on Friday

In Miranshah, the COAS laid floral wreath at Martyrs Monument to pay homage

to brave soldiers who laid lives while defending the motherland On the occasion the COAS was briefed by field commanders on latest security situation in the area and response mechanisms to thwart terrorist threat

COAS also visited frontline troops deployed along Pakistan-Afghanistan Border While interacting with officers and men, the COAS commended their professionalism, high morale and operational readiness

Gen Asim Munir said that Pak Army remains focused on evolving security situation and determined to take the battle to the terrorists and break nexus with their facilitators so as to ensure lasting peace through socioeconomic development Pakistan Army will

consolidate the hard earned peace, made possible by the supreme sacrifices of resilient Pakistani nation and LeAs, the ISPR added Later, the COAS also visited HQ SSG Terbela COAS met officers and men of SSG including the elite Zarrar Company whose soldiers gallantly acted in recent Bannu CTD complex operation as well as Aviation The COAS praised their indomitable spirit sacrifices and commitment to the duty in various operations He said that SSG is the pride of nation and it had proved it’s metal over the years earlier on arrival, the COAS was received by Lieutenant General Hassan Azhar Hayat, Commander Peshawar Corps

iSLAMABAD S ta f f R e p o R t

S P O S T S T R O N G

R O W T H , D I G I TA L PAY M E N T S E CO S Y S T E M P I C K I N G U P S T E A M

ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Friday appointed Mansoor Usman Awan as new Attorney-General for Pakistan (AGP) after Ashtar Ausaf resigned from his office President Arif Alvi approved the appointment under Article 100 of the constitution The President’s approval comes after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif gave approval to the name of Awan as new AGP Mansoor Awan is a Lahore-based lawyer He was the counsel of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) in several matters including implementation of Article 95 presidential reference on interpretation of Article 63(A) of the Constitution S ta f f R e p o Rt