Epaper – November 17 LHR 2020

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020 I 30 Rabi-ul-Awwal, 1442 I Rs 15.00 I Vol XI No 138 I 12 Pages I Lahore Edition

COVID-19

Imran suspends polItIcal gatherIngs as second wave gaIns momentum ISLAMABAD

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STAFF REPORT

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s the country recorded its highest number of daily coronavirus infections since July on each of the last four days, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday urged the nation to strictly adhere to the health guidelines to curtail the transmission of the contagion disease and announced new restrictions on public events, including the suspension of his party’s political rallies.

“We have cancelled our jalsas and will ask other [parties] to do the same because that is one place where the virus spreads rapidly,” he said, adding that the recent campaigns in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) seem to have resulted in a rise in the number of cases. “this is the time to take precautions. If we do [adopt restrictions], we can slow down the virus. Just like earlier we were saved due to following precautions, that time has come again,” the prime minister said in a televised address. His address comes as the country reported 2,128 infections on Monday — the fourth day that the daily increase has been above 2,000. the authorities conducted 29,511 tests in the last 24 hours, detecting a positivity ratio of 7.21 per cent, compared with between 2 per cent and 3 per cent during most of the last four months.

Pointing out that covid-19 cases in Pakistan had increased by four times in the past two weeks, the premier said that reports indicate that the virus has mutated and is spreading at an even greater rate now.

PM Imran urged people to follow the soPs and to avoid crowds, while adding that the countrymen not only need to prevent the spread of the disease but also work together to save the country’s economy.

“We also have to save our economy. For instance, India suffered a huge loss because of

coronavIrus In

pakIstan

CONFIRMED CASES:

359,032

LAST UPDATED AT 8:34 AM ON NOVEMBER 16, 2020

DAY'S DEATH TOLL:

19

RECOVERED:

NEW CASES:

2,128 DEATHS:

323,824 7,160 SINDH:

PUNJAB:

155,680

110,450

KP:

BALOCHISTAN:

AJK/GB:

ISLAMABAD:

42,370

16,407

5,455 / 4,452 24,218

Premier urges people to take precautions, stresses need for working together to save Pakistan’s economy

the kind of lockdown they imposed […] they have still not been able to recover from it,” he said. the premier ruled out closing anything that “affects people’s livelihoods”, including factories and shops, but warned that the tiger Force will report violations of soPs. He added that restaurants would be kept open for now, but they will be required to ensure social distancing. regarding schools, the premier said that they would observe the situation another week. “If we observe that the virus is spreading through schools, then we will extend winter vacations and cut summer vacations short to a month,” he announced.

Imran observed the entire world was experiencing a second wave of the virus and in

some countries such as the Us and Great Britain, infections had surpassed the numbers seen during the first wave. “some Western countries are imposing lockdowns again to control the spread of the disease,” he noted.

He said the government had been monitoring the trends of the spread of the virus in the country, but noted that Pakistan had been “very lucky” during the first wave of covid-19.

“We were specially blessed by allah. We are a very lucky nation; look at Iran and India. We managed to avoid the destruction that coronavirus caused in other countries,” he said.

PM Imran said that not only had Pakistan been able to avoid widespread deaths, but its economy was also salvaged when compared to other nations.

“But sadly we have seen that our cases have risen by four times in the past two weeks. the 6-7 deaths that we were having per day have climbed to 25,” he said.

PDM TO GO AHEAD WITH PESHAWAR RALLY: the Pakistan democratic Movement (PdM) has announced to go ahead with its rally in Peshawar on november 22, 2020, despite PM Imran announcing earlier that jalsas will not be held in Pakistan in light of the rising number of coronavirus infections. “the PdM’s november 22 rally in Peshawar will be held as per schedule,” the media coordinator for the opposition parties’ coalition, abdul Jalil Jan, said Monday. Jan stressed that the PdM’s high command had already decided to hold all the meetings. “We will not allow the rulers to hide behind the coronavirus pandemic,” he said.

PTI grabs victory in GB vote with 10 seats g

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GILGIT TLTP

the ruling Pakistan tehreek-e-Insaf (PtI) emerged as winner of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) election on Monday as the party and its ally managed to secure at least 11 seats, according to unofficial and unconfirmed results. the PtI bagged 10 seats, independent candidates won seven and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) managed to clinch three seats.

Majlis-e-Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen (MWM), an ally of PtI, has emerged victorious in one out total 23 constituencies up for grabs while Pakistan Muslim league-nawaz (PMl-n) only managed to bag two seats. the details of constituency-wise results are given below. In GBa-1, amjad Hussain of PPP emerged victorious with 11,178 votes, beating independent rival sultan rais who secured 8,356.

PtI candidate Johar ali managed third position with 403 votes. PtI candidate Fateh ullah Khan secured victory against PPP rival Jamil ahmed for GBa-2 seat. the PtI candidate bagged 6,696 votes versus 6,694 votes bagged by the PPP candidate, winning the seat by a mere two votes. PPP candidate amjad Hussain clinched victory in GBa-4 election by securing 4,716 votes. Muhammad ayub of Islami tehreek Pakistan (ItP) came second with 4,291 while Zulfiqar ali of PtI bagged 2,200 votes. Independent candidate Javed ali Manwa emerged victorious after bagging 2,570 votes in GBa-5 election. rizwan ali of MWM secured the second position with 1,850 votes. PtI’s abaid Ullah Baig managed to clinch victory with 6,600 votes to defeat the independent candidate noor Muhammad, who secure 4,584 votes. raja Zakaria Khan Maqpoon of PtI defeated his PPP opponent syed Mehdi shah, former G-B chief minister, in GBa-7 election.

Maqpoon secured 5,290 votes while shah managed to bag 4,114 votes. Muhammad Kazim of MWM – an ally of PtI – won the election in GBa-8 constituency by bagging 7,534 votes. PPP’s syed M ali shah came second with 7,146 votes. Wazir Muhammad saleem, an independent candidate, bagged 6,286 votes to defeat Fida Muhammad nashad of PtI in GBa-9 election. nashad secured 5,187 votes. In GBa-10, independent candidate raja nasir ali Khan by securing 4,667 beat Wazir Hassan of PtI, who managed to bag 3,344 votes.

Govt and TLP forge temporary truce, further talks to be held ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

the government delegation, led

by Minister for religious Harmony noorul Haq Qadri, held talks with the leaders of the tehreek-elabbaik Pakistan (tlP), and has agreed to quash all the first information reports (FIrs) registered against the protesters and their leaders and to release all detainees.

Moreover, the government has agreed to the demand that no further cases would be registered against the tlP leaders, and their workers would also not be arrested.

Further talks are being held to find a middle ground as the government is not ready to give into the tlP’s demands of either downgrading its ties with France or summoning back its ambassador from Paris. after a day of fierce fighting between the activists of tlP in rawalpindi, the federal government had finally decided to negotiate with the religious party, which is camped out at Faizabad Interchange in Islamabad for a second day on Monday to denounce the publication of blasphemous caricatures in charlie Hebdo and French Presi-

IndePendents BaG 7 seats; PPP secUres 3 PPP, JUI-F cry FoUl; GB Govt reJects alleGatIons

CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

more inside

Decision on early closure of schools, winter break on November 23 STORY ON PAGE 03

Pakistan rejects Indian denial of dossier on statesponsored terrorism STORY ON PAGE 02 dent emmanuel Macron’s subsequent defence of the satirical weekly in the name of freedom of expression. Pakistan today learnt on Monday that Prime Minister Imran Khan had green-lighted to engage the tlP leaders. However, failure to negotiate would have given the police and the administration the authority to carry out an operation against the protesters. reportedly, it had been decided that protesters would not be allowed to enter Islamabad and the red Zone; rather they would be offered an alternative to their demand of allowing them to protest outside the French embassy in the red Zone, which is normally a nogo area for protesters.

Police and administration officials have also consulted with the rawalpindi administration, which had also been given the authority to conduct a full operation if the talks failed. the administration had also shut down internet and mobile phone services for more than 24 hours to prevent the organisers from coordinating with each other, but were restored around lunchtime on Monday. similarly, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting senator shibli Faraz said that PM Imran has already raised the issue of blasphemous caricatures at the world forums.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

sindh cM Murad tests positive for coronavirus, goes into isolation STORY ON PAGE 02

We can stop covid19: Moderna vaccine success gives world more hope STORY ON BACK PAGE

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Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

NEWS

pakisTan reJeCTs indian denial of dossier on sTaTe-sponsored Terrorism ISLAMABAD

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STAFF REPORT

SLAMABAD on Monday rejected as “sophistry” a statement by India’s Ministry of External Affairs which denied involvement in terrorist activities inside Pakistan.

The MEA statement came in response to a dossier shared by Pakistan on Saturday which included specific evidence of financing, training, harbouring, and weapons supply in the shape of copies of correspondence, bank transactions, communication intercepts and photos showing perpetrators of attacks inside the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

Responding to the press conference, Anurag Srivastava, the spokesperson for MEA, declared the dossier was “another futile anti-India propaganda exercise”.

“The so-called claims of proof against India enjoy no credibility, are fabricated

and represent figments of imagination,” Srivastava said in a press release.

“Fully exposed, India has typically resorted to sophistry, obfuscation and refabrication.

Bland denials and regurgitation of an old litany of charges, however, will not change facts,” the Foreign Office responded to Srivastava’s presser on Monday. A statement issued by FO Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudri said: “The dossier presented by Pakistan extensively documents India’s active planning, promoting, aiding, abetting, financing and execution of terrorist activities against Pakistan. “Since 2001, Pakistan has faced more than 19,000 terrorist attacks on its soil and suffered 83,000 causalities. The direct economic losses have been upward of $126 billion. As a result of India’s sponsorship of terrorism, from across our borders, Pakistan continues to suffer immensely.”

Meanwhile, India has mischievously

maryam terms pTi’s failure to achieve majority in gb shameful defeat LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Monday said that failure to achieve a clear majority in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) is a "shameful defeat" for the incumbent government.

Taking to Twitter, Maryam said, "This defeat is a telling sign of what the future has in store." She claimed that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won a few seats in GB’s election despite “rigging”, “bullying”, and help of turncoats. Maryam said that the ruling party was unable to secure a majority despite using state machinery and with the help of turncoats, adding that the people of GB have no confidence in the PTI. Her sentiments were echoed by former premier Shahid Khaqan Abbas who said the federal government had "stripped GB of its powers". Likening the GB polls to the 2018 general elections, the PML-N leader said Sunday's election was rigged. TLTP

kp researchers find first Covid-19 re-infection case PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) health researchers, in a case study, detected re-infection of Covid19 on Monday. As Pakistan is undergoing the second wave of novel coronavirus, a group of Khyber Medical University researchers have found the first instance of Covid-19 re-infection. According to the research released by the health experts, an employee of the health department, who was found positive of novel coronavirus on June 6 this year was diagnosed with coronavirus again.

The health worker had developed flu-like illness before testing positive for coronavirus on June 6 and was cleared of the disease on June 19, but four months and 13 days later, he was re-infected. The virus symptoms were severe in the re-infection case, which was detected during a study carried out by a team of researchers. TLTP

Justice rasheed sworn in as acting phC CJ PESHAWAR: Justice Qaiser Rasheed Khan on Monday sworn in as acting chief justice of the Peshawar High Court (PHC). The oath-taking ceremony was held at the Governor House, Peshawar.

Justice Qaiser Rasheed was administered oath by Governor Shah Farman. The ceremony was attended by judges of the PHC, lawyers, elected representatives and others. Last week, Justice Qaiser was appointed as acting chief justice of the PHC. He will work on the post till the appointment of regular chief justice by the Judicial Commission of Pakistan. The position had been lying vacant since the sad demise of Peshawar High Court (PHC) Chief Justice Waqar Ahmed Seth who had died of Covid-19 on November 12. TLTP

masqueraded as a victim of terrorism and sought to mislead the international community by hypocritically levelling terrorism-related allegations against Pakistan, Chaudhri said.

“It has also conducted false flag operations in occupied Kashmir and inside India to malign Pakistan. That facade has now been removed and the world can see the real face of India — one blackened by its decades-long state terrorism in occupied Kashmir and state-sponsored terrorism and destabilisation efforts in Pakistan.”

“The most familiar and undeniable face of India’s state sponsorship of terrorism against Pakistan is Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav — caught red-handed in March 2016. His complicity in subversion, sabotage and terrorism in Pakistan is part of the incontrovertible evidence against India.”

The world is also familiar with “saffron terror” orchestrated and unleashed by the RSS-BJP zealots against Muslims in India and against Pakistan, the FO spokesperson

said. “Masterminds of Makkah Masjid, Ajmer Dargah, and Samjhota Express terrorist cases, like Swami Aseemanand, have been granted full state protection and acquitted in a complete travesty of justice after having confessed to India’s National Investigation Agency.”

“Open threats to Pakistan by Indian civilian and military leaders, India’s sinister design to subvert China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and public statements by noted Indian politicians and senior security officials on ‘teaching Pakistan’ a lesson through the use of terrorism constitute further incriminating evidence.”

The presence of ISIL (so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and AQIS (AlQaeda in Indian Subcontinent) in India, as highlighted in recent UN reports, indicate that India is emerging as a hotbed of UNdesignated international terrorist organisations and posing a great risk to the region, he said.

Bilawal warns of dire consequences if ‘rigging’ in GB election not reversed GILGIT INP

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Monday staged a sit-in against alleged rigging in Gilgit-Baltistan election in front of the deputy commissioner's office in Gilgit city.

The PPP candidate, Jamil Ahmed was leading by 400 votes last night in the final count but in the morning he was shown as trailing by 2 votes.

Bilawal also joined the protest and addressed the crowd gathered there.

In his fiery speech, he said that the PPP candidates were pressurised to leave the party and join the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) but every one of them remained steadfast with the party except one.

He claimed that when the authorities witnessed the support for PPP by the people of GB from Siachen to Gilgit, they got worried. The election commission started supporting the illegal acts of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ministers, he alleged.

The PPP chief said that so much so that the chief election commissioner went to Islamabad and held a press conference in Islamabad against opposition instead of stopping government ministers from illegal acts. Even the

Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Gilgit, he added.

Bilawal said that three seats were clearly snatched from the PPP but warned that no one will be allowed to do so. He said that PPP will continue its protest at every place where rigging has occurred. “We will not allow the puppet, the selected and the selectors to steal the elections. The selectors knew that PTI does not exist in GB. Everyone knows that the people of GB are with the PPP,” he added.

The PPP chief said that the people of GB snatched their rights from Dogra Raj and they will again snatch back their rights. He said that he is under pressure by the people and warned the powers to be, not to push him to the extent that he takes extreme measures. He asked people to continue their protest and if the seats which were snatched through rigging are not given to the people and the PPP then the protest will go to Islamabad and he will lead that protest.

Bilawal said that he is not going anywhere till the rights of the people are given to them. He said that if the rigging is not reversed then he will choose an extreme and difficult path but that will be the path to victory. He added that he had already warned to accept the verdict of the people otherwise there will be dire consequence.

Two women among eighT killed as bus plunges inTo ravine in nowshera NOWSHERA: At least eight people were killed including two women and a child after a bus fell into a ravine near Nowshera in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) early Monday morning. According to reports, at least 11 passengers were injured in the accident. Seven of the eight deceased died on the spot while the eighth victim died at the Qazi Hussain Ahmed Medical Complex where he was taken for treatment. The police said the bus fell from a hill when its driver tried to clear the road to save another vehicle from falling. Four severely wounded passengers have been moved to a hospital in Peshawar while others are receiving treatment at Qazi Hussain Ahmed Medical Complex. STAFF REPORT

abbasi, miftah, others indicted in lng reference ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Monday indicted Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) leaders Shahid Khaqan Abbassi and Miftah Ismail, and others in liquefied natural gas (LNG) reference. They denied charges and opted to contest them. The court has sought evidence from the prosecution on the 19th of this month.

Accountability Judge Muhammad Azam Khan ordered provision of a copy of the chargesheet to all accused. Ex-PM Abbasi, Miftah Ismail, ex-PSO MD Imranul Haq and others are accused of awarding an LNG import contract allegedly at exorbitant rates in 2015, which caused a big loss to the national exchequer. According to the NAB, Abbasi had awarded an LNG import and distribution contract to the Elengy Terminal in violation of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules in 2013. At the previous hearing, Abbasi’s lawyer Barrister Zafarullah had contended that the NAB had written to make Miftah Ismail as an approver in this case while his client had been charged under section 3. The documents in this regard were not provided to the defence side, he said.

“Charges could not be framed against them until provision of these documents to them,” Zafarullah added. The NAB prosecutor told the court that the demanded documents had been shared with the defence counsel. TLTP

Sindh CM Murad tests positive for coronavirus, goes into isolation KARACHI STAFF REPORT

Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah said on Monday he had tested positive for the coronavirus. In a statement released by the Twitter account of CM House, Murad said that he had a mild fever on Friday and got himself tested after Friday prayers.

“On the advice of my doctors, I have gone into isolation,” he said, adding that he was currently only

experiencing a slight fever. Pakistan is currently in the midst of a second wave of the novel coronavirus, with several prominent personalities, including politicians, testing positive for the disease in recent weeks.

The country on Monday reported 2,128 fresh infections after conducting 29,511 tests with a positivity ratio of 7.21 per cent. Several politicians, including Sindh Governor Imran Ismail, National Assembly (NA) Speaker Asad Qaiser and Pakistan

Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shahbaz Sharif, have contracted the disease since the first case emerged in the country in February.

Last week, Peshawar High Court (PHC) Chief Justice Waqar Seth and senior journalist Arshad Waheed Chaudhary passed away of coronavirus.

Prime Minister Imran Khan will preside over a meeting of the National Coordination Committee (NCC) today to devise a strategy to deal with the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country.

ECC approves Rs80m grant for payment to British law firm ISLAMABAD SHAHZAD PARACHA

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) on Monday approved giving Rs80million to a British law firm to pursue cases under investigations in the United Kingdom. The meeting of ECC was chaired by Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh.

Sources said that the Ministry of Interior had requested the ECC to give a Rs80m Technical Supplementary Grant (TSG) for payment of legal fees to a British law firm, Guernica International.

An amount of £175,000 is yet to be paid as the law firm for the period July 2018 to January 2019, wherein the firm worked on the cases and forwarded a request for contract renewal, Pakistan Today learnt.

Furthermore, the government of Pakistan is giving £25,000 per month to pursue cases under investigation in the UK, including the Imran Farooq murder case, money laundering and incitement of violence cases.

The meeting also recommended the formation of a committee consisting of representatives from the Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) to decide a

timeline for export of mango and kinnow after consultation with the stakeholders.

In light of a summary presented by the Ministry of Information Technology regarding the manufacturing of SIMs/smart-cards in Pakistan, the chair directed constituting a committee to examine the proposal and present a report for a way forward within two weeks.

The committee would be chaired by the Federal Minister of Industries and Production Hammad Azhar and would include representatives from the Ministry of IT, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Board of Investment (BOI).

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

pTi approaChes independenTs for forming governmenT in gb ISLAMABAD

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GHULAM ABBAS

S Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which won majority seats in the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) election, has started consulting the independent candidates, who are the second largest group, in forming the government in GB, it could have up to 22 seats in the assembly by forming a coalition.

PTI, which has won at least nine seats, already has the support of Majlise-Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen (MWM), which has won one seat at GBLA-8 Skardu-II. It needs three to four more seats to form the government in GB. “Since three to four successful

independent candidates had earlier joined the party and they were denied tickets, PTI is confident that they would rejoin the party and support forming government in the area,” said a local PTI leader.

“We have been contacted by both PTI and PPP [Pakistan People's Party] leaders today. We are discussing available options with our voters and supporters in the constituency,” said Independent candidate at GBLA-10 Raja Nasir while talking to Pakistan Today.

Similarly, PTI has also contacted two independent candidates in Ganache -- Mushtaq Hussain of GBLA-22 Ghanche-I and Abdul Hameed of GBLA-23 Ghanche-II -- inviting them to join the party. Furthermore, the local

leaders of PTI in Skardu have even left for Ganche to have a dialogue with the independent candidates. Haji Abdul Hameed, while talking to local media, said that he would be joining PTI as per the suggestion of his voters.

Javed Manwa, another independent candidate from GBLA-5 Nagar-II, has also been contacted by both the PTI and PPP. As he had earlier joined PTI and was an aspirant of party's ticket, he has informed his supporters that he would prefer sitting the treasury benches of the GB Assembly.

According to a PTI leader, at least four independent candidates are ready to join the party and they would make their announcement soon. The remaining three candidates are also in contact with

Decision on early closure of schools, winter break on November 23 ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

A meeting of the federal and provincial education ministers failed to reach a consensus on early closure of schools across Pakistan and extension of winter vacations to curtail the coronavirus after the second wave of the pandemic appears to be gathering momentum. “No decision made on closure of schools in Punjab today,” Punjab Education Minister Murad Raas announced after the meeting at the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

“Next meeting will be on Monday 23rd November, 2020 for further review of the COVID 19 situation. All options are being discussed. No immediate decision for now,” he added. Earlier this month, Raas had said that the government may choose to close down educational institutes in Punjab if the coronavirus spread continued

to increase, adding, however, no such decision has so far been taken. “I am continuously checking and monitoring the implementation of the coronavirus SOPs [in schools] and school administrations are making maximum efforts to fully implement these,” he had said.

The country on Monday reported 2,128 infections of the novel coronavirus after conducting 29,511 tests with a positivity ratio of 7.21 per cent.

In a series of tweets, the Ministry of Education said that the meeting had been briefed on the standard operating procedures (SOPs) being adopted in educational institutions to curb the pandemic, especially in light of the increasing cases of Covid-19 nationwide.

“A number of options were considered, including an extended winter vacation schedule, to curb the spread of coronavirus,” it said, adding that the provincial ministers had briefed the forum on the situation of their respective education sectors.

PM reaffirms transparency in utilisation of Covid Relief Fund ISLAMABAD TLTP

Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Pakistanis are the most giving nation and their generosity is legendary. Addressing the meeting of the Policy Committee overseeing the Prime Minister's Covid Relief Fund on Monday to review fund utilisation details, the prime minister reaffirmed that full transparency will be ensured in using donated funds.

The fund received Rs4.8 billion donations from within Pakistan and overseas. A total of Rs1.08 billion were donated by international donors while

Rs3.8 billion were contributed domestically.

Earlier this year, the premier had publicly announced two policies with respect to this fund, committing that these funds would be disbursed through Ehsaas Emergency Cash to assist Covid-19 jobaffectees. A matching funds policy was also announced which stipulated that for every rupee donated into the fund, Rs4 would be matched by the government and to fulfil this promise, Rs19.55 billion have been matched by the government. This amount has supported 2 million families, each of which received 12,000 rupees each as Ehsaas Emergency cash through this funding stream.

gilgit-baltistan has rejected pml-n's narrative, says faraz Federal Minister for Information Shibli Faraz on Monday said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) victory in the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) general elections is a sign that the narrative of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has been rejected. He said that this in a press conference in Islamabad on Monday, adding that the people of GB kept the spirit of democracy in mind and that they had voted for a better future. Earlier on Monday, the information minister said in a tweet that this outcome proves the people’s trust in Prime Minister Imran Khan. Faraz further said that the leaders of the PML-N and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had started to claimed there was rigging even before the elections, but pointed out that the opposition used to claim that the current elections would be a referendum, adding that the polls were “free and fair”. Furthermore, he brought attention to the fact that many PTI candidates had been defeated as well. “If there was rigging then we should get 14, 15 seats,” said Faraz. While the counting is still underway, as of the time of filing, the PTI had won eight constituencies out of 23, with the 24th constituency to have elections later due to the death of one of the candidates. “Congratulations, to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan. The polling process was completed peacefully and amicably. The media showed the full participation and transparency of the people, including the elderly and women, in the election process through the eyes of their cameras,” he had tweeted a day earlier. Furthermore, PTI leader Asad Umar had shared the Gallup Survey – which was retweeted by Minister for Industries & Production Hammad Azhar – which showed that PM Imran was the most popular leader in GB. NEWS DESK

the PTI leaders.

After combining forces with the independent candidates and support of MWM, PTI will be in a position to grab 22 seats in the 24-seat assembly.

PTI would also try to win the seat of GBLA-III, Gilgit-3 where the election has been postponed after the death of its candidate, Syed Jafar Shah. Similarly, the party would also test its luck in GBLA-4 Nagar-1, as the PPP candidate had won two seats in this election but is likely to vacate the seat to retain the GBLA-1 Gilgit-I constituency.

Though PPP is also contacting independent candidates to join their party, the independents, foreseeing lucrative offers from PTI, are unlikely to entertain the PPP.

PTI to form govt in GB: PM ISLAMABAD: PM Imran Khan on Monday expressed happiness over the victory of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) polls and said that voters have rejected Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)’s narrative. Chairing a meeting of party spokespersons and PTI leaders in Islamabad, the prime minister said that the

NEWS

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aTC extends bails of ayaz sadiq, three others in violent protest case LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Monday extended interim bails of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MP Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and three other party leaders in a 2018 case registered against them on charges of resorting to violent protests when deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif returned to the country to serve his sentence in Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference. Former National Assembly (NA) speaker Ayaz, former provincial minister Khwaja Salman Rafique, former MPA Malik Waheed and Rana Ehsan appeared before the court along with their counsel Farhad Ali Shah. During a brief hearing, presiding judge Ijaz Ahmad Buttar extended their bail until November 23 and directed the investigation officer to submit a complete record of the case on the next hearing. The North Cantonment police had registered the first information report under Section 7 of ATA and some provisions of the PPC. On July 13, 2018, Nawaz along with his daughter Maryam Nawaz had landed at the Lahore airport where they were arrested and shifted to jail to serve sentences in National Accountability Bureau (NAB) references. APP

people of GB have rejected the anti-state narrative of opposition. “Opposition parties only aim is to safeguard their personal interests,” said the premier in the meeting of party spokespersons. He further said that PTI would solve the problems of the people by forming a government in the GB region. Unofficial results showed that PTI took lead in GB election by grabbing victory in 10 constituencies followed by seven seats won by independent candidates out of 23 seats of the region’s Legislative Assembly. TLTP

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

04 NEWS

IndIa bIggest perpetrator of Int’l terrorIsm In south asIa, says aJK presIdent MUZAFFARABAD

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STAFF REPORT

zad Jammu and Kashmir (aJK) President Sardar Masood Khan on Monday said that India has launched a series of terrorism against Pakistan and all the terrorism is directly or indirectly Kashmir-centric.

“Over the years, Indian intelligence agencies have been sponsoring, engineering, financing and executing acts of terrorism and subversion against Pakistan, azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan,” the President said in a message to all

Parties Conference, organised by Tehreek-e-Kashmir UK. The conference participated by diaspora community leaders, representatives of different political parties and members of parliament discussed a campaign strategy to expose India’s state-sponsored terrorism against neighbouring countries, violation of human rights and atrocities committed by its army against innocent Kashmiris.

The aJK president said that irrefutable evidence of these crimes has been furnished and these crimes cannot be swept under the carpet now. India, he said, has been selling

a false narrative to the world that it is fighting terrorism in Kashmir. The fact is it is the biggest perpetrator of international terrorism in South asia, particularly in Kashmir and Pakistan, he added.

He said that a US agency - The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) - and many other entities have established that over forty banking institutions are involved in terrorist financing. These serious allegations against India are being investigated by the Financial action Task Force, he maintained.

“India is running 87 terrorist camps in India and afghanistan

New era of change, development to begin in GB: Aleem LAHORE TLTP

Punjab Senior Minister abdul aleem Khan has said that the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) election results have proved that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is the most popular party in the country and the people have full confidence in the policies of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government.

In his congratulatory message to PM Imran on Monday, the provincial senior

minister said that now a new era of change, development and prosperity will begin in GB as well, with the political understanding and awareness of the people there.

He said that holding elections in difficult times and in the most inappropriate circumstances was important in itself. In this situation, the victory of PTI over all other parties was a good omen, he added.

He further said that the efforts of ali amin Gandapur, zulfi Bukhari and Murad Saeed are also commendable in this election.

whose operators have been targeting Pakistan’s schools, banks, stock exchange and city centres. If you go through the list of the networks, recruits, saboteurs, arms and ammunitions, and huge funding that India has mobilised, one would see clearly that India has launched a Walmart of Terrorism against Pakistan. all this terrorism is directly or indirectly Kashmir-centric, he added.

Saying that “this evil triad must be broken up” the president urged the UK parliamentarians and political leaders to expose India in order to stop its human right violations in Jammu and Kashmir, its ceasefire vi-

olations against the Line of Control (LoC) and its unbridled terrorism in the region. Commenting on recent that killed at least six people and injured seriously scores others in Pakistani side of LoC, the president said that the Indian hostile fire targeted all sectors along the ceasefire line. The Neelum, Leepa and Jehlum Valleys, as well as Bagh sectors, were hit. It appears India wants to trigger and escalate a devastating war, he added.

“Pakistan gave a fitting response by taking out Indian military posts showing complete restrain to target civilians. But it seems Pakistan’s restraint and responsibility embold-

ened India to undertake daredevil adventures. India’s aggression in IOK and across LoC must be punished,” he further said.

In the past 72 hours, the LoC between aJK and the IOK has been set ablaze by India’s incessant hostile fire in which they have used artillery and heavy mortars.

Punjab decides to bring areas around highways, motorways into tax net LAHORE SHAHAB OMER

The Punjab government has decided to bring agricultural lands as well as areas outside the rating area around national and provincial highways, and motorways into the property tax net under the Punjab Finance act, 2019.

The decision was taken at the 37th meeting of the provincial cabinet chaired by Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar at the Chief Minister's Office on Monday. The provincial ministers, advisers, special assistants, chief secretary and secretaries of relevant departments attended the meeting.

The meeting also approved amendments to the Punjab Motor Vehicle Transaction Licence Rules, 2015. according to the amendments, unauthorised car dealers with more than 10 years of experience will be charged a security fee equal to the authorised dealer for registration, whereas unauthorised motor car dealers with less than 10 years of experience will be charged doubled the security fee of an authorised dealer.

The provincial cabinet also approved amendments and re-implementation of Punjab Overseas Pakistanis act, 2014 and with the amendment in the act, the number of members of the commission will be increased from 23 to 27 and the Overseas Pakistanis Commission Committees will be formed at the tehsil level on the pattern of district Overseas Pakistanis Commission Committees.

Similarly, the meeting also approved the upgrading of Emerson College Multan to university status while the Children's Hospital and Institute of Child Health Lahore was approved to be upgraded to University of Child

Health status. The cabinet also approved the proposed draft for the University of Child Health and the university will have three schools, a School of Postgraduate Nursing, a School of allied Medical Sciences and a School of Pediatrics.

The cabinet also approved the renaming of government colleges after phasing out Ba / BSc, Ma / MSc programmes.

From January 1, 2021, the Ba and Ma programs will end and there will be no new admissions. The degree college will be renamed as associate degree college, postgraduate college will be renamed as graduate college and similarly there will be a postgraduate college for MPhil degree.

The cabinet also approved the proposed draft of Punjab destitute and Neglected

Children Rules, 2019, for Registration of Organisation Managing accommodation under Section 20-a and amendment in Section 14-a of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The cabinet further approved the decision to withdraw Section 14-a of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The meeting reviewed the Local Government Land Use Plan Rules, 2020, and directed to set up a committee to review the rules whereas the committee will soon make its final recommendations on the Land Use Plan.

The meeting endorsed the decisions of the 41st, 42nd and 43rd meetings of the Standing Cabinet Committee on Finance and development and the decisions of the 33rd, 34th and 35th meetings of the Standing Cabinet Committee on Legal affairs.

Is the public’s confidence in the police waning?

PUNJAB PUNCH SHAHAB OMER during the first 10 months of this year, Punjab, the largest province of Pakistan by population, remained a hotbed of crime. due to murders, kidnappings, robberies and incidents of thefts, the citizens could not sleep peacefully. Unfortunately, the same pattern continued this year. according to the figures obtained by Punjab Police, more than 3,000 cases of murders were reported in the province during the first 10 months of the year. Similarly, there were 8,081 attempted murders and 10,040 cases of fights. as many as 12,300 incidents of kidnapping and 65 cases of kidnapping for ransom continued to make the citizens fearful.

Criminal elements deprived citizens of property worth billions of rupees and there were more than 14,000 registered cases of robberies, 20,200 of car snatching and theft, and 6,000 cases of cattle theft. despite these alarming figures, Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat is satisfied with the law and order situation and police officials also attribute the rise in crime to timely and increasing first information reports’ (FIR) registration. Contrary to these explanations of the concerned authorities, the people of Punjab were forced to live under the shadow of fear

even this year due to lack of protection of property and life.

“The large-scale upheaval in Punjab Police did not reduce crime rate and the top officials seem to have decided not only to increase crime, but also to provide full protection to the perpetrators of serious crimes.

When strict, ruthless and fact-based laws against crime will not be made and no mechanism will be laid down to bring the criminals to justice, then how is it possible to ensure the elimination of crime and criminals from the province?” a source within the police commented on the matter.

“Is it not clear to the rulers that people are no longer complaining about their theft, robbery, oppression and even murder to the concerned institutions? Rather, they have begun to prefer to avenge the injustice done to them.

The loss of public confidence in every institution is a matter of grave concern and taking the law into one’s own hands is a prelude to great destruction,” the source added. a senior police official from Central Police Office (CPO) informed this scribe that although the crime rate in Punjab had increased in the first six months of this year, especially after the lockdown, it was also due to population growth and the economic crisis during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Undoubtedly, the incidents of robbery and burglary had increased in Punjab during this period. according to the police records,

the crime rate may come down as it is common in Punjab like other provinces not to register such incidents which is unfortunate. But I think it is more appropriate to prosecute all kinds of crimes because in this way, crime prevention measures can be improved,” he suggested. The official also claimed that Lahore, despite being a city of 150 million population, lags far behind other major cities in the world in terms of peaceful and serious crime.

“If you look at the crime rate in New York, London, Bombay, Chicago or delhi, it is much higher than Lahore. The kind of dangerous crimes that takes place in these cities and the kind of organised gangs that are found there – such a network has not been found here yet. The increase in crime in Lahore is more natural than before, but it is not so dangerous that it cannot be controlled. Most of the culprits involved in crimes in Punjab and Lahore are caught. However, their number is not high while there has been no major robbery or organised theft and no organised robbery gangs operate in Lahore,” he maintained.

“Punjab police is quite successful in controlling crime according to its resources while the people themselves also catch the criminals many times more than in other countries,” the official continued.

With crime rates soaring, citizens say the authorities will have to implement police reform claims before they can be turned into crime hotspots.

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

NAEEM BoKhARI LIKELy To BE APPoINTEd AS PTV BoARd ChAIRMAN ISLAMABAD

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AHMAD AHMADANI

HE federal cabinet, in its upcoming meeting, will take up important issues pertaining to the reconstitution of Pakistan Television Corporation (PTVC) Board of Directors, appointment of a chairman for Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB), and recruitment of a chairperson as well as members for the National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR).

The cabinet meeting, scheduled to be held tomorrow (Tuesday) under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Imran Khan, is set to take up 14-point agenda, including the reconstitution of PTVC Board.

According to sources, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has suggested the federal cabinet to keep the composition of the PTVC Board to eight members, with three independent members. The ministry also forwarded a panel of nine candidates against the positions of three independent directors.

In addition, sources said, the ministry proposed that Shahzada Naeem Bokhari, a prominent lawyer and anchorperson,

should be nominated as the PTVC board chairman.

Other candidates for independent members include Muhammad Ayaz Kalyar, Aamir Malik, Syed Waseem Raza, Syed Sajjad Hasan Jafri and Arshad Hasan, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Faisal Qureshi and Ayesha Tammy Haq. Age relaxation for Shahzada Naeem Bokhari and Asghar Nadeem Syed — both over 65 years of age — has been sought by the info ministry, said sources.

On 17th Sept 2020, the Islamabad High Court, while setting aside the appointments of PTVC chairman and other private sector board members, had directed the federal government to nominate members for the PTVC Board in accordance with the law within six months while observing the requirements of the Rules of 2013 and the Companies Act, 2017. It had also asked the info ministry to de-notify six private member of PTVC board namely Zouhair A. Khaliq, Professor Ijazul Hassan, Syed Mohammad Ali Bokhari, Mian Yousuf Salahuddin, Rashid Ali Khan and Farmanullah Jan. Currently, the PTVC board comprises five ex-officio members, including additional secretaries of ministries of finance

and information & broadcasting.

Meanwhile, sources said that the Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) has proposed the cabinet a panel of three members for the seat of Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) chairman. The panel comprises Rina Saeed Khan, Zahid Baig Mirza and Vaqar Zakria. The PM, being Minister-in-Charge of the MoCC, has seen and authorized the submission of the summary to the federal cabinet.

The MoCC has so far notified a ninemember board for IWMB with the approval of the federal government, excluding the appointment of the board chairman.

Moreover, the Ministry of Human Rights, in a separate summary, has asked the cabinet to approve the appointment of chairperson as well as members for National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR). by suggesting suitable names to the PM and the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly (NA) for further consultation to forward a panel of three names for each post to the parliamentary committee for hearing and confirmation of any one person for each post.

As per details, the National Commission for Human Rights Act, 2012, was promulgated on 5th June 2012. The Section 3 of the Act provides for the establishment of NCHR to exercise powers and functions under the act. The federal government established the NCHR on 19th Ma, 2015 for four-year period which expired in May 2019.

Sub-section 2 of Section 3 of the Act describes composition of the commission.

According to the Section3 (2) of the Act, the commission shall consist of the chairperson, who has been or is qualified to be a judge of the Supreme Court or a person having demonstrable knowledge of, or practical experience in matters relating to human rights and one member from each province, on member from Islamabad Capital Territory, one member from minority communities, chairperson National Commission on Status of Women (ex-officio) and a secretary who shall be appointed by the commission.

It is important to note that of the total membership of the commission, at least two will be women members and a member or chairperson will not be less than 40 years of age and will have knowledge and experience relating to human rights.

PTI grabs victory in GB vote with 10 seats ContInueD fRoM pAge 01 In GBA-11, Syed Amjad Ali of PTI with 5,733 votes defeated independent candidate Syed Musin Rizvi, who managed to bag 2,016.

In GBA-12, PTI candidate Raja Azam Khan beat PPP’s Imran Nadeem, bagging 7,534 votes. Nadeem managed to secure 7,146 votes.

PTI candidate Khalid Khurshid Khan emerged victorious against his rival PPP’s Abdul Hameed Khan in GBA-13 election. Khalid was voted by 4,836 people while Hameed could only get 3,117 votes. PML-N candidate Rana Muhammad Farooq secured the third position with 2,192 votes.

PTI candidate Shamsul Haq Lone won GBA-14 seat against his rival PPP’s Muzaffar Ali. Shams bagged 5,354 votes while Muzaffar could only manage 3,473. PML-N’s Rana Muhammad Farooq came third with 3,009 votes. Independent candidate Shah Baig bagged the seat with 2,713 votes, beating another independent candidate, Muhammad Dilpazir, who managed to bag 2,309 votes.

One of the two seats won by the PML-N, the party’s Muhammad Anwar managed to get 4,813 votes against independent candidate Attaullah who got 2,576 votes.

PTI candidate Haider Khan, with 5,389 votes, secured GBA-17 seat against his JUI-F rival Rehman Khaliq who managed 5,162. PPP candidate Ghafar Khan came third with 423 votes.

Gul Bar Khan — PTI candidate for GBA-18 — secures victory against independent candidate Malik Kifayarur Rehman. Gul Bar was voted by 6,793 people while Kifayatur Rehman managed only 5,986 votes.

In this constituency, independent candidate Nawaz Khan emerged on top with 6,208 votes, beating PPP’s Syed Jalal Ali Shah who managed to attain 4,967 votes.

Nazir Ahmed of PTI clinched this seat with 5,582 votes, beating PML’s Khan Akbar Khan who managed to bag 3,815 votes.

The second seat won by the PML-N, the party’s candidate Ghulam Muhammad managed to bag 4,334 votes versus PPP’s Muhammad Ayub Shah, who bagged 3,430 votes. In GBA-22, independent candidate Mustaq Hussain with 6,051 votes managed to beat his rival from PTI, Muhammad Ibrahim Sanai, who could only get 4,945 votes. Independent candidate Abdul Hameed emerged victorious in the GBA-23 election with 3,666 votes. His opponent PTI’s Amina Bibi bagged 3,296 votes, securing the second position.

PPP’s Muhammad Ismail won the election in GBA24 constituency by securing 6,206 votes. PTI candidate Syed Shamsuddin came second with 5,361 votes.

According to data obtained from the GB Election Commission, out of 745,361 registered voters, 339,992 are women. Nearly 1,234 polling stations were set up in the 23 constituencies, of which 415 had been declared extremely sensitive.

BILAWAL, FAZL CRY FOUL: Reacting to GB elec-

tion results, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Monday said that “my election has been stolen”.

Bilawal, in a tweet, said: “My election has been stolen. I will be joining the people of Gilgit-Baltistan in their protest shortly.”

On the other hand, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUIF) chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman also rejected the results of the GB elections. He accused that the history of 2018 general elections was repeated in GB and vowed to take the matter in the next meeting of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) – an alliance of the opposition parties.

“We will make a future course of strategy on GB election results in the PDM meeting,” he said.

GB GOVT REJECTS RIGGING ALLEGATIONS: The spokesperson of GB government, Faizullah Firaq, on Monday ruled out rigging allegations levelled by the former prime minister and PML-N stalwart Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in GB election.

In his statement, Faizullah said that the GB interim government provided an equal level field to the political parties contesting the polls and added that elections were held in a transparent and peaceful manner.

Terming the elections the most peaceful in the history of GB, the spokesperson said that the people reflected their organized behaviour during voting. Earlier in the day, Abbasi accused GB’s interim government of ‘managing’ elections. He alleged that several candidates of the party were forced to leave the party.

KE commits to PKR 10 bn investment in community uplift under Sarbulandi initiative KARACHI PRESS RELEASE Meet the team behind Bagallery: the e-commerce startup that just secured a $900,000 Pre-Series A funding from Lakson Venture Capital (LVC)

FBR requests tax, wealth details of Zardari, his family members ISLAMABAD SHAHZAD PARACHA

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has written a letter requesting the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to submit the complete income tax and wealth statement details of former president Asif Ali Zardari and his family members. NAB sought out tax details of Asif Ali Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur, brother-in-law Mir Munawar Ali Talpur, his son and Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and his daughters Bakhtwar Bhutto-Zardari and Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari. Reportedly, the request has been completed, and included revenue details of Messers Zardari Group Private Limited.

As part of its wider corporate sustainability and community engagement efforts, K-Electric (KE) has launched the Sarbulandi initiative, a PKR 10 billion investment in power distribution infrastructure for those parts of Karachi which suffer from the societal menace of power theft. With the vision of eradicating powertheft and the resultant segmented load-shed in Karachi, the Sarbulandi initiative aims to strengthen network health and theft resistance by installation of insulated Aerial Bundled Cables (ABC). This will result in the provision of safe and reliable electricity for the most economically vulnerable communities of Karachi and move the city closer to a load-shed free reality.

Under the umbrella of Sarbulandi, KE will positively engage with and benefit over ten million people through community upliftment initiatives such as provision of clean drinking water, clean up drives, hosting of health camps and rehabilitation of basic infrastructure. These efforts will be supplemented by bill payment support in the form of rebates and instalments to facilitate customers in their transition to regular bill payments. In addition, as part of its commitment to the economic empowerment of the communities that it operates in, K-Electric has committed to hire for over 800 different positions from areas where this initiative is

underway. In the first phase of this project, six high loss areas were brought under the ambit of Sarbulandi including Korangi, Landhi, Orangi, Surjani, Nazimabad and Liaquatabad resulting in reduced loadshed duration for these areas by upto 4.6 hours on average. Over 1,000 Pole Mounted Transformers have been converted to ABC, while low-cost meters have been provided to over 100,000 customers alongside a PKR 2 billion in billing relief to these consumers. Including the 8000 people who have received free medical treatments at healthcare camps organized by KE, over five million inhabitants have been benefitted through this initiative thus far.

Following the successful conversion of these highloss areas to low loss or medium loss, another six areas have been added to the list and work is underway with planned completion by end of FY 2021. Under the second phase, Baldia, Gadap, Malir, Lyari, and the remaining sectors of Orangi and Surjani will be shifted to lower power-theft and loss categories. The Sarbulandi locations are located around Karachi’s periphery, accounting for a significant portion of the city’s density and landmass. Utility operations in many of these areas are challenged by the unplanned, high density population pockets marked with encroachments and accessibility issues, low incomes and resultant low payment propensity of customers, and high rates of power theft and law and order concerns for KE employees.

NEWS

05

PKR is Asia’s thirdbest and EM’s fifth best-performing currency KARACHI ARIBA SHAHID

After registering approximate gains of 5.94pc this fiscal year, the Pakistani Rupee now stands as Asia’s third-best and Emerging Market’s fifth-best performing currency. On Monday, the PKR closed at Rs158.1691 in the interbank against the US Dollar, marginally losing value (-Rs0.01) after a two-week bullish streak.As per Profit’s analysis, Mexico’s currency appreciated the most against the USD in the Emerging Market, whereas Korea led the appreciation in Asia. Why has the dollar been bullish?As per Adnan Sheikh, AVP research at Pak Kuwait Investment Company, the primary reason behind the appreciation is the low demand for dollars. “The supply for dollars is higher considering how imports are lower.”“Remittance inflows have also been helping prop up the rupee,” Sheikh explained.

“Due to loan deferment, the SBP is no longer buying dollars.” Remittances witnessed a growth of 14pc YoY to $2.3 billion during Oct 2020. Sheikh said that sentiments regarding the dollar need to be kept in mind. “People expect the dollar to go towards the Rs150 range and that is why they are selling dollars.” All these factors are pushing up the rupee in value against the dollar, especially keeping in mind the fact that the dollar is depreciating globally, he added.

Govt and TLP forge temporary truce, further talks to be held ContInueD fRoM pAge 01 “No democratic government can forcibly send back such a strong protest. We are holding talks with protesters at Faizabad. The Interior Ministry will issue a statement in which the solution of public problems will be presented,” he added. It is to be noted that a religious party staged a sit-in in Faizabad late Sunday, demanding immediate deportation of the French ambassador for blasphemous sketches and Islamophobia. On Sunday, thousands of protesters had taken to streets in Rawalpindi and marched towards Islamabad the following day on the call of TLP chief and firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, causing massive disruption to the daily lives in twin cities and frequently clashing with security agencies.

The participants of the rally had demanded the government declare the French ambassador “persona non grata” and evict him from Islamabad. They had vowed to not end the protest until Pakistan cuts all diplomatic, trade, and economic ties with France. Rawalpindi’s 24 entry points had been sealed with containers and as many as 16 entry points into Islamabad had also been blocked. To maintain law and order situation, Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat had said, the capital administration on Monday suspended a section of Islamabad Expressway from Zero Point till Khanna Bridge. Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro service is also suspended.

Inauguration of Rashakai SEZ postponed amid rise in Covid cases PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Health and Finance Minister Timur Saleem Khan Jhagra has said that Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has cancelled the inauguration of Rashkai Economic Zone (REZ) in the wider public interest as coronavirus cases are on the rise again. “We have entered the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The country cannot afford a complete lockdown and precautions must be taken,” he added. Jhagra said that coronavirus SOPs must be followed if businesses are to be saved, adding that KP Chief Minister (CM) Mahmood Khan has also cancelled all his public functions after reviewing the coronavirus situation. He said that the second wave of covid was growing, adding that the rate of use of ICU beds was 11 per cent in mid-October, which is now 24pc. He advised that the opposition should also cancel public rallies to avoid a sudden rise in cases. “The opposition should not endanger the lives and properties of the people and cancel their public gatherings,” he added. He maintained that the Rashkai Economic Zone was the first industrial zone under CPEC which would create more than 200,000 jobs. AZIZ BUNERI

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

06 COMMENT

The foreign debt trap

Extremism remains unbridled TLP on warpath again

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EHREEK-E-LABBAIK Pakistan, which had gone into hibernation after getting a bloody nose in 2018, is back into action once again. After leading a big rally in Karachi, it is now holding a sit-in at Faizabad, blocking Islamabad-Rawalpindi traffic, preventing children from going to schools and employees to Islamabad Secretariat.

Attempts by Punjab’s ineffectual CM to stop the TLP supporters from holding the protest have failed. Despite raids and arrests in several cities and sealing Rawalpindi’s entry points with shipping containers, the protesters managed to reach Liqauat Bagh. Use of force to stop them from proceeding further led to clashes throughout the day on Sunday. During the clashes, CCTV cameras were broken at some of the metro bus stations while glass panes of the Sixth Road station and the elevator at Faizabad were damaged. While the attempts to stop the TLP activists made life miserable for the city’s denizens, thousands of protestors managed to reach Faizabad Interchange where they are staging a sit-in now.

The ominous sit-in brings back memories of TLP’s 2017 dharna which was aimed at weakening the PMLn’s position in the province. What purpose it is meant to serve now remains unknown. There is a perception that if the SC judgment on the 2017 Faizabad sit-in had been implemented, extremist networks like TLP would have been taken care of.

PM Imran Khan has condemned Charlie Hebdo’s Islamophobic cartoons. He has charged President Macron with deliberately provoking Muslims. There is little he could do beyond that. With most of the European governments standing solidly by President Macron, expelling the French ambassador as demanded by the TLP would have negative economic and diplomatic repercussions for Pakistan.

While firm action has been taken against terrorist organizations, one fails to understand why extremist networks have been allowed to operate in Pakistan causing problems for every elected government. By using religion for politics, like turning Pakistan into the state of Madina, Imran Khan has himself strengthened extremists who demand cutting off all diplomatic and economic relations with France. Until the country returns to the Quaid’s narrative of keeping religion out of politics, it would find hindrances in developing into a modern democracy.

Pakistan keeps on borrowing, losing leverage

Salman munir

I

n the 2009 film “The International”, Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) an Interpol agent, and Eleanor Whitman (naomi Watts) a US Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan, jointly investigate corruption in International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC), a fictional bank based in Luxembourg. During the course of their investigation they meet Umberto Calvini (Luca Barbareschi) an Italian politician and big arms manufacturer to understand why IBBC is interested in being an arms broker and dealer in missile-guidance control systems: Q. Mr Calvini, we would like to know why the IBBC, a bank, would purchase hundreds of millions of dollars worth of missile-guidance control systems from your company?

A. The IBBC has purchased billions of dollars worth of Silkworm missiles from China and presold to clients in the Middle East contingent upon the missiles being equipped with VOLCOn guidance systems. My company is one of only two in the world who produce VOLCOn. Q. Who is the other?

A. Sunay. Ahmet Sunay of Turkish Aerotech.

Q. But why is the bank committing so much capital and resources to the sale of these missiles?

A. It’s a test. Small arms are the only weapons used in 99 percent of the world’s conflicts and no one has the capacity to manufacture them faster and cheaper than China. What Skarssen (the Head of IBBC) is attempting to do is to make IBBC the exclusive broker

No surprises Familiar trends hold in GB election

A

FTER months of fierce campaigning, the GilgitBaltistan (GB) elections have ended without any major surprises. Of the 24 general seats, the PTI and independent candidates have secured 9 each, and both camps will join hands to form a government forming a healthy majority. The PML-n fared the worst, winning only two seats with one of its candidate receiving only one vote. The PPP has secured an inconsequential three seats. Both opposition parties, who are currently running an anti-government movement under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) ran robust campaigns but were evidently unable or not allowed to convert the crowds at their respective rallies in GB into votes, and are expectedly crying foul, alleging rigging.

Historically, any party that is in power at the center is easily able to win GB elections. The PPP secured 20 seats in 2009 while the PML-n won only 3. In the 2015 polls, the PML-n in power at the centre, gained 19 seats, forming a government with a comfortable majority of 22, while PPP lost the same amount and was left with only one. The PTI therefore, may have won more seats than any other party, but it is hardly a landslide victory that the previous two governments were able to secure. The composition of GB’s third legislative assembly will reflect the equation that the PTI currently has in the national Assembly; a majority dependent on allies and independents without whose support the government would collapse.

Apart from past trends enabling one to predict the outcome of the GB polls with reasonable accuracy, the 2018 general elections, made controversial by the various pre and post poll activities that raised questions about their fairness, also served as an indicator of which way the votes would lean. The PTI promised to give GB provincial status if they won, but this is easier said than done as the government will require a two-thirds majority in parliament to pass the necessary constitutional amendment to form a new province, which it does not have. For this, it will have to reach out to the opposition, an impossibility given the circumstances. One hopes the PTI doesn’t waste this opportunity to make good on the rest of the more easily deliverable promises to uplift the people of GB, transforming the region into a more prominent, relevant and contributing part of the country.

Families of victims still awaiting justice

Sulman ali

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ECEnTLY, the judicial report on Army Public School Peshawar (APS) was made public under the order of Supreme Court.

Around 150 people, mostly children, were killed in a terrorist attack on APS in 2014.

A one-member judicial commission of Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan of Peshawar High Court was established after parents of the victims approached SC in 2018. In its 525-page, the commission has blamed ‘fiasco’ in the security arrangements of the attack. During the probe, the commission interviewed 140 people including parents of APS children, police officers and military officials.

The report read that although nACTA had issued a warning over threat of attack on “all the academic institutions run by the armed forces”, still proper arrangements were not made. The report further stated that the security forces were distracted by terrorists, by putting a vehicle on fire. “The guards’ inaccurate allocation focusing on main gate, left the school vulnerable from the back,” the report said, adding that although rapid response force reacted to the attack, but it could not stop the militants to play havoc in the institution.

According to the report, the attack was expected after successful Zarb-e-Azb and Khyber-I operations by military forces in the tribal areas, but still the concrete measures were not taken. “The forces remained successful in their first goal, but remained unsuccessful in their second mission,” the commission said. It further said had the forces tackled the militants earlier, the devastation could’ve been restricted. However, it praised

Arif Nizami Editor Umar Aziz

Asher John

Joint Editor

Executive Editor

Deputy Editor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

Salman Munir is a management consultant and innocence lawyer. He can be reached at as1236m@gmail.com

APS commission report

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

of the Chinese small arms to the Third World. The missile deal is the gateway to such transaction.

Q. Yeah, but billions of dollars invested simply to be a broker? There can’t be that much profit for them.

A. no. This is not about making profit from weapons sale. It’s about control.

Q. Control the flow of weapons, control the conflict.

A. no. The IBBC is a bank. Their objective is not to control the conflict. It’s to control the debt that the conflict produces. You see, the real value of a conflict, the true value, is in the debt that it creates. You control the debt and you control everything.

You find this upsetting? But this is the very essence of the banking industry to make us all, whether we are nations or individuals, slaves to debt.

The name IBBC, Luxembourg and the indulgence in illicit or illegal activities remind me of close-to home-bank that used to be known as Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). In just 19 years it started and concluded it’s journey as a worldwide bank. It was an Arab-funded and Pakistani-run bank that took the world by storm. It had people like former President Jimmy Carter working with it. Pakistani banker Agha Hasan Abedi who founded the bank in 1972, had earlier founded United Bank Limited (UBL). UBL is now one of the five largest banks in Pakistan. Over a period, BCCI had become rife with intra fights over control of the bank and externally went to bank with dictators of Latin America and Africa. Accused of money laundering and funding illegal operations, it was eventually closed in 1991. It showed great promise during the early years when it was run by Agha Hasan Abedi. Because of a lack of befitting and worthy successors and C-Suite, it sadly became known in later years, as the Bank of Crooks and Criminals International.

On the day BCCI was closed, my banker friends Jamil Hamdani (Jimmy) and Akbar Kazmi, and myself had a game of golf at the Karachi Golf Club. After the morning 9 we went to Jimmy’s house to relax and drink some liquid before lunch. Suddenly the landline rang (no cell phones then). Jimmy, a friend to high net worth individuals and a private banker of some standing answered the phone and told us to carry on as he will be busy for the rest of the morning. He then started calling his high net worth clients to pull out money from the BCCI as the Bank of England had decided to close the BCCI that very day. Banking is that powerful and that fragile when it comes to the powers that be. nations and individuals are indeed slaves to debt.

The quagmire Pakistan is in today is because of its penchant for acquiring debt from one and all. The

present government is no different from the previous governments. IMF controls the debt so we have to dance to its tune whether we like it or not. So much so that we know the prices should be controlled and brought down, still every few days oil, electricity and commodities’ prices start climbing the ladder of unaffordability. While the Prime Minister is oblivious to this, the common man is not. He is on the threshold of exhaustion and despair. A couple of days ago we proudly announced another $10 billion development loan coming from the ADB over five years. When I was working there, an Executive Director representing the Government of Pakistan on the Board of ADB told me that we are the biggest borrower of ADB and therefore we have a lot of clout. I was flabbergasted at this silliness. An individual with huge borrowings from a commercial bank might have some clout, countries on the other hand enjoy no such pleasure.

An example of what clout a borrower has over a creditor comes to mind. In October 2018, Saudi Arabia had agreed to provide a helping hand to the PTI Government. It included a $6.2 billion financial package for 3 years. The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) broke all protocols and drove Prime Minister Imran Khan to the airport to bid farewell. All hell broke lose with the media here and in Saudi Arabia at this start of a great friendship. In February 2019, MBS visited Pakistan on his first official visit in his capacity as the Crown Prince. A formation of JF-17 Thunder Jets and F-16 Fighter Jets escorted the Royal plane as it entered the Pakistani airspace. Upon arrival, Prime Minister Imran Khan also broke all protocols and personally drove MBS to the Prime Minister’s house- a show of great friendship and brotherly love. Come Islamic countries’ Summit in Malaysia, Pakistan was forced to decline attending this Summit although a strong proponent of this Summit. Thus neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Minister attended the Malaysian Summit under pressure from MBS and the loan that Saudi Arabia had given us. Much to the lament of Mahathir Bin Mohamad, the Malaysian Prime Minister at the time and another dear friend of Prime Minister Imran Khan and Pakistan. Thus there is no friendship or brotherhood between a creditor and a debtor. As we might find out in time to come about our “time-tested and sea-deep” friendship with China too. And China will be tougher than MBS in recalling a loan as Sri Lanka got to know.

I wanted to write about individuals who borrow and what happens to them. Lets leave it for another day. I just came to know about the sudden and untimely death of the Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth while his petition for elevation/appointment to the Supreme Court was still pending. After his death the petition has become infructuous so we will not know what the outcome might have been. This question is bound to return to the Supreme Court sooner or later.

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Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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the “valiant soldiers” of one of the patrol vehicles and armed forces rapid response which restricted the movement of militants towards the adjacent toddlers’ block, which could’ve been resulted in much bigger massacre.

In its conclusion, the commission has regretted that once again the lower-ranked officers have been punished for the attack. “nothing has been asked of the people at the top and this tradition must stop,” the commission said. It further said that although there was a “clandestine and somewhere failing agreement of views of the aggrieved/complainants (parents of victims) relating to the incident ... it is most probably because of the communication gap between them and the military which I believe must have abridged in due course of the proceedings before this commission”.

While commenting on the report, Fazal Khan Advocate, President of APS Shuhda Forum said, “APS commission report fails to answer crucial questions why school admin didn’t take measure or inform parents after nECTA threat alert was issued.”

While representing the other parents of APS children, Fazal Khan said that this report has further increased the pain of families of parents of the children. “We wanted Supreme Court to personally head the commission over the incident, but it handed over the issue to Peshawar High Court which appointed a junior judge, who was at 10th number in seniority, as the head of the commission,” the advocate said. “We thought it will reduce our pains, but this report has done the completely opposite,” he asserted.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s national Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf blames India for the at-

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

tack. “Malik Faridoon, who masterminded APS attack from Jalalabad in 2014 was in touch with handlers at the Indian consulate as 144 Pakistani children were being massacred. He was treated at Delhi hospital in 2017. We have phone records of eight calls,” Yusuf said. The nSA further said that Pakistan has strong evidence of Indian involvement in terrorist activities in Pakistan.

Experts however point to the questions surrounding Ehsanullah Ehsan, the former spokesperson of TTP. After the attack TTP accepted the responsibility.

Later, Ehsan was arrested by security forces, kept under custody without any legal action against him. He was declared as a witness, which was strongly opposed by the families of APS children.

Later, Ehsan escaped which outraged the parents of the victims, because a leader of the TTP was in custody of the state, but still nothing was done against him.

The judicial report has been completed, submitted and now made public and now the question is what next. The parents of APS children have rejected the report as Fazal Khan Advocate said that this report has further disappointed them.

Questions continue to surround the report. Will the government launch another investigation on this matter? Will the parents of APS children again move the top court? Will there be another commission? Will the top leadership of security institutions take the responsibility of the attack?

Most of these questions will remain unanswered as the APS children’s families continue to seek justice.

The judicial report has been completed, submitted and now made public and now the question is what next.

The parents of APS children have rejected the report as Fazal Khan Advocate said that this report has further disappointed them.

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Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

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Sulman Ali is a staff member. https://twitter.com/sulman_85

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

COMMENT 07 Editor’s mail Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan.

E-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively

Address violence and rape culture IT has become an unfortunate reality that Pakistan is no longer safe country for women in general and children and trans-people for particular. Recent motorway incident and reported Kashmore case were particularly shocking in nature. It showed vulnerability has increased at unprecedented level for the afore-mentioned segment of the society, which has far-reaching impacts not only on victims but also on other potential victims. Recent recurring cases of reported rape cases and sexual abuse are sadly just tip of the iceberg. What we do not see and overlook, is other unreported cases because of multiple factors. There are many out there victims of domestic violence in many forms and living miserable lives; traumatized on daily basis and their plight goes unnoticed and unreported. Moreover, crime rate likely to grow in areas where writ of the state is too weak and where awareness of laws is very little as well as persistent illiteracy. Critics argue that if Motorway incident were dealt with seriousness it deserved, cases like Kashmore could have been prevented to some extent. Reportedly there have been significant rise in rape cases even after Motorway incident. All these factors point to unfortunate reality that still persist. One should understand that the rape is about power and control and always the fault of the oppressor. Victims’ clothes, environment can’t and should not be blamed for. Such incidents calls for urgent action and should be dealt with utmost seriousness.

M Shahjahan MEMon KaMbEr

Much ado about America

Climate change Livestock and going vegetarian

uSman aShraf

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UR relationship with our planet is multilayered and complex. What we do in the present is going to affect the lives of our future generations. Human beings tend to leech off of Earth’s resources while solely being focused towards making economic gains. The world as we know it is changing, and one of the major contributors to the emission of global greenhouse gases (GHG) is livestock. Human activities, such as the use of meat and clearing of land for livestock purposes, presents a major challenge to preserve the Earth’s natural state.

Livestock is a major contributor to GHG, due to the release of Methane and nitrous Oxide, and as a sector, it contributes to around 14.5 percent of the total GHG emissions (Gerber, 2013). Even though much of the focus today is on reducing the release of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, due to it being the main source of GHG emissions, Methane has an effect which is 23 times higher than CO2 (IPCC, 2013). Meanwhile, nitrous Oxide, which arises from manure management and the use of fertilizers, is 265 times deadlier than CO2. However, it is the production and consumption of beef which is the most problematic within the livestock sector. Producing beef takes up a lot of resources as compared to other forms of food, and it is estimated that its production requires 28 times more land as compared to poultry and other forms of meat, including chicken (Eschel et.al., 2014). According to FAO’s study in 2012, the farming of beef is responsible for 41 percent of the total GHG emissions within the livestock sector. Agriculture is estimated to take up around 30 percent of the Earth’s land, and the inefficient use of land due to its conversion for use as livestock pas-

tures and crop production means that every year, around 13 billion hectares of forest area are lost globally. In the US alone, 47 percent of land is used to grow food, and 70 percent of this land is used to grow feed for the cattle. This shows the importance of the beef industry when it comes to the consumption patterns of the consumers.

Taking all this into account, a shift in the dietary lifestyle of the average consumer is the need of the hour. A recently published IPCC report on climate change by scientists is advocating for people to move away from eating meat and shifting towards a more vegetarian diet, which will prove to be a major plus in the fight against climate change. A reduction in meat consumption would lead to lower GHG emissions from the livestock sector, and the fertilizers needed to support the production of meat would also reduce in quantity. Once this is achieved, the land previously used for grazing can be used for reforestation, which will help with the absorption of CO2. It is estimated that such a shift in the diet could potentially lower the annual GHG emissions by up to 8 giga tonnes by the year 2050 (IPCC, 2018).

According to the World Resources Institute, majority of the beef consumption is due to the developed countries. As these countries have a stronger economy, they can afford more meat and beef production due to their advancement in science and technology, leading to a higher yield in crops, more efficient production of livestock feed and fertilizers. This in turn is grazed upon by the cattle, which have more food available to them. Hence, the GHG emissions in the developed countries are more as compared to countries with weaker economies.

However, in rapidly developing economies such as China, the meat consumption will increase due to the aforementioned factors, which would put even more pressure on the fight against climate change.

A shift to a more plant based diet is going to

be more advantageous to the environment, according to the leading bodies that are at the forefront of the fight against climate change. Vegetables (nuts, seeds, beans, lentils) on average emit 2.5 times less carbon than all forms of meat. Water security is another major issue when it comes to the production of meat, as the livestock use up more water as compared to plants. Water required to produce a kilo of wheat amounts to between 1000-2000 litres, while to produce the same amount of beef, it requires an amount of at least 13,000 litres (FAO, 2007). The rivers and streams around the world also get polluted due to animal manure, along with the chemicals used for fertilizers.

Many indigenous communities drink from the same water streams as the cattle, without realizing the water they are sharing is extremely harmful to their health.

This in turn causes multiple health related issues. Apart from this, overgrazing of land leads to its degradation and soil erosion, meaning during the rainy season, there is less protection from the flow of water down the slopes, which leads to destruction of homes and property. Plants use the land more efficiently, without taking up a large amount to produce the same input, while being free of methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

Shifting to a vegetarian diet not only has environmental benefits, but health benefits as well. Having a more plant centric diet leads to a risk reduction in heart related diseases, as well as a lower chance of suffering from diabetes or obesity. Research has also shown that vegetarians tend to have better eyesight and better skin as compared to people who consume meat. Consuming more plant based sources of food and less meat and beef can be the perfect compromise this worlds needs in order to be saved from destruction, as well as being beneficial for the global health of the human population.

A shift to a more plant based diet is going to be more advantageous to the environment, according to the leading bodies that are at the forefront of the fight against climate change.

Vegetables (nuts, seeds, beans, lentils) on average emit 2.5 times less carbon than all forms of meat. Water security is another major issue when it comes to the production of meat, as the livestock use up more water as compared to plants.

Usman Ashraf is a development practitioner working towards building a sustainable future.

THE present political standpoint in the USA has not been up to the mark even after the current election. With some more time left for the new regime to step into the White House, there have been protests over fraudulent election charges alleged by the incumbent against Joe Biden’s winning political prospects. The current voter fraud protests have really dented the image of the US at the world stage. now the time has come to clear the air as against the election results in America. Besides this, one more good lesson that the US can learn now is to make future election process much more foolproof than now. The recent Washington protests have shown that all the Trump supporters have been serious-minded and that they are ready to do anything. Legal tangles have almost become the order of the day worldwide. Confronted with issues relating to occupations like agriculture and natural disasters, the people from my native areas like Korkai, Kanyakumari, Tuticorin, Tirunelveli, Tiruchendur in Tamil nadu have been able to rise to the occasion through local settlement and negotiations. Just like in Asia and Europe, the American continent has been in possession of great jurisdiction power and other legal philosophies.

P SEnthil Saravana Durai MuMbai

Corona trap AS everyone knows Corona virus is hunting people’s lives all over the world.

But as Corona’s spread increases day by day, It also Hunts world economies.And the crude oil market crash is a live example of this economy hunt by COVID-19.Pakistan’s economy is also in Corona virus trap. The trap which is created by coronavirus lock down. And due to this trap, Poverty in Pakistan is increasing day by day. Country is going in loss, in a great loss.

Which is affecting growth rate directly. People are losing their jobs and the unemployment rate is increasing. Poverty as compared to the past is much more and unemployment as well. The Government should take some serious actions to take control of this hunt otherwise we will pay for it. And our country in this situation is not ready for this. So please consider this issue.

The issue about which we have to think and make suitable solutions for it.

SyED KaShifullah Shah iSlaMabaD

Oil hike in Pakistan PAKISTAn is the 6th populous country with the population of 219 million is suffering multiple issues and hike of oils is one of the sudden issues which is being faced in pakistan today. The high prices of oils mostly causes the people who are in poor jobs and cannot bear such kind of sudden hikes in the country. However the price of petrol rose from 74.52 to 100.10 and increasingly the price of petrol increased Rs 25.58 per litre and diesel price shot up from 80.15 to 101.46 per litre in these days in the country. The government of Pakistan has increased the prices of all petroleum products by up to nearly Pakistani rupees (PKR)26. According to DAWn reports the prices of petrol has been raised by a whopping (PKR) 25. 58 to (PKR) 100.10 per litre from the exiting (PKR)74.52 in the country. The prices of oils which are increasing increased are premium (super) is Rs 103.97 per litre, high speed diesel is Rs 106.46 pet litre, light speed diesel Rs 62.86 per litre, kerosene oil Rs 65.29 per litre in these days in the country. It is my suggestion that the government should take actions on the highlighted issue and decrease the prices of oils which are mostly caused to those who cannot get proper incomes on their occupations in the country. younuS fazal Shal

Justice in danger A very well-known baloch female artist, journalist, writer and activist Ms. Shaheena Shaheen was killed by her husband in Turbat, on 5, September, 2020. Dishearteningly, Balochistan has lost another pearl. Shaheena Shaheen as a women rights activist always motivated the women to get independent. For promoting art work like painting, she had conducted programs in Turbat city in order to expose the hidden talent in Balochistan.

She is a true inspiration for the women. Sorrowfully, a month has passed but the police are not successful in catching the culprit. The relatives and fans of Shaheena Shaheen see very less hope for her getting justice.

Shaheena Shaheen as a professional has done much for her nation. So, doesn't she deserve to get justice at least? farahnaz farooq ahMED turbat

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

08 WORLD VIEW

New world orders: what a BideN presideNcy will meaN BeyoNd the Us FIRST HE HAS TO REPLACE TRUMP IN THE OVAL OFFICE. THEN BIDEN MUST DEAL WITH XI, PUTIN AND THE MIDDLE EAST. HERE ARE THE PROBLEMS THE NEXT PRESIDENT SHOULD TACKLE FIRST

erykBagShaw

Bevan ShieldS

JaMeS MaSSola

Maher MughraBi

lia tiMSon

ChriS Zappone

Matt wade

Sydney Morning Herald erykBagShaw, Bevan ShieldS, JaMeS MaSSola, Maher MughraBi, lia tiMSon, ChriS Zappone and Matt wade

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n his Delaware victory speech, President-elect Joe Biden declared that "this is the time to heal in America". But bitter partisan conflict, rising racism and nativism, misinformation and fears for democracy and human rights aren't just a problem for the United States but for the whole world.

Since World War II, nations in every corner of the world have either looked hopefully to the US for leadership in tackling major global and regional challenges or been forced to reckon with Washington's interventions.

On climate change, global trade, immigration and a host of other issues, Biden has pledged that leadership will come "not only by the example of our power but by the power of our example".Can the new administration return Washington to its place at the head of the international table as a guarantor of the "rules-based order"? Or will the Biden administration be forced to contend with a new multipolar reality in which nations tend to their own patches?

Europeby Bevan Shields: European leaders have spent their summer hoping and praying Trump would be a one-term wonder. Yet he has arguably been a force for some good on the continent by forcing some of its wealthiest nations to lift their lacklustre contributions to the crucial nATO alliance. Europe was getting defence and security on the cheap and Trump was right to call them out on this.

Europe's main players — German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen —believe Biden will bring a more stable and pragmatic style of leadership. But they might still face a rough ride on one key issue: digital taxation.

Several European countries have planned new taxes on US-based internet behemoths like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon, but hit a roadblock when Trump threatened to retaliate with a trade war. The relationship between Trump and Macron collapsed over it.Raiding the tech giants grew in urgency this year because the extra revenue would help repair government budgets hit hard by COVID-19 and the consequent recession. The annual global haul from such a tax could be as high as $US100 billion ($137 billion).

To avoid a series of messy country-by-country schemes, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has been working on an international tax accord. Trump effectively blew up that process earlier this year by withdrawing from the talks.

Under Biden, the US might return to the table and will avoid tit-for-tat trade wars, but Europe will still face huge resistance. The new administration is unlikely to offer up Silicon Valley as a sacrificial lamb for better transatlantic relations.

Russiaby Chris Zappone: After four years of Trump praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, a Biden presidency will take the Kremlin back to frostier days. One of the first issues Biden will face is among the easiest: the new START II nuclear weapons treaty is due to expire in February. He has shown a willingness to accept Russia's offer to extend a treaty limiting both countries' intercontinental ballistic missile arsenals.

Everything else between Washington and Moscow could get a lot more difficult and tense. Biden has pledged to convene a Summit for Democracy "to renew the spirit and shared purpose of the nations of the Free World".

The summit would seek commitments from countries to fight corruption, defend against authoritarianism and advance "human rights in their own nations and abroad".

To the Kremlin, that will sound a lot like a threat to its legitimacy and power. Perhaps for this reason, the Kremlin has so far responded coolly to Biden's election.

For his part Biden is unlikely to forget that Putin held off congratulating him, adding one more log to the bonfire of doubts ignited by Trump's refusal to concede.

The Kremlin's silence will remind the White House of the role Russia has in seeking to shape perceptions of US politics, even if Republicans themselves don't seem to care. The linkage of messaging between the Kremlin and right-wing parties in the West is a tool Russia uses for influence and even interference in Western affairs.

Biden won't be shy about confronting Russia in the places an American president typically does — human rights, corruption and pro-democratic politics — all things Trump ignored or downplayed.

North Asiaby ErykBagshaw: China has arguably been one of the few beneficiaries of the Trump presidency.

Despite an 18-month trade war, the COVID-19 pandemic and rising military tensions, Beijing has emerged in a stronger position than Washington.

The chaos of the past four years has seen China expand its economy and ambition. But that same aggressiveness now faces a very different opponent. Where Trump's transactional tactics saw Washington goad Beijing, Biden is more likely to draw on his foreign policy experience and adopt a multilateral approach to containing China's ambitions. That means less inflammatory freelancing and more unified positions involving Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and other allies.In his first phone call with Japanese Prime Minister YoshihideSuga on Thursday, Biden said the Japan-US Security treaty, obliging the US to defend Japan if it is attacked, would apply to the disputed Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims as its own. The pair pledged to deliver "a free and open Indo-Pacific", a clear message of containment repeated with other leaders in Asia.

But perhaps Biden's most significant looming challenge is one much closer to China's national identity: Taiwan. now that Beijing has abandoned all pretence of democracy in Hong Kong, Taiwan frames as a major geopolitical challenge in the next President's term.

China has in recent months ramped up its propaganda on unification with the democratic island, which split from China in 1949. Beijing has vowed to bring it back under its control by the centenary of the civil war, but Chinese President Xi Jinping's personal ambition, rising nationalism and military exercises in the Taiwan Strait have fuelled fears that that timetable could be accelerated.

The Trump administration courted Taiwan, sending the highest-level US representation in decades to the island and selling $US30 billion ($41 billion) worth of weapons to Taipei to help defend it from attack.

There is little detail on how Biden's administration would respond if Taiwan came under threat. Its policy remains firmly in the realm of "strategic ambiguity".

South-east Asiaby James Massola: Across South-east Asian capitals, political leaders will be breathing a quiet sigh of relief at seeing the back of the Trump administration. US standing in the region has crashed over the past decade, beginning with the Obama administration's failure to push back as China militarised islands in the South China Sea and expanded its naval and air forces.

Despite Trump’s tougher rhetoric, Beijing has solidified its gains and locked in its "facts on the water".

Biden cannot count on a forthright, unified ASEAn response to China. Cambodia and Laos are largely in China’s pocket and the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte has come under Xi's sway, though that could change after the country's May 2022 presidential election.

Rather than lecturing countries in the region about the dangers of China – as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently did - the Biden administration must urgently engage in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy.

That means continuing to strengthen ties with Vietnam — no friend of China — engaging more deeply with Indonesia (and selling it military hardware it is looking to buy), and re-engaging with Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

It must recognise that China is the pre-eminent investment partner even for countries such as Indonesia and Thailand that are more wary of China’s rise – and that is not likely to change.It must also realise that China has stolen a march in terms of providing aid during the pandemic.

Biden and his team must show that the US can once more be a reliable security and economic partner, one that will guarantee freedom of navigation in the South China Sea — a $US1trillion trade artery — without antagonising China or triggering confrontation.In the longer term, they must look to lock in a new status quo in that waterway – because short of a hot war, China’s heavily-armed islands aren’t going anywhere.

Middle Eastby Maher Mughrabi: The President-elect faces a region torn between four main actors: Saudi Arabia, the Turkey-Qatar axis, Israel and Iran. The first three are ostensibly US allies. Yet it is the fourth that could determine how all the other relationships fare.

The Obama administration regarded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aimed at constraining Iran's nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief, as one of its major achievements in concert with Russia, China and the European Union. Trump campaigned against that deal and eventually scrapped it.

Iran, which has been ravaged by COVID-19, is scheduled to elect a new president to replace Hassan Rouhani in 2021. Should Biden seek to revive the JCPOA, he risks alienating Saudi Arabia and Israel. Yet assuring all four actors that their interests will be protected is vital if the many festering conflicts in the region are to be addressed, much less resolved.

Biden has said he would end US support for Saudi Arabia's offensive in Yemen but this in itself would not address the plight of millions of starving and displaced Yemenis. Vice-President-elect Harris told The ArabAmerican news that a Biden administration would "help advance a political settlement where the Syrian people have a voice". What that means in practice is anyone's guess, but settlement of the Syrian conflict is likely to require Iranian, Russian and Turkish input, and there is little progress to be made in Lebanon until peace returns to its larger neighbour.

Ending the Libyan conflict would require bringing Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia back into diplomatic alignment, a task that proved beyond the Trump administration. Harris added that a Biden administration would resume economic assistance to the Palestinians that Trump had terminated, but whether Biden is really willing to advance the cause of Palestinian freedom in the face of Israeli and domestic opposition remains to be seen.

Latin Americaby Lia Timson: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, often dubbed the Trump of the Tropics, has

championed a number of measures that go against the tide of global expectation, including mining and exploration of the Amazon rainforest and minimisation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bolsonaro’s first comments on the election came midweek, when he described the Democrat as "a headof-state candidate" and threatened to use gunpowder instead of words to settle any potential trade sanctions over the Amazon – a reference to comments Biden made during the campaign.

Although Bolsonaro rephrased his comment immediately to avoid the impression he would declare war on the US, it is clear he sees Biden in the same light as France’s Macron and Germany’s Merkel: leaders who think they can tell Brazil what to do. Biden’s promise to rejoin the Paris climate change agreement will create trade difficulties for Brazil, whose new trade pact with the European Union ties the country to the accord's requirement that Brazil delivers 12 million hectares of Amazon reforestation.

Biden’s other pressing issue in South America will be Venezuela. Trump was keen to see regime change in Caracas and the down-with-socialism narrative suited his campaign and expatriate Latino base. Trump's tenure has seen US relations with the oil-producing nation dive to new depths, culminating in the backing of Juan Guaido as an alternative president, crippling economic sanctions, the threat of military action to oust nicolas Maduro and a $US15 million bounty on his head. Maduro has rushed to congratulate Biden, adding he is willing to participate in "decent dialogue" with the new administration.

Biden’s immigration policies will also have a bearing on Latin American countries, as the majority of people joining migrant caravans to the US are from impoverished and often violent nations in crisis, including Venezuela, Guatemala and Mexico. The latter's leader has refused to congratulate Biden until the Electoral College has voted, a clear indication he wants no trouble with the man who promised to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.

Africaby Lia Timson: In Africa Biden will be competing with China for influence, but he will have Macron, who is very engaged in former French colonies on the continent, in his corner.

China has a number of Belt and Road projects in Africa, including its first overseas military base in Djibouti. Its stated aim is the recreation of the trade Silk Road, but its ports and projects go much further than facilities simply dedicated to the flow of goods.

Eric Olander, managing editor of the China Africa Project, says it's no secret that Africa is largely an afterthought in US foreign policy. "If Biden wants to change this he's got to make the effort of picking up the phone and re-introduce himself to presidents and prime ministers across the continent. After all, this is exactly what Xi Jinping does all the time.

He says Biden needs to communicate to Africa that a reset in ties is coming. "It's too early for him to start talking about programs, aid ... as he still doesn't have control of the government and visibility on the budget."

Instead, Olander says, "rather than just focus on Africa's largest countries, as is customary for the US, he should reach out to one of its smaller countries for that first call to demonstrate that the entire continent is important, not just nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa."

Indiaby Matt Wade: When Trump visited India in February, Indian Prime Minister narendra Modi greeted him at the airport with a bear hug and treated him to a huge "namaste Trump" public reception in the city of Ahmedabad attended by about 100,000 people. Modi also warmly praised Trump when the pair appeared at the "Howdy Modi!" rally at a football stadium in Texas last year.

The Trump-Modi bromance extended to Twitter, with both leaders using the social media platform to exchange friendly messages. (Combined the pair have over 150 million Twitter followers).

Some in new Delhi are concerned that Modi’s close bond with Trump could hinder relations with the Biden administration. But Ian Hall, professor of international relations at Griffith University, says India is now too strategically important to the US for that to make much of a difference."There is a bit of anxiety in India," he says. "But I don’t think those concerns are well grounded."Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris’ mother was born in India's southern state of Tamil nadu; Harris' Indian-American heritage is likely to be a positive for public perceptions of Biden's team in the world’s biggest democracy.

Modi referred to the connection in a congratulatory tweet, telling Harris "your success is path-breaking and a matter of immense pride not just for your chittis [a Tamil word for aunts], but also for all Indian-Americans".Even so, new points of friction in Indo-US relations loom.

One reason ties have been relatively trouble-free during the past four years is that Trump has mostly avoided commenting on what India considers its internal affairs. Hall says a range of human rights issues, including Modi's controversial policies in Kashmir, are likely to become more salient in US-India relations with a Democrat in the White House."That’s going to make new Delhi a little uncomfortable," he said.

US-India military co-operation has deepened during the Trump administration. But Delhi-based strategic analyst Brahma Chellaney warns that if Biden or his top aides are "outspoken in their criticism of Modi’s domestic policies", new Delhi will be less likely, and less able, to formalise a security alliance with Washington.

ErykBagshaw is the China correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Bevan Shields is the Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.James Massola is south-east Asia correspondent based in Jakarta.Maher Mughrabi is features editor at The Age.Lia is Deputy Foreign Editor at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Chris is Digital Foreign Editor.Matt Wade is a senior economics writer at The Sydney Morning Herald.

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

busiNess 09

CORPORATE CORNER Telenor Pakistan partners with UBL to provide greater accessibility to its customers KARACHI: In continuation of its efforts to provide greater ease and accessibility to its customers, Telenor Pakistan has partnered with United Bank Limited (UBL).

Umair Mohsin, Chief Marketing Officer, Telenor Pakistan, signed a contract with Muhammad Humayun Sajjad, Executive Vice President, United Bank Limited. As a result of this partnership, UBL customers will be able to access Telenor Pakistan’s portfolio of services including prepaid recharge and bundles as well as postpaid services on the bank’s mobile app and web portal. This collaboration is another step forward by Telenor Pakistan towards enhancing customer experience and ensuring a seamless transaction experience.

APAC Insider selects APR for Best PR Agency 2020 Award LAHORE: Asiatic Public Relations Network (Pvt.) Ltd. - APR, established 28 years ago and one of the pioneers of PR in Pakistan, has been named the Best PR Agency in Pakistan by APAC Insider for its annual Business Awards 2020, out of 7 agencies that were evaluated.

Sharing his thoughts on this major win, Zohare Ali Shariff, CEO of APR stated, “An international award, which is transparent and merit-based, and which did not require payment of any fee of any sort, is a true recognition of our capabilities. This win is dedicated to all the people in APR, who are undoubtedly our greatest strength.

CCoP APPRoves sALe of 99.6PC sTAke IN HeAvy eLeCTRICAL CoMPLex ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

The Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCoP) has approved the transaction structure for divestment of 96.6pc shares of Heavy Electrical Complex (HEC).

Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh chaired the meeting of the CCoP at the Cabinet Division on Monday.

Approving the transaction structure for divestment of HEC shares, Shaikh directed the Ministry of Industries & Production for an early and amicable solution to issues pertaining to regular employees of the complex. He also instructed the Power Division (Ministry of Energy) to consider extending the validity of 'Type Testing Licence' of Heavy Mechanical Complex.

Meanwhile, the CCoP constituted a committee, to be chaired by the industries & production minister, to improve the transaction structure for Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation in consultation with the newly appointed financial/transaction adviser for further incorporation of market requirements.

It also approved the recommendation of the Privatization Commission Board to authorize the PC chairman/secretary to, in turn, authorize officers to open,

operate and close accounts in scheduled banks for the execution of privatization transactions, including other operations, in compliance with SBP guidelines.

The finance adviser, appointed by PC for the sale of properties owned or controlled by the federal government, briefed the CCoP on the bid price for the auctioned properties and sought guidelines for the remaining part of the transactions.

The committee was informed that out of 27 properties, price bids for 23 have been received. The CCoP directed the adviser to recommend a way forward on two unsold properties in Multan and Rahim Yar Khan.

It also directed KP and Punjab chief secretaries to resolve pending issues pertaining to two properties in Swat and Lahore.

In order to ensure smooth functioning of the privatization process, the CCoP approved a model questionnaire "that would help in gathering all the relevant information regarding the entity that has been approved for privatization". The committee also directed all ministries/divisions and state-owned entities (having assets in the privatization list) to provide information required in the model questionnaire to the PC within 30 days.

Furthermore, the CCoP constituted a committee to look into various sectoral issues related to the pri-

Foreign direct investment surges 151pc to $317m in October

vatization of National Power Parks Management Company Limited. The committee would include PM’s finance adviser, privatization minister, secretaries of finance, power & petroleum divisions, SAPM on energy and representatives of NEPRA as members and will meet within a week to deliberate on the way forward.

This committee will specify issues and set up guidelines for addressing all pending issues with relevant quarters.

Moreover, the CCoP approved the transaction structure for the privatization of the House Building Finance Company Limited. The decision was already taken in CCoP of August 21st 2020 but not ratified by the cabinet (for the want of some additional information regarding the profitability and other issues of the entity).

The PC briefed the committee that if the transaction proceeds ahead, the new investor could bring in capital, operational expertise, capacity enhancement of HBFCL and new product development, which would eventually enhance its profitability and market share in housing mortgage for middle-and-low-income groups of the society. The CCoP accepted the proposal for moving ahead with the transaction structure for divestment.

PM Imran approves establishment of National Job Portal ISLAMABAD

CHINA INVESTS $228.7M IN PAKISTAN; POWER SECTOR ABSORBS AROUND $239M

ISLAMABAD: Under Corporate Social Responsibility, Pak Suzuki has donated items for protection against Covid-19 (Latex Gloves, KN 95 Masks, Shoe Covers, Liquid Dettol, Sanitizer, Temperature Guns), Water Coolers with Filters & Stabilizers to Koohi Goth Women Hospital of Zafar & Atia Foundation Charitable Trust.

BUSINESS DESK

KARACHI: Agreement signed between K-Electric and Dadabhoy Investments for provision of electricity to Pir Ahmad Zaman Town and Pir Gul Hassan Town.

ISLAMABAD: Saad Naveed Pall, General Manager at Uber Pakistan, endorses the safety shields installed in Uber vehicles in the country, as part of Uber’s global #MoveWithSafety initiative, designed to maximize rider and driver safety against Covid-19 transmission.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country surged 151pc year-on-year to $317.4 million in October 2020, compared with $126.5 million in the same month of last year, data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) showed on Monday.

During the month review, China invested $228.7 million in the country while the power sector absorbed around $239 million.

Cumulatively, FDI during the four-month (July-Oct) FY21 period jumped nine per cent to $733 million compared to $672 million in 4MFY20.

On the other hand, total foreign investment – net of foreign portfolio and public investments – into the country declined more than 64pc or $698.2 million to $425 million compared to $1.12 billion in the same period last fiscal year.

The sharp decline in total foreign investment

was mainly due to outflows from equity and debt securities to the tune of $161.2 million and $598 million, respectively, during the four months under review. As per the SBP data, China emerged as the top investor in the country during the four-month period, pouring in $332.1m, followed by Malta with $74m and Netherlands with $51.5m. In comparison, China invested $64.3m during the same period last year, followed by Malta with $74.1m and Netherlands with $23.1m.

Sector-wise, the power sector attracted the most investment at $352.3m. Meanwhile, financial businesses attracted $118.5m and oil and gas exploration amassed $83.1m.

During the current financial year and the last two quarters of FY20, foreign investors have dumped their holdings in stocks as well as government-backed securities due to Covid-19, lower interest rates and an appreciation of the rupee against dollar.

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Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday approved the establishment of ‘National Job Portal’ to provide employment opportunities to the country’s youth. The PM gave the approval during a meeting with Special Assistant on Youth Affairs Usman Dar. Terming the youth as asset for the country, the PM said empowering them was the top priority of his government. “The PTI government is committed to fulfilling the promises it made with the youth.” Earlier, Usman Dar gave a detailed briefing to the premier on Kamyab Jawan Programme and apprised of the progress made in the provision of loans to youth. He also stressed the need to reassign the Tiger Force in view of increasing number of coronavirus cases in the country.

Pak-Qatar General Takaful join hands with HashMove, offers online coverage for cargo KARACHI: Pak-Qatar General Takaful (PQGTL) recently signed a MoU with HashMove (a global multi-modal logistics platform) to provide online Takaful coverage for cargo (sea/air/warehousing & land) for businesses in Pakistan. Speaking on the occasion, CEO of Pak-Qatar General Takaful, Muhammad Nasir Ali Syed said: “The need of marine coverage by Takaful through digital channel will open a new door for the businesses to grow at a much faster rate with convenience at fingertips.

This is the need of the hour and my team is fully committed to extend cooperation and support where needed. Pak-Qatar Takaful has always maintained the position of a leader and firmly believes in offering innovative products through interesting projects and this time we are very excited to offer coverage through our business partner HashMove.” PR

MARKET DAILY

KP govt increases wheat supply to control flour prices PESHAWAR AZIZ BUNERI

KARACHI: Faysal Islami has always demonstrated its unrelenting enthusiasm for the promotion of healthy sporting activities in Pakistan combined with a vision to support the cause of the less fortunate. Towards this endeavor, the bank sponsored the 5th Faysal Islami National Road Cycling Championship 2020, held at Seaview.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government on Monday increased the daily supply quota of wheat from 4,000 tonnes to 5,000 tonnes to control the price of flour in the province.

In this regard, the provincial food department has directed district food controllers, storage and enforcement officers and rationing controller to ensure timely supply to relevant flour

mills in every district of KP. According to food department sources, wheat will be supplied to all districts according to population.

Dera Ismail (D.I.) Khan will be provided 231 tonnes, Lower Dir 196 tonnes, Upper Dir 129 tonnes, Haripur 137 tonnes, Hangu 71 tonnes, Lakki Marwat 123 tonnes, Malakand 98 tonnes, Mansehra 212 tonnes, Mardan 324 tonnes, Nowshera 207 tonnes, Peshawar 591 tonnes and with a quota of 4.2 per cent, the capital city will be provided an

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extra 173 tonnes on a daily basis.

Further, Swabi would be provided with 222 tonnes of wheat, Shangla 103 tonnes, Swat 315 tonnes, Tank 58 tonnes, Tor Ghar 23 tons, Karak 96 tons, Kohat 152 tonnes, Kohistan 40 tonnes, Khyber 133 tonnes, Mohmand 63 tonnes, Bajaur 147 tonnes, Kurram 83 tonnes, Orakzai 34 tonnes, North Waziristan 73 tonnes, and South Waziristan 91 tonnes. According to sources, a flour crisis had arisen in the province due to untimely supply of

wheat to flour mills, forcing the common man to buy flour at higher prices with a 20kg of flour going up from Rs 1,400 to Rs 1,500. KP Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA) Provincial General Secretary Haji Iqbal said that the provincial government’s supply of wheat to flour mills would end the flour crisis in the province and bring down prices.

He said that earlier, the provincial government had increased the wheat quota from 3,000 metric tonnes to 4,000 metric tonnes due to which the price of a 20 kg flour has come down from Rs1,500 to Rs1,200 whereas the increased supply of 1,000 metric tonnes of wheat would reduce further flour prices in the market.

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

10 FOREIGN NEWS

EthIopIa SayS tIgray toWN SEIzEd, War EMbroIlS ErItrEa ADDIS ABABA

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THIOPIAN Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government said on Monday it had captured another town in the northern Tigray region after nearly two weeks of fighting in a conflict already spilling into Eritrea and destabilising the wider Horn of Africa.

Hundreds have died, at least 20,000 refugees have fled to Sudan and there have been reports of atrocities since Abiy ordered air strikes and a ground offensive against Tigray’s rulers for defying his authority.

The conflict could jeopardise the recent opening up of Ethiopia’s economy, stir up ethnic bloodshed elsewhere around Africa’s second most populous nation, and tarnish the reputation of Abiy who won a Nobel Peace Prize last year for a peace pact with Eritrea.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which governs the region of more than 5 million people, has accused Eritrea of sending tanks and thousands of soldiers over the border to support Ethiopian federal troops.

Asmara denies that.

UN envoy decries Israel’s move to expand illegal settlement

Tigray forces fired rockets into Eritrea at the weekend. A task force set up by Abiy to handle the government’s response to the crisis said federal troops had “liberated” the town of Alamata from the TPLF.” They fled, taking along around 10,000 prisoners,” it added, without specifying where those were from.

With communications mainly down and media barred, Reuters could not independently verify assertions made by all sides.

There was no immediate comment from Tigray’s leaders about Alamata, near the border with Amhara state, about 120 km (75 miles) from Tigray’s capital Mekelle.

TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael urged the United Nations and African Union to condemn Ethiopia’s federal troops, accusing them of using of high-tech weaponry including drones in attacks he said smashed a dam and a sugar factory.

“Abiy Ahmed is waging this war on the people of Tigray and he is responsible for the purposeful infliction of human suffering on the people and destruction of major infrastructure projects,” he said.

“We are not the initiators of this conflict and it is ev-

ident that Abiy Ahmed conducted this war as an attempt to consolidate his personal power,” he added, warning that Ethiopia could become a failed state or disintegrate.

The government has previously denied targeting the dam. It could not be reached for comment about Debretsion’s allegations it had targeted a sugar factory.

FIGHTING SPREADS: The fighting has spread beyond Tigray into Ethiopia’s northern region of Amhara, whose local forces are allied with Abiy’s forces.

On Friday, rockets were fired at two airports in Amhara in what the TPLF said was retaliation for government air strikes. Tigray leaders accuse Abiy, who is from the largest Oromo ethnic group, of persecuting them and purging them from government and security forces over the last two years.

He says they rose up against him by attacking a military base.

Amnesty International has denounced the killing of scores and possibly hundreds of civilian labourers in a massacre that both sides have blamed on each other.

The United Nations and others have urged Abiy to negotiate with the Tigrayans and there have been reports Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s government

could mediate.

Museveni, a former guerrilla leader in power since 1986, tweeted on Monday that he had met Demeke Mekonnen, Ethiopia’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, in Uganda.

“A war in Ethiopia would give the entire continent a bad image. There should be negotiations and the conflict stopped, lest it leads to unnecessary loss of lives and cripples the economy,” he said.

Ethiopia denied any mediation had begun.The Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) has around 140,000 personnel and plenty of experience from fighting Islamist militants in Somalia, rebel groups in border regions and a two-decade border standoff with Eritrea.

But many senior officers were Tigrayan, much of its most powerful weaponry is there and the TPLF has seized the powerful Northern Command’s headquarters in Mekelle. There are reports of defections of Tigrayan members of the ENDF. And the TPLF itself has a formidable history, spearheading the rebel march to Addis Ababa that ousted a Marxist dictatorship in 1991 and bearing the brunt of a 1998-2000 war with Eritrea that killed hundreds of thousands.

Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki – a long-time foe of the Tigrayan leaders - controls a vast standing army which the United States’ CIA puts at 200,000 personnel.

Abiy once fought alongside the Tigrayans and was a partner in government with them until 2018 when he took office, winning early plaudits for pursuing peace with Eritrea, starting to liberalise the economy and opening a repressive political system.

Crisis-hit Peru seeks third president in a week to exit 'nightmare'

Syria’s veteran foreign minister Walid al-Moallem dies DAMASCUS AGENCIES

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The UN’s Middle East envoy says he is “very concerned” by Israel’s decision to advance construction in an illegal Jewish settlement in occupied East Jerusalem that would make establishing a contiguous Palestinian state even harder, reiterating that “settlement construction is illegal under international law”. The move also risks angering the incoming US administration led by President-elect Joe Biden, who has opposed settlement expansion and hopes to revive negotiations over a twostate solution. A day ago, the Israel Land Authority announced on its website that it had opened up tenders for more than 1,200 new structures in the settlement of Givat Hamatos, according to the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now. “If built, it would further consolidate a ring of settlements between Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank,” Nickolay Mladenov, the UN envoy to the Middle East peace process, said in a statement. “It would significantly damage prospects for a future contiguous Palestinian State and for achieving a negotiated two-state solution based on the 1967 lines, with Jerusalem as the capital of both states. Settlement construction is illegal under international law and I call on the authorities to reverse this step.” Brian Reeves, a spokesman for Peace Now, said the move allows contractors to begin bidding on the tenders, a process that will conclude just days before Biden’s inauguration in January. Construction could then begin within months.

The Palestinian Authority and the European Union’s foreign policy chief have also criticised Israel’s move.

The Palestinian leadership seeks a future independent state that includes East Jerusalem and the West Bank, territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, and views the settlements as a major obstacle to peace.

“This is a continuation of the current Israeli government policy in destroying the two-state solution,” Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said.

Peru awoke on Monday morning still searching for a new head of state after lawmakers failed overnight to name what would be the third president in a week.

Interim leader Manuel Merino resigned on Sunday, after the ouster last week of his predecessor, centrist Martin Vizcarra, had sparked off protests and dragged the country into a constitutional crisis.

Congress is now seeking a replacement to helm the country towards elections for April next year. Lawmakers failed in a midnight vote to select the only name then put forward, Rocío Silva-Santisteban, a leftist human rights defender.

The country’s fragmented and unpopular legislature will vote again on Monday at 2 pm (1900 GMT) when another name will be on the list: lawmaker Francisco Sagasti, a 76-year-old industrial engineer and former

World Bank official. The political upheaval adds to the uncertainty facing Peru, the world’s no. 2 copper producer, already hard hit by Covid-19 and heading for its worst economic contraction in a century.

Vizcarra was impeached and removed from office by Congress last week over allegations of corruption, which he denies. Merino, who as president of the Congress led the impeachment, succeeded Vizcarra. But he too resigned, after two people died in protests against his fledgling government and lawmakers threatened to impeach him unless he stood down.

“There is a political immaturity from some and a lack of self-awareness from others in the face of what has happened in the country in the last week,” legislator Alberto de Belaunde, from the centrist Morado Party, told reporters. His party is now nominating Sagasti to be Peru’s third president in a week.

“The main thing for Peru is to regain stability and for this nightmare to end,” de Belaunde added.

Syria’s top diplomat and longtime Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, a staunch defender of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters that sparked a 10-year conflict, has died, state TV reported on Monday. There were no details on the cause of death, but the 79-year old had for years been in poor health with heart problems. A source close to the Syrian government said it was widely expected his deputy, veteran diplomat Faisal Mekdad, would replace him as foreign minister. “He was known for his honourable patriotic positions,” the government said in a statement, adding that al-Moallem died at dawn and would be buried later on Monday in Damascus. Al-Moallem was first appointed foreign minister in 2006 and also held the post of deputy prime minister.

Armenian foreign minister resigns after unpopular Karabakh ceasefire YEREVAN AGENCIES

Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan resigned from his post on Monday in a sign of political fall-out in the ex-Soviet republic after a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that locked in territorial gains for Azerbaijan.

Mnatsakanyan, whose departure was announced by the ministry’s spokeswoman on its Facebook page, had held the position since May 2018.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government has faced a popular backlash over the ceasefire accord that ended six weeks of fighting, with thousands of protesters last week demanding he resign.

On Monday, hundreds of protesters rallied in the

capital Yerevan’s central Freedom Square.

The ceasefire signed by leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on Nov. 10 halted military action in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but populated by ethnic Armenians. Some 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops are now being deployed to the region.

Mnatsakanyan met Azeri counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov three times in the past month and a half in search of a ceasefire arrangement, but each effort quickly broke down.

For over 25 years until fighting over NagornoKarabakh resumed on Sept. 27, ethnic Armenians held military control over the entire mountainous pocket and substantial swathes of Azeri territory ringing it. But when the guns fell silent, they had lost much of the en-

clave itself - including its second city Shushi, which Azeris call Shusha - as well as adjoining terrain.

Pashinyan said on Monday the war could have been avoided if Armenia had voluntarily ceded control of seven regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh as well as Shushi. “But we took up the challenge of war,” he told a news conference.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalyan wrote on Facebook shortly afterwards that giving up Shushi was never on the agenda at any stage of negotiations between the sides.

Pashinyan said the road through the Lachin region that connects Nagorno Karabakh with Armenian state territory would be reopened later on Monday, and that many displaced residents of the enclave were returning to their homes.

Time is running out for Brexit deal, EU tells Britain BRUSSELS/LONDON AGENCIES

European Union diplomats warned Britain on Monday that time was fast running out for a Brexit deal, and that it may already be too late to ratify one, as negotiators in Brussels began a last-ditch attempt to avoid a tumultuous exit at the end of December.

Almost five years since the Brexit referendum campaign began, Britain and the EU have still not worked out how nearly $1 billion in trade per year will operate once Britain leaves a status quo transition arrangement on Dec. 31.

Britain, which left the EU in January, called on the EU to show “more realism” if there was to be more progress in coming days. Ireland, the EU nation most exposed to Brexit, said there were just days, or possibly weeks, left to find a way to unlock trade talks, while a senior EU official said there may no longer be time to put any trade deal

agreed into force. “It’s getting terribly late and may be too late already,” said the senior EU official, as talks between the bloc’s negotiator Michel Barnier and his British counterpart, David Frost, resumed in Brussels.

“They haven’t quite reached where they had hoped to be,” a second source, an EU diplomat, said.

Britain said there had been some progress and that the two sides had common draft treaty texts, though significant elements were yet to be agreed.

A “no deal” finale to the Brexit crisis would shock financial markets and disrupt delicate supply chains that stretch across Europe and beyond - just as the economic hit from the coronavirus pandemic worsens.

BREXIT DEAL: Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said it could take another two weeks for an agreement to be struck, taking the talks close to the Dec. 31 hard deadline.

“We are more likely to get a deal than

not, purely because the consequences of not getting a deal are so significant and so costly for the UK and Ireland as it happens, and for some other EU countries,” Coveney told an online conference.

There has so far been little movement on the most contentious areas - so-called “level playing field” fair competition rules and fisheries. In London, meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was self-isolating in a flat in his Downing Street residence after he had contact with a British lawmaker who later tested positive for COVID-19.

His most powerful adviser, arch-Brexiteer Dominic Cummings, was ejected on Friday after a battle between rival factions in the government.

“We may not succeed,” Frost said on Sunday. “We are working to get a deal, but the only one that’s possible is one that is compatible with our sovereignty and takes back control of our laws, our trade, and our waters.”

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

SPORTS 11

Karachi and Lahore chase history in dream hBL PsL 2020 finaL cLash LAHORE

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dream final line-up of Karachi Kings and Lahore Qalandars, a wish of millions of HBL Pakistan Super League fans since its inception, is now true as the two rivals play for the coveted and prestigious trophy at the National Stadium in what should be an epic final on Tuesday night.

After an eight-month Covid-19-enforced break following the end of the group-stage, the HBL PSL playoffs began on Saturday with a thrilling Qualifier, between table-toppers Multan Sultans and Kings. Kings, helped by a stunning bowling performance of Mohammad Amir in the Super Over, held their nerves to book a place in the final.

Qalandars brushed aside Peshawar Zalmi by five wickets in the Eliminator 1 on the back of an unbeaten 74 by Mohammad Hafeez after which David Wiese’s all-round exploits helped the side, who had finished at the bottom of the table in each of the first four seasons, seal a berth in the final with a convincing 25-run win over Sultans in Eliminator 2. This is the first time these two sides are featuring in a HBL PSL final. Both sides flaunt top T20 cricketers who have played an integral role in their progression over the course of the tournament.

Karachi Kings’ Babar Azam dominates the chart for the highest run-getters. He sits at the top with 410 runs at a staggering average of 51.25. He has the most fifties in the tournament to date and his 48 fours are the most hit by any batsman in this edition.

Babar also holds the distinction of being the highest run scorer in T20 cricket this year

with 1,179 runs at 53.59.

Alex Hales is another batsman who has been at his destructive best as he has stroked 261 runs at an average of over 52 and a strike rate just under 152.

Mohammad Amir, fresh after delivering an immaculate Super Over, will spearhead Kings’ bowling attack. With 10 wickets in many matches, he is his side’s leading wicket-taker this edition. The left-arm pacer has an economy rate of 7.44.

Qalandars pace attack is led by Shaheen Shah Afridi, who has had an impressive run in the shorter format in T20 cricket. The leftarm quick leads the list of bowlers with most wickets with 17 scalps at just 17.70 runs per dismissal and an impressive economy of

seven. He is joined by pace-sensation Haris Rauf, who has the most T20 wickets – 50 at an average of 19.48 – in 2020. All-rounder David Wiese and Dilbar Hussain with 12 wickets each are locked at the fourth spot.

Qalandars boast a strong batting unit with Mohammad Hafeez, Fakhar Zaman and Ben Dunk –placed second, third and fourth, respectively, in the list of top run-getters this season. All three batsmen have scored two half-centuries.

Hafeez has 310 runs at 44.28, while Fakhar Zaman has scored 298 runs at 27.09.

Dunk, who has struck most sixes this edition (23), has scored 289 runs at a blistering strike rate of 175 and an average of over 41.

The eagerly anticipated final that will

Hamilton fired up to resist ‘new generation’ again in 2021

ISTANBUL AGENCIES

Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team will face ferocious renewed determination from their rivals next season when he begins his pursuit of a record eighth world title powered by his passions for human rights and global welfare.

After a dismal season that has seen them fail to register a win, Formula One’s most famous team, Ferrari, will invest heavily in bouncing back while Red Bull, who have been closest to matching Mercedes, seek more consistency and speed to close the gap.

For the newly crowned seven-time champion, it will mean another virile challenge for his crown from the “new generation” of drivers led by Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc as they bid to match his relentless excellence and speed. On Sunday, both younger men fell prey to their relative youth and made mistakes while Hamilton, making full use of his experience and maturity, produced a flawless drive to a remarkable triumph that had seemed unlikely beforehand.

Hamilton’s old rival and friend, four-time champion Sebastian Vettel, may also emerge as a threat with his

new team, Aston Martin, if the potential shown this year by the former Racing Point outfit can be realised. Sergio Perez, who is due to relinquish his seat to Vettel next month, finished second ahead of his Ferrari on Sunday.

The most likely scenario, however, is a repeat of the Briton’s supremacy with Mercedes on top and team-mate Valtteri Bottas mounting another bid for the title. Their rivals may run them hard and close, but with a package of new regulations due in 2022, next season is unlikely to offer the same opportunity for a reset.

Mercedes will also have one eye on the future when the racing restarts in Melbourne in March and they may be vulnerable, but in Hamilton, as the Turkish Grand Prix proved again, they have the ace in the F1 pack, regardless of age.

Since he recovered from losing the 2016 title to then-team-mate Nico Rosberg, Hamilton has reeled off four consecutive title triumphs to become the sport’s greatest champion.

‘JUST GETTING STARTED’: His win in treacherous conditions from sixth on the grid at Istanbul was one of his very best and brought him another record formerly held by Michael Schu-

macher: most wins by a driver with the same team - 73.

The German won 72 times with Ferrari, but Hamilton passed that mark on the same day he equalled his titles total and did so in 26 fewer races. He also holds records for most wins, poles, podiums and points finishes.

Verstappen, hailed as the sport’s next mega-star, acknowledged that weight of evidence in a tribute to the Englishman after his own error-strewn weekend confirmed he remains a work in progress. On Sunday, however, Hamilton warned that he felt like he “is only just getting started”, explaining that the Black Lives Matter movement has given him energy and purpose.

At 35, as his sport’s first and only black champion, he has become the face, voice and conscience of F1 and is using that platform to support the issues that have ushered in promises of change this year.

“I’ve been driven not just by my desire to win on the track, but by a desire to help push our sport and our world to become more diverse and inclusive,” he said on social media.

“I promise you I am not going to stop fighting for change. We have a long way to go, but I will continue to push for equality within our sport and within the greater world we live in.”

His former team-mate at McLaren, the 2009 champion Jenson Button, believes Hamilton will also be fuelled by a sporting desire to carry on winning and breaking records.

“He wants to win more world championships than anyone else before and I’m sure he would love that,” he told Sky Sports. “Drivers always say ‘we don’t look at numbers, we don’t compare’, but you’re always going to compare yourself to Michael Schumacher when you have the same world titles. “Those two are extraordinary individuals, very different in their personalities and the way they go racing, but equally as talented. Lewis is in the right place to beat Michael’s record and I really think he will next year.”

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determine a new champion is set to be watched and followed by millions of fans across the globe and in Pakistan on PTV Sports and Geo Super. Around the world, the broadcast will be beamed on Hum Masala in the UK, Sky New Zealand and Eurosport India.Live streaming will be available on the official PSL YouTube channel in all regions outside Pakistan, while fans in Pakistan can live stream the playoff stage games on other websites as well. Both captains are eagerly looking forward to the historic occasion.

Karachi Kings captain Imad Wasim said on Monday: “It is going to be a big game. I am sure it is not only me, but players in both teams are excited for this contest.

“We played good cricket in the Qualifier

but couldn’t finish it off how we wanted to but we are glad that we are in the finals. We are going to go out there express ourselves and I am hopeful we will win the trophy.

“We are going to play the final for Dean Jones who was a father-like figure in our dressing room and a great influence on our team. We want to dedicate the trophy to him, which is an additional motivation for the entire squad. “We are really looking forward to what is our first HBL PSL final.”

Lahore Qalandars captain Sohail Akhtar said: “It’s a big achievement to reach the final. The belief that was there for five years has paid off. Our fans have stood by us for five years and now is the time to give them the best possible gift by winning the trophy.

“We will try to build on the momentum we have had and the key for success in the final will be to stick to the basics in both batting and bowling departments.

“Playing the final against Karachi in their own backyard is a massive occasion and I am sure it will have a huge following on TV and social media. We are really excited and looking forward to the game.”

HEAD TO HEAD: History favours Kings in the head to head between the two sides.

Kings and Qalandars have met on 10 occasions in the HBL PSL with Kings winning six matches.

Qalandars have won three matches plus have an additional victory under their belt, courtesy an exciting Super Over finish in a 2018 edition group-match played in Dubai.

This edition, the two sides shared their two games with Qalandars winning at home (Gaddafi Stadium) by eight wickets and Kings recorded a crushing 10-wicket win at the National Stadium in the return groupstage fixture.

Questions abound for ‘21 after Covid-19 hits major golf

AUGUSTA AGENCIES

Dustin Johnson’s victory at the 84th Masters completed a major golf year disrupted by the Covid19 pandemic that produced historic winners, but also posed major questions for 2021.

Golf leaders were forced to cancel the 2020 Open Championship and other majors were rescheduled, the shuffled lineup capped by an autumn Masters five months before its 2021 edition is planned in its usual April spot.

“What was really heartening about the whole thing is that the organizations really worked together in the best interests of the sport,” Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said. “I think we came up with a pretty good result.”

The PGA was shifted from May to August and the US Open moved from June to September, both staying on scheduled courses.

The Open Championship was planned for Royal St. George’s in July but called off in April.

It’s set to be played there next year, with the PGA set for Kiawah Island in May and the US Open at Torrey Pines in June, presumably after a Masters in April. While Ridley plans for the 2021 Masters despite “a health crisis unlike the world has faced in our lifetimes,” no one knows what’s coming before April, from vaccine hopes to tighter lockdown laws. The United States is bracing for a grim winter amid skyrocketing coronavirus cases, with one million new infections in less than a week taking the total number past 11 million, with more than 246,000 fatalities.

“I’m hopeful we’ll see improved conditioned regarding this virus, but April is less than five

months away, so there’s certainly no assurance of that,” Ridley said.

“We’ll have to give it some lead time for April, so we’re just going to make the decision based on the best information possible. But we do have hopes the tournament in April will be closer to normal than it is right now.”

Spectators were banned from majors, leaving an awkward silence to replace the cheers of fans, but 2,000 people a day were allowed at a Masters tuneup in Houston, a first US step to awakening the roars despite the virus.

“I’m encouraged by what took place last week in Houston,” Ridley said. “We’ll be interested to see kind of how that went.”

The US PGA Tour shut down in March for three months, returning in June without fans and finding safety protocols that have allowed events to continue. “This year is unlike anything we’ve ever experienced,” 15-time major winner Tiger Woods said. “We’re lucky to have the opportunity to have our sport continue to go.”

Golf participation is growing, people seeking an outdoor activity easily allowing for face masks and social distancing. “Our sport is actually growing right now,” Woods said. “Circumstances that have allowed our game to grow and flourish.”

First-time major wins were produced by Americans Collin Morikawa, making only his second major start, at the PGA Championship at Harding Park and Bryson DeChambeau at the US Open at Winged Foot. The US Golf Association was forced to scrap its normal qualifying events and create a select field for the US Open, staged in suburban New York in one of the first major US Covid-19 outbreak areas.

Tuesday, 17 November, 2020

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We can stop covid-19: Moderna vaccine success gives World More hope

M

AGENCIES

ODERNA Inc’s experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing Covid-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial, the company said on Monday, becoming the second U.S. drugmaker to report results that far exceed expectations.

Together with Pfizer Inc’s vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorized for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available this year.

Next year, the U.S. government could have access to more than 1 billion doses just from the two vaccine makers, more than needed for the country’s 330 million residents. The vaccines, both developed with new technology known as messenger RNA (mRNA), represent powerful tools to fight a pandemic that has infected 54 million people worldwide and killed 1.3 million. The news also comes at a time when Covid-19 cases are soaring, hitting new records in the United States and pushing some European countries back into lockdowns.

“We are going to have a vaccine that can

stop Covid-19,” Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in a telephone interview.

Moderna’s interim analysis was based on 95 infections among trial participants who received either a placebo or the vaccine.

Of those, only five infections occurred in those who received the vaccine, which is administered in two shots 28 days apart.

“Having more than one source of an effective vaccine will increase the global supply and, with luck, help us all to get back to something like normal sometime in 2021,” said Eleanor Riley, professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh. Moderna expects to have enough safety data required for U.S. authorization in the next week or so and the company expects to file for emergency use authorization (EUA) in the coming weeks.

The company’s shares, which have more than quadrupled this year, rose 15% in premarket trading while European stocks and Wall Street stock futures jumped on the vaccine update. The benchmark S&P 500 futures rose 1.3%, stopping just short of a new record high, while the pan-European STOXX 600 hit late-February highs.

[MKTS/GLOB] Shares in Pfizer were down 1.7% in premarket trading while Britain’s AstraZeneca, which has yet to release any results from its

late-stage vaccine trials, were 0.7% weaker.

SEVERE CASES: A key advantage of Moderna’s vaccine is that it does not need ultra-cold storage like Pfizer’s, making it easier to distribute. Moderna expects it to be stable at normal fridge temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 48°F) for 30 days and it can be stored for up to 6 months at -20C. Pfizer’s vaccine must be shipped and stored at -70C, the sort of temperature typical of an Antarctic winter. It can be stored for up to five days at standard refrigerator temperatures or for up to 15 days in a thermal shipping box. The data from Moderna’s trial involving 30,000 volunteers also showed the vaccine prevented cases of severe Covid-19, a question that still remains with the Pfizer vaccine. Of the 95 cases in Moderna’s trial, 11 were severe and all 11 occurred among volunteers who got the placebo.

Moderna, part of the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed program, expects to produce about 20 million doses for the United States this year, millions of which the company has already made and is ready to ship if it gets FDA authorization.

“Assuming we get an emergency use authorization, we’ll be ready to ship through Warp Speed almost in hours,” Hoge said.

“So it could start being distributed instantly.”

The 95 cases of Covid-19 included sev-

eral key groups who are at increased risk for severe disease, including 15 cases in adults aged 65 and older and 20 in participants from racially diverse groups.

“We will need much more data and a full report or publication to see if the benefit is consistent across all groups, notably the elderly, but this is definitely encouraging progress, said Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

One unknown with this vaccine, and all the others currently being tested, is whether they will stop Covid-19 spreading.

“It is likely that vaccines that prevent symptomatic disease will reduce the duration and level of infectiousness, and thus reduce transmission, but we don’t yet know if this effect will be large enough to make any meaningful difference to the spread of the virus within communities,” said Riley at Edinburgh University.

ROLLING REVIEW: Most side effects were mild to moderate. A significant proportion of volunteers, however, experienced more severe aches and pains after taking the second dose, including about 10% who had fatigue severe enough to interfere with daily activities while another 9% had severe body aches. Most of these complaints were generally short-lived, Moderna said.

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“These effects are what we would expect with a vaccine that is working and inducing a good immune response,” said Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London Moderna’s data provide further validation of the promising but previously unproven mRNA platform, which turns the human body into a vaccine factory by coaxing cells to make certain virus proteins that the immune system sees as a threat and mounts a response against.

The United States has the world’s highest known number of Covid-19 cases and deaths with more than 11 million infections and nearly 250,000 deaths. The Trump Administration has primarily relied on the development of vaccines and treatments as its response to the pandemic. Moderna has received nearly $1 billion in research and development funding from the U.S. government and has a $1.5 billion deal for 100 million doses. The U.S. government also has an option for another 400 million doses.

The company hopes to produce between 500 million and 1 billion doses in 2021, split between its U.S. and international manufacturing sites, dependent in part on demand.

Moderna also said it would use its data to seek authorization in Europe and other regions. Europe’s health regulator said on Monday it had launched a real-time “rolling review” of Moderna’s vaccine, following similar reviews of vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

Other countries such as China and Russia have already begun vaccinations. Russia licensed its Sputnik-V Covid-19 vaccine for domestic use in August before it released data from large-scale trials. It said on Nov. 11 that its vaccine was 92% effective based on 20 infections in its large trial.

Biden to spotlight economy as Trump vows more court challenges to election WILMINGTON/WASHINGTON AGENCIES

GILGIT: A breathtaking view of the valley after snowfall. INP

Beginning of a new era: SpaceX launches astronauts into space CAPE CANAVERAL AGENCIES

Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX launched four astronauts on a flight to the International Space Station on Sunday, NASA’s first full-fledged mission sending a crew into orbit aboard a privately owned spacecraft.

SpaceX’s newly designed Crew Dragon capsule, which the crew has dubbed Resilience, lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 7:27 p.m. eastern time (0027 GMT on Monday) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

“That was one heck of a ride,” astronaut Mike Hopkins said from Crew Dragon to SpaceX mission control about an hour after liftoff. “There was a lot of smiles.”

Crew Dragon will gradually raise its orbit for the next 27 hours through a series of onboard thruster firings, giving the astronauts time to eat pre-packaged dinners and roughly eight hours to rest before docking at the International Space Station at 11 p.m. eastern time on Monday. An air leak caused an unexpected drop in capsule pressure less than two hours before launch, NASA officials said. But technicians said they conducted a successful leak check, and the scheduled launch was still on.

The Resilience crew includes Hopkins and two fellow NASA astronauts, mission pilot Victor Glover and physicist Shannon Walker. They were joined by Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, making his third trip to space after previously flying on the U.S. shuttle in 2005 and Soyuz in 2009.

The 27-hour ride to the space station, an orbiting laboratory some 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, was originally scheduled to begin on Saturday. But the launch was postponed for a day due to forecasts of gusty winds - remnants of Tropical Storm Eta - that would have made a return landing for the Falcon 9’s reusable booster stage difficult, NASA officials said.

The astronauts donned their custom white flight suits and arrived at the Kennedy Space Center launch pad on schedule at 4:30 p.m. in three white Tesla SUVs, flanked by NASA and SpaceX personnel. SpaceX mission operator Jay Aranha, speaking from the company’s Hawthorne, California headquarters, told the crew to “have an amazing trip, and know that we are all for one.”

Mission commander Mike Hopkins responded, saying “to all the people at NASA and SpaceX, by working together through these difficult times, you’ve inspired the nation the world.” “And now it’s time for us to do our part, Crew 1 for all,” Hopkins said.

Vice-President Mike Pence attended the launch and said beforehand that under President Donald Trump, America had “renewed our commitment to lead in human space exploration.” President-elect Joe Biden Tweeted his congratulations, saying the launch was “a testament to the power of science.”

FIRST PRIVATE MISSION: NASA is calling the flight its first “operational” mission for a rocket and crew-vehicle system that was 10 years in the making. It represents a new era of commercially developed spacecraft - owned and operated by a pri-

vate entity rather than NASA - for sending Americans into orbit.

A trial flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon in August, carrying just two astronauts to and from the space station, marked NASA’s first human space mission to be launched from U.S. soil in nine years, following the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. In the intervening years, U.S. astronauts have had to hitch rides into orbit aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA contracted SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to develop competing space capsules aimed at replacing its shuttle program and weaning the United States from dependence on Russian rockets to send astronauts to space.

SpaceX’s launch on Sunday was the first of six operational missions for NASA. The company has also booked private astronaut missions, including one slated to carry actor Tom Cruise in the coming years.

Musk, the billionaire SpaceX chief executive who is also CEO of electric carmaker and battery manufacturer Tesla Inc TSLA.O, did not watch the liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center launch control room, NASA officials said. Musk said on Saturday he “most likely” has a moderate case of Covid-19.

SpaceX and NASA have conducted contact-tracing and determined Musk had not come into contact with anyone who interacted with the astronauts. “Our astronauts have been in quarantine for weeks, and they should not have had contact with anybody,” NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said on Friday. “They should be in good shape.”

President-elect Joe Biden on Monday will focus on reviving a pandemic-battered U.S. economy as he prepares to take office, while outgoing President Donald Trump has promised more lawsuits of the type that so far have failed to alter his election defeat.

With coronavirus cases surging, Biden will receive a briefing and give a speech in his home state of Delaware on rebuilding an economy that has suffered millions of job losses as the pandemic has killed more than 245,000 Americans.

Biden’s scientific advisers will meet this week with pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines to prevent Covid-19, a top aide to the president-elect said, in preparation for the logistical challenges of widespread vaccination after the Democrat takes office on Jan. 20.

Trump, a Republican, briefly appeared to acknowledge defeat on Sunday only to backtrack, saying on Twitter that he concedes “nothing” and repeating his unfounded accusations of voter fraud.

He later promised on Twitter to file “big cases showing the unconstitutionality of the 2020 Election,” even though he has made no headway with his legal challenges in multiple states so far.

Election officials from both parties have said there is no evidence of major irregularities. Federal election security officials have decried “unfounded claims” and expressed “utmost confidence” in the integrity of the elections, according to a statement last week by the lead U.S. cybersecurity agency.

LEGAL SETBACK: In another blow to Trump’s legal strategy, his campaign on Sunday dropped a major part of a lawsuit it had brought seeking to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its results, narrowing the case to an issue affecting a small number of ballots. Biden won the state by more than 68,000 votes.

Biden beat Trump in the Nov. 3 election by the same 306-232 margin in the state-by-state Electoral College that Trump proclaimed a “landslide” when he won in 2016. The former vice president also won the national popular vote by at least 5.5 million votes, or 3.6 percentage points, with ballots still being counted.

Former President Barack Obama, a Democrat who campaigned against Trump, said it was past time for Trump to

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concede, and criticized Republicans who also refuse to accept the victory of his former vice president.

“When your time is up, then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego,” Obama told the CBS News show “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired on Sunday.

“I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, will hold a hearing on Tuesday titled: “Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression and the 2020 Election.”

STILL NO CONCESSION: The Trump administration has still not recognized Biden as president-elect, preventing his team from gaining access to the government office space and funding normally provided to an incoming administration.

Biden’s top advisers said Trump’s refusal to begin a transition could jeopardize the battle against the virus and inhibit vaccine distribution planning.

The number of U.S. coronavirus cases passed 11 million on Sunday, up a million in a week and the fastest increase since the pandemic began.

Biden has promised to make the health crisis a top priority as president.

Ron Klain, who will be White House chief of staff when Biden takes office, said Biden’s scientific advisers would meet with Pfizer Inc and other unnamed drugmakers this week.

Pfizer said last week its vaccine candidate had proved more than 90% effective in initial trials, giving hope that widespread vaccination in the coming months could help get the pandemic under control.

Moderna Inc said on Monday its experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19, based on interim data from a late-stage clinical trial.

Other companies also are in advanced stages of developing promising vaccines.

Biden will also resume work on building his governing team. Although Klain, his first appointment, is a white man, the president-elect has vowed that his administration will “look like America” and be represented by women and minorities. Some 46% of his transition staff are people of color and 52% are women, CNN reported, citing data provided by the transition team.