EpaperISB_21-01-11

Monday, 11 January, 2021 I 26 Jumada Al-Awwal, 1442 I Rs 40.00 I Vol XI No 193 I 52 Pages I Islamabad Edition

PAKISTAN BLACKOUT

As power is restored, ministers blAme old trAnsmission system for breAkdown g

InquIry commIttee constItuted to look Into causes of power system's collapse

ISLAMABAD staff report

m

InIster for energy omar ayub khan has said that most of the parts of the country have been energised after the major breakdown occurred saturday night due to a sudden drop of frequency in the national grid from fifty to zero. addressing a press conference along with minister for Information and broadcasting senator shibli faraz on sunday, ayub said that teams are working to restore power supply across the country.

He said that teams are facing difficulties due to heavy fog and the exact reason behind the technical fault will be identified once the fog lifts. “the reason for the breakdown has not been ascertained yet. the technical fault occurred in a particular area,” he said. the energy minister said that during

the past tenures, no attention was paid towards improvement of the transmission system on modern lines. “under the government of pml-n [pakistan muslim league-nawaz], the country saw eight major power breakdowns,” said the energy minister. “when the incumbent government assumed office, no work had been done to upgrade the transmission system. we are now investing in the transmission and distribution system. a $6 billion transmission line has been laid in matiari,” he further said. the minister said that 10,300 megawatt (mw) power supply was in the national grid last night and fault occurred at guddu power plant which rapidly tripped all power houses and grids. He added that the authorities managed to restart tarbela power station and began restoring supply. “we energised tarbela power plant twice, which initiated the restoration process,” he said, adding that electricity

CoronAvirus in

pAkistAn

CONFIRMED CASES:

502,416

LAST UPDATED AT 9:18 AM ON JANUARY 10, 2020

DAY'S DEATH TOLL:

46

RECOVERED:

NEW CASES:

2,899 DEATHS:

456,969 10,644 SINDH:

PUNJAB:

225,509 144,909 KP:

BALOCHISTAN:

AJK/GB:

ISLAMABAD:

61,148

18,373

8,478/4,879 39,120

has been restored in Islamabad, faisalabad, Jhang and multan, while k-electric has been provided 400 megavolt amperes (mva). speaking on the occasion, faraz said that the government is committed to bringing improvement in the power sector.

He said that a comprehensive plan is being pursued to upgrade transmission systems and to enhance power generation. later taking to twitter, the energy minister said 500kv and 220kv grid stations have been restored across the country and power supply has resumed in rahim yar khan, bahawalpur, daharki, guddu, rohri, shikarpur, dera murad Jamali, sivi, quetta, peshawar, Islamabad, Jhelum, lahore, multan, sahiwal, faisalabad, gujranwala, sialkot, and sargodha. “teams are busy restoring electricity for other cities,” he added. faraz also said in a tweet that the credit for restoration of power supply across county goes to ayub who tirelessly worked throughout the night along with his team. He said that the issue was resolved through effective action. separately, special assistance to prime minister (sapm) on political communication dr shahbaz gill alleged that the former pakistan muslim league-nawaz (pml-n) government had inked very costly electricity project contracts but had failed to install a proper transmission system and the nation and country is suffering today due to their negligence.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

editorial: blackout lessons STORY ON PAGE 06

PM says India backing IS to spread chaos in Pakistan g

Imran says gIvIng opp nro would be easy, but ‘dIsastrous for pakIstan’ ISLAMABAD staff report

prime minister Imran khan has said that India is backing Islamic state (Is) in the region to spread chaos in pakistan by fanning sectarianism.

Interacting with digital media publishers and broadcasters in Islamabad on sunday, the prime minister said that new delhi is sponsoring terrorism and sectarianism in the country.

He maintained that India was behind the terror attack in balochistan. He said that pakistan’s security agencies successfully pre-empted Indian plots to fan sectarianism. pm Imran said that it is unfortunate that terrorists targeted Hazara workers in a thin populated area.

He said that previous governments did not pay due attention to balochistan and always preferred to form alliances with baloch chieftains who became the biggest hurdle in transferring development funds at the grassroots level. the premier said that the pakistan tehreek-e-Insaf (ptI) government has focused on the socio-economic development of

Pakistan urges US to reserve concerns on India’s aiding, abetting terrorism ISLAMABAD staff report

pakistan on sunday encouraged the united states state department to reserve its concerns for the active aiding and abetting of terrorist activities by India. the foreign office (fo) issued a sharp rebuke to the us state department’s statement on the conviction of Zakiur rehman lakhvi, one of the alleged founders of the banned lashkar-e-taiba (let). lakhvi was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment and imposed a fine of rs300,000 in a terror financing case by an antiterrorism court (atc) in lahore. the us state department said in its statement that lakhvi’s “crimes go far beyond financing terrorism”. “pakistan should further hold him accountable for his involvement in terrorist attacks, including the mumbai attacks,” it added. responding to the us state department’s statement, the fo emphasised that pakistan “is fully abiding by its own statutes and fulfilment of its international obligations”. “the investigations, prosecutions and subsequent convictions, through due process, are a

balochistan to uplift the common citizens of the province who are facing extreme poverty.

He claimed that the corrupt opposition leaders had requested him in writing to grant them a national reconciliation ordinance (nro). He said that he is against giving national reconciliation ordinance (nro) to those who looted pakistan’s wealth and plunged the country into the quagmire of debt.

He maintained that his life would be a lot easier if he gives the opposition an nro, but it would be disastrous for pakistan. the prime minister said that he had opposed the nro’s given by the then-president pervez musharraf. the premier stressed that bringing change in the country was a continuous struggle and one cannot afford to stop.

He highlighted that of the taxes collected by the government, about 3,000 people from a total 220 million actually paid 70 per cent tax. from this amount, he continued, half goes into paying the debts incurred due to the loans taken by previous governments.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

more inside

Coronavirus cases cross 500,000 mark; 46 more die STORY ON PAGE 02

first polio drive of 2021 to vaccinate 40m children begins today STORY ON BACK PAGE

reflection of the effectiveness of pakistan’s legal system which operates independently of any extraneous factors or influences.” the fo stressed that the legal process in the mumbai case remains stalled due to India’s reluctance to send over witnesses for cross-examination in the pakistani court. “the state department is encouraged to reserve its concern for the active aiding, abetting, planning, promoting, financing and execution of terrorist activities by India for which sufficient irrefutable evidence has already been provided,” it asserted.

It may be noted here that

India had also questioned the timing of the action against lakhvi and linked it to the upcoming financial action task force (fatf) meeting.

However, the fo on saturday rejected the Indian ministry of external affairs’ statement and stressed that new delhi has “no locus standi to comment on the independent judicial mechanisms of pakistan”.

“In this regard, the only ‘compliance’ that interests pakistan is abiding by its own statutes and fulfilment of its international obligations,” read the fo statement.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

PPP assertive, PML-N divided on taking part in Senate elections

STORY ON BACK PAGE in today’s issue

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02

Monday, 11 January, 2021

NEWS

CORONAvIRuS CASES CROSS 500,000 mARK; 46 mORE dIE ISLAMABAD

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TLTP

AKISTAN’S total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases have crossed the half a million mark and reached 502,416 during the last twenty-four hours, said the National Command and Operation Centre

(NCOC) on Sunday.

As many as 2,899 more people tested positive for the infection during the aforementioned period. The coronavirus claimed 46 more lives in the country during the past 24 hours, lifting the countrywide death toll from the disease to 10,644.

A total of 44,410 samples were tested, out of which 2,899 turned out to be positive

Indonesian envoy passes away in Karachi; FO expresses grief KARACHI: Indonesian Consul General in Karachi, Totok Prianamto, has passed away, confirmed the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia on Sunday. He passed away on Saturday due to a heart-related illness. “We are deeply saddened by the demise of Indonesian Consul General in Karachi, Totok Prianamto, due to cardiac arrest,” Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said in a statement. He said Consul General Totok Prianamto played an important role in strengthening bilateral relations between Pakistan and Indonesia, and Islamabad deeply values his positive contributions. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the late Consul General Totok Prianamto’s family and friends,” the spokespersons said, adding: “We also convey our deepest condolences to the brotherly government of Indonesia.” TLTP

SC to take up PPP leader's bail request ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) will take up the bail petition of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader Syed Khursheed Shah on Monday. A three-member bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam and comprising Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali would hear the petition filed by Shah and his son Farukh Shah in a case pertaining to being in possession of assets disproportionate to declared income. The court, while fixing the request for hearing, issued a notice to a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor. The NAB had arrested Shah in September 2019 from Islamabad and filed a reference against him the following day. In December 2020, he was indicted in the case. Multiple corruption cases against Shah are under investigation with NAB. In 2012, an accountability court had directed NAB to file a reference against him on a complaint pertaining to the alleged accumulation of illegitimate assets. In 2013, NAB had reopened two corruption cases against Shah under the directives of the Lahore High Court. In July 2019, NAB chief Justice (r) Javed Iqbal had approved the inquiry against Shah. STAFF REPORT

E-payment mandatory for over Rs1m customs duties, taxes from Jan 15 KARACHI: Pakistan Customs has announced that payment of duty and taxes above Rs1 million will only be made electronically from January 15 onwards.

According to a statement released on Sunday, consignments through the WeBOC system will be cleared on e-payment of duty and taxes above Rs1 million. The statement said that the e-payment system is a modern way of collecting tax payments through the internet. Banks, taxpayers, withholding agents and eintermediaries are beneficiaries of this system.

Taxpayers can create their electronic payments from anywhere and can also schedule their payments to be credited to the government of Pakistan accounts on any future dates. The e-payment system decreases the workload on bank staff. Payments made through Payment System (PAYSYS) are instantly communicated to electronic systems of FBR and banks. It is very easy to use this system and generate various informative reports for daily branch level operations. Payment System also provides you with electronic payment documents in hard copy as well as an electronic copy in PDF format for subsequent utilisation, the statement added. TLTP

on Saturday. Pakistan has conducted a total of 7,088,014 tests since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country in February 2020.

The number of recovered patients stands at 456,969 as 1,524 recoveries were also seen during the last 24 hours. A total of 2,278 of the Covid-19 patients under treatment are said to be in critical condition.

Punjab's tally for Covid-19 reached

144,909 after it recorded 798 fresh cases on Saturday, the provincial healthcare department maintained. About 18 more deaths were also recorded, taking the provincial death toll to 4,260. The province has so far seen 130,120 recoveries.

Sindh reported 829 new coronavirus cases during the past 24 hours, taking the tally to 226,338. According to Chief Minister Syed

Nawaz Sharif offered bribe to cast aside foreign assets’ investigations: Broadsheet LLC ISLAMABAD APP

Nawaz Sharif offered a bribe to Broadsheet LLC to abandon the probe against his foreign assets, Broadsheet's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kaveh Moussavi said.

In an interview, he said that Broadsheet had flatly refused the deal offered by a person claiming himself as the nephew of Nawaz Sharif in the year 2012, retorting that the Broadsheet did not negotiate with crooks. The Sharif family has assets not only in the United Kingdom but across the globe, he said, adding that the Sharif family must present quite a lot of explanation regarding their resources for amassing these assets.

He said that the process of accountability had been continuing but after then-president General Pervez Musharraf left office, his successors started hampering the process by not allowing access to information and termination of Broadsheet’s contract. Responding to a question, he severely

criticised Nawaz for claiming that Broadsheet had exonerated the Sharifs. In fact, Broadsheet did the opposite, he said adding that it was a complete lie that Broadsheet exonerated Sharif family.

Broadsheet did not pursue Avenfield apartments source of buying as a Pakistani accountability court had already contended that the apartments were bought by the Sharifs from the stolen money. However, Broadsheet was ready to investigate money sources of Avenfield apartments, if asked by the government of Pakistan, he said.

Nawaz was behind termination of contract with Broadsheet which was investigating how hundreds of millions of dollars had been stolen from Pakistan and stashed abroad, Moussavi said.

He said that General Musharraf tasked Broadsheet to detect the assets of 200 people but, after his tenure ended, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) started asking to remove names of certain people from the list. However, that request was refused. This was the hypocrisy of then government of Pakistan, he said.

Murad Ali Shah, six more patients succumbed to the deadly virus as the death toll jumped to 3,699. He further said that 747 more patients recovered overnight, taking the total to 204,075. So far, Sindh has reported 226,338 cases, Punjab 144,909, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) 61,148, Balochistan 18,373, Islamabad 39, 120, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) 8,478, and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) 4,879.

Broadsheet LLC seeks additional $1.18mn from NAB NEWS DESK The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) counsel received a letter from Broadsheet LLC that both confirmed the receipt of $28.7 million at the law agency, but also asked for an additional $1,180,799.66. “However, pursuant to paragraph 3 of both orders, interest continued to accrue following the issue of our client’s Third Party Debt order and an additional sum of $1,180,799.66 had accrued on your client’s judgment debts prior to receipt of the funds from United National Bank,” said the letter to the antigraft body. The letter further stated that Deputy Master Lay had made a costs award in the Broadsheet client’s favour in the sum of £30,000, equivalent to $40,677 and that those costs have been retained out of the funds received from United National in priority of the Judgment Debts. The outstanding sum stood at $1,221,476.66, and there had been a further interest at $267 per day since the start of the new year. “Our client has also incurred additional enforcement costs, independent of those summarily assessed by Deputy Master Lay. Those costs exceed US$900,000 and are wholly attributable to your client’s failure to engage with us and the Court prior to 17 December,” said the letter. The Broadsheet has invited the NAB to “agree terms of settlement, to be enforced by way of a Tomlin Order, pursuant to which your client will pay our client all interest accrued on the Judgment Debts within 14 days”, with a deadline of 8 January 2021.

Electric motorcycle launched in KP PESHAWAR AZIZ BUNERI

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's (KP) electric motorcycle maker Teleport has launched its first eco-friendly electric motorcycle. Teleport Chief Executive Mohi-ud-Din told Pakistan Today that they have been working on electric motorcycles for the last three years. He said the bike is of international standard, however, all its parts, except the battery, are locally available, making the bike less expensive than a conventional petrol based one. “We have installed two batteries in our motorcycles and a single battery is enough to support the bike for over 100 km,” he said. According to Mohi-ud-Din, the current electric motorcycle has a 60-watt battery and can travel with a speed of 75 km/h to 80 km/h.

The electric motorcycle also has a cruise control programme that makes it easier to fix the speed. Other

parts include a desk brake and a regenerator brake system that recharges the batteries, while a thousandwatt motor has been installed which is equivalent to a typical 150cc motorcycle. He further informed that at present teleport has launched eight electric motorcycles in the market which will save 128 metric carbon emissions with the reduction in import of 4,000 litres of oil per annum, while providing Rs450, 000 per annum saving to customers in terms of oil and other expenses. Mohi-ud-Din further said that the company will start regular production in the first quarter of 2021.

At present, the sale price has been set between Rs150,000 to Rs200,00, whereas a token-free facility would also be provided to electric motorcycle customers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for five years. It should be noted that Pakistan is facing several problems due to environmental pollution and climate change.

With the introduction of electric motorcycles and other

vehicles, the country can avoid the impacts of climate change.

In terms of design, electric motorcycles are no different from Japanese or Chinese motorcycles currently available in the market, the only difference being the electric engine instead of petrol.

Electric motorcycles cost less than conventional bikes as they do not require petrol and other expenses and will cost an average of up to Rs500 per month, compared to an average of Rs4,000 per petrol bike with a 50 km average. It may be mentioned here that companies manufacturing electric vehicles and motorcycles in Pakistan have been offered concessions through the Cabinet-approved Electric Vehicle Policy, including tax and customs duty exemptions. According to the policy, 30 per cent of the country's vehicles will be converted to electric by 2030, while some local CNG stations will be converted into electric charging units.

UNSC members rebuff India's bid to secure leadership of key committees: sources UNITED NATIONS APP

India's bid to assume the chairmanship of some of the most important subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Security Council could not muster support from other members of the 15-nation body, according to diplomatic sources. Sources said that the Indians pushed for, but failed, to secure the chairmanship of the powerful “1267” Al-Qaeda/Da'esh Sanctions Committee and the “1540” Non-proliferation Committee and also to become the custodian of the Afghanistan file in the Security Council.

Aware of India's narrow bilateral agenda to utilise the Al-Qaeda and Da'esh Sanctions Committee for its own purposes, the vast majority of council members were opposed to giving India the chairmanship of this key committee. A council source told APP that India tried its utmost, until the very last moment, to get this position, lobbying intensively in New York and in the capitals of the

council's members, but it failed to convince them.

According to the source, it is no secret that New Delhi’s bid for the post was designed to advance India’s own agenda, mainly against Pakistan. "The work of the AlQaeda Sanctions Committee is too important to be given in the hands of the Indians,” an African diplomat remarked.

Pakistan last year submitted 4 listings of Indians nationals for supporting Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) in Afghanistan. But these listings were blocked by some of India's friends in the AlQaeda Sanctions Committee. More recently, Pakistan also conveyed information on the financing and arming of the TTP and JuA, the two terrorist groups listed on the committee’s terrorism list. Similarly, India's bid for the Non-Proliferation Committee encountered resistance in the Security Council, diplomats said. Many Western countries considered that India was not suited to head this important panel since it is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This raises a serious question mark regarding New Delhi's nuclear status.

India also wanted to manage the Afghanistan issue in the Security Council but found that even some of its close friends felt that India’s role would not be positive in advancing the Afghan peace process. The Afghan file was given instead to two European countries, which the council members consider will play a more impartial and constructive role in the present delicate phase of the situation in Afghanistan. As a sop to India’s wounded pride, it was given the chairmanship of the 1988Taliban Sanctions Committee, where the proposals for listing and delisting of individuals rests mainly with the U.S. and other permanent members of the council and the chair’s role is minimal.

About the hype created by the Indian UN Mission about assuming the chairmanship of the “1373” Counter Terrorism Committee (CTC), a Western diplomat noted that India has been given only a one year rather than the normal two-year term as the chair of this currently dormant committee and that too deferred until next year when the incumbent chair leaves the council.

Monday, 11 January, 2021

NEWS

China’s sinopharm seeks approval from pakistan for Covid vaCCine ISLAMABAD

C

TLTP

hInA’S Sinopharm has sought permission from Pakistan for emergency use of its Covid-19 vaccine in the country.

Sinopharm has applied for registration of its coronavirus vaccine to the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP). The Chinese vaccine firm has submitted the complete data of the clinical trials of its vaccine to the DRAP. Earlier, Pakistan had announced to

purchase 1.2 million doses of the corona vaccine from China. Sinopharm, a staterun Chinese firm, is developing two Covid-19 vaccines.

A session of the DRAP registration board is expected to be held this week, according to sources at the authority.

The registration board may approve or reject the vaccine for emergency use in Pakistan.

The approval from the top drug authority will allow the use of the Chinese vaccine in Pakistan.

Earlier, Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) Imran Khan on health Dr Faisal Sultan said on Saturday that

Pakistan is in talks with five international coronavirus vaccine producing companies for the purchase.

Talking to a private television channel, Dr Faisal said that Islamabad is in contact with five companies of the three countries of the world including China, United Kingdom and Russia to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

The vaccine, he said, would be available in Pakistan in March, and administered to health workers and senior citizens in the first phase. he said that the government will also run a special campaign before launching the Covid-19 vaccination programme.

The federal cabinet meeting chaired

by Prime Minister Imran Khan recently allowed the Ministry of national health Services, Regulations and Coordination to purchase Covid-19 vaccine.

According to details, SAPM Dr Faisal briefed the cabinet on the current Covid-19 situation in Pakistan.

It is to be noted that the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had already approved a supplementary grant for the advance purchases of the vaccines. Pakistan has planned to vaccinate health workers and senior citizens in the first phase in a bid to save them from the deadly pandemic.

03

indian firing along loC leaves two elderly injured: ispr RAWALPINDI STAFF REPORT

Two elderly citizens of a same family were injured as Indian army troops resorted to unprovoked ceasefire violation in Baroh and Khanjar Sectors along Line of Control (LoC), said the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Sunday. According to the army’s media wing, the Indian troops deliberately targeted the civilian population with mortars and automatics. Due to the Indian army indiscriminate fire, two elderly citizens sustained injuries who were evacuated to a nearby hospital for necessary medical treatment. These are the first two civilians injured this year. Indian troops have committed 38 ceasefire violations since January 1, 2021. Earlier on January 2, Pakistan Army shot down the second Indian spy quadcopter of the year at Line of Control (LoC) over violating the country’s airspace.

Taking to Twitter, the ISPR DG announced that the Pakistan Army troops shot down an Indian spying quadcopter in Chakothi Sector along LoC. “The quadcopter intruded 500 meters on Pakistan’s side of LoC,” the army’s media wing said. It was the second quadcopter of the year to be shot down by the forces as the first one was downed on January 1, 2021, by Pakistan Army in nausheri Sector along the LoC.

northern alliance leader khalili to visit pakistan ISLAMABAD MIAN ABRAR

MURREE: A striking view of snow-covered hills of Muree. PPI

soldier martyred in north Waziristan laid to rest: 2 terrorists killed HARIPUR: The funeral prayers of Sepoy naseer were offered at his native town in haripur, the InterServices Public Relations (ISPR) said on Sunday.

According to the ISPR, Sepoy naseer embraced martyrdom during an intelligence-based operation (IBO) on a terrorist hideout in Kani Roga, Doga Macha, north Waziristan tribal district. Two terrorists were also killing in the operation, the ISPR revealed.

A large number of people from all walks of life attended the martyred sepoy's funeral prayer. he was buried with full military honour. On January 6, a Frontier Corps (FC) soldier embraced martyrdom when terrorists from inside Afghanistan fired across the international border at a military check post in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Mohmand district, the ISPR said. According to the military's media wing, 25-yearold Sepoy Fazal Wahid, a resident of Shangla in Swat valley, sustained bullet injuries during the exchange of fire, but succumbed to his wounds later. Pakistani troops responded to the attack promptly, the ISPR statement said. TLTP

Govt to introduce strong data protection law to protect privacy: fawad ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Chaudhry Fawad hussain has said that efforts are being made to introduce a strong data protection law to protect citizens' privacy. Reacting to the new WhatsApp privacy policy that allows data sharing of consumers, he tweeted that instead of adopting a unilateral approach, such policy changes should have been made after wider consultation.

WhatsApp laid out fresh terms on Wednesday, asking users to agree to let owner Facebook and its subsidiaries collect user data, including their phone number and location. Some privacy activists questioned the “accept our data grab or get out” move on Twitter, and suggested users switch to apps like Signal and Telegram. TLTP

Marriyum lambasts govt for pinning blackout on PML-N govt NEWS DESK ISLAMABAD

Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-n) Information Secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb on Sunday termed the federal ministers’ press conference on the power breakdown a bulletin of lies.

The PML-n leader said that not only electricity, but every sector of the country has broken down ever since the incompetent and disastrous Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf (PTI) government was imposed on Pakistan.

In a statement, Marriyum said that the PTI government had become habitual of blaming everything on the opposition that they shamelessly blamed the outage on the previous PML-n government even when the actual cause of the blackout has not yet been determined. In response to the press conference of the federal ministers, the PML-n spokesperson stated that up to 25,000 megawatts of electricity had been supplied by nawaz Sharif in the summer, but when the PTI’s incompetence caused a breakdown, the government blamed it on the former premier’s mistake. The system was working great when it was handling maximum load in summers and

during wintertime, when the load is less than half, it crashed due to nawaz, she jibed at the incumbent government. She said that the PTI could not install a single megawatt in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) over the past eight years or across the country while being the ruling party for the last three years. Yet, she continued, they had the audacity of blaming nawaz Sharif for the breakdown. nawaz saved the nation from 18-hour load shedding and installed new power plants, she added. If the transmission system was bad, then how did PM Imran’s 18-hour loadshedding come to zero? she asked. When the ruler is a thief, incompetent and incompetent, darkness becomes the destiny of the nation, she lambasted.

The PML-n information secretary said that it would not surprise the nation if PM Imran’s next statement comes out to be that the Sharif-installed power plants are blackmailing him.

She said that ever since Imran Khan came into power, everything has been breaking down, including the national currency to the economy, employment, business, flour, sugar, food, railways, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), ministries, Institutions and the foreign policy.

Bagasse-based IPPs agree to cut power tariffs ISLAMABAD TLTP

Following the solar energy-based independent power producers (IPPs), bagasse-based IPPs have also agreed to sign amended power purchase agreements with the government.

The signing of the amended purchase agreements will slash the existing tariffs to a considerable extent.

According to details, eight bagasse-based IPPs will sign an amended deal of power tariff with the government, whereas both sides will sign the amended

agreement after endorsement from the federal cabinet.

"The new power agreement will also require approval from the governing boards of the bagassebased IPPs," sources added.

Solar-based IPPs that had signed memoranda of understanding in August 2020 had recently reached an agreement with the government negotiation team for signing amended agreement to slash power tariffs.

It is to be mentioned here that a negotiation team of the government is currently in talks with IPPs over their dues payment mechanism and signing the amended PPAs.

Mohammad Karim Khalili, former Afghan vicepresident, will be on a three-day visit to Pakistan starting on Monday, Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. Khalili, who also served as the chairman of the Afghan high Peace Council, would lead a delegation during his three-day visit. Khalili, the former second vice-president of Afghanistan, will be calling on Prime Minister Imran Khan, besides meeting national Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and other high-level officials. The chairman of the hezb-eWahdat Islami Afghanistan, Khalili, is from Shia hazara minority from the northern Alliance and his visit is a part of Pakistan’s ongoing policy to reach out to political leadership in Afghanistan to forge common understanding on the Afghan peace process and deepen people-to-people ties. his visit comes on heels of the start of intra-Afghan peace talks between the Afghan government and Afghan Taliban. Khalili is visiting Pakistan at a time when Afghanistan is rife with the rumors of formation of an interim government to help push the political reconciliation in the war-ravaged Afghanistan. Pakistan’s fraternal ties with Afghanistan are rooted deep in shared history, faith, culture, values and traditions. PM Imran, on many occasions, said that Pakistan fully supports all efforts for peace, stability and prosperity in Afghanistan. Pakistan remains steadfast in its support for an inclusive, broad-based and comprehensive political solution to the conflict in Afghanistan through an Afghan-led and Afghanowned peace process.

hearing in shahzeb khan murder case today ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

The Supreme Court (SC) will take up on Monday the petitions of a suspect and his accomplices against the conviction in the headline-grabbing Shahzeb Khan murder case. In December 2012, 20-year-old Khan, the son of a deputy superintendent of police (DSP), was gunned down in a Defence housing Authority (DhA) neighbourhood in Karachi after picking up a fight with a servant of Shahrukh Jatoi, the murderer, purportedly for harassing his sister. According to witnesses, Jatoi and his three accomplices chased and shot Khan to punish him for roughing up the servant. In June 2013, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) sentenced Jatoi and co-accused nawab Siraj Talpur to death.

Sajjad Talpur and Ghulam Murtaza Lashari, the Talpurs’ servant, were handed life imprisonment for their involvement in the murder. A couple of months after the sentence, however, Khan's parents had issued a formal pardon to the convicts. The ShC in november 2017 set aside the death penalty and ordered a retrial after Jatoi's counsel, Farooq h naek, successfully argued that terrorism charges should not have been included in the case. Five years into the case, in January 2018, the apex court took up the case as it admitted for hearing a request seeking to strike down the high court's decision. A three-member bench, headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar and comprising Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed, will hear the case on Monday. The registrar office has issued notices to stakeholders.

04 NEWS

Monday, 11 January, 2021

DenSe fog DiSruPtS roAD trAffic AcroSS country LAHORE

PM expresses sorrow over Seth Abid’s demise Prime Minister Imran Khan has expressed grief and sorrow over the sad demise of renowned businessman Seth Abid Hussain. In a condolence message on his official Twitter handle, the prime minister said that Abid was one of the early donors of the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital, Lahore. Seth Abid had passed away in Karachi on Friday. His funeral prayers were offered at Hafiz Ayaz Mosque in Phase II, DHA. Earlier, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar expressed grief over the demise and extended heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the bereaved family. NEWS DESK

Karachi gets 50 modern fire tenders, two water bowsers

Under an initiative, the federal government handed over 50 new fire tenders and two water bowsers to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) at Karachi Port Trust (KPT) on Sunday. Addressing the handing-over ceremony, Sindh Governor Imran Ismail said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has fulfilled another promise made with the people of metropolis by giving the equipment to Karachi. “The firefighting vehicles have been purchased with the cost of Rs1.4 billion under the financial package announced by the federal government for the metropolis,” he said. Speaking on the occasion, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar said that the Green Line BRT Project will be completed by mid-2021 to provide modern transport to the people of Karachi.

He said, “National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) will kick off its work on removing encroachments from Mehmoodabad Nulla next week. It merits mentioning that the state-of-the-art firefighting vehicles were provided by a Chinese company. These are different from traditional fire tenders that can only spray water. A demonstration of the functions of vehicles was conducted during the ceremony, showing a high-pressure water gun extinguishing fire. The new products will greatly enhance the city government’s rescue level and provide strong hardware support for the safety of the citizens. The inclusion of new vehicles will improve the capacity of firefighting services in the metropolis, as earlier only 14 fire tenders out of 44 were operational in the city. NEWS DESK

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TLTP

ENSE fog engulfed motorways and national highways in various parts of Punjab and upper Sindh on Sunday. The road traffic disrupted owing to poor visibility in different parts of Punjab, including Lahore. Motorway section M-2 from Islamabad to Lahore was closed for traffic due to poor visibility, a spokesperson of the Motorway Police said.

He added that the motorway from Multan to Khaniwal, section M-5 from Rohri to Multan and section M4 from Pindi Bhattian to Multan Cantt were also closed due to foggy conditions. The traffic was halted at the M-3 section, from Lahore to Darkhana, and the road was closed owing to dense fog.

Similar foggy conditions were also reported near Daharki, Pannu Aqil, Karamabad and Khairpur along Sukkur sections of the motorway while the Gambat

PMD SAYS COLD AND DRY WEATHER IS EXPECTED IN COMING DAYS Road was also blanketed by dense fog, he further said.

According to the spokesperson, fog also covered the national highways of Lahore, Pattoki, Okara, Sahiwal, Harappa, Chichawatni, Mian Channu, Khaniwal and Multan, besides engulfing the national highways of Basti Malook, Bahawalpur and Lodhran.

The fog blanketed most of the roads across the country owing to extreme cold weather conditions and air pollution.

Meanwhile, cold weather continued in Karachi as minimum temperature in the morning remained between 6 and 8 degree Celsius.

Minimum temperature of minus 14 Celsius was recorded in Leh, minus 11 in Ziarat and Kalat, minus

nine in Quetta, minus eight in Kalam, minus seven in Dalbandin, Parachinar and Hunza, minus six in Malamjabba and minus four in Naukkandi, Panjgur and Zhob.

In a weather report, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has forecasted cold and dry weather in Karachi with 40 per cent humidity, as winds from north-eastern side are blowing in the metropolis.

According to the PMD, maximum temperature in daytime could go as above as 26 degree Celsius, as severe cold weather in Karachi is expected to last for a few more days. The temperature will hover between 7 and 9 degree Celsius in the coming days.

Karachi had recorded its coldest night in the last 10 years, when the mercury dropped to 5.6 degree Celsius during early hours of January 1.

As per the forecast, cold and dry weather is expected in most parts of the country, besides very cold conditions in the upper areas and Northern Balochistan.

Dense fog is also expected in plain areas of Punjab and upper Sindh.

Sanjrani to write to int’l parliamentarians about human rights violations in IOK Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani has said that he would write to over 56,000 parliamentarians across the world to seek their attention for ending rising human rights violations in the Indian-occupied Kashmir (IOK).

During a meeting with Tehreek-eKashmir’s (TeK) United Kingdom President Raja Fahim Kayani on Sunday, Sanjrani said that Pakistan would raise the IOK dispute at every international platform, as the movement of the people of the besieged valley is according to the spirit of United Nations’ resolutions for the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. “It is the time to give the right of vote to the people of IOK so they can decide about their future,” Sanjrani said.

He maintained that following India’s annexation of Kashmir’s special status on August 5, 2019, the overseas Pakistanis and Kashmiris have played a pivotal role to expose India's highhandedness in the IOK, where the people are still

searching whereabouts of their missing sons, husbands and other loved ones.

"India is not only violating the human rights of Kashmiris but also using

all its available resources to crush the ongoing indigenous liberation movement in the IOK,” Sanjrani added.

He appreciated the role of TeK for

highlighting the Kashmir cause through its conferences, marches and pro-freedom protests across the UK, which has greatly helped in exposing India's violent image before the people of the UK and other Western countries.

On the occasion, TeK UK President Kayani told Sanjrani that the overseas Pakistanis and Kashmiris settled in the UK will continue to contribute to Pakistan's economy. “Besides the Kashmir cause, the expatriates are committed to play their role in the development of Pakistan and its economy,” Kayani said.

On January 7, the TeK had observed the ‘Right to Self-Determination Day of Kashmiris’ across Europe with the pledge to continue its support for the occupied valley’s freedom movement. Four virtual plebiscite conferences were held in the UK, Norway, Italy and Denmark, in which several parliamentarians, ambassadors, human rights activists and journalists were present. NEWS DESK

LAHORE: People buy warm clothes at a flea market as weather turns cold in the provincial capital. PPI

Remittances remained $14.2bn in last six months: Aleem Punjab Senior Minister Abdul Aleem Khan on Sunday said that a new record of remittances has been set in Pakistan as for the first time in the history of the country, an amount of $2.4 billion came last month.

Talking to various delegations of party workers, the minister said that overseas Pakistanis from all over the world, including the UK, are sending record remittances to the country. The extraordinary remittances in the last six months were $14.2 billion, which is an expression of full confidence of the overseas Pakistanis on the current government.

Aleem added that the policies of Prime Minister Imran Khan are being appreciated all over the world, as he is governing with foresight, helping the country out of long-standing difficulties and paving the way for progress and prosperity. Relief is being provided to the general public by reducing their problems.

“Industrial development has started in the country. The wheel of economy is moving fast and employment opportunities in the private sector are increasing with every passing day. PM Imran and his team members are overcoming the challenges.

The PTI-led government will fulfil the rest of its promises as well during its tenure,” Aleem said.

In the meetings, the party workers pointed out various issues, presented different proposals and appreciated the timely completion of development works.

Commenting on various suggestions given by party workers, Aleem told the workers to identify the problems of the people and play their role in solving them. He expressed satisfaction over the completion of developmental projects in various parts of Lahore. NEWS DESK

Monday, 11 January, 2021

NEWS

PUnjAb’S bUreAUcrAcy vIolAteS AUSterIty drIve, USeS trAnSPort fUndS reckleSSly PUNJAB PUNCH

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sHAHAB oMeR

HEN the Punjab government launched its austerity drive, it also banned government-funded workshops and seminars in five-star hotels, and purchase of new vehicles.

The decision by the government was aimed at curbing unnecessary expenditures and signaling the bureaucracy to avoid unnecessary expenditures.

Sources in the Punjab Civil Secretariat believe that since the government is new and does not understand bureaucratic maneuvers, the bureaucracy is continuously violating the government’s austerity drive by using its funds and property recklessly under one guise or another.

They revealed that the government has never checked the proper use of old vehicles after banning the purchase of new cars. “Old vehicles are also the government’s property, as these were purchased with

According to the rules of transport wing, any section officer can be given an official vehicle subject to availability in the department. Officers of scale 18 to 22 are entitled to official vehicles and the government is responsible for expenses of petrol, repair and maintenance up to a certain limit.

However, the personal use of vehicles allocated for protocol is a wrong act, as these vehicles are not for officers but for VVIPs. According to the S&GAD, its transport wing provides official vehicles to the members of provincial cabinet and officers of the department along with drivers and petrol charges as per their entitlement, besides allocating vehicles to protocol duties of dignitaries.

When asked about the budget allocation for petrol, repair and maintenance of the vehicles of protocol, the department refused to reply by stating that, “It is not necessary to disclose the details of expenditures.”

Similarly, when asked about the details of protocol duties from January 1, 2019 to till date, the department again refused to provide the details.

public money. But the government has not formed any authority yet to stop misuse of the vehicles,” they said. According to documents available with Pakistan Today, the Punjab Services and General Administration Department’s (S&GAD) transportation wing has allocated 18 official vehicles for protocol purposes, besides using these for general duties.

These vehicles are: three Toyota Land Cruisers, two Toyota Fortuners, five Toyota Corollas, two Toyota Hilux Double Cabins, one BMW Jeep, one Suzuki Khyber, two Honda City and one Suzuki Cultus. The engine power of these vehicles ranges from 1,000cc to 5,000cc.

As the vehicles are expensive, their maintenance expenses are around Rs3 million a month.

Talking about misuse of vehicles, sources said that if a third-party agency audits these vehicles, it will be revealed that the S&GAD officers often use the vehicles to pick and drop their kids from school and take their family members to different malls for shopping.“There is no proper record regarding the expenditure and details of these vehicles,” they added.

PESHAWAR: A farmer ploughs a field with a tractor in the provincial capital. PPi

PM says India backing IS to spread chaos in Pakistan Continued from page 01 “Our exports were growing, the construction industry was thriving,” he said, adding that the country was at a divisive point.

He added that the service industry was still in crisis all over the world at the moment. When you cut expenses, you bring down the demand, he further said.

Pakistan urges US to reserve concerns on India’s aiding, abetting terrorism Continued from page 01 “India’s assertions to link Pakistan’s due legal process with FATF are unfortunate. It is yet another Indian attempt to politicise FATF and use its processes against Pakistan.” It reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to impartiality, confidentiality, and the technical nature of the FATF process. The ministry recommended New Delhi to “put its own house in order and rein in its terror infrastructure that is aimed at destabilising India’s neighbouring countries in order to fulfil the extremist agenda of the RSS-BJP regime”. “We also expect the UN counter-terrorism bodies to proceed on the basis of concrete evidence provided by Pakistan; urge India to renounce the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy and play their part in securing the dismantling of the Indian terrorist infrastructure,” it added.

He said that arch-rivals of the past, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) have now shaken hands to conceal their corruption.

He said that Pakistan is passing through a defining moment and social media has a great role in setting a new standard of morality by exposing the plunderers.

A few days earlier, PM Imran on Twitter thanked the “overseas Pakistanis for yet another record-breaking month of remittances in Dec” for an amount of $2.4 billion. “[First] time in Pakistan remittances have been above $2 bn for 6 consecutive months. Total for 6 months of this fiscal year $14.2 bn – a 24.9% growth over last year,” he said.

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As power is restored, ministers blame old transmission system for breakdown Continued from page 01 In a statement issued on Sunday, he said that the corrupt rulers of the PML-N took huge commissions in costly electricity projects but they failed to give a serious focus to proper transmission lines. He further said the incumbent government has worked hard to solve all problems of Pakistan’s citizens. He said that the government has also controlled the nation-wide power breakdown with a prudent strategy. Gill said that had it possible to use ‘iron’ rods in transmission of electricity, the PML-N leaders would have ended the electricity crisis in the country for good. He lambasted that these ‘corrupt thieves’ did not think about the nation and country and they only worked on the project where ample commission and kickbacks were available. He said that sadly these rulers did not install proper power transmission lines to benefit the people of Pakistan.

Pakistan plunged into darkness today due to the negligence of these rulers, but their fugitive leader is blaming the sitting government, SAPM Gill said.

Meanwhile, the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) on Sunday announced that the power supply has been restored across the entire country after a nation-wide outage owing to a technical fault. “We have restored electricity supply to all 500KV, 220KV grid stations, and all transmission lines,” the NTDC spokesperson said. He further said that the supply to the 500 KV Jamshoro grid and NKI Karachi was also restored. The Power Division spokesperson also said that the electricity supply from Guddu power station to DG Khan, Muzaffargarh and Rahim Yar Khan was also restored. “The power supply is completely restored in the Punjab province,” the Power Division officials said as a power outage was also witnessed on Sunday afternoon after restoration from a Saturday night power breakdown. The officials said that there was no report of a power breakdown from any part of the Punjab province. Moreover, in a tweet in the evening, the Ministry of Energy said that power supply had been fully restored to the grid stations of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO) that were impacted by last night’s breakdown. It said that grid stations operations teams had remained busy in restoration efforts through the night to protect the system from overloading. The ministry further said that load-management of limited duration was being carried out on different feeders of Peshawar, Khyber, Mardan, Swabi, Swat and Hazara circles, adding that uninterrupted power supply will be restored for all affected areas soon. Earlier, the Ministry of Energy spokesperson, tweeting from the ministry’s official Twitter handle, said that according to initial reports, the Guddu power plant developed a fault at 11:41pm on Saturday night. “The fault caused the country’s high transmission lines to trip, which in turn caused the system frequency to drop from 50 to 0 in less than a second. The drop in frequency caused power plants to shut down.”

COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE BLACKOUT: According to an order by the NTDC, an inquiry committee has been constituted to look into causes of the collapse of the power system and will comprise NTDC General Manager (GM) (North) Malik Javed Mahmood as convener, GM (Technical) Ghulam Abbas Memon, Chief Engineer (CE) (P&C) Atif Mujeeb Usmani, and Chief Engineer (Network) Sajjad Akhtar. As per the order, the committee will probe into the reasons leading to collapse of the power system as well as determining the responsibility of an officer or official who may have been negligent of their duties. Similarly, this committee is tasked to suggest measures to prevent occurrence of such incidents in future. Furthermore, this inquiry committee is requested to give its report with comprehensive recommendations in seven days. According to sources in power sector, the inquiry should be done by National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) or by some independent organisation instead of the officials of those organisations allegedly responsible for the entire collapse.tLtP, AFP ANd iNP

How to win friends (and future elections) City Notes M A NiAzi

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MRAN Khan should dismiss any suspicions he may have entertained of his Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood, after the burst of popularity he enjoyed among schoolchildren after he announced that the winter break would be extended because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Shafqat Mehmood has lost in popularity ever since he announced a phased reopening of schools. The children in senior classes are angrily asking what they did wrong to have to go to school early.

I think we old people don’t realise how much the pandemic is designed to target adults. First, the sysmptoms get worse with age. The young may not even catch it, while things have just got scarier for older people, what with the new variant from the United Kingdom apparently sweeping the world much as the original virus did. While adults go around worrying about the worldwide loss in education, children look on the pandemic as the closer of schools and the averter of exams. Meanwhile, the younger ones have pinned their hopes on a meeting Shafqat chairs

on the 15th this week, that is to take a final decision.

That will determine the youth vote of the future. How do you think Imran won the youth vote apparently forever? It was by winning the World Cup in 1992. If Shafqat can’t win the future youth vote now, he can cash it in sometime in the future.

There’re two things going against him. First, the children of today may favour schools opening when they’re parents themselves. Free from any prospect of being thrown in durance vile themselves, they would have grown to see schools as places to dump the kids for a few hours of peace. You know, the pandemic has been harder on kids because not only do they have to go to work, and face the risk of death, the kids are at home all day, and you can’t send them out to play.

I wonder if the pandemic is partly to blame for the attempt to take over the US Capitol by Trump supporters, in an attempt to get Congress not to do what it was supposed to, and certify that Joe Biden had won the presidential election. People tend to get overexcited when they leave home after a long time. I also noticed from the footage that they didn’t even pretend to do any social distancing. As for masks, forget it. The attack on the Capitol was really a poor advertisement of democracy at work. Next thing you know, members will start brawling in the chamber, like in

CMYK

Taiwan. And Taiwan has strict gun laws. The US does not, if you see what I mean… Americans might like to think they’re still hardy frontiersmen who eat only what they’ve killed, but it isn’t like that anymore.

Those who attacked Congress had guns aplenty, but no one seems to have lent them to any Congressman, but then there has been at least one hostile takeover of the Capitol. Before, British troops occupied the Capitol back in 1814. But what came to my mind was the ransacking of the White House at the inauguration of Andrew Jackson back in 1824, by all of those people who had come to attend it. Jackson was one of the first ‘outsiders’ elected on a pledge to clean up Washington.

I was also reminded of the 1933 Reicstag fire, which was started by a Dutch communist, and paved the way for the anti-communist decrees that allowed the Nazi takeover. Then there was the storming of parliament by Imran Khan’s PTI during the 2014 dharna. So, it’s not just the pandemic in which the world learned from Pakistan.

I’m not arguing about right and wrong. But while democracy is the way adults have to settle things (looking solemn, smoking pipes and nodding at each other with little frowns on the face). Coups are the way children have: throwing a temper tantrum. All the protesters left out was bringing loaded nappies to the Capitol.

Monday, 11 January, 2021

06 COMMENT

PML(N)’s South Punjab problem

Blackout lessons Unless lessons are learned, it could happen again

South Punjab is where elections are won or lost

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he whole country went through a nine-hour blackout in the wee hours of Sunday, in a nightmarish episode which was not only the worst in decades, but also threw into relief the weakness of the entire distribution system. Perhaps the most amazing (and most dangerous) thing about the blackout was that it was not related to any adverse weather event. The last blackout of such magnitude, back in the early 1990s, almost 30 years ago, occurred after torrential rains. Of course, that was no excuse, for rains had happened before and after, without such a massive breakdown, but at least the cause was known, and the necessary precautions could be taken. however, this time the cause is not known. Yet it became clear that the system is vulnerable. Also, there is no dependable back-up, no real knowledge of what would happen if the precipitating conditions occurred again, or if some similar condition was again produced. It should be no reassurance that loadshedding had prepared many by having made them install UPS systems, and thus avoid the worst effects of the blackout.

Another aspect of the episode was how quickly people panicked; not because of a fear of the dark, but because of the unfortunate past. One reaction was that the Indians had attacked. The other was that Martial Law had been imposed. The silence of the government was understandable; it being a weekend night, but it was not reassuring. It should not be ignored that this psychological vulnerability will have been noted by forces hostile to the country, and are likely to be included in future planning. More to the point, enemies will be interested in finding out what are the flaws that would allow such an occurrence. After all, taking away a country’s electricity will be of inestimable value to an enemy at any juncture in a conflict, not just the beginning.

The whole episode did not reflect well on the government. There was little that could be done, except restore the power, but this should be a government committed to improvement, not to allowing such breakdowns. Only the knowledge that such episodes will be averted in the future will suffice to allow people to rely on the electricity supply.

abbas hasan

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recent visit to my home town of Mian Channu, highlighted the PML(N)’s current south Punjab problem. Located on the cusp of the Sahiwal-Khanewal border so not quite South Punjab, Mianchannu is proud that one of its sons, Ghulam haider Wyne, became the PML’s Punjab’s Chief Minister. Yet today instead of being a PML(N stronghold, all the local politicos from here are clamouring for a place on the PTI political train.

South Punjab comprises 11 districts: Khanewal, Multan, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Lodhran, Vehari, Layyah, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh and DG Khan. These districts elect 46 Members of National Assembly seats and 92 Members of the Punjab Assembly. Unlike the PTI, which thanks to its strengths in other provinces and the Salt Range, has several paths to power for forming the government in Islamabad. For the PML(N), given its shrinking vote bank elsewhere, today its only path is winning an overwhelming majority in central Punjab’s 82 seats and South Punjab’s 46 seats. historically, except for PPP, all parties have only won in South Punjab with some support from the establishment. The PML(N) twice won decisively in 1997 and 2013 and marginally in 1990. At all these times it was supported by the establishment. The PML(Q) won in 2002 and 2008, again with substantial support from you-know-who.

The PML(N)’s South Punjab problem does not lie entirely with “establishment” but rather is mainly a result of the PML(N)’s own genesis and provenance.

When the latest PML was created in 1985 by Zia Ul

PDM disarray The PML(N) joins the PPP in taking part in the by-polls

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LL the glassy-eyed bonhomie between the PML(N) and the PPP, the latest example being to contest the by-elections next month on two national and five provincial systems, cannot conceal the fact that the goal of preventing the Senate elections due in March has been abandoned. Also abandoned seems any hope of getting the government to resign by the PDM’s deadline of January 31, which leaves the PDM without a goal, and apparently without any means of moving forward. The disclosure, made by PML(N) leader Khurram Dastagir, that resignations of legislators will be given even later, after the Senate elections, means that the PDM components will take part in the Senate elections, rather than leave the PTI to take all the seats coming up for grabs. The main PDM components, the PML(N) and PPP will not compete against each other in the byelections, but that means that they are gearing up for the Senate elections. It now seems that any PDM Long March will only take place after some time. Perhaps the PDM might consider that it will be feasible in autumn, which will in turn mean that the summer, both the hot weather and the rains, will be over.

The PDM’s essential failure seems to have been that of not causing enough panic in the PTI and any circles that might back it. Though the government did seem rattled at times, it does seem to have stayed the course, and seen off its opponents. The PTI has turned the resignations on the PDM’s head, by derisively and constantly demanding that they be submitted, thus turning their non-submission into an issue. The impression that remains with the public is that the PDM legislators, who belong mainly to the PML(N) and PPP, are unwilling to submit them, will not be an asset. however, though the PDM seems to be fading into the background, the issues it had tried to highlight, and which it was supposed to fix if given another chance after fresh elections, remain. The economy has still not recovered, and the sufferings of the common man continue. however, it is likely that these sufferings will be overshadowed by the collapse of the PDM in the byelections which proved so crucial to the entire internal debate in the PDM.

Onwards on path of progress The government has been successful in handling the economy MuhaMMad Zahid Rifat

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AKISTAN is slowly, steadily, gradually and determinedly moving onwards on the path of progress, development and prosperity and formation of a welfare state by continuing overcoming challenges, problems and difficulties on internal and external fronts collectively by people and the federal government.

Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) ‘s federal government headed by Prime Minister Imran Khan came into power following a free, fair, transparent and peaceful July 2018 general election on 18 August 2018.As such it has already moved into the third year out of the stipulated constitutional tenure of five years. The first year was dedicated to measures for recovery of the national economy from the shambles it inherited. The second year , just when most of economic indicators had started an upward trajectory, was consumed in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, saving the lives of the people and helping the poor ,destitute and working class to the maximum extent possible according to available resources. The third year, which is already five months old, is going to be the year of growth (Inshallah) as promised and pledged by the Prime Minister to the people of Pakistan few days back.

As for overall Pakistan’s economic outlook, the fundamental weaknesses of a low tax-GDP ratio, a poor savings rate and minimal export growth with negligible value addition were further attenuated by misaligned policies like loose monetary policy and overvalued exchange rate which made it difficult to control the twin deficits of fiscal and current accounts. however, the shift in economic policy undertaken by the incumbent federal government through its policy of adjustments and structural reforms has changed the course, entailing readjustments in the fiscal and monetary policies. The stabilization measures implemented to reduce the twin deficits had a profound impact on economic activity.

The stabilization efforts paid off in terms of sustained adjustment in current account and continued fiscal prudence. For the first time in many years, the

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Arif Nizami Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

Umar Aziz

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Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

haq and his Punjab Governor Gen Ghulam Jilani, there were two contenders for the post of Punjab Chief Minister, the “mohajir” Industrialist Nawaz Sharif and a “local” landowner Manzoor Wattoo. Gen Jillani was opposed to the “Punjab Chieftains” as in his opinion they would eventually betray their benefactor. Zia, a “mohajir” from east Punjab, also preferred the fellow “mohajir” Nawaz Sharif, whose Kashmiri father had migrated from Amritsar. Thus the crown fell on Nawaz’s head and the rest, as they say, is history.

To counter the PPP, in the 1980s Zia had already set about cultivating a new political elite in Punjab, Khawaja Safdar (Khawaja Asif’s father), a Kashmiri from Sialkot was made member of Majlis Shura, as was Ghulam Dastagir (Khurram Dastagir’s father), another Kashmiri friend of General Jilani from Gujranwala, while others included Rana Phool (Father of Rana Mohammed Iqbal, former Speaker Punjab Assembly) a migrant from Ambala district settled in Okara, Chaudry Akhtar Vario a Gujjar from Gurdaspur district settled in Sialkot, and Mrs Nisar Fatima (mother of Ahsan Iqbal) from Narowal. Air Commodore Khaqan Abbasi (Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s father) although a local from Murree was a good friend of Zia and was also made minister. The children of these politicians now form the core inner circle of the PML(N). however none are from the established landlord families, particularly of Southern Punjab.

Surprisingly most the local Punjabi landlords selected for power by Zia are no longer in the PML(N), including Shah Mehmood Quresh,i whose father Sajjad hussein Qureshi succeeded Jilani as Punjab governor, Yousuf Raza Gillani (a minister under Zia and member of Majlis Shura), Manzoor Wattoo (Punjab Assembly Speaker under Zia), Sardar Zulfikar Khosa, Chaudry Shujaat hussain and Chaudhry Pervaiz elahi, son and nephew of Ch Zahoor elahi, another great supporter of Zia. From the Salt Range even Chaudry Nisar Ali is also no longer in the PML(N).

During his years of exile from 2000-2007, almost all the Punjabi chieftains and locals abandoned Nawaz Sharif and aligned themselves with Gen Musharraf’s newly formed PML(Q), nowhere more so than South Punjab where in the 2002 elections the PML(N) won only 12 percent of the vote and no seats, as opposed to PML(Q) that won 35 percent of the vote and majority of the seats. In a large number of constituencies the PML(N) could not field a single candidate, and even in Mian Channu, it struggled to find a strong candidate as everyone had already jumped ship for the newly formed PML(Q) or the PPP. Nawaz Sharif never forgot that insult─ he once told

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Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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current account posted a surplus in October 2019 and this trend continued. Both the fiscal account and current account continue to show substantial improvement with every passing month. Additionally, stable exchange rate , healthy growth in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) , improved ranking in World Bank’s ease of doing business index and ‘Stable’ credit outlook to B3 from ‘Negative’ by Moody’s reaffirmed the successful policies of the federal government in stabilizing the national economy. laying a foundation for robust growth.

Nevertheless, the federal government also remained cognizant of the painful impact of the these stabilization measures in terms of economic slowdown, rising inflation, low pace of job opportunities and resultantly its impact on the lowest income groups of the society. In the wake of these challenges , the government initiated reforms in key sectors of the national economy with bringing improvement in the real sector growth through inclusive growth in agriculture, industrial and services sectors.

To check and control prices, the government made efforts through ensuring smooth supply of commodities, and checking hoarding, smuggling and undue profiteering.

Job creation remains one of the key objectives of the economic reforms agenda of the government for which the National Agriculture emergency Programme, KamyaabJawan Programme (low cost loans to youth for business),Naya Pakistan housing Programme for construction of six million houses in five years and Ten Billion Tree Tsunami have already been launched which have the potential of creating millions of jobs on a year to year basis.

These federal government policy actions and implementation of comprehensive economic reforms agenda helped the economy in averting the otherwise imminent imbalance balance of payments crisis and subsequently all macro-economic indicators moved towards stabilization. however, as the economy was transitioning from stabilization to growth , the outbreak of the Coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic during the second half of the last financial year brought multifaceted challenges for Pakistan to preserve the economic gains achieved as a result of various efforts to improve the fundamentals of the national economy.

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Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

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a bureaucrat “Saadi dosti vi pakki, te saadi dushamni vi pakki” (my friendship and enmity are both firm), and once re-elected Nawaz Sharif treated the Punjab Chieftains accordingly. Often, making them wait a long time prior to granting an appointment, including a very public falling out with Sardar Zulfikar Khosa from Dera Ghazi Khan. So once they had a whiff at power in the form of the PTI, other than a few such as Mohammed Khan Daha of Khanewal, most of the South Punjab Chieftains abandoned PML(N) i droves. In 2018 the PML(N) with a 27 percent share of the vote, won only 12 out of the 46 seats for the National Assembly, as opposed to the PTI’s 35 percent and 24 seats, with independents garnering 20 percent of the vote, and five seats. In 2018 PPP, now limited to four families, could only manage six percent of the vote. A far cry from the 51 percent it had garnered in 1988. Tehrik Labaik Pakistan, the rising star, won over 5 percent of the vote.

Politically rural South Punjab is odd and unpredictable, independent candidates and their clans are as, if not more important than political ideology. In 23 of 46 seats the number of votes cast for an independent exceeded that of the winning candidates’ margin.

In Vehari PTI lost two seats to PML(N) due to Ayesha Nazir, an independent candidate, the PPP won three seats in Muzaffargarh from the PML(N) and PTI due to Jamshed Dasti and other independent mavericks, the PTI lost two seats in Rahim Yar Khan to the PPP and the PML(N) due to independents, and so forth.

Given that today none of the major political parties in Pakistan have any ideology, to win in South Punjab, not only must the candidate be strong and belong to the right clan, but he must also reach a compromise with other strong candidates in the constituency, to ensure that votes are not divided. In 2013 the PML(N) was able to pull off that feat as it was in government in Punjab, and was backed by the right quarters. This may well prove to be a bridge too far, in the 2023 elections for the PML(N). Particularly without any local administration’s support and with its leader Nawaz Sharif exiled in London, unable intervene in person.

Without a strong win in South Punjab (even assuming a strong showing in central Punjab), for the 2023 elections, the PML(N) is looking at a total haul of around 65 to 75 seats in the National Assembly, well short of the requisite 130 seats needed for a working majority. Thus with all its peccadillos, South Punjab at the present time might be out of reach. Unless it can refocus its efforts on winning here in 2023, the PML(N) may well have to spend a few more years in the political wilderness.

Abbas Hasan is an engineer and a cricket fan who works in the Middle East. He can be reached on Twitter at: @A3bbasHasan

Similar to the entire world, Pakistan’s economy has also been affected by the covid-19 outbreak through various channels like decline in domestic as well as global demand, downturn in tourism and business travel, trade and production linkages and supply disruptions.

Successful completion of the PTI’s federal government two years in power against all odds were marked not by any large scale jubilation, but a joint press conference by a number of federal ministers and advisers who highlighted the achievements of the government on the national and international fronts.

Briefly, the Kashmir issue was duly internationalized and now the world is talking about the gross violation of fundamental rights of the residents of Indian-occupied Kashmir by the occupying Indian security forces. The PTI government made concerted efforts to end diplomatic isolation and achieve effective representation despite eternal enemy India’s stated policy of isolating Pakistan diplomatically.

Pakistan also made efforts to develop an economic partnership with African countries, populated by 1.3 billion people, by launching the engage Africa Initiative to increase trade and investment there.

Neutral international observers have acknowledged economic progress made by Pakistan despite the pandemic. Due to the government’s policies, economic observers and organizations like Moody’s, Fitch and Bloomberg have improved Pakistan’s ratings.

Under the emergency Cash Assistance Programme , the federal government handed over cash to lower-income families hit by the health crisis and millions benefitted.

The government also introduced cheap loans to assist small traders. As a result of government initiatives, the national economy had grown despite covid19 with exports showing upward trend, and cement sales increasing substantially.

Covid-19 is the biggest challenge not only for Pakistan but the entire world, and the world’s leading economies were reeling from its impact but the world had duly acknowledged Pakistan ‘s success , being ranked among the countries which had tackled the pandemic successfully.

The federal government had also ensured that no supply chains were disrupted despite covid-19 and took steps for gradual and timely reopening of the industries.

On the welfare side, the ehsas Programme and its various components were described as the country’s largest social safety net and it was indicated that it is being further expanded.

The writer can zahidriffat@gmail.com

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

be

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Monday, 11 January, 2021

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

Light’s out

This ship needs a new captain The PTI as done poorly on all fronts Mustafa abdullah baloch

“The ship is safest when it is in port, but that is not what ships were built for” ─ Paulo Coelho

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F a leader is elected then it is incumbent upon him to deliver and not just play to the galleries with empty rhetoric and hollow hopes. half the way in the ocean and the captain of the ship reveals that he is inexperienced: that definitely gives goose bumps to the people sailing in the ship; here the ship is Pakistan and the inexperienced captain is Imran Khan who is taking Pakistan to a cul de sac.

2020 in many ways has been a curse internationally due to the pandemic, but in this part of the world the effects of the pandemic were compounded by the inefficiency of Khan’s government but now that the world has entered a new year, the people have started looking for other political options which has given an opportunity to the PDM to emerge as a saviour. But at the same time we must learn from history and extract the reasons why today we are surrounded by multiple challenges.

The pandemic has changed the tune of life for individuals from all walks of life. Things have changed and so have the priorities. But what hasn’t changed is the desire to dwell better in life and to strive for stability. Now for this any country needs a statesman who would keep his personal interests aside and prioritize his countrymen. Unfortunately in Pakistan an egoistic and inept captain has been thrust upon the people of Pakistan who, 30 months after remaning in power, has himself conceded he was not prepared for running the state’s affairs.

With countless flaws and historic misgovernance there is much to talk about the current government’s poor performance, and if we analyze the upcoming events and do some wargaming on the face-off between the PDM and Khan’s regime, the enraged Fazl, ambitious Maryam and charged Bilawal have set the battlefield ablaze but the other player dwelling in a lavish palace somewhere in Islamabad’s Red Zone seems a bit worried as he has lost the confidence and public support. So the question is, what is the plan?

March or no march? JUI(F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman. who has nothing to lose, will try to compel other parties in the PDM to resign, while the PPP, having stakes in Sindh and chances of getting the second position in the coming Senate, cannot afford to resign before March leaving the Sindh government and giving space to its opponents. It will be a big price to ask for. Apparently the resignation card is kept for sometime later, now the question is will the PDM march towards the capital and if so, what are they expecting? Resignation of the PM or reelection? Well, the PML(N) favours the latter but many may prefer a subtle change through this present Parliament. Suppose if the long march hits the nail on the head by successfully gathering a mass crowd marching towards Islamabad then will they look up to the umpire’s

decision or would they rely on the public support? Perhaps, too many questions and possibilities on the turf between the two. But our history shows that marches and sit-ins have weakened the government, but the PM has never resigned.

Will this march be an exception? So what’s the PDM’s strategy? Maybe it wants to build pressure by flexing some muscle and showing relevance to the powerhouses, meanwhile engaging the already miffed government allies as we recently saw them in talks with the PDM. So far the PDM wants to remain part of the system by contesting by-elections and not leaving ground in the Senate which might not risk the already fragile democracy. Meanwhile some panic moves are taken by the government by preponing senate elections and launching federal ministers for counter press conferences, raising the temperature and widening the gap between the two sides.

Also PM being desperate for implementing show of hand in senate polls raises quite a few eyebrows, it seems he himself is not quite sure about the level of commitment and loyalty of his own MPs and he may be afraid of losing the slot of Chairman Senate.

What if PDM rules out the idea of a march, raises the temperature in Parliament and attracts the government allies step by step, to call it off and form a new alliance and this time starting from Punjab. The Chaudhries can easily jump off from the tabdeeli bus and hop into the Orange Line. All they need is to change the roles in Punjab, the speaker can be the new CM. This would be a huge blow to Khan who adores the second Waseem Akram plus more than anyone. Rumour has it that quite a few PTI legislators are ready to ditch Khan and vote for the other side in the National Assembly. Probably Kaptaan knows that his hollow regime won’t stand a day if his allies hear whispers to choose the other side. But let’s not forget that in politics timing matters the most, and if the PDM kicks off with its long march before March then they might have to compromise on te senate, but if they focus on the Senate first and later hit the streets, then it can be a game changer. In the second scenario PDM can be in a secure position with politically correct moves. But it all depends on right decision and right timing, keeping the resignation card for the final bout.

It’s not just the political zone where Pakistan is facing a challenge, there is an extraordinary economic crisis to overcome, as rising unemployment and investor discomfort has severely affected the life of common people. The economic meltdown is the Achilles heel of this

regime with historic inflation and low ‘ease of doing business’ ratings. The local business community have been discouraged by the uncertain financial policies and hefty taxes. The motor industry being badly affected pushing makers to halt their production and increase the prices leading to lowest sales ever witnessed.

PTI spokespersons often hide the government’s incompetence behind the novel coronavirus, but the disaster occurred before pandemic with the dollar exchange rate going sky high, petrol prices shooting up and constant price increase of grocery items and lot more. The most important challenge for this government would be to manage the vaccination process for which the NCOC (National Command & Operation Centre) is lagging behind. Planning Minister Asad Umar, who is in the driving seat of NCOC recently announced procurement of 1.2 million Covid19 vaccines (Sinopharm) by the first quarter of 2021 from China with a 79 percent efficiency rate for a country with approximately 220 million population.

Bangladesh is procuring 30 million, Turkey 50 million and Malaysia 19 million vaccine doses. Tis shows we are nowhere close to the rest of the world in fighting the pandemic.

Supply chain and logistics would be another task as the above mentioned vaccine requires 2-8°C storage temperature which would be quite difficult to maintain in remote areas where there is no electricity. Apparently the NCOC has not been well prepared for the vaccination process. The indecisive and reluctant attitude of Asad Umar gives a sense of déjà vu after his failure as Finance Minister. Also, it would have been better if the PM would have diverted the the 5 billion budget from Ravi City to procure nore vaccines and provide sufficient cold storage facilities across the country then Pakistan has to uplift its foreign relations in 2021 as the global dynamics are changing post-corona and lately Pakistan’s foreign diplomacy had been a nonstarter with the Arab countries who earlier had been friends in tough times, and all this is the result of weak diplomacy and incompetent leadership.

It will be an uphill task to pull Pakistan out of this catastrophic situation, so this government must realise that constant bickering and poor governance will lead us nowhere. This ship needs a new captain who must be competent enough to sail it through rough seas.

It will be an uphill task to pull Pakistan out of this catastrophic situation, so this government must realise that constant bickering and poor governance will lead us nowhere. This ship needs a new captain who must be competent enough to sail it through rough seas

The writer is a columnist and social activist) Twitter: MustafaBaloch_

MINISTeR for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz said on Sunday that the present government was working on improvement of power distribution system which remained neglected in the past.

Addressing a joint press conference along with Minister for energy Omar Ayub here he said that the previous government focused on power generation only. he said the government was committed to bring improvement in power sector. he said a comprehensive plan is being pursued to upgrade transmission system and to enhance power generation. he said that the power sector was the backbone of the country but the previous government did not introduce any new technology to improve the distribution system. he said that presently power generation capacity was more than 36,000 MW but only 26000 mw could be distributed as distribution system was not compatible with it. he said that there were technical issues with the distribution system as it was not upgraded with the passage of time. he said Matiari-Lahore power transmission line was near completion and it would be accomplished by March this year. To a question he said that steps would be taken to avert such a situation in future after the findings of inquiry report to find out the reasons behind the breakdown. Minister for energy Omar Ayub Khan said that electricity would be restored across the country within next few hours. he said that countrywide blackout was caused due to sudden plunge in the frequency in the power transmission system. he said a technical fault was reported at the Gaddu power plant at 11:41pm last night when the frequency fell from 50 to zero in a second. he said that frequency fell down due to old transmission system which required huge amount to change it. In this regard the government had initiated work to change the transmission system step wise as it invested Rs 49 billion to improve the system.

Matiari to Lahore 660kV hVDC Transmission Line Project was nearly completed and it would be hVDC Transmission Line Project was nearly completed and it would be operational in a couple of months, he added.

“The reason for the breakdown has not been ascertained yet. The technical fault occurred in a particular area” said Omar Ayub. he said that an inquiry committee would be constituted to probe the issue. After submission of inquiry report by the National Power Construction Corporation (NPCC) opinion would be sought from engineers and technical experts over the matter, he added. he said that the Prime Minister was also informed about blackout and the prime minister who instructed the concerned authorities to immediately start maintenance work and restore electricity, he added.

Omar Ayub said teams were facing difficulties to identify exact location of the technical fault due to dense fog in the area. however, electricity was restored later at night in some parts of the country including Islamabad, Faisalabad, Jhang, Multan, Peshawar, Mianwali, L ahore and some areas of Faisalabad while around 400 megawatt electricity was being supplied to K-electric, he added. he said that time would be required to completely restore the system. he said that people witnessed eight major power break downs during the previous government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz but no step was initiated to upgrade transmission system.

IftIkhar Saha karachI

Drawbacks of online gaming ONLINe games were made to entertain people, but unfortunately our youth is being mentally retired. They feel solidarity when they play these sorts of games.Therefore, many student attemp suicide every year.

These online games effect the behaviour of children. By the time, a child plays an online game he/she remains regardless about his surroundings. even though, when somebody asks them for favor they even do not reply.

Mostly, students play at nights by 8 untill midnight, the light of the screen damages their eyes as well as their memory. They can not sleep well, therefore they feel sleepy in the class and become idle in their studies. ahmad munIr turbat

Trump silenced TheReFORe, it is my request to the PTCL to ban online games in Pakistan.I also urge to the parents that they should not give cell phones to their teenagers to protect them for being mentally paralyzed for the restickering on and off at the White house being Donald Trump signalling to his followers in Morse code after Twitter and Facebook squelched the president for inciting rebellion. Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach.

The far right-friendly Parler may be the leading candidate, though Google and Apple have both removed it from their app stores and Amazon decided to boot it off its web hosting service. That could knock it offline for a week, Parler’s chief executive officer (CeO) said. Trump may launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and free speech experts anticipate growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb incendiary speech as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the US Capitol by a Trump-incited mob. Twitter ended Trump’s nearly 12-year run on Friday. In shuttering his account it cited a tweet to his 89 million followers that he planned to skip President-elect Joe Biden’s Jan 20 inauguration that it said gave rioters license to converge on Washington once again. Facebook and Instagram have suspended Trump at least until Inauguration Day. Twitch and Snapchat have also disabled Trump’s accounts, while Shopify took down online stores affiliated with the president and Reddit removed a Trump subgroup. Twitter also banned Trump loyalists including former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a sweeping purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and the Capitol insurrection. Some had hundreds of thousands of followers.

In a statement on Friday, Trump said: “We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.” experts had predicted Trump might pop up on Parler, a 2-year-old magnet for the far right that claims more than 12 million users and where his sons eric and Don Jr are already active. Parler hit headwinds, though, on Friday as Google yanked its smartphone app from its app store for allowing postings that seek “to incite ongoing violence in the US”. Apple followed suit on Saturday evening after giving Parler 24 hours to address complaints it was being used to “plan and facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities”. Public safety issues will need to be resolved before it is restored, Apple said.

EhtISham ahmad LahorE

Monday, 11 January, 2021

08 WORLD VIEW

The end of poliTical islam as we know iT WHILE THE ‘ISLAMIST IDEA’ WILL LIKELY ENDURE, THE POLITICAL ACTORS FACE AN EXISTENTIAL STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE THE ONSLAUGHT OF THE PAST DECADE Middle east eye

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AbdullAh Al-AriAn

ast month, tunisia’s parliamentary speaker and head of the Ennahda Party, Rached Ghannouchi, came under fire for comments he made following a meeting with the French ambassador. Following a recent string of violent attacks, the French government cracked down on the country’s Muslim community, shutting down charitable organisations, surveiling community members, including children, and interrogating them regarding their religious and political beliefs. at the same time, they demanded that community leaders adopt a pledge in support of French values and declared their disavowal of “political Islam”. the government’s harsh measures prompted condemnations around the world, including calls to boycott French products in many Muslim-majority countries.

It was within this context that Ghannouchi’s comments raised eyebrows across the arab and Muslim worlds. after meeting with France’s newly appointed ambassador to tunisia, Ghannouchi asserted that domestic developments within France would not impact tunisian-French relations, declaring “without hesitation our solidarity with the French state and the brotherly French people during the recent terrorist events, and we affirm that we are all fighting the same enemy, which is terrorism, and tunisia faces this danger like the rest of the world”.

THE TRANSFORMATION: What surprised many observers was not that a high-ranking official in the arab region would express such sentiments, but that it would come from the founding leader of a movement that traces its roots to the Islamic activist trend established by the Muslim Brotherhood. as opposition movements, Islamists have long led the chorus in denouncing state repression of Muslims, whether by their own governments or other countries around the world. as a movement that has attempted to navigate the uneasy transition from outlawed opposition to ruling party over the course of the past decade, this incident raises the question of whether Ennahda’s brush with political power has irrevocably transformed its ideology and practice. as we mark a decade since the arab uprisings ushered in an era of unprecedented inclusion of Islamist parties within the ruling establishment of a number of states, it is worth examining the long-term impact that these recent events have had in reshaping the nature of Islamic activism as we have come to know it.

Whether it is Ennahda, which has become a permanent fixture of tunisia’s post-authoritarian government since 2011, or the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which found itself in the familiar position of persecuted opposition following the military coup and subsequent wave of repression in 2013, or the range of Islamist parties across the arab region whose fortunes have similarly oscillated, it has become clear that the traditional mission that defined Islamic activism for much of the past half century is no more.

Instead, it has been replaced by a series of highstakes choices, dictated in part by the lure of the nation state and its instruments of control. as a result, the shifts in the ethical commitments that define these movements have largely become informed by their political fortunes.

CHANGING REALITIES: the emergence of popular Islamic activism was a uniquely 20th-century phenomenon. the decline of traditional religious institutions in much of the Islamic world, due to factors that included rapid modernisation and imperialism, saw the rise of lay intellectuals and activists, who sought to reinvigorate their societies with the ethical norms and traditional values of their Islamic faith.

In keeping with the challenges of the time, however, they also recognised the need to adapt these values to changing social norms and new economic and political realities. the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in interwar Egypt, soon after it had achieved independence from Britain, though the country remained tightly controlled by foreign interests. the movement’s founder, Hassan al-Banna, proposed that in the absence of the strong leadership that had traditionally upheld society’s moral centre, it was now incumbent upon ordinary people to promote Islamic principles in their society. this should begin with families and local communities and expand outwards to national level. the da’wa, or missionary call, to which members subscribed, implored followers to live according to model Islamic behaviour and advocate for those values in their schools, businesses, places of work and other institutions of public life.

From that point onward, the Islamic movement developed along two paths, though the two were closely intertwined and often indistinguishable from one another. along one path lay the da’wa, which manifested

in everyday preaching and was helped in part by the development of a robust Islamic media industry in publishing and satellite television, eventually migrating online.

In most places where the Muslim Brotherhood spread, it also established charitable associations, schools, medical clinics and other social institutions, particularly in areas in which state welfare provision was lacking. the other path resulted from the Islamic movement’s recognition that public advocacy and institution-building alone were insufficient in promoting its vision for society. Rather, seeing the power that states held over citizens, especially following the emergence of centralised authoritarian and highly bureaucratised regimes, Islamic activists increasingly adopted political platforms that sought inclusion within institutions of state power. they competed for the leadership of student unions and professional syndicates and entered parliamentary elections where possible. Despite their stated commitment to gradual reformism that appeared to accept the structures and institutions of the nation state, Islamists were more often than not cast out from the realm of acceptable political actors and subject to the ruthless whims of the state security services, with few exceptions. the Muslim Brotherhood and its various offshoots became a fixture of the political landscape in countries such as Jordan, Kuwait and Morocco, though under heavy constraints. While formally outlawed in Egypt, the organisation was nonetheless tolerated by the regime of Hosni Mubarak and even managed to win 88 out of 444 parliamentary seats following elections in 2005, before facing yet another crackdown.

Following a brief democratic opening in the early 1990s, a coalition of Islamist parties was poised to sweep elections in algeria before the military intervened to cancel the results, leading to a destructive decade-long civil war. In sudan, the Islamic movement alternated between embracing democratic inclusion and riding the coattails of the military, as it did when it supported the 1989 coup that brought the regime of Omar al-Bashir to power.

Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes in states such as syria, Iraq, Libya and tunisia enforced a categorical ban on Islamists that for decades sought to erase their presence from society altogether. In every case, while the path of da’wa remained relatively constant, the movement’s priorities and decisions on the political front were largely determined by the opportunities available within each respective national context.

ISLAMISTS AND THE UPRISINGS: Beginning in late 2010, the historic mass protests that aimed to topple dictatorships across the arab region in the name of freedom, dignity and social justice presented Islamists with both risks and opportunities.

On the one hand, as the most organised social movements, and ones with a ready-made platform to attract supporters in the form of the da’wa and its vision of a more just and ethical society, these groups were in pole position to claim the reins of state power in the transitions to more representative rule. On the other hand, Islamists for the most part had no revolutionary credentials and had clearly tailored their activist missions in line with the realities of surviving authoritarian rule. that reluctance was on display in decisions made by the Muslim Brotherhood’s newly launched political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which preferred a gradual and reformist approach to the post-Mubarak transition to a revolutionary and confrontational one. the short-lived presidency of the FJP’s Mohamed Morsi was notable not in its power-hungry excesses of which he was falsely accused by liberal and leftist critics, but rather for its determination to avoid a head-on clash with the state’s most powerful institutions, chiefly the military.

When the FJP-authored constitution was passed in late 2012, it enshrined the Egyptian military’s privileged status and left it beyond the scope of civilian oversight.

Of course, that deferential posture was not enough to spare the Muslim Brotherhood the military’s wrath amid a resurgent authoritarianism in the bloody aftermath of the 2013 coup.

MISSION VS AMBITION: Even before its epic collapse and reversion to outlaw status, the Muslim Brotherhood faced a crisis in reconciling its historic social mission with its emerging political ambitions. Would members of the organisation be required to join its party or could they express themselves freely within Egypt’s burgeoning multiparty political landscape? Would internal disagreements over matters of policy be tolerated or would they be viewed as violations of the religious obligation to “hear and obey”?

Would the Muslim Brotherhood’s rush to sweep every election it contested during the transition result in putting the movement’s interests ahead of those of the nation in the midst of a perilous revolutionary moment? the cracks within the movement, largely kept under wraps in the past, became more visible in a series of high-profile defections and public debates on the changing nature of Islamic activism in revolutionary times.

THE ENNAHDA PARTY LEADER’S RECENT SUPPORT FOR FRANCE’S CRACKDOWN ON MUSLIMS ELICITED OUTRAGE ACROSS THE ISLAMIC WORLD, BUT IT WAS ONLY THE LATEST IN A SERIES OF INCIDENTS THAT ALSO DREW THE IRE OF MANY WITHIN THE PARTY’S RANK-AND-FILE, RESULTING IN A NUMBER OF VERY PUBLIC RESIGNATIONS Even before its epic collapse and reversion to outlaw status, the Muslim Brotherhood faced a crisis in reconciling its historic social mission with its emerging political ambitions the Ennahda Party faced similar questions in tunisia, though it addressed them in a starkly different fashion. Under Ghannouchi’s leadership, the movement had internalised its belief in democracy as the basis for a sound political order decades ago, at a far earlier stage in its evolution than most other Islamist groups. Its commitment to democratic pluralism ensured that Ennahda would avoid the trappings of power during the shaky initial period of post-authoritarian rule.

Even as it won the country’s first free elections in 2011, the party insisted on sharing power within a coalition government and stepped down completely following a national crisis in late 2013, perhaps fearing a similar outcome to what had transpired in Egypt just months earlier.

Further cementing its accommodationist posture, Ennahda also supported a law that shielded former regime officials from accountability and declined to include the sharia as a source of legislation within the revised tunisian constitution, abandoning a core Islamist tenet. to free itself from the predictable barrage of internal critiques, at its 2016 party conference Ennahda leaders formally severed the movement’s da’wa from its political activities. Likening his party to the Christian democrats of many European states, Ghannouchi declared that “we are Muslim democrats who no longer claim to represent political Islam”.

ZERO-SUM GAME: It is hard to overstate just how monumental a step Ghannouchi’s declaration represents.

In its modest experience as a mainstream political party that has cut ties with its traditional social base and its Islamist ideological roots, Ennahda has put forward a blueprint for Islamist parties to achieve political success on the national stage. the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) in neighbouring Morocco has followed a similar path, distancing itself from the broader religious movement from which it derived much of its support when it formed a government following its electoral success in 2011 and again in 2016. the PJD government has deflected attention from its Islamist roots by pledging to govern within the existing political system, despite its structural constraints and hostility to reforms. the irony, it would appear, is that the more politically successful Islamists become, the more likely they are to shed any vestiges of their core ideology. to be sure, policy debates around “Islamist inclusion” as a strategy to temper these movements’ ideological commitments and political ambitions are nothing new.

However, taking stock of the internal processes by which these movements accede to the pressures of playing the political game reveals that the cultural essentialism to which Islamists are often subjected by external critics has been grossly misleading.

On the other end of the spectrum, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood continues to endure the lowest point of its storied history. the 2013 Rabaa Massacre, in which almost 1,000 Egyptians were killed by security forces during a nonviolent sit-in, stands as a symbol of the movement’s renewed victimhood and the military regime’s scorched earth policy to eradicate Islamism as a force in society, a central vow in President abdel Fattah elsisi’s rise to power.

With its institutions shut down and its leadership imprisoned or exiled, the Muslim Brotherhood has arrived at a distinct juncture in its development that has yielded a number of competing responses.

RECONCILING WITH REGIMES? Despite the cataclysmic defeats its organisation has suffered, the movement’s conservative senior leadership believes the sisi regime’s current course is unsustainable, as its reliance on violent coercion continues to destabilise the country and weaken its economy. the leadership’s preferred course is one of reconciliation with the regime in the hopes of achieving a grudging co-existence not unlike that which defined the movement’s relationship with the Mubarak regime. strategically placed media leaks that such a resolution is on the horizon have emerged with striking regularity, but thus far there appears no indication that sisi, who has brooked no dissent even within Egypt’s ruling establishment, is interested in reintegrating the Islamist opposition back into the fold. the Muslim Brotherhood’s surviving leaders must also contend with widespread dissension within the movement’s ranks, which includes a vocal youth faction that rejects any reconciliation with the regime, instead advocating a revolutionary path that would correct the mistakes of the post-Mubarak transition.

In social media posts and online forums, proponents of this view argue that the movement must abandon its traditional outlook toward political change that led to its conservative approach in the past. Instead, it

must embrace the revolutionary spirit around which millions of Egyptians united during the height of the uprising. Critical to this viewpoint is the need to disentangle the Muslim Brotherhood’s rigid hierarchical and closed organisational structure from its broader social and political mission.

But unlike the logic behind Ennahda’s decision to sever da’wa from politics, this view believes such a move is imperative to the development of a mass movement in order to upend the existing power structure, not cozy up to it. added to these is yet a third faction, made up largely of disillusioned members on the movement’s fringes, which believes that a traditional Islamist project that is inherently tied to the fate of the modern nation state is doomed to fail. Given the precarious condition of most states in the region and their inability to remedy the critical challenges faced by their citizens, this group argues that seeking to create an Islamically based political order within existing power structures is a futile endeavour. though small in number and representing mainly an intellectual trend rather than a broad-based movement, this faction maintains that the Muslim Brotherhood’s dramatic fall from grace presents a unique opportunity to explore bold new ideas that address the root problems afflicting not only Egyptians, but societies throughout the global south: ethnonationalist and sectarian violence, imperialism, neoliberal economic exploitation and wealth inequality, food insecurity, environmental degradation, and so on. absent the distraction of competing for political power within the current structure, proponents believe that the Muslim Brotherhood, or what’s left of it, should construct its mission anew, unencumbered by its ideological tradition or the ever-changing demands of partisan politics. though it is unlikely to have an impact on events anytime in the near future, the dynamism expressed in these early conversations is likely to inform the longterm trajectory of Islamist - or, perhaps more accurately, post-Islamist - intellectual thought.

GOING FORWARD: In the near term, however, it appears that one way or another the fate of Islamists necessitates their abandonment of long-held beliefs and practices. In the best of cases, successful integration within the narrow confines allowed by some states has demonstrated that nothing short of reconstituting the traditional Islamist mission as a 21st-century political party like any other will suffice. that gives little reason for optimism, as the power structures within which these parties operate often leave them detached from their base of support within society, prone to corruption and forced to compromise the ethical basis around which they formed. the Ennahda Party leader’s recent support for France’s crackdown on Muslims elicited outrage across the Islamic world, but it was only the latest in a series of incidents that also drew the ire of many within the party’s rank-and-file, resulting in a number of very public resignations.

Party figures who stepped down in recent months expressed deep misgivings over some of the Ennahda leadership’s actions and policy decisions, particularly their departure from the movement’s core values.

Elsewhere, the success of counter-revolutionary forces in stemming the tide of structural change has left Islamist forces out in the cold. the regional project advanced in large measure by the governments of saudi arabia and the United arab Emirates, along with their local clients, has all but eroded the space for the precarious, though relatively stable, co-existence that typified the Islamist experience under authoritarian rule for roughly half a century. as the resurgent dictatorship in Egypt and the destructive civil wars in syria, Libya and Yemen aim to consolidate a new authoritarian order, there is little room for popular social movements with political aspirations, whether Islamist or otherwise.

While it is likely that the “Islamist idea,” so to speak, will endure as a force with broad social appeal, the political actors who have been its most vociferous advocates face an existential struggle to survive the onslaught of recent years, with many having been killed, imprisoned or forced into exile. the circumstances around which it has occurred may be radically different, but the effect is nonetheless the same as elsewhere: the forced separation of the Islamist movement’s core mission from its political activism.

Whether this represents the latest stage in the evolution of Islamism as a viable political alternative or spells its demise remains to be seen.

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Abdullah Al-Arian is an assistant professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar, where he specializes in the modern Middle East and the study of Islamic social movements. He is the author of Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt. He is also co-editor of the Critical Currents in Islam page on the Jadaliyya e-zine.

Monday, 11 January, 2021

BUSINESS 09

FBR to launcH cRackdown against sale oF sMuggled oil todaY ISLAMABAD

PM lauds taxpayers as collections surpass Rs2,205bn in H1FY21 Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has lauded taxpayers as tax collections surpassed Rs2,205 billion during the first half of the current fiscal year (H1FY21), and called for more incentives to be provided to them in the system.

"Taxpayers are the real benefactors of the country," he opined. The development came during a meeting on Sunday wherein the prime minister was briefed on “positive outcomes” of tax reforms that contributed to the increase in numbers of taxpayers. Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Information Minister Shibli Faraz and Industries Minister Hammad Azhar, Advisor to PM on institutional reforms Dr Ishrat Hussain, Special Assistant on Revenue Dr Waqar Masood, Chairman of Federal Board of Revenue Javed Ghani and relevant senior officers attended the meeting. It was stated that sales tax receipts also witnessed an increase due to the reforms.

The prime minister was informed that there is an increase in revenue collection from this system due to the direct link of point of sale with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). The meeting was told that the tax collection system is being automated. In this regard, it was stated that the new digital taxation system will enhance transparency and help check corruption and tax evasion.

Similarly, the meeting was informed that the tax form for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has been simplified from five pages to a single one with entries from 200 to just 24. The PM also lauded the authorities for bringing about much-needed reforms in the taxation system and called for further measures to enhance the number of taxpayers in the country. BUSINESS DESK

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STAFF REPORT

HE Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will launch a crackdown against the sale of smuggled petroleum products across the country from Monday.

Chairman FBR Javed Ghani has directed all field officers and staff to effectively curb the sale of smuggled petroleum products as per directions of the Prime Minister.

Earlier on January 3, Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan ordered a crackdown on elements involved in the sale of smuggled petroleum products, inflicting a loss of Rs150 billion per annum to the national exchequer.

The prime minister ordered this while chairing a high-level meeting,

FIRST PHASE OF CRACKDOWN WILL COMPRISE ACTION AGAINST ILLEGAL POL RETAIL OUTLETS IN PUNJAB, SINDH, KP which was attended by top civil and military officials.

He said that the economy is suffering irreparable loss due to the menace of smuggling and called for final action against elements involved in such illegal acts. He approved an action plan, according to which a crackdown will be launched against illegal petroleum outlets, FIRs will be registered against their owners, their properties will be forfeited, and heavy fines will be imposed.

The prime minister resolved that the money recovered from the anti-smuggling drive will be spent on the public.

According to FBR's action plan, the crackdown will start against illegal pe-

troleum outlets in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and Sindh wherein an FIR will be lodged against the owner, and proceedings for forfeiture of oil station and other properties of the owner in favour of the federal government will be initiated.

Later, similar action will be taken against corrupt elements in Balochistan, one of the major supply routes of smuggled petroleum products for selling to end consumers.

The operation has been divided into two phases. The first of which will comprise simultaneous action against illegal POL retail outlets in Punjab, Sindh, and KP which have already been

geo mapped by customs and choking off supply routes of smuggled POL products from Balochistan to the rest of the country whereas the second phase will encompass mapping of requirements of POL products in Balochistan, planning for provision of legal retail outlets to replace the shortfall of smuggled oil and devising a strategy to curb POL smuggling at the international border of Balochistan.

A report about the trade of smuggled petroleum products in the country was presented to the premier during the meeting. The meeting was informed that the country is deprived of an estimated revenue of Rs150 billion per annum due to the sale of smuggled oil. As many as 2,094 fuel stations were found to be involved in the sale of smuggled petroleum products in three provinces.

Finance Ministry squashes govt employees' hope for pay raise The Ministry of Finance and Revenue has once again ruled out the possibility of immediately increasing salaries of civil servants despite being threatened with a strike by over five dozen government organisations and labour unions from January 12 onwards. According to details, employees of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), pensioners and labour unions have announced to stage an indefinite sit-in in Islamabad from Tuesday. Government employees are demanding an increase in basic salaries by up to 100 per cent, in addition to an increase in house allowance, medical allowance, conveyance allowance, and upgrade in posts of the clerks. They are also demanding parity in wages and perks, reasoning that there are around 26 civilian and military departments receiving 50 per cent to 100 per cent higher salaries than the standard pay packages for rendering “extraordinary services”.

According to a report by the Express Tribune, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh had chaired a meeting in this regard on Thursday, however, the meeting did not make any headway, leaving the government to handle the protestors ‘administratively’ only. The meeting was attended by key cabinet ministers and the Pay and Pension Commission chairperson. It may be noted here that the Interior Ministry has informed the Prime Minister’s Office that 61 organisations including clerks, employees of autonomous bodies of Pakistan International Airlines, Utility Stores Corporation, PIMS, Radio Pakistan, Allama Iqbal Open University, PTCL, Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), pensioners and labour unions have called for a protest inside the red zone on January 12. The initial estimates show that the annual cost of demands was over Rs100 billion, which the Ministry of Finance cannot bear due to budget deficit related conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). it may also be noted here that the government has not increased salaries of government employees in the current fiscal year despite close to double-digit inflation in the past two years and a nominal increase in salaries in the previous fiscal year. MONITORING REPORT

hyderabad: A shop owner waits for electricity in Hyderabad during a nationwide power breakdown. INP

Italy to deploy new economic missions in Pakistan ISLAMABAD APP

Italy’s Ambassador to Pakistan Andreas Ferrarese on Sunday announced that a new economic mission would be deployed in Pakistan to further promote bilateral trade and economic cooperation in different areas.

According to the details, the new economic mission would initially be established in major cities of the country, including Karachi and Islamabad and would later be expanded to other potential trade hubs to increase the economic and trade integration between Pakistan and Italy.

Ferrarese said that there was huge trade potential in different sectors of the economy which needed to be explored and in this regard, both sides were engaged in dialogue through the Pak-Italy Joint Economic Commission, a meeting of which is expected to meet in Rome soon.

He said the green economy, transfer of technology for the industrial sector including textiles and agro-industry, construction sector, education and health are

major areas of focus to extend the bilateral cooperation.

The Italian ambassador said that currently, Italy was providing technical assistance to Pakistan in agriculture and upgrading the textile sector through modern machinery, value addition in agriculture, leather and marble sectors. In this regard, Italy has established the Italy-Pakistan Textile Technology Center (IPTTC) in Faisalabad at the National Textile University (NTU) to upgrade the local textile sector.

On the other hand, Pakistan was working to expand it to agricultural items, including dairy and livestock, olives and olive products, plastics, processed food and construction sector in the Italian market.

Replying to a question on trade with European Union (EU) countries, he said out of its whole trade contribution to EU, Pakistan’s share with Italy was 10 per cent, which would be enhanced in the future.

It is pertinent to mention here that Italy is the largest contributor from the EU to Pakistan in remittances.

The Italian ambassador further said that Italy wanted to cooperate with Pakistan for environment

protection, circular economy, resource-saving and management, ecosystem protection and recovery, water conservation and natural disaster prevention.

During fiscal year 2019-20 (FY20), textile, leather, rice, ethanol, textiles articles, sets, worn clothing, cotton, apparel, crocheted, cereals, raw hides and skins, beverages and footwear were major areas of Pakistan’s exports to Italy whereas Pakistan’s imports from Italy increased in sectors including ships, boats, and other floating structures, machinery, pharmaceutical products, aircraft, spacecraft, electrical, electronic equipment, organic chemicals, iron and steel, miscellaneous chemical products, optical, photo, technical and medical apparatus.

He informed that dairy and livestock, olive and olive products, plastics, processed food and the construction sector were the areas where Italy could extend its cooperation with Pakistan.

Ferrarese also underlined the importance of promoting cultural connectivity to promote bilateral trade, adding that he would encourage the exchange of students to further strengthen bilateral relations.

Saudi cut to boost oil market de-stocking, even as demand falters LONDON AGENCIES

Saudi Arabia’s voluntary oil production cut is expected to bring the oil market into deficit for most of 2021 even as new lockdowns to contain the spread of the coronavirus batter oil demand, analysts say.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, surprised the market on Jan. 5 with a voluntary output cuts of 1 million barrels per

day (bpd) in February and March.

The move came as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies – a group known as OPEC+ – agreed most producers would hold output steady in February and March, while allowing Russia and Kazakhstan to raise output by a modest amount.

With coronavirus infections spreading rapidly, producers are wary of a new blow to oil demand which could lead to

rising inventories.

“We remain in uncharted territory as the COVID-19 situation continues to evolve, but [OPEC+] has so far succeeded in both putting a floor below prices and reducing volatility, which should encourage further cooperation,” Barclays said.

News of the cut boosted oil prices to an 11-month high, with backwardation, when prompt prices trade at a premium to future prices, widened, which could encourage

CMYK

traders to take oil out of storage.

In its most recent research, Goldman Sachs revised down its demand forecasts for January, February and March by 1-2 million bpd each month.

Still, and largely as a result of the Saudi cut, the bank sees a small deficit in February, a revision from an implied build of 0.6 million bpd previously.

It expects the oil market to be in deficit for the remainder of the year, peaking at 2.3

million bpd in September, or nearly 3% of global oil supplies for that month.

Consultancy Rystad Energy sees an even bigger deficit.

“In the most optimistic case which includes full OPEC+ compliance and the voluntary Saudi cut, we see crude stocks decreasing by 1.3 million bpd for February, and 0.8 million bpd for March,” Rystad head of oil market research Bjornar Tonhaugen said.

Monday, 11 January, 2021

10 FOREIGN NEWS

PomPeo voids restrictions on diPlomatic contacts with taiwan WASHINGTON

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Agencies

ECRETARY of State Mike Pompeo announced Saturday that the State Department is voiding longstanding restrictions on how US diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, another move that is expected to upset China as the Trump administration winds to an end.

The Trump administration has sought to strengthen bilateral relations with Taiwan. It announced Thursday that U.N Ambassador Kelly Craft would go to Taiwan, a move that sparked sharp criticism from Beijing and a warning that the US would pay a heavy price. In August, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the first Cabinet member to visit Taiwan since 2014.

Pompeo said that the State Department has created complex restrictions when it comes to contacts between the two parties.

He said those actions were taken to appease the Communist regime in Beijing.

“No more,” Pompeo declared in a

statement. “Today [Saturday] I am announcing that I am lifting all of these selfimposed restrictions.”

The Chinese government maintains

that mainland China and Taiwan are parts of “one China.” China has been stepping up its threats to bring the self-governing island under its control by military force with

frequent war games and aerial patrols. It has been using its diplomatic clout to stop Taiwan from joining any organisations that require statehood for membership.

Pompeo said the US maintains relationships with unofficial partners around the world, and Taiwan is no exception.

“Our two democracies share common values of individual freedom, the rule of law, and a respect for human dignity,” Pompeo said. “Today’s [Saturday] statement recognises that the US-Taiwan relationship need not, and should not, be shackled by self-imposed restrictions of our permanent bureaucracy.”

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu welcomed the move.

“I am grateful to Mike Pompeo and State Department for lifting restrictions unnecessarily limiting our engagements these past years,” Wu said in a retweet of a Pompeo tweet about the announcement.

“The closer partnership between Taiwan and US is firmly based on our shared values, common interests and unshakeable belief in freedom and democracy,” he wrote, drawing a distinction with China’s authoritarian one-party state.

Squelched by Twitter, Trump seeks new online megaphone BOSTON Agencies

One Twitter wag joked about lights flickering on and off at the White House being Donald Trump signaling to his followers in Morse code after Twitter and Facebook squelched the president for inciting rebellion.

Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. The far right-friendly Parler may be the leading candidate, though Google and Apple have both removed it from their app stores and Amazon decided to boot it off its web hosting service. That could knock it offline for a week, Parler’s CEO said.

Trump may launch his own platform. But that would not happen overnight, and free speech experts anticipate growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb incendiary speech as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the US Capitol by a Trump-incited mob.

Twitter ended Trump’s nearly 12-year run on Friday. In shuttering his account it cited a tweet to his 89 million followers that he planned to skip Presidentelect Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration that it said gave rioters license to converge on Washington once again.

Facebook and Instagram have suspended Trump at least until Inauguration Day. Twitch and Snapchat also have disabled Trump’s accounts, while Shopify took down online stores affiliated with the president and Reddit removed a Trump subgroup. Twitter also banned Trump loyalists including former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a sweeping purge of accounts promoting the Qanon conspiracy theory and the Capitol insurrection. Some had hundreds of thousands of followers.

In a statement Friday, Trump said: “We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.”

Experts had predicted Trump might pop up on Parler, a 2-year-old magnet for the far right that claims more than 12 million users and where his sons Eric and Don Jr. are already active. Parler hit headwinds, though, on Friday as Google yanked its smartphone app from its app store for allowing postings that seek “to incite ongoing violence in the US” Apple followed suit on

Saturday evening after giving Parler 24 hours to address complaints it was being used to “plan and facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities.” Public safety issues will need to be resolved before it is restored, Apple said.

Amazon struck another blow Saturday, informing Parler it would need to look for a new web-hosting service effective midnight Sunday. It reminded Parler in a letter, first reported by Buzzfeed, that it had informed it in the past few weeks of 98 examples of posts “that clearly encourage and incite violence” and said the platform “poses a very real risk to public safety.”

Parler CEO John Matze decried the punishments as “a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace. We were too successful too fast,” he said in a Saturday night post, saying it was possible Parler would be unavailable for up to a week “as we rebuild from scratch.”

Earlier, Matze complained of being scapegoated.

“Standards not applied to Twitter, Facebook or even Apple themselves, apply to Parler.” He said he “won’t cave to politically motivated companies and those authoritarians who hate free speech.”

Losing access to the app stores of Google and Apple — whose operating systems power hundreds of millions of smartphones — severely limits Parler’s reach, though it will continue to be accessible via a web browser. Losing Amazon Web Services will mean Parler needs to scramble to find another web host — in addition to the re-engineering.

Gab is another potential landing spot for Trump.

But it, too, has had troubles with internet hosting.

Google and Apple both booted it from their app stores in 2017 and it was left internet-homeless for a time the following year due to anti-Semitic posts attributed to the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Microsoft also terminated a webhosting contract.

Online speech experts expect social media companies led by Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube to more vigorously police hate speech and incitement in the wake of the Capitol rebellion, as Western democracies led by Nazism-haunted Germany already do.

David Kaye, a University of California-Irvine law professor and former UN special rapporteur on free speech believes the Parlers of the world will also face

pressure from the public and law enforcement as will little-known sites where further pre-inauguration disruption is now apparently being organized. They include MeWe, Wimkin, TheDonald.win and Stormfront, according to a report released Saturday by The Alethea Group, which tracks disinformation.

Kaye rejects arguments by US conservatives including the president’s former UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, that the Trump ban savaged the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from restricting free expression. “Silencing people, not to mention the President of the US, is what happens in China not our country,” Haley tweeted.

“It is not like the platforms’ rules are draconian.

People do not get caught in violations unless they do something clearly against the rules,” said Kaye. And not just individual citizens have free speech rights.

“The companies have their freedom of speech, too.”

While initially arguing their need to be neutral on speech, Twitter and Facebook gradually yielded to public pressure drawing the line especially when the socalled Plandemic video emerged early in the Covid-19 pandemic urging people not to wear masks, noted civic media professor Ethan Zuckerman of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Zuckerman expects the Trump de-platforming may spur important online shifts. First, there may be an accelerated splintering of the social media world along ideological lines.

“Trump will pull a lot of audience wherever he goes,” he said. That could mean more platforms with smaller, more ideologically isolated audiences.

A splintering could push people towards extremes — or make extremism less infectious, he said: Maybe people looking for a video about welding on YouTube will no longer find themselves being offered an unrelated QAnon video. Alternative media systems that are less top-down managed and more self-governing could also emerge.

Zuckerman also expects major debate about online speech regulation, including in Congress.

“I suspect you will see efforts from the right arguing that there should not be regulations on acceptable speech,” he said. “I think you will see arguments from the democratic side that speech is a public health issue.”

Kyrgyz nationalist wins landslide victory in presidential poll BISHKEK Agencies

Nationalist politician Sadyr Japarov won a landslide victory on Sunday in Kyrgyzstan’s snap presidential election, which was triggered by the collapse of the previous government.

Japarov has won almost 80 per cent of the vote in the Central Asian nation which is closely allied with Russia, preliminary results cited by Kyrgyzstan’s Central Election Commission showed, meaning there will be no run-off. More than 80 per cent of voters have also supported a proposal to reform the constitution to give the president greater powers at parliament’s expense, the commission said. Violent protests which erupted last October sprung Japarov, 52, from jail to the prime minister’s chair and culminated in him assuming the interim presidency before he ran for the full-time role.

Japarov, who was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for kidnapping a provincial governor as part of a protest, had his verdict quashed amid the October unrest and has outspent 16 presidential poll rivals by a wide margin.

Despite his nationalist stance - Japarov’s first act as prime minister was to add ethnicity information to national ID cards - he has repeatedly pledged to maintain a close relationship with former Soviet overlord Moscow. “Russia is our strategic partner,” Japarov said after casting his ballot in a suburb of capital Bishkek, and urged all groups to accept the results in order to preserve stability.

Russia operates a military airbase in the mountainous nation and is the main destination for hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz migrant labourers. Neighbouring China is another key trade partner and investor in the impoverished and predominantly Muslim nation, whose economy has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting disruptions to trade and travel. Japarov’s prison sentence stems from his campaign in the early 2010s to nationalise the giant Kumtor gold mine operated by Canada’s Centerra Gold. After coming to power last year, however, he said that was no longer a goal and he would only seek to ensure profits are split fairly. Japarov’s campaign, which combined references to traditional symbols and values with promises such as doubling healthcare spending struck a chord with voters, especially in rural areas. Before toppling the government of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov in October, similar violent protests deposed presidents in 2010 and 2005. Another former head of state, Almazbek Atambayev, is under arrest on corruption charges. “I voted against everyone because it makes no difference for ordinary people who is in charge, everyone lies to us,” Bakyt, a 52-year-old power engineer who only gave his first name, said.

Britain is 'gung ho' about world role after Brexit: UN envoy UNITED NATIONS Agencies

Britain’s new UN ambassador says the government is feeling “gung ho” about continuing its role as an important player on the world stage despite its exit from the European Union. Barbara Woodward pointed to the United Kingdom’s permanent seat on the powerful UN Security Council, its presidency this year of the group of seven major industrialised nations, its membership in the group of 20 leading economic powers and NATO, and its hosting of the next United Nations global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

“Do not underestimate the power of the relationship with the EU,” she stressed in an interview with The Associated Press this past week. “There is a lot of values and principles which we share with European partners

which I think will stand us in good stead.”

Britain’s long and sometimes contentious divorce from the EU became final on December 31, a split that left the 27member bloc without one of its major economic powers and the UK freer to chart its future but facing a world trying to confront a deadly pandemic and cope with rising unemployment, growing divisions between haves and have-nots, and a climate crisis.

An article in the US-based World Politics Review in October identified three visions for Britain’s future: “Catastrophists who argue that the UK has become completely irrelevant on the international stage as a result of Brexit; the nostalgic, who see a powerful Britain through the lens of a great colonial power; and the denialists, who refuse to accept that Britain must adapt to a changing global context.”

Authors Ben Judah, a British-French

journalist and author, and Georgina Wright, a Brexit researcher at the Institute for Government, a UK think tank, said that since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016 “it is undeniable that both British leadership and influence over global affairs have taken a hit.”

“In international circles, it has become fashionable to be overly dismissive of Britain’s weight in world affairs,” they said.

“Yet the country continues to carry weight.”

Woodward, who came to the UN after more than five years as ambassador to China and previously served in Russia, agrees.

“We have had a pretty introspective three years with Brexit negotiations and managing Covid-19,” she said, but with the upcoming climate summit and Britain’s presidency of the G-7 as the group grapples with economic recovery from the pandemic, “I think we have got quite a big role to play.”

She said Prime Minister Boris Johnson

is “very keen on multilateralism.” On December 31, as Britain was leaving the EU, he said the UK is now “free to do trade deals around the world, and free to turbocharge our ambition to be a science superpower.”

Early this month, the Economist magazine said the UK has the opportunity “to cut a dash on the world stage,” with its G-7 presidency – including possible invitations to Australia, India and South Korea to attend the group’s sessions – and hosting the climate summit in Glasgow, “the most important diplomatic event of the year.”

Johnson is expected to visit India and be Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s guest of honour on Republic Day on January 26, “part of a much-touted `tilt to the Indo-Pacific,’” the Economist said, adding that Britain has also opened discussions to join the 11-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership and is pushing to become a “dialogue partner” of

the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Woodward said the UK’s exit from the EU makes the United Nations and Britain’s permanent Security Council seat “more important because the UN has always been the biggest multilateral forum.” She pointed to Sunday’s hybrid commemoration of the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in London 75 years ago, saying the world is very different now “but so many of the divisions are perhaps even deeper now.”

In the coming year, Woodward said, there are three major issues that need to be tackled– vaccinating rich and poor people everywhere against the coronavirus and taking action to revive economies devastated by the pandemic–making climate change a top priority, focusing on preventing temperature rises, and raising the billions needed to make progress–dealing with a range of global security problems.

Monday, 11 January, 2021

SPORTS 11

RoHiT’s Dismissal leaves inDia wiTH a sTiff cHallenGe To save syDney TesT SYDNEY Agencies

i

NDIA were battling to avoid defeat against Australia after losing two wickets before the close of play Sunday in a third Test marred by allegations of racist abuse from the Sydney crowd. The hosts declared their second innings at tea on day four at 312-6, leaving India needing a mammoth 407 to win and they reached 98-2 at stumps, still needing a further 309 runs with the four-match series locked at 1-1.

No team has ever bettered 288 to clinch victory in the fourth innings at the Sydney Cricket Ground, with Australia achieving that mark against South Africa in 2006.

India’s record run chase started steadily before losing openers Shubman Gill for 31 and Rohit Sharma for 52, leaving their hopes resting on Cheteshwar Pujara, who was nine not out, and captain Ajinkya Rahane, unbeaten on four.

Sharma and Gill lived dangerously against some early torrid bowling by Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins. But they settled in and began playing their shots, with the graceful Sharma bringing up an 11th Test 50 before being caught at fine leg hooking a Cummins short ball. Gill, who has cemented his place in the side after making a debut this series, again looked at home until he nicked a Hazlewood delivery to Tim Paine behind the stumps on 31. Australia’s declaration came after Green fell on the stroke of tea for an entertaining 84, his maiden Test half-century, with captain Tim Paine unbeaten on 39.

Steve Smith made 81 and Marnus Labuschagne 73, with Ravi Ashwin and Navdeep Saini grabbing two wickets each. Just before the break there was a near 10minute interruption to play that saw six fans removed after Mohammed Siraj, fielding on the boundary, complained to the umpire. It was not clear what was said, but the incident followed India lodging a complaint on Saturday after allegations of racist abuse towards the team by sections of the crowd.

The International Cricket Council launched an investigation with Cricket Australia apologising to India and vowing anyone at fault faced “lengthy bans, further sanctions and referral to NSW Police”.

INDIA 244 AND 98 FOR 2 (SHARMA 52, GILL 31) NEED 309 RUNS TO BEAT AUSTRALIA 338 AND 312 FOR 6 DEC (GREEN 84, SMITH 81, LABUSCHAGNE 73, SAINI 2-54)

Australia had resumed the day on 103 for two after India were bowled out for 244 in the first innings in reply to Australia’s 338, with Smith on 29 and Labuschagne 47. Labuschagne should have fallen second ball, but an appalling error by Hanuma Vihari left bowler Jasprit Bumrah clutching his face in disbelief.

Labuschagne flicked a delivery at knee height for what should have been a regulation catch, but it somehow hit Vihari’s wrist and went to ground. It was another setback for a side without the spin of allrounder Ravindra

Jadeja after he was hit on the left thumb batting on Saturday. He did not take the field with Indian media saying it was dislocated and he would only bat again “if required”, with the injury likely to rule him out of the fourth Test next week. Rishabh Pant also took a blow to his elbow while batting and was another no-show with Wriddhiman Saha keeping wicket.

However, his injury was not believed to be as bad as Jadeja and he was expected to bat in the run chase.

Labuschagne brought up back-to-back 50s and

Arsenal win in extra time, Allardyce’s West Brom endure embarrassment

Qualifier Harrison stuns top seed Garin at Delray Beach Florida: American qualifier Christian Harrison, ranked 789th in world tennis, stunned top seed Cristian Garin of Chile 7-6(3) 6-2 on Saturday at the Delray Beach Open in Florida to book a maiden quarter-final spot in his injury-plagued career. The 26-year-old reached a ranking of 162 in 2013 but has seen his career flag due to eight surgeries. His win against world number 22 Garin made him the second-lowest ranked quarter-finalist in the tournament’s history, after 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, who reached the same stage as 1,042nd in 2016. “I just love the sport, I love what I am doing,” Harrison told reporters. “I just cannot wait to keep playing and hopefully have a good, healthy next couple of years.”

It was Harrison’s first victory against a top 50 player and he would next meet Italian Gianluca Mager, who beat sixth-seeded Sam Querrey 7-6(8) 6-1. “He played well. He played very good, of course. He has won four matches this week” including qualifying, Garin said of his opponent.

“These conditions are good for him. He played really flat, really fast. The ball helps his game a lot, and I hope he can play like this the rest of the year.” Agencies

LONDON Agencies

FA Cup holders Arsenal beat Newcastle 2-0 on Saturday as non-league Chorley knocked out coronavirus-ravaged Derby and West Brom suffered an embarrassing third-round exit against Blackpool.

The worsening Covid-19 crisis is casting a lengthening shadow over football in England, with dozens of games called off and growing fears over whether the season can be completed. Just one match has so far been called off in the FA Cup third round – the stage at which the big guns of the country enter the competition.

But a number of clubs have been forced to make radical alterations to their line-ups after suffering outbreaks.

Arsenal, 14-time FA Cup winners, continued their recent revival with a fourth straight win in all competitions in their all Premier-League tie at the Emirates but were stretched by a Newcastle side who could have won the match in regular time.

Magpies captain Jamaal Lascelles made his first appearance in six weeks after being hit hard by the coronavirus as both sides made multiple changes.

Emile Smith Rowe – who earlier had a red card overturned after a VAR check – broke the deadlock in a disappointing game, drilling the ball home in the second half of extra time, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang made the game safe. Mikel Arteta turned his attention to the Premier League match against Crystal Palace on Thursday.

“We want to keep going and win more games,” he said. “It is always important to stay in the competitions. We want to fight for this competition again, so today was a big game for us.”

In the late match, Manchester United beat Championship side Watford 1-0, courtesy of an early header from midfielder Scott McTominay.

United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

looked comfortable until Saini snapped his 103-run partnership with Smith. Matthew Wade quickly went for four, and it proved slow going for Smith.

But following his first innings 131, he kept his focus to notch another half-century, ably accompanied by Green, until trapped lbw by his nemesis Ashwin.

Green, 21, again showed composure to help solidify his place in the team, bringing up his 50 with a boundary then smacking three huge sixes before caught by Saha off Bumrah as he swung the bat again.

hailed the Scotland international, who was captaining the side for the first time. “He is being more and more dangerous, we know he can be a box-tobox midfielder,” the Norwegian told the BBC. “He should have scored a few more on set-plays before now because he is a monster of a human being.”

Earlier, Derby fielded a clutch of youngsters after their first-team squad and interim manager Wayne Rooney were ruled out following a virus outbreak at the Championship club.

Chorley, from the sixth-tier National League North, took advantage of Derby’s weakened line-up to reach the fourth round for the first time with a 2-0 win.

Chorley’s modest Victory Park ground is so homely that one fan was able to watch over their back garden fence, while two others used a cherry picker crane to get a glimpse of the action.

In freezing conditions, with snow

cleared off the pitch before kick-off, the home side took an early lead through Connor Hall and Mike Calveley poked home from close range in the 84th minute. The cup upset was a welcome boost for Chorley manager Jamie Vermiglio, whose job as a primary school headteacher has been thrown into chaos by the coronavirus lockdown in Britain.

“It is a very proud moment for us,” he said. “Credit to our boys, they have been on a journey and we said it before the game, the journey can continue today and it has done.”

Liverpool beat virus-plagued Aston Villa 4-1 on Friday, with their opponents missing their entire first-team squad and boss Dean Smith due to a Covid outbreak. Southampton’s tie against Shrewsbury on Sunday has been postponed after several positive tests at the League One club. A record 40 positive coronavirus tests were de-

CMYK

tected among Premier League players and staff in the week between December 28 and January 3. Newcastle boss Steve Bruce and Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa say there is a moral argument to suspend football, with health services struggling to cope.

For now, the FA Cup action goes on and Premier League strugglers West Brom were victims of an upset at Bloomfield Road, losing on penalties to third-tier Blackpool after a 2-2 draw.

After 21 winless games, Sheffield United finally earned a victory as Jayden Bogle’s strike clinched a 3-2 success against third-tier Bristol Rovers.

Leicester rested Jamie Vardy and James Maddison at second-tier Stoke but still won 4-0 as James Justin, Marc Albrighton, Ayoze Perez and Harvey Barnes all netted. There were also wins for Premier League sides Everton, Fulham and Burnley.

80pc want Tokyo Games cancelled or delayed: Japanese survey ToKYo: About 80 per cent of people in Japan say this year’s Tokyo Olympics should be cancelled or delayed as worries mount about a record surge in coronavirus cases across the country, a Kyodo News poll showed on Sunday. The survey found 35.3 per cent want the Games to be cancelled and 44.8 per cent favoured another delay.

The world’s biggest multi-sports event, postponed last year due to the pandemic, is scheduled to be held from July 23-August 8 in the Japanese capital. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared a state of emergency for the greater Tokyo region on Thursday and could extend the measure to other areas as Japan struggles to contain a surge in infections. Suga has come under fire for his handling of the pandemic and his support rate has tumbled since he took office in September. His cabinet’s approval rate slid 9 points from a month earlier to 41.3 per cent with the disapproval rate at 42.8 per cent, the Kyodo survey showed. About 79 per cent said Suga’s decision to call the state of emergency for Tokyo came too late and 68 per cent were dissatisfied with the government’s response to the pandemic, the survey found. Agencies

Monday, 11 January, 2021

PRAyER TIMINGS

NEWS

ppp assertIve, pMl-n dIvIded on takIng part In senate electIons BOTH PARTIES COMMENCE INFORMAL PREPARATIONS FOR UPCOMING SENATE POLLS ISLAMABAD

W

MIAN ABRAR

HILE the formal decision

by Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) about taking part in the Senate elections is yet to be made, at least two major parties of the opposition alliance, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN). have initiated preparations for the byelections.

Informed sources in both the parties divulged to Pakistan Today that the PPP has begun finalising its lists for the Senate elections and the upcoming by-elections, the PML-N has also started taking steps for the debate. The source said that, for the time being, the PML-N is divided on the option of taking part in the bye-elections and subsequent Senate polls.

It merits mentioning here that the PML-N is set to lose its majority in the

JUI-F CHIEF STILL RESISTING THE DECISION

upper house in the upcoming Senate elections as 17 Senators from its senior lot would retire in March 2021, including Senator Raja Zafarul Haq, Pervez Rasheed, Mushahidullah Khan, Javed Abbasi, Prof Sajid Mir and Saleem Zia. The PPP would also suffer as its senior leaders like Rehman Malik, Farooq H Naek, Sherry Rehman, Saleem Mandviwala and others would complete their sixyear term.

The source said that the internal differences in the PML-N have begun to emerge and Maryam Nawaz and Shehbaz groups stand divided. The source claimed that Maryam’s group was in favour of boycotting the by-elections and the Senate elections while Shehbaz’s group was in favour of contesting the elections.

“Both the sides are trying hard to convince Nawaz Sharif to take a decision as per their proposals. Shehbaz Sharif has also asked the Senate candidates to get ready for polls,” the source added.

“Though the PML-N stands divided over taking part in the upcoming elections, a strong group led by Mian Shehbaz Sharif has started preparations. Shehbaz Sharif has given green-light signal to at least three retiring Senators for the ticket including Pervez Rashid, Raja Zafarul Haq and Mushahidullah Khan – all considered close to Nawaz Sharif,” a senior PML-N leader said, requesting anonymity. The source said that Shehbaz wanted the trio to influence Nawaz so that Maryam may not oppose the decision once Nawaz is convinced.

“Since Pervez Rasheed is considered very close to Maryam Nawaz and Nawaz Sharif, awarding him a ticket would help him convince Maryam Nawaz to contest the polls. And Maryam Nawaz has no choice now as the PPP has already taken a decision to contest the polls. Maryam Nawaz cannot afford to annoy Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari,” the source said.

The source added that the PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, however, was

Palestinians say vaccines could come in March, accuse Israel of shirking duty to supply them GAZA AGENCIES

The Palestinian Authority said on Sunday it expects to receive its first Covid-19 vaccine doses in March under a deal with drugmaker AstraZeneca, and accused Israel of shirking a duty to ensure vaccines are available in occupied territory.

While Israel has already become the world leader in vaccinations per capita, Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip have yet to secure their first supplies.

Yasser Bozyeh, the Palestinian general director of public health, told Reuters that in addition to reaching an agreement in principle with AstraZeneca, the Palestinians had also sought supplies from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Russia, which has developed the Sputnik V vaccine.

Supplies would also come through a World Health Organization vaccine programme for poor and middle income countries.

There was no immediate response from AstraZeneca to an emailed request from Reuters for comment.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Israel had been “ignoring its duties as an occupation power and committing racial discrimination against the Palestinian people, depriving them of

SHARIF GIVES GREEN SIGNALS TO SHARIF LOYALISTS TO GET FAVOURABLE DECISION

their right to healthcare.”

“The search by the Palestinian leadership to secure the vaccines from various sources doesn’t exempt Israel from its responsibilities towards the Palestinian people in providing the vaccines,” it said.

Under interim peace accords with Israel, the Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank. Hamas runs the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s vaccination programme covers the country’s Arab citizens and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem.

On the West Bank, it has given vaccines to Israeli settlers, but not to Palestinian residents, who receive health services from the Palestinian Authority.

Human rights groups including Amnesty International say Israel has a legal obligation to provide vaccines for Palestinians under occupation. Israeli officials say they could share vaccines with the Palestinians once Israel’s own needs are met.

A WHO official said on Sunday the organisation had held “informal discussions” with Israel over allocating some supplies to the Palestinians to inoculate health workers.

The official, Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the WHO office in the Palestinian territories, said Israel indicated it would explore the option.

adamant on boycotting the Senate polls.

“Convincing Fazl would be a huge task for both Bilawal and Maryam Nawaz.

Fazl has been refusing for the time being.

But the other parties may convince him later,” the source said.

On the other hand, the PPP leadership is thinking to introduce new faces from Sindh to the Senate, in which many names are under consideration. The source said that the PPP is planning to get Naek back to the Senate but added that new faces would also be brought to the Senate.

“Sassi Palejo is being considered for inclusion in the Sindh cabinet after her retirement, while Saleem Mandviwala is also being considered for a key role in the Sindh cabinet. PPP has decided to also contest by-elections for three National and Provincial Assembly seats in Sindh. Meanwhile, PML-N and Jamiat Ulema-e-IslamFazl (JUI-F) are considering supporting the PPP candidate in Sanghar and Malir,” the source concluded.

First polio drive of 2021 to vaccinate 40m children begins today LAHORE/ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

The first polio vaccination drive of 2021 will begin on Monday and immunise some 40 million children under the age of five against the crippling disease with a focus on high-risk cities including Karachi and Quetta.

The five-day campaign will involve 285,000 health workers who while observing coronavirus-related standard operating procedures (SOPs) will go door-to-door to vaccinate children.

According to a statement, during the drive, the trained polio frontline workers will reach every child with essential polio vaccine while adhering to strict health guidelines such as wearing a mask, using hand sanitiser, and maintaining the minimum distance advised during the campaign. “Our aim is to ensure timely and repeated vaccination of children. This is key to reduce the immunity gap and to protect our children against polio and other diseases,” Dr Faisal Sultan, the prime minister’s special assistant on national health services, said through a statement issued by the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme (PPEP).

During the drive, a supplementary dose of Vitamin-A drops will be administered to children aged between six months to five years “help build general immunity among susceptible children to protect them from polio and other diseases,” PPEP said. “With our highly committed

frontline workers, and the cooperation of parents and caregivers, the program aims to restrict the geographic scope of poliovirus circulation to the high-risk areas only and get closer to the goal of eradication in 2021,” Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar, polio eradication coordinator at the National Institute of Health (NIH), said.

Pakistan is one of the two polio-endemic countries in the world along with Afghanistan. The country is facing a challenging situation in polio eradication with the upsurge in the number of polio cases.

In 2020, 83 polio cases were reported across the country, including 24 from Balochistan, 22 each from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Sindh, and 14 from Punjab.

The government’s efforts to rid the country of polio have lately suffered setbacks due to attacks on vaccinators and police personnel guarding them. The deadly violence is also cited as a factor for the upsurge in new cases that had dropped to only 12 cases in 2018.

Strict security measures had been taken for the campaign and personnel of Balochistan Levies force, police and Frontier Corps (FC) would move with all teams of vaccinations. In traditionally conservative parts of the country, many see the vaccine as a Western-led conspiracy to sterilise children. To deal with the situation, religious scholars, tribal elders and other people who have influence in their areas would motivate parents to get their children vaccinated.

FAJR SUNRISE

ZUHR

ASR MAGHRIB ISHA

5:45

12:16

3:40

7:13

5:18

6:46

IndonesIa locates black boxes of crashed jet as body parts recovered JAKARTA AGENCIES

Indonesian authorities on Sunday located the black boxes of the Sriwijaya Air jet that crashed into the sea soon after taking off from the capital Jakarta, as human body parts and pieces of the plane were retrieved. The Boeing 737-500 with 62 passengers and crew was headed on a domestic flight to Pontianak in West Kalimantan on Saturday before it disappeared from radar screens four minutes after take-off. Indonesia National Transport Safety Committee (KNKT) chief Soerjanto Tjahjono said the locations of Flight SJ 182’s two black boxes had been identified.

“Hopefully, we can retrieve them soon,” said military chief Hadi Tjahjanto, without giving an estimated timeframe. Search will continue into the night, a search and rescue official said, but efforts will be limited to sonar scans by boats. There were no clues yet as to what caused the crash, the first major aircrash in Indonesia since 189 passengers and crew were killed in 2018 when a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max in 2018 also plunged into the Java Sea soon after take-off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Even before the latest crash, more people had died in air cashes in Indonesia than in any other country over the past decade, according to Aviation Safety Network’s database. Pieces of wreckage were brought to Jakarta port by rescuers, including the plane’s altimeter radar, emergency chute and a piece that was suspected to have come off of the bottom part of the plane’s tail, KNKT official Nurcahyo Utomo said. One twisted piece of metal was painted in Sriwijaya Air’s blue and red colours.

Authorities said they came from a depth of 23 metres (75 feet) near a group of islands off the Jakarta coast. Police asked families to provide information such as dental records and DNA samples to help identify bodies. The plane had 12 crew and 50 passengers on board, all Indonesians and including 10 children.

President Joko Widodo, speaking at the palace in Bogor, expressed “deep condolences” over the disaster and urged the public to pray the missing people could be found.

‘WE FEEL POWERLESS’: Distraught relatives waited in Pontianak about 740 km (460 miles) from Jakarta for news of their loved ones. At Jakarta’s main airport a crisis centre was set up for families. “We feel powerless, we can only wait and hope to get any information soon,” Irfansyah Riyanto, who had five relatives on the flight, told reporters. Tracking service Flightradar24 said the aircraft took off at 2:36 p.m. local time (0736 GMT) and climbed to reach 10,900 feet within four minutes. It then began a steep descent and stopped transmitting data 21 seconds later. There were no immediate clues on what caused the sudden descent. Most air accidents are caused by a cocktail of factors that can take months to establish, safety experts say. A transport ministry spokeswoman said air traffic control had asked the pilot why the plane was heading northwest instead of on its expected flight path seconds before it disappeared. The pilots had decades of experience between them with the flight captain reported to be a former air force pilot and his co-pilot at Sriwijaya Air since 2013, according to his Linkedin profile. The Sriwijaya Air plane was a nearly 27-year-old Boeing 737-500, much older than Boeing’s problem-plagued 737 MAX model.

Republican US senator joins calls for Trump resignation as Democrats prepare to impeach WASHINGTON AGENCIES

A second Republican U.S. senator called for President Donald Trump to resign on Sunday, saying the Republican president could face criminal liability after the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

The remarks by Senator Pat Toomey, a conservative supporter of Trump until recently, came as Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives prepared to move forward with impeachment proceedings and amid federal investigations of Wednesday’s assault on the seat of government. Trump, who has falsely contested the validity of Democrat Joe Biden’s Nov. 3 presidential victory, praised and egged on his supporters before they laid siege to the Capitol, where lawmakers were certifying the Electoral College vote for Biden.

“I think the best way for our country is

for the president to resign and go away as soon as possible,” Toomey said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” calling Trump’s behavior since the election “outrageous.”

Toomey, appearing on several Sunday television news shows, said he did not think there was time for an impeachment with only 10 days left in Trump’s term, and noted there did not appear to be consensus to use the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to strip Trump of his powers.

He told CNN he believed Trump could be held criminally liable in the events at the Capitol. Toomey’s call followed that of fellow Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who said on Friday that Trump should resign immediately. Republican Senator Ben Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, told CBS he would “definitely consider” impeachment.

U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger, another Republican, also called on Trump to step down on Sunday, and for Vice President

Mike Pence to exercise the 25th Amendment if he refused. However, it was unclear whether a significant number of other Republicans would follow suit. Republican leaders have urged the Democratic-led House not to initiate impeachment proceedings for a historic second time against Trump.

Pence has opposed the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment, an adviser said.

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT: Democratic members of the House of Representatives planned to introduce articles of impeachment on Monday, a step House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised if Trump was not removed by other means.

The House will take up the articles as early as Tuesday or Wednesday, House Majority Whip James Clyburn told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Some Democratic lawmakers suggested on Sunday they might not want to send the articles to the Senate for a trial until after

Biden’s first 100 days in office, giving Congress time to approve Biden’s Cabinet nominees and other agenda items.

“Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running and maybe we’ll send the articles sometime after that,” Clyburn said. Democrats will take control of the Senate following victories in two Georgia runoff elections last week that will leave incoming Vice President Kamala Harris in place to make tie-breaking votes.

Biden has not taken a position on Trump’s impeachment, saying he will leave it to Congress to decide. He did say Congress needs to be able to hit the ground running once he is sworn into office on Jan. 20, when he will focus on dealing with the raging coronavirus pandemic and economic recovery. The Republican-controlled Senate cleared Trump during his first impeachment trial over allegations he threatened U.S. national security.

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

Five people including a Capitol Police officer died as a result of Wednesday’s rioting and dozens of people have been charged following the storming of the Capitol.

Authorities are investigating the security lapse, with some lawmakers questioning whether rioters had help from inside the building after images emerged of some police officers opening barricades and posing for selfies with the rioters.

While the vast majority of Capitol Police acted valiantly, U.S. Representative Mondaire Jones said on CNN on Sunday, “It’s just very clear that there was inside information that was shared with these individuals and there has to be an investigation of that.”

Toomey, a conservative who plans to retire at the end of his term in 2022, said he believed Trump had descended into a level of “madness” after the election that was unthinkable.