EpaperKHI_20-11-28

Saturday, 28 November, 2020 I 11 Rabi al-Akhir, 1442 I Rs 15.00 I Vol XI No 149 I 12 Pages I Karachi Edition

Over 2,000 cOrOnavirus patients in critical cOnditiOn during lethal secOnd wave g

over 3,000 new covid-19 cases recorded for third consecutive day

ISLAMABAD staff report

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s pakistan recorded over 3,000 new cases of coronavirus for the third consecutive day on thursday, the national command and operations centre’s (ncoc) data revealed that over 2,000 covid-19 patients were in critical condition. according to ncoc, 144 new cases were recorded during the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of critical cases up to 2,112. furthermore, reports emerged about the shortage of intensive care unit (icu) beds in parts of the country. a local media outlet reported that nine leading public, private and welfare hospitals in Karachi have no vacant beds. the hospitals in question were Jinnah postgraduate medical centre (Jpmc), aga

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54 more die of virus-related complications; positivity rate in peshawar exceeds 19pc

Khan university hospital, infectious diseases hospital nipa, liaquat national hospital (lnh), patel hospital, indus hospital, Ziauddin hospital’s clifton Branch, national medical centre (nmc) and south city hospital.

the sindh health department reported that the nine hospitals collectively have 137 icu beds, none of which are currently vacant. moreover, not all of the aforementioned beds include ventilator support. of the total 31 hospitals in the city, 237 beds out of a total 452 are currently occupied. these vacant beds include those hospitals which have yet to start taking covid-19 patients. however, as friday marks the third consecutive day with over 3,000 cases reported, it is predicted that these beds would fill up soon as well if the proper precautions are not taken. the total number of cases since the start of the outbreak in pakistan is now 389,311. at least 54 people died in just one day, raising the death toll to 7,897. meanwhile, peshawar now has the highest positivity rate in the country at 19.65 per cent. this is followed by followed

by Karachi at 17.73 per cent and hyderabad at 16.32 per cent, the ncoc learned during a meeting today.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

PM ASKS PDM TO CANCEL ITS RALLIES AMID DEADLY SECOND WAVE OF COVID-19 ISLAMABAD: prime minister imran Khan on friday reiterated the government’s resolve not to allow big gatherings amid the second wave of coronavirus pandemic and said that pakistan democratic movement (pdm) must cancel its public gatherings in larger interest of the people of pakistan. addressing the participants of the meeting of the government spokespersons, the prime minister said that the children of two corrupt politicians were only interested in saving their parents’ looted wealth but they did not care about the lives of the people of pakistan. he said that while the entire world was taking concrete steps to help save their people from the pandemic, some self-centred politicians were putting lives of the public at large in danger. Mian abrar CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

cOrOnavirus in

pakistan

PM visits Ehsaas Kafalat payment site to initiate payment for 7m beneficiaries ISLAMABAD staff report

prime minister imran Khan visited the ehsaas Kafaalat payment site on friday to kick off payments to 7 million beneficiaries. special assistant to pm dr sania nishtar briefed the premier about several measures that have been taken to improve the quality of payments and to ensure protection against cyber-attacks. pm imran, who also interacted with beneficiaries, was told that this time round, women could access banks and take money out from atms. “the ehsaas payment system is designed in a way to provide maximum options to the beneficiaries, including the first-time introduction of the option to draw money from a biometric atm. this means that vulnerable women will no longer be hostage to corrupt agents and touts, who tend to deduct money,” dr sania said. the prime minister was told that the ehsaas Kafaalat payments would be made in phases. in phase i, which commenced on friday, some 4.3 million women beneficiaries would get the payments. each beneficiary would be made a combined payment of rs12,000 for six months from July to december 2020. the prime minister has already given approval to increase the number to seven million women, which means seven million households will benefit. payments to additional beneficiaries will be made from december 2020 onwards and the process will be completed in the current fiscal year. during the visit, the prime minister was also shown the trial run of the operations of “ehsaas one woman one Bank account”. from next year onwards, the ehsaas Kafaalat beneficiaries will

Self-reliance in defence production vital to meet challenges: COAS

CONFIRMED CASES:

389,311

have the option of either drawing their money or saving money into digital wallets. for the first time, the poorest women in pakistan will have the option to save their payments. “we will have to focus on financial literacy to ensure that women draw maximum benefit from this empowering initiative,” dr sania said. “financial inclusion is a central goal of ehsaas and key to unlocking the potential of millions of the most disadvantaged women in pakistan. By providing individuals with access to secure, useful and affordable financial products and services like transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance, we are giving them the financial security required to escape poverty and create a better life for themselves and their families,” she added. as part of an efficient digital system for Kafaalat, payments will also be possible at point of sales at retail points through machines which authenticate biometrically. alongside in the interest of transparency and integrity, a number of innovative reforms have recently been introduced, including device restrictions, new protocols for user authentication, systems based geo-tagging and fencing disbursement timing block, and system generated electronic printed receipts for funds withdrawal so that beneficiaries can see the exact amount of funds that have been transferred in their accounts, and are empowered. further, aiming to protect the payment system and empower Kafaalat recipients, the partnering banks have been asked to make sure that the quality of biometric machines at retailer touchpoints is in accordance with international standards.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

more inside

DHA shootout: PTI leader’s driver allegedly among 5 suspects killed by police STORY ON PAGE 03

shehbaz, hamza released on parole for Begum shamim’s funeral

LAST UPDATED AT 8:04 AM ON NOVEMBER 27, 2020

DAY'S DEATH TOLL:

54

RECOVERED:

NEW CASES:

3,113 DEATHS:

335,881 7,897 SINDH:

PUNJAB:

168,783

117,160

KP:

BALOCHISTAN:

AJK/GB:

ISLAMABAD:

46,281

17,008

6,501/4,598 28,980

STORY ON PAGE 02 WAH CANTT staff report

chief of army staff (coas) General Qamar Javed Bajwa has said that technological up-gradation, modernisation and indigenous development to attain self-reliance in defence production are vital to meet challenges of the future battlefield. the army chief said this during his visit to pakistan ordnance factories at wah on friday, said the inter-services public relations (ispr). appreciating pof management and staff, the army chief termed pof a force behind the

armed forces serving as backbone in defence of pakistan. according to the military’s media wing, the coas was given a detailed briefing on performance of various production units of pof. the briefing focused on targets achieved, future projects, envisaged modernisation for cost effective and sustainable production and acquisition of modern technology in line with prevailing operational requirements of pakistan armed forces. the army chief was also apprised of pof endeavours for international ventures focusing on exports to contribute to na-

tional exchequer. he visited the display lounge where newly developed defence products were showcased. earlier on arrival, the coas chief was received by pof chairman lieutenant General Bilal akbar. earlier on november 7, army chief visited logistic installations of lahore corps. during interaction with troops, General Bajwa said that efficient and smooth logistics will enhance the overall operational readiness and response capacity against adventurism by the enemy, the military’s media wing said.

PM approves nomination of Khalid Khursheed for GB CM slot STORY ON PAGE 02

iran’s top nuclear scientist assassinated near tehran STORY ON BACK PAGE

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Saturday, 28 november, 2020

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PM aPProveS noMination of KHalid KHurSHeed for GB CM Slot ISLAMABAD

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GHULAM ABBAS

RIME Minister Imran Khan on Friday finalised Advocate Khalid Khursheed’s name for the position of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) chief minister.

Khurshid was elected the member of Gilgit-Baltistan assembly from GBLA-13 constituency in GB in the November 15 elections.

After a feud between candidates of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) GB for three days, the prime minister approved the name of Khursheed from Astore, Diamer region.

His selection was made as per the tradition of electing chief ministers from different regions of GB, as previous chief ministers were selected from Baltistan region and

Gilgit region.

“Although GB Governor Raja Jalal Hussain and Federal Minister of Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Ali Amin Gandapur was in favour of nominating Fathullah Khan, the general secretary of PTI GB, but the premier, on the advice of some influential people, selected Khursheed for the top slot,” said an insider.

According to reliable sources, a potential group within PTI, especially from Baltistan region, had warned that in case of nominating Fathullah, who belongs to the GBLA-2, Gilgit-II from where the former CM Hafeezur Rehman was elected, a forward bloc will emerge within the party.

The party, fearing division within the party members in GB Assembly had rescheduled the election for CM in the assembly. The election for chief minister was originally

scheduled for November 27, but it was postponed to November 30.

Interestingly there was rumour before the election that Khursheed would become the next chief minister of GB. According to local leaders of the party, PM Imran is likely to visit Gilgit on November 30 and participate in the oathtaking ceremony of the chief minister. He is also likely to make some announcements related to development in GB. Khursheed, a barrister, hails from Rattu of Astore district in GB. He was born on November 17, 1980. He completed his matriculation from a public school and college in Gilgit and moved to Faisalabad for further education. After his graduation, went to London to study law.

After returning from London, he contested his first election in 2009 as

independent candidate, but he lost the election. He once again contested the election as an independent candidate in 2015 but could not win the seat from GBLA-13.

In 2020, he, as candidate of PTI won the seat against Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Abdul Hameed, Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz’s (PML-N) Rana Farman Ali and Dr Ghulam Abbas (Independent) in GBLA-13 Astore-I. He contested in the past two elections as an independent candidate but could not win the seat.

Khursheed had joined PTI in 2018 and became president of PTI Diamer division in GB. His father was a judge. One of his brothers is a retired DIG. He reportedly has an influential family in the constituency.

Although he is qualified to be a barrister, he has never practiced law. His family lives

in Gilgit but he is used to visiting his constituency to keep his political contacts in Astore.

Other candidates for the CM slot included Fateh Ullah Khan and Colonel (r) Abaid Ullah Baig. Fateh Ullah, who is also general secretary of PTI GB was also considered a potential candidate for the important position. Though he, as per unofficial results, won the seat in GBLA-2 Gilgit-II, against PML-N candidate Hafiz Hafeezur Rehman and PPP candidate Jamil Ahmed, but PPP candidate is challenging the results of this constituency.

Abaid Ullah from Hunza was also being considered another expected candidate for chief minister GB. The PTI candidate has won the seat from GBLA -6 Hunza against PTI rebel independent candidates Noor Muhammad and Kamil Jan. Earlier on Friday PTI’s Chief Organiser Saifullah Saifullah Niazi had made the announcement regarding the new chief minister through a tweet.

On November 26, Polling was held for the post of speaker and deputy speaker of GB Assembly, in which Amjad Ali Zaidi of PTI and Ghulam Muhammad of opposition contested for speaker. The PTI candidate won the election with a total of 18 votes.

Shehbaz, Hamza released on parole for Begum Shamim’s funeral Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif and his son, Leader of the Opposition in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz, were released on parole for five days from Kot Lakhpat prison on Friday in order to attend the funeral of Begum Shamim Akhtar.

The two would be released at 2 pm on Friday, the Punjab Home Department had said a day before in an official notification. The parole had been approved by Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. On Monday, PML-N had approached the provincial authorities to get party President Shehbaz and his son and Hamza released on parole to attend the funeral of Begum Shamim.

Begum Shamim will be buried at the Sharif family’s Jati Umra residence next to the grave of her husband, Mian Sharif. The funeral prayers of the deceased will be offered on Saturday at Medical City Complex. Begum Shamim, the nonagenarian mother of former prime minister and PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shehbaz, passed away in London on Sunday morning. Following which, the Punjab government had announced to release the father-son duo, detained in Kot Lakhpat prison in various graft cases, a day before the arrival of the body. PML-N leadership has confirmed that Nawaz, who is in London since November last year on the pretext of medical treatment, will not join the funeral, citing medical reasons. Meanwhile, the funeral prayer of Begum Shamim was held at the Regent’s Park mosque in London on Friday. Nawaz, other family members and former finance minister Ishaq Dar were in attendance besides other colleagues. Keeping in view the coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs), only 30 people were allowed inside the mosque for the funeral prayer. A little while before the funeral prayer, Maryam Nawaz – the PML-N’s vice-president and daughter of Nawaz Sharif – tweeted a picture of her father standing beside his mother’s body. “A son who deserves his mother’s prayers, surrendering his mother to his Allah,” she wrote in the tweet. Begum Shamim’s body was reportedly taken straight to the Heathrow airport after the funeral prayer to be brought to Lahore. PML-N Deputy Secretary General Attaullah Tarar said Begum Shamim’s body would reach Lahore on Saturday at around 6:45am via a British Airway flight. The funeral prayer would be offered the same day at 2 pm. NEWS DESK

GILGIT: The autonomous region in the grips of a harsh winter. INP

Questions arise regarding NUML student’s alleged suicide ISLAMABAD BILAL SABRI

Kainat Tariq, a 23-year-old student of the National University of Modern Languages (NUML) in Islamabad, died this week from an apparent drug overdose, according to new police reports, which claim that that she bought the pills herself.

An economics student and a member of the Pakistan Red Crescent Society for the past eight months, Kainat Tariq, was reported dead on November 23 by her parents. A first information report (FIR) was registered in the I-9 police station.

In the FIR, the father claimed that Kainat had been poisoned to death by

Red Crescent Secretary General Khalid bin Waleed.

According to Kainat’s father, Khalid had secretly married Kainat and had allegedly taken her to Britain. The father added that Kainat’s mother suspected that she was pregnant, so she was urging Khalid to make her marriage public.

The FIR further read that Kainat’s salary was Rs65,000 out of which Khalid used to keep Rs25,000 every month. The father said that due to these problems, there were quarrels between the two and Kainat was also demanding that he return the money. He maintained that his daughter had been poisoned by the same man and appealed for justice.

Senior police officials told Pakistan Today that the investigation so far has revealed contradictory statements of the parents.

The police said Kainat’s telephone record and footage from outside his office had been obtained. Kainat died after consuming phosphorus tablets in wheat, according to the initial medical examination, which also stated that there were no signs of wounds on the body.

According to police officials, tablets were found in an office drawer as well as a shopping slip. Later, footage from outside the office also showed that Kainat had bought the pills from the pharmacy with the driver of the office and came back to the office and ate four

pills. Furthermore, the shopkeeper from where the tablets were bought has also been interrogated and it has been confirmed from there that Kainat had bought the tablets on her own.

The police investigation further revealed that immediately after taking the pills, when her health deteriorated, she called Khalid and informed him that she had taken the pills.

According to police, the doctors there said that they did not have the facility to pump the patient’s stomach, so she was taken to the nearby Holy Family Hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries. Holy Family Hospital reported the matter to police, who rushed to the scene.

Pakistan Steel Mills fires 4,544 employees KARACHI TLTP

The Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) on Friday sacked its 4,544 employees and sent their termination letters via post.

According to a PSM spokesman, they have prepared a list of the employees who have been sacked and included from separate cadres, including teachers, drivers, fireman, operators,

health and security staffers, SEDGMs, managers and others.

Responding to the decision, a workers group named Stakeholders Group rejected the decision and said that it seems that the state has become irrelevant in the PSM matter.

“The department head was summoned today for the termination of the staffers,” said the convener of the group Mumraiz Khan, adding that they were forced to hit the streets even during the

pandemic due to such decisions.

He lamented over delay in payment of salaries to incumbent PSM employees and those who have been sacked. “These salaries are our due right and not a favour from the state,” he said.

Khan further rejected the plan to revive the PSM and said that it would prove devastating for the PSM. He demanded Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to look into the matter.

KARACHI: Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari poses with her fiance Mahmood Choudhry at their engagement celebration at Bilawal House in Karachi. PPP

Saturday, 28 November, 2020

DHA sHootout: PtI leADer’s DrIver AllegeDly Among 5 susPects kIlleD by PolIce

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NEWS DESK

shootout occurred in Phase 4 of Karachi’s Defence housing Authority (DhA), resulting in the deaths of five purported robbers, according to the police officials, however, a local Pakistan tehreek-e-Insaf (PtI) leader claimed that one of the five suspects shot was her family driver.

PtI leader Laila Parveen and her husband Advocate Ali hasnain added that Ghulam Abbas had been her driver for many years who was taken away from her home and killed. the alleged robbers had entered a bungalow with the intention of looting it but were stopped by the police, who

arrived soon after receiving information of the burglary taking place, said Gizri station house officer (sho) Agha Mashooq. the sho alleged that these men were part of a gang that conducted house robberies in both sindh and Punjab.

Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre Executive Director Dr seemin Jamali said that all five individuals were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. three of the deceased were identified as 44-year-old Ghulam Mohammad, 65-year-old Riaz and 36year-old Abid. It is now emerging that one of the two remaining men, Ghulam Abbas, may have been the driver of the PtI leader. the remaining suspect, who is believed to be in his 30s, has not yet been identified.

taking to social media, Parveen and her husband provided their side of the story, in which they said that police had detained Abbas from their home in DhA Phase 4 and killed him along with four others while the vehicle seized from the suspects also belonged to them. “there was no record that my vehicle was used in any crime and there was no criminal record of my driver either,” the lawyer asserted, adding that he did not know the other four men killed in the shootout.

Parveen added that at around 4:30 am, policemen in plainclothes had come to their house and taken away the driver and their vehicle. “CCtV cameras are installed in my house; if police haven’t destroyed the footages all facts will become clear,”

hasnain added. the couple referred to the driver as a “gentleman”, and demanded justice for his killing.

Meanwhile, the police claimed that they took out a “dacoit gang” in the area they were patrolling, adding that the group, identified as the ‘seraiki gang’, had opened fire on them first and that they were acting in self-defence. “this seraiki gang as per their modus operandi sought information from house servants and carried out house robberies at an appropriate time,” read the police statement.

Police claimed to have recovered five pistols and four CNICs from their custody but the police statement was silent about the specific charges of the PtI leader.

NEWS

03

chinese envoy impressed with cPec Authority work under gen Asim bajwa Newly-appointed Chinese Ambassador Nong Rong called on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority Chairman Lt Gen (r) Asim saleem Bajwa on Friday. "had a comprehensive review of the CPEC cooperation and discussed the way forward with Asim saleem Bajwa @AsimsBajwa Chairman, CPEC Authority. Impressed by the work of the CPEC Authority led by him," the envoy tweeted. NEWS DESK

Activist Ammar Ali Jan lambasts lahore Dc after escaping arrest Activist and member of the haqooq-e-Khalq Movement (hKM), Ammar Ali Jan, took to twitter to lash out against the Lahore deputy commissioner after he was almost arrested while attending a student protest at Lahore’s Charing Cross. “upholding the legacy of his colonial masters, the DC thought it was better to attack peaceful protestors rather than engage with their legitimate demands. We are neither scared of these shameful,” the activist said on his twitter handle.

While leaving the protest venue for the students solidarity March along with his friends, Ammar’s car was followed by a police van. they were stopped at Gulberg Main Boulevard and taken to a police check point. the group was only allowed to leave after agreeing to appear before the station house officer of the Civil Lines police station within two hours. Ammar said, “the arrest attempts were made as a result of an obnoxious notification by DC Lahore” and, according to a local news outlet, he plans to approach the court for pre-arrest bail on Monday. Jan’s arrest orders were issued by the Lahore deputy commissioner on thursday under section 3 (power to arrest and detain suspected persons) of the Maintenance of Public order ordinance. According to the order, Jan was a “potential danger to public peace, law and order situation” and must be detained “in order to keep the law and order situation in the city”. under the charge, the activist would remain under arrest for 30 days. NEWS DESK

ISLAMABAD: Leaves fall away in the federal capital as the city moves towards winter. INP

Rs1.1trn projects under finalised for Karachi NEWS DESK several high ranking public figures, including Prime Minister Imran Khan, Chief of Army staff (CoAs) General Qamar Javed Bajwa and other ministers, were told that over 100 projects, with an approximated worth of Rs1.1 trillion, have been finalised under the Karachi transformation Plan (KtP).

During a federal cabinet meeting, the premier had stressed the need to speed up the KPt as the people of the port city have high expectations from the government’s Karachi Package.

After the cabinet meeting – which also reviewed the economic conditions of the country – the prime minister chaired a high-level meeting of the KtP with several other key ministers, including Asad umar, Faisal Vawda, sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul hafeez sheikh and CoAs Bajwa. the premier stressed on the needs of the citizens of the port city, who had suffered heavily in the raininduced floods during the 2020 monsoon season. stating that the damage due to floods was caused by the illegally constructed nullahs, the PM directed that a technical committee should be formed under the planning ministry to formulate recommendations for

enhancing the capacity and utility of the K-4 project to supply water to the city. he also said that alternative arrangements should be made in advance for the deserving residents of Karachi before removing the encroachments.

In a separate meeting on the Pakistan Islands Development Authority (PIDA) and the Ravi River urban Development Authority (RuDA), the prime minister was presented with a proposal by Dutch company AWtEC Netherlands, which is seeking to establish water desalination plants and waste-to-energy plants in Karachi with an investment of $1.3 billion.

AWtEC proposed to build a waste energy and desalination plant in Karachi and expressed a keen interest in the establishment of a renewable energy plant in Lahore. the premier said that AWtEC’s projects could help the government provide international-standard residential facilities in both Lahore and Karachi.

According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s office, AWtEC’s projects would be established on the basis of technology transfer, generating jobs and reducing the cost of power generation, adding that an Mou will be signed between the government and AWtEC soon.

Meanwhile, chairing the weekly meeting of the National Coordinating Committee for housing,

Construction and Development, the premier had directed the FBR chairman and other agencies concerned to provide facilities to overseas investors. he said, “Pakistanis living abroad are our most valuable assets so barriers to their participation in domestic business activities should be removed on a priority basis.”

PM Imran had also directed for simplification of procedure for obtaining a no-objection certificate (NoC) and other approvals for provision of new electricity connections. the session was also attended by ex-governor of state Bank of Pakistan (sBP), Ishrat hussain, who serves as the adviser to the PM on institutional reforms, while special Assistants shahbaz Gill and syed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari were present as well. the chief secretaries of all provinces joined the session via video-link. separately, Bukhari had called on PM Imran on thursday. the construction project of 1,500 houses under the Workers Welfare Fund was discussed in detail during the meeting. this project would provide affordable and low-price residential houses with all basic facilities and will be inaugurated in January next year.

Appreciating the project, the prime minister said that this is a practical reflection of the government’s commitment to providing an affordable residential scheme to the masses.

Saturday, 28 November, 2020

04 NEWS

POlITICAl PrISOnerS BABA JAn, IFTIkhAr kArBAlAI releASed AFTer 9 yeArS ISLAMABAD

F

GHULAM ABBAS

OLLOWING the completion of the election process in GilgitBaltistan (GB), the government released political prisoners Baba Jan and Iftikhar Hussain Karbalai from Ghahkuch jail of the autonomous region on Friday.

Sources told Pakistan Today that an agreement was reached between government and protesters in Hunza a month ago for the release of the political prisoners, but the condition was that they would be freed after the completion of the election process.

Both prisoners spent nine years behind bars, before being released on Friday evening in the presence of many wellwishers and supporters. According to sources, 11 wrongly convicted prisoners

had been released ahead of the election.

Iftikhar Karbalai is a senior leader of the Karakoram National Movement, a regional political party.

Baba Jan, a political activist from Hunza, is a member of the Awami Workers Party. He is currently a member of the party’s federal committee. He, along with Iftikhar Karbalai and 13 other prisoners, was serving life imprisonment in Damas jail in district Ghizer after they were convicted by an anti-terrorism court over riots that erupted in 2011.

Baba Jan was convicted by the court for participating in a demonstration against the killing of a man and his son by the police on August 11, 2011 at Aliabad, Hunza.

When a deadly landslide submerged several villages in Attabad in early 2010, Baba Jan was trying to bring to attention the consequences of climate change and re-

Punjab set to start anti-polio drive from Monday

source exploitation.

In 2011, after months of cold response to the disaster, the activist organised a movement to demand long delayed compensation for those affected by the disaster.

On August 12, 2011, at a demonstration during the visit of then-chief minister to Attabad Lake, the police opened fire at the protesting internally displaced persons (IDPs), killing a father, Sherullah Baig, and his son Afzal. The news sparked angry protests throughout the region.

The activist was not even present during the incident, but he was targeted because of his past activities. A month later, he and several other activists were arrested and booked under the anti-terrorist act, and thrown behind bars, where they were tortured and denied medical treatment.

Despite the victimisation, Baba Jan

continued his political activities in the prison, uniting prisoners to demand humane living conditions in jail.

The activist, who is the former vice president of the Awami Workers PartyPakistan, and the founding chairman of the Progressive Youth Front, was granted bail in 2013, upon which he resumed his activism, and successfully campaigned for wheat subsidy to be restored for the region in 2014.

However, his bail was withdrawn, and he was handed life imprisonment along with 13 others. In 2015, he contested the election from his prison cell. Without funds and physically restrained by the prison boundaries, he nonetheless managed to gain the second-highest number of votes in the polls. When the seat became vacant once again the same year, the activist was not allowed to contest the election.

Sikh pilgrims arrive for Baba Guru Nanak’s 551st birth anniversary

LAHORE

LAHORE

TLTP

SHAHAB OMER

The Punjab government has completed preparations for launching a five-day anti-polio vaccination drive commencing from November 30 (Monday) to December 4. A total of 48,000 teams have been constituted and their training sessions were also concluded following the upcoming anti-polio vaccination drive for administering polio drops to more than 20 million children. According to the Polio Eradication Programme, the concerned authorities have completed the supply of polio vaccines in all districts besides provision of face masks and sanitizers to the polio workers to prevent them from contracting coronavirus. More than 4,900 teams have been constituted to take part in the campaign in the provincial capital Lahore to administer polio drops to more than 1.8 million children. More than 2,000 polio teams were constituted for Multan for 0.9 million children and 2,900 teams for 0.9 million children in Rawalpindi. According to the statistics, the total count of poliovirus stands at 14 in Punjab province, whereas, this year’s toll reaches up to 81 across the country.

Sikh pilgrims have started coming to Pakistan through the Wagah border to participate in the celebrations of 551st birth anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism and the first of 10 Sikh Gurus.

A spokesperson for the Evacuee trust Property Board (ETPB) told Pakistan Today that a group of 602 members of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) led by Amarjeet Sindh arrived in Pakistan through Wagah border on Friday. The spokesperson added that Additional Secretary Shrines Tariq Wazir Khan, members of the SGPC and other board officials received the pilgrims upon arrival. Staff member of Indian High Commission, R B Sohran, and Santosh Kumar also reached Wagah border from Islamabad for welcoming the pilgrims.

The Sikh pilgrims also brought a Palki for Guru

Garanth Sahib from India, which they will place in the Gurdwara. Speaking to Pakistan Today, the additional secretary said that as per the directions of the ETPB chairman, transports has been specifically disinfected for the convenience of the pilgrims.

The official expressed satisfaction at the security and accommodation arrangements for the pilgrims. He said that Gurudwaras have been beautifully decorated by the board administration and the main event of Baba Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary, which will be held on November 30, will be attended by political, religious and minority leaders, after which the visiting pilgrims will return to India on December 1.

When asked about the implementation of coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs), Khan said that the representatives of the provincial health department screened all passengers for Covid-19 symptoms and checked the test reports they were carrying. “We will fully implement Covid-19 SOPs,” he added.

Three dIe AS FIre eruPTS FACTOry In OrAngI KARACHI: At least three people burnt to death after a factory in Karachi’s Orangi neighbourhood caught fire on Friday. According to police, the blaze broke out at the factory located in Orangi No 4. On getting information, a police team and fire brigade vehicles arrived at the scene and began the operation to douse the raging flames. The fire was later doused. Three fire tenders took part in the firefighting operation. The cause of the fire has not yet been ascertained. The people who died in the blaze were identified as Akram, Shahid and Ismail. On June 8, five people were killed in a factory fire in Faisalabad. The oil factory inferno was brought under control after five hours of toil, five charred dead bodies of factory workers were pulled from the burning establishment by rescue workers. The factory was housing almost 100,000 litres of oil which caught fire. TLTP

Investors turning to Punjab due to beneficial policies: Aslam FAISALABAD: Welcoming the establishment of a smartphone manufacturing plant in Faisalabad, Punjab Minister for Industries Mian Aslam Iqbal has said that local and foreign investors are turning towards the province due to the beneficial policies of the provincial government.

Aslam said this while witnessing the agreement signing ceremony of setting up a smart phone manufacturing plant in M-3 Industrial Estate Faisalabad on Friday. VIVO Vice President Duam Tai Ping and Director Manufacturing Zhang Bin signed the agreement in the FIEDMC office with an initial investment of $10 million.

FIEDMC CEO Aamer Saleemi was also present on the occasion. Aslam said that complete protection is being provided to the investors and facilities are being ensured on priority basis.

Increase in employment opportunities through promotion of trade and investment opportunities is the policy of government, he added. Speaking on the occasion, the Chinese representative said that a conducive environment is provided for investment in Punjab and the company will invest more. He further said that $10 million is an initial investment only. STAFF REPORT

Pakistan keen to expand military cooperation with Tajikistan: CJCSC RAWALPINDI STAFF REPORT

Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Nadeem Raza has said that Pakistan is keen to expand its existing bilateral military to military cooperation with Tajikistan. The CJCSC, who is on an official visit to Tajikistan, said this during his meetings with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and other senior officials. During the meetings, both the sides deliberated upon various areas of mutual interest and bilateral cooperation including security, counter terrorism and prevailing regional environment particularly with reference to Afghanistan. They also dilated upon measures to enhance the level and scope of military engagements between the two countries and reaffirmed to continue to forge deeper ties. The Tajik dignitaries lauded professionalism of Pakistan Armed Forces and acknowledged their sacrifices in fight against terrorism.

Opposition acting irresponsibly amid Covid-19: Faraz ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz has said that the opposition parties are continuously acting with irresponsibility despite the second severe wave of the Covid-19. In a tweet on Friday, the information minister said that the opposition should stop playing with the lives of people. He said that the people are rejecting the public gatherings of the opposition. It is pertinent to mention here that the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) is planning to hold a massive power show in Multan on November 30 and former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani on November 12 had claimed that it would be the largest political rally in the region.

ISLAMABAD: Jinnah Avenue at sunset. INP

PML-N trying to create impression of political victimisation: Firdous LAHORE STAFF REPORT

Attacking the Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N), Special Assistant to Punjab CM on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Friday said that the party is trying to create a wrong impression of political victimisation by the government.

Addressing a press conference in the provincial capital, Dr Firdous said that those who are chanting hollow slogans

had emptied the national exchequer in the past and such corrupt elements cannot hoodwink the nation any more as their incompetency and corrupt faces have been exposed to the public.

She said that the alliance of opposition parties is only to safeguard their personal interests and looted money, and they have nothing to do with people’s problems. “The nefarious narrative of the opposition has been rejected by the people. The lust for power has blinded the opposition,” she alleged.

The CM’s aide said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government will fulfil its promise of strengthening the institutions and Prime Minister Imran Khan is moving forward with the mission to hold the supremacy of law. She said that the PTI government is making every possible effort to end the hereditary politics and the day is not far away when the people of Pakistan will be free from political slavery.

She also said that the opposition should refrain from putting the lives of

people at stake just for their political interests. The opposition rallies could lead to the spread of coronavirus at a large scale in the country, she added.

Responding to a question, she said that the government will ensure the supremacy of law and violation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) will not be tolerated under any circumstances. She further said that the people have rejected the PDM’s narrative at the Peshawar procession and all the opponents are blaming one another for the failure.

Saturday, 28 November, 2020

PRESiDEnt Alvi PROPOSES 'tRADE tRiAnglE' BEtwEEn PAkiStAn, ChinA & ASEAn iSLamaBad

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TLTP

RESIDENT Dr Arif Alvi has proposed establishing a trade triangle between Pakistan, China and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to maximise the quantum of intra-regional business opportunities.

In his virtual address to the 17th China-ASEAN Expo held in China's Nanning city on Friday, the president said

that Pakistan's stable macroeconomic policies and ease of doing business offered an attractive market to both China and the ASEAN countries for trade cooperation in diverse areas.

He maintained that despite the challenge of coronavirus pandemic, Pakistan's economy strengthened and its online businesses grew due to implementation of far-reaching economic reforms.

“We encourage the ASEAN countries and the Chinese businessmen to invest in special economic zones as Pakistan's

FBR launches singlepage income tax return form for SMEs iSLamaBad STAFF REPORT

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), in collaboration with the Pakistan Revenue Automation Ltd (PRAL), has launched a singlepage simplified income tax return form for small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) having turnover up to Rs50 million. In a statement on Friday, the FBR said that the facility can also be availed by individuals and associations of persons (AOPs).

"This return is available on Iris portal and requires input of basic data relating to business activities conducted by eligible taxpayers during the period relevant to tax year 2020." The FBR said that in line with the vision of the prime minister and special assistant to the PM on revenue, the board has taken significant initiatives to facilitate taxpayers by making compliance easier. Likewise, the FBR has upgraded its Iris system with the help of PRAL for issuing SMS and emails whenever any notice is issued or any assignment is created by a tax officer, the statement added. Previously, taxpayers would know about such notices/intimations only after logging onto Iris portal. With the objective of improving compliance with a facilitative environment, after Iris upgrade, taxpayers and intermediaries will receive notifications of such communications through SMS and e-mails, making compliance easier and smarter. "The FBR has launched a system, Maloomat-TaxRay, wherein taxpayers can access all information available with the FBR by logging through a secure mechanism.

For further facilitation, this feature has been launched in mobile app, Tax Assan, so that taxpayers can easily access all such information," the statement read. "FBR believes in high levels of tax facilitation and constantly using innovative technology to create a faceless organisation."

Plastic import up 3.3pc in four months FY21 ISLAMABAD: The import of plastic material witnessed an increase of 13.32 per cent during the first four months (July-Oct) of the current financial year (FY21) as compared to the corresponding period of last year. According to details, Pakistan imported plastic worth $701.579 million in JulyOct FY21 as compared to the imports of $619.097 million in July-Oct FY20, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday. Meanwhile, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, plastic imports increased 18.70pc, from $153.913 million in October 2019 to $182.686 million in October 2020. However, on a monthly basis (MoM), imports declined by 3.03pc in October 2020 when compared to the imports of $188.400m in September 2020. APP

macroeconomic policies have changed tremendously with an improved state of ease of doing business." On exports to ASEAN and China, he said textiles, food produce (meat and vegetables), surgical goods, minerals and information technology could be prospective areas.

Earlier in August, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Pakistan would continue to deepen and further strengthen political, economic and cultural ties with ASEAN and its member states in line with its 'Vision East Asia' policy.

In his message on the 53rd ASEAN Day, the foreign minister had said, “Pakistan enjoys close, friendly ties with all ASEAN members and its historic and deep-rooted relations pre-date the modem era, harkening back to abiding linkages forged during the time of the Gandhara Civilization.”

Qureshi had also commended the ASEAN states for handling the Covid-19 pandemic and called for enhanced cooperation and collaboration among the member states for betterment of humanity.

Pakistan, Germany sign €18.5m accords for health, climate change projects

Pakistan and Germany on Friday signed three grant-in-aid agreements with a cumulative value of €18.5 million.

The Pakistani side was represented by the Ministry of Economic Affairs while German Development Bank-KfW represented the government of Germany. Under these agreements, Germany will provide support for women health facilities, polio eradication, along with services towards mitigation of energy issues.

The agreements were signed by Economic Affairs Secretary Noor Ahmed and German Development Bank-KfW Pakistan Director Sebastian Jacobi.

Under the 'women employment in private health' component, KfW will provide a grant of €12 million

exclusively for the establishment of women health clinics in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab to promote self-employment of women in the health sector, besides training of qualified women to run clinics.

Meanwhile, KfW will provide an additional grant of €5 million to augment the existing support for polio eradication. This will help Pakistan to finance polio vaccines and meet the costs for implementation of Pakistan’s National Polio Emergency Action Plan.

Under the climate change/energy component, a grant of €1.5 million will be given to Pakistan to implement accompanying services for the Harpo Hydropower Project in the Gilgit-Baltistan region.

These accompanying measures

will be carried out at the project site in support of the main Harpo Hydropower Project to ensure project sustainability. The accompanying services shall comprise assistance to strengthen the power utility i.e. the Gilgit-Baltistan Power Department as well as accompanying investments in the social infrastructure including relevant consulting measures.

Historically, Pakistan and Germany have enjoyed warm friendly relations since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1951. Earlier this year, Germany through KfW signed agreements with the government of Pakistan to provide €27 million for Gharo substation in Sindh and €6 million for the Regional Infrastructure Project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. NEWS DESK

PM visits Ehsaas Kafalat payment site to initiate payment for 7m beneficiaries continued from page 01 Other significant improvements to safeguard transparent flow of Kafaalat funds include retailers’ trainings, complaints’ resolution mechanism, real time reporting of transactions and dashboards have been created for alerts and for information sharing about how and where the money was being disbursed.

Dr Sania herself attended trainings of retailers last

week to learn about their perspective first-hand.

In Pakistan, most of the digitally and financially excluded segments were destitute women. Ehsaas Kafaalat ensured financial and digital inclusion of deserving women across the country, the prime minister was told.

Changing lives of millions of women, ‘Ehsaas One Woman One Account Initiative’ will help the marginalized people plan for everything from long-term goals to unexpected emergencies.

NewS

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Over 2,000 coronavirus patients in critical condition during lethal second wave continued from page 01 On a provincial scale, the highest positivity rate is in Sindh, at 13.25 per cent, and then Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) at 10.79 per cent. Meanwhile, with a positivity rate under 4 per cent, Punjab is the lowest in the country. Meanwhile, KP’s positivity rate is 9.25 per cent while Balochistan has 6.41 per cent.

Islamabad and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) have a positivity rate of 5.84 per cent and 4.81per cent respectively.

“Continuous monitoring and anticipation of likely pattern/disease prevalence is most important as only this will help us [come up with the] required response for [stopping the spread of] Covid,” said NCOC Chairperson Asad Umar during the meeting, which was attended by provincial chief secretaries via video-link.

PM asks PDM to cancel its rallies amid deadly second wave of Covid-19 continued from page 01 “Let me make it clear again: regardless of how many gatherings they hold, I will not give them any NRO [National Reconciliation Ordinance],” vowed the prime minister. He reiterated the resolve to ensure that Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SoPs) are observed at any cost. According to a source in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed strongly criticised the opposition alliance and fully agreed with the proposal not to hold a meeting. However, the source added, some party leaders said that the government should not provide the opposition any excuse to blame the government as the PDM shows were failing as people were not coming to these meetings.

The railways minister also briefed the participants on updated position of ML-I – a multi-billion-dollar project of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood briefed the spokespersons on the communication and the government’s stance on PDM public meetings.

The source said that PM Imran termed the second wave of coronavirus as extremely dangerous and urged everyone should play their role to help defeat coronavirus. He said that the opposition used to talk of observing lockdown in across country but now it was unfortunate to note that the same opposition was putting the lives of the people in jeopardy by holding rallies in an epidemic situation. Minister for Commerce Hamad Azhar briefed the party spokespersons of the steps taken by the government for timely crushing of sugarcane to help control sugar prices. He said that in addition to the fact that timely payments have been made to sugarcane farmers, the credit for crushing and payment to sugarcane farmers goes to the prime minister. Azhar added that the government had imposed a fine of Rs5 million on those who delayed the payment of farmers. The federal minister also said that the country’s economy is moving forward in a splendid manner, more good news will be received in this regard.

PTI TO FOLLOW QUAID-E-AZAM’S POLICY ON ISRAEL: The premier told the meeting that Pakistan is following the policy of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah regarding the issue of Israel.

He said that Pakistan is not recognising Israel and it is unthinkable to recognise Israel until the Palestinians get their rights.

NO BAN ON UAE’S VISAS’ ISSUANCE FOR LABOURERS: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Zulfi Bukhari also gave the meeting a briefing on his contacts with the authorities of the United Arab Emirates about issuance of visas to Pakistani labourers. He said that there is no ban on issuance of labour visa for Pakistani labourers. He told the meeting that he had spoken to the Emirati authorities, and they denied reports of any such restrictions.

Sensor Tower to open third Asia office in Japan KaracHi BABAR KHAN JAVED

After launching its first Asia office with China in Q2FY17 and its second Asia office with South Korea in Q2FY18, Sensor Tower is on track to launch a Japan office by Q1FY21.

The competitive insights solution for the mobile market economy is targeting, what GroupM considers to be, the world’s third-largest media market and third-largest e-commerce market. Representatives from Sensor Tower did not respond to a request for comment.

Speaking to Profit, headhunters said that they had been tasked to find a country manager for the intelligence business as well as

line up candidates for roles in customer service and success management. The company is open to customising its offering for the Japan market and has readied its data science and engineering teams to tackle complex sales opportunities.

WHY JAPAN? By 2002, Japan had a full mobile e-commerce ecosystem and was one of the first markets to develop in this way. A forecast

by Magna suggested that the Japan advertising and media market would shrink 14.2pc in light of the pandemic and grow by 11.1pc in 2021.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the GDP of Japan would fall 5.8pc in 2020 and rise 2.4pc in 2021.

According to the Store Intelligence Data Digest by Sensor Tower itself, from Q1FY20

to Q3FY20, Japan has ranked in the top ten charts for overall app install rates for three consecutive quarters – 8.5pc quarter-overquarter – as well as placing third after the US and China on the Apple App Store rankings, growing 8.6pc year over year.

The top apps in the country according to the Q1FY20 data were classified as books, entertainment, business, games, and news.

Within just 30 days of the 200th confirmed case of Covid-19, Sensor Tower saw mobile game downloads in Japan spike 32pc to 82 million downloads.

During the same period, game revenue grew by 8pc to $1.3 billion, beating China and South Korea. When the Nippon Professional Baseball resumed its season in Japan

CMYK

by Q2FY20, downloads in the sports category grew by nearly 60pc, beating Great Britain, Germany, Spain, and the US. TEETHING ISSUES: Where there is growth, ad fraud follows not far behind: data from Adjust shows that fake users and bots dominated as the most prevalent fraud type, accounting for 60.72pc of fraudulent activity in Japan. Click injections, click spam, and SDK spoofing comprised 2.73pc, 22.48pc, and 14.07pc of fraud distribution in Japan. A study by Spider Labs found that ad frauds cost Japan advertisers $38.5m in 1st half of 2020.

Fraud rates for the gaming vertical have spiked 214.86pc between August 2019 and 2020 in the APAC region. SDK spoofing, which is the creation of legitimate-looking

installs with data of real devices without the presence of any actual installs, was noted as the most prevalent form of ad fraud in the SEA region, accounting for 39.1pc of fraudulent activity. SDK spoofing, which is the creation of legitimate-looking installs with data of real devices without the presence of any actual installs, was noted as the most prevalent form of ad fraud in the SEA region, accounting for 39.1pc of fraudulent activity.

It is clear from the data of Sensor Tower itself that Japan is a market worth approaching with mobile app intelligence services, with clear indications of a high growth market that is in need of strategic competitive analysis, app store optimisation, app benchmarking, and generating leads through store intelligence.

Saturday, 28 November, 2020

06 COMMENT

Will US really withdraw from Afghanistan?

Karachi Transformation Plan There is need to consult all stakeholders

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He Karachi transformation Plan, worth rs 1.1 trillion, was initially announced when Prime Minister Imran Khan visited the rain-affected city in September. Mr Khan has now given a go ahead to implement the plan in a meeting where COAS Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa was present along with several federal ministers. the only information provided by the government so far is that the plan comprises more than 100 projects for Karachi that include 6000 apartments. the PM has also put on hold any anti-encroachment operation without provision of alternative housing facilities to the squatters. further, as demanded by the construction lobby, the PM warned against delay in giving utility connections to new housing schemes.

Karachi faces several major challenges that cause suffering to the common man and discourage investors. to start with, the city faces a shortage of potable water with the result that the citizens are left at the mercy of the container mafia. the mega city faces power shortages that sometime continue for days. K-electric acts like an albatross around Karachi’s neck. the issue of garbage remains unresolved. the abysmal shortage of trees in the big city multiplies the effects of the summer heat. the rainy season leads to the flooding of the city’s roads while low lying localities are over flooded, losing contact with the rest of the city. the issues are interconnected which makes them very complicated. they require an understanding between the three stakeholders: the federal government which is providing the funds, the provincial government which has already announced its own KtP and claims to have made some progress in its implementation and last but not the least the representatives of Karachi citizens, including architects, city planners, doctors, lawyers and members of the business community.

More transparency is needed to avoid finger-pointing. A plan made by a few bureaucrats or technocrats in accordance with the desires of the government to provide mileage to PtI MNAs, could lead to lopsided development leaving the crucial issues faced by the Karachi citizens mostly unresolved. there is a need to have some sort of an apex committee representing the three stakeholders to advise and oversee the execution of the plan.

The Biden Administration might make changes Raja FuRqan ahmed

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fter the 9/11 attacks, the USA has been fighting the longest war ever in its history in Afghanistan to eliminate the threat from its soil, but the USA and its allies have not been successful in defeating their enemies. the Bush Administration declared the War on terror after the 9/11 attacks of Al-Qaeda in te USA. Later on, the war changed dimension due to the political changes.

President Bush started the War on terror and during his two terms, he was more focused on an offensive strategy. In his tenure, he also opened new fronts such as the Iraq invasion which affected the Afghan war. Kabul’s policies, as well as its political decisions, were made in Washington. Later on, the Obama Administration emphasized the military used, but he also provides the gateway to the taliban for opening the office in Doha, Qatar. there were more than 100,000 US troops present in Afghanistan during that time.

On 18 June 2013 taliban opened their first ever office and announced its willingness to open peace talks with US officials. It took more than two years for negotiations over the opening of the office, but it was also the Obama Administration’s success that the taliban, who were initially not ready for talks, came and sat in the office for the negotiations. After trump came into power, the war shifted from the military perspective to the table talks and negotiations. recently, the Political reshuffle in the USA has raised many questions about the future US policy towards the global issues, by Joe Biden who defeated incumbent President Donald trump in the 2020 US presidential election. It was predicted that the military establishment will favour Biden because trump's policies did not support the USA as they wanted. During the election campaign, nearly 800 former high-ranking military and security officials also wrote an open letter in support of Dem-

ocratic candidate. trump also adopted a dismissive attitude towards US allies, particularly the european Union, and thus NAtO, on which he imposed extra tariffs.

He cut deals with nations and organizations that benefited the USA, like the regional Comprehensive economic Partnership, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Paris Agreement. He also opened a new conflict with China. Despite that, China built its economic, diplomatic and military power, while the USA became bogged down in endless wars and suffered an economic crisis. But the one thing trump understood was that the solution for any issue was through negotiation, dialogue and talks.

He decided to pull the USA out of the Afghan war.

In US politics mainly two institutions are prominent and rival to each other; the State Department, responsible for carrying out foreign policy, and the Defence Department, focusing on the matters of defence.

In the trump era, the State Department played a vital role in the Afghan conflict. the 20-years of war which started with weapons now looks to end with negotiations. earlier this year, the USA and the taliban signed an agreement in Doha aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan. Under the agreement, all US forces would be withdrawn

by May 2021, but, in theory, only if the taliban fulfil certain conditions which seem to have not been met yet.

Despite that deal, the Afghan politicians raise their genuine concern about not having been taken into confidence. they also put some hurdles for delaying the release of prisoners. Several times, the talks between the Kabul government and taliban were suspended. Later on, In September the long delayed Intra-Afghan talks started in Doha, but the process was slowed down to set the terms and conditions before the formal talks begin. Currently, the terms and conditions have been set between both parties and at the end of November, the official talks will start, according to sources. the US President tweeted in October that all 4500 US troops in Afghanistan would be home by

Christmas, which shows that trump wants complete withdrawal before year-end but later on, US military officials claimed there was no actual plan to withdraw troops by Christmas.

After trump lost the 2020 election, the policy also shifted from complete to half withdrawal. trump is pushing to accelerate withdrawals from Afghanistan as well as Iraq and Somalia by the time he leaves office. As top military and national security aides were against that decision, trump eventually agreed to the smaller drawdown. On the other side, the taliban appreciated trump’s decision.

Due to the sudden policy shift and speed-up, NAtO as also raised serious concerns that the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high. Afghanistan risks becoming once again a platform for international terrorists to plan and organise attacks on NAtO homelands, worry alliance members.

It is expected that the Pentagon will reverse the decision and send more troops or military support, especially airpower, when Biden officially takes charge. Many US experts believe that conditions on ground are not suitable for a troop reduction, as the balance of power may shift in favour of the taliban.

Biden in a recent interview said that he would maintain a troop presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He has pressure from the military establishment to put troops on Afghan soil. He will try to be tougher on the taliban, such as by threatening to delay a US troop withdrawal until violence reduces. A reduced US military presence in Afghanistan will also put Biden in a tough position. the trump decision is to withdraw half the troops, so now it is expected the remaining 2000 will stay for a long time.

As a concern, the only person suffering is the ordinary Afghan. But will the USA really withdraw troops from Afghanistan? the simple answer is "NO". first, because this war is not looking to be ending because of a lack of seriousness by both the taliban and the Kabul government. Secondly, the upcoming US government policy will likely to shift as the peace process pace is moving so slowly, so eventually the USA will extend the time frame. Due to the instability inside Afghanistan and the political crises between the multi-ethnic groups so, success in the peace deal needs all parties should stay on the same page which is difficult, looking at Afghan history.

The writer can be reached at furqanraja1122@gmail.com or @furqanraja1122 on Twitter.

Anti-rape law

Thirst for Justice

Failure to address real issues

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He Cabinet committee on legislative cases approved the Anti-rape (investigation and trial) Ordinance 2020, but the legislation left those issues unaddressed which may defeat the purpose of the law. there was insufficient clarity on how chemical castration, introduced as a punishment for the first time in Pakistan, was supposed to work. Law Minister farogh Naseem, who chaired the committee, told the press conference afterwards that the punishment was to be given in place of the punishments under the Pakistan Penal Code, and would be administered only with the consent of the accused. that presumes a confession, but is it to be a form of imprisonment, or a form of parole? Chemical castration is administered to convicts in europe in lieu of imprisonment. the new law contains loopholes that defense lawyers may exploit. the first is the requirement for testing. there has been no mention of whether the facilities for medico-legal examination exist everywhere, If a rape is reported in a remote rural area, will the chain of custody of evidence be sufficiently well maintained to resist the defence? the restriction on cross-examination of victims may win kudos, for it seems that defence lawyers take pains to humiliate the victims by innuendo and calumny, but whether the superior judiciary will take a similar view will only be seen afterwards. It must be remembered that such cross-examinations are allowed by the superior judiciary in the interest of allowing the accused a comprehensive defence. the new law may not last that long, unless enacted.

As an ordinance, once it lapses, it cannot be promulgated again. However, unless the police itself is reformed, it merely provides opportunities for policemen to make money. Already, the police handles rape cases in a fashion which ensures that while victims do not get justice, the accused are mulcted for large sums. Now that it has been made a capital offence, rape will join those cases, like murder, where the accused pay the most for the police to muff the investigation. Let alone even token gestures at police reform, the government goes on patronizing victim-shaming officers.

Election results must be accepted akhtaR aly kuReshy

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vibrant nation which came into existence on the rational basis and was the first state in the whole world with its religion based on the foundation of equal justice which is a model principle of living a peaceful and prosperous life, as pushed back towards a society which has almost no justice or delayed justice, rather killing justice, and whose prime minister wo is repeatedly claiming to establish an ideal state of Madina but has no agenda of law reforms, and is called to live in a fool’s paradise which money can’t buy.

It is obviously amazing that justice puts everything in its place and is te protector of all, therefore justice is more honorable and superior to carry out, rather than engaging in other nonproductive projects which generated more corruption, as we are lacking sharp accountability and of course a comprehensive judicial system. every new day increases problems and crises in our national life and we have no solution except to keep ignoring it or keeing it pending, only to enhance backlogs.

At the moment, a sever deadlock is prevailing in our country as our Prime Minister has only one CD in his vision which is hopelessly always On , saying “No NrO”, and on the other hand that PM has no visible solution to these alarming and bloodsucking national issues which have made horrible the life of a common man, conflicting with the dream of a state of Madina.

Although the concept of Madina is more fascinating and may be a fabulous revolution if PM Imran Khan turns his focus towards one and only point which is sufficient to achieve this goal: law reforms and justice where the state is the custodian of every child and nobody has courage to take away the rights of a woman or elderly person or indeed anyone else, and one who disobeys the law or humiliates the women or commits any other immorality has no chance to go scot free.

A new complexion of political dishonesty and cheating which is making heavy roots in our country that is very dangerous is, not to accept the result of election if you or your party lost the election.

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Arif Nizami Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

Umar Aziz

Asher John

Joint Editor

Executive Editor

Deputy Editor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

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Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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recent brutal developments in India by Modi where there is no rights for minorities and particularly Muslims are the target to victimize cruelty by the Indian government and narrow minded Hindu. Our Muslim brother are feeling insecure there, given us a moment to pay gratitude that how lucky we are that we are blessed with freedom and everything we like but we are not being from day one to create a atmosphere to destabilize valued the Pakistan and its benefits of an indethe country, it happened in election 2013 by PtI, pendent country. We always undermined our followed by 2018 by all parties, and now in Gilgit country and remained busy to distort its integrity and solidarity.

Baltistan. Although this viWhen we talk about cious infection was also politic of sub-continent, seen in the USA by Presihow we can forget blessdent trump who ultimately ings names of Allama accepted his defeat, though Iqbal and father of the naindirectly, to save his counIt is inevitable to have an tion Qauid-e-Azam to pay try from any political or tribute whose vision and legal crises. agreement or Charter of struggle oblige us for this It will be an ideal situaunderstanding in all major un-matched gift of God in tion to promote real demothe shape of Pakistan. they cratic values and develop a political parties so that any fulfilled their responsivity national consensus on all and handover this beautiful national issues, so it is inpolitical turmoil does not paradise to us to make it evitable to have an agreeharm or disturb the economy more powerful, comfortment or Charter of able and prosper land for understanding in all major and others’ system of its habitants. political parties so that any a Muslim it is easy political turmoil does not running the state. Similarly in to As understand that no harm or disturb the econpeaceful country can be run omy and others’ system of order to strengthen our without a powerful justice running the state. Similarly political system, our system which create opporin order to strengthen our tunities for every body to political system, our parliaparliamentarians should have live happily without dismentarians should have turbing or infringing the fixed the priorities of the fixed the priorities of the rights of other person havstate which are above the state which are above the ing fear of God and followpolitic fray, and not to ing the Quraan and Sunnah blackmail the government politic fray, and not to of Prophet (Pbuh). the on every issue. thirst of justice may Apparently the posiblackmail the government on only change our system which tion of government and are based on fake tradievery issue opposition is very critical tions and practice. Where and bitter as some of the ever you go if there is a burning issues have to be comprehensive and instant taken up by the governsystem of justice is availment by using its friendly able that place will be a diplomacy and where some issues create problems then the Supreme peaceful and prosper country apart from this fact Court should come to rescue the government and whether it is a Muslim country of Madina or some public. As we observed, the orders of the other place who stolen our traditions and principals Supreme Court come as blessings and no other of Quraan to establish this place. way to defy. So in the construction of national Writer is an Advocate Supreme Court, Law Profabric of politic or constitutional issues our Supreme Court is the custodian of all fundamen- fessor, member of International Bar Association tal rights to safeguard the public from any turbu- and former Assistant Attorney General for Pakistan. lence.

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Saturday, 28 November, 2020

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

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

Empowering Women to make Pakistan a true welfare state

Patriotism unchallenged of a society which has come to the end of its development.” We must remove the fetters of thought that provoke us to declare each other as unpatriotic. the number of people, who have now across In the framing of foreign policy, beware not to condecades, self-assumed the position to issue “Cer- sider that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. tificates of Patriotism” and more regrettably, also I recall Voltaire’s words, “It is lamentable that to “Certificates of traitorship”. None of them had be a good patriot one must become enemy of the any locus standi; they never met the test of law; rest of the mankind.” Nay, it shouldn’t be so. those taken to courts were disposed with muted Patriotism is not a hollow slogan of frenzied opinion. (even Mujeeb-ur-rehman, was eventu- emotion but is about love for your country. Sloally released following the Agartala case─ later ganeering is in fact a lackadaisical reflection of he was branded, father of a Nation). Such is his- patriotism; we see this played out at all the “Jaltory of humankind. sas”. Our country is where liberty dwells with jusIn the murky world of Pakistani politics, all op- tice─ let this be the slogan. Building bridges ponents are labeled without a thought or whimper across differences is the duty of a common paas “traitors”, “sell-outs”, “agents of the enemy”, " triot, for the common good of all citizens. agent provocateurs," and so on. the political leadthe traditional confusion about patriotism in ership laden with enormous quantum of political our country relates unfortunately to and also quite immaturity, across the board, subscribes to the conversely to the real thought, is that, it is about view that anybody, who is not with them or their loyalty to the government, and less to the country. ideology, is an enemy of the State. there has been the coin has landed on the wrong premise of gross misunderstanding at Islamabad that patriot- thinking. We need to toss it once, with both sides ism is about “loyalty to the Government in power”. inscribed with “Patriotism is loyalty to the counthis is such a fallacious and suicidal approach; it try”. Mark twain had aptly said, “Patriotism is doesn’t even merit serious thought or considera- supporting your country all the time, and your tion. Our political pygmies most likely imagine government, when it deserves”. It follows, loyalty themselves to be as great as Napoleon Bonaparte, to a government is dependent, on whether it “deand compare themserves” or not; while to selves to ,him where he the country, it is “unconis believed to have reditional”. If the governmarked, “I am the ment is impotent, state”; loyalty to him, incompetent, corrupt Being in contradiction to the and incapable, no demeant loyalty to france.

Patriots need no government does not render mands can be placed certification, they all upon the compatriots, anyone as a traitor. Dissent are so, by pure conduct for loyalty─ this denial and character. they are cannot be construed as is part and parcel of a non-saleable. their lack of patriotism, as we democratic dispensation. It principles are non-neare regrettably made to gotiable. they remain believe, by politicians of is lack of hatred, bitterness priceless. all shades of hue and and dislike that brings to Because a very thin colour. Being in contraline lies between recogdiction to the governfore the true quality of nition as a freedom ment does not render patriotism; in fact defending anyone as a traitor. Disfighter and being a rebel, it is wondered, if sent is part and parcel of your country from the patriotism is just a lofty a democratic dispensagovernment (politicians) idealistic thought and tion. It is lack of hatred, hence an illusion ? bitterness and dislike is Patriotism Yasir Arafat is a case in that brings to fore the point. History tells us true quality of patriothow individuals were ism; in fact defending transformed on its your country from the pages from being traitors to being founders. the government (politicians) is Patriotism. Patriotic outcome of an event determines the status. Of behavior requires continuous and sustained saccritical value is a recognition that “the supreme rifice, it must not be made to look ‘virtue of the functionality of statesmanship(for lack of any vicious’.

Statesman in our midst, we can here lower ourBill Vaughan says, “A real patriot is the felselves to just politicians) is to provide against pre- low who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the ventable evils”. system works.” try that here! Just observe the beAll men are born equal. All intrinsically are havior of the elite where for being a violator of patriotic. “I have a dream that my four little chil- the traffic rules, they are stopped by the constable; dren will one day live in a nation where they will the poor constable ends up apologizing for having not be judged by the colour of their skin but the dared the unthinkable─ stopping a “Patriotic elite content of their character”, thus spoke in 1963, the Citizen”. Our traffic lights are moved from auto revered Martin Luther King, Jr. Lincoln’s efforts to manual, so that the “Celebrated patriots” do not about 150 years ago, have recently been irreparahave to, God forbid, stop at red lights. this attibly damaged by the floyd incident. Are coloured tude is a “red light” for the social pundits to ponpeople less patriotic? they must remain entitled der, in which direction are we heading. All my to the basic rights of a patriot, hence justice.

A patriotic leader reconciles the past with the countrymen/women, as per the last census(there is present for transcending into the future. Mere sen- deliberate avoidance to state the figure, due to lack timents make no in-road into the annals of history, of faith in the veracity of the number), are all “paonly action does make history. Alexander Solze- triots”. No less, no more. henitsyn, the rebel(?) from te USSr wrote, “the The writer is a freelance columnist. debilitating dream of a status quo is the symptom

Misusing a grand idea for petty ends

siRajuddin aziz

P

AtrIOtISM is a concept open to debate. It is determined by the standpoint of which side of the fence is acceptable to the environment one lives in. At best, any attempt to define it in exactitude would actually be pastiche or a motley collection of views, ranging from nationalism to the love of your country; albeit, conceptually, patriotism and nationalism are distinct; they can be complementary, but are not synonymous. In the estimation of this scribe, patriotism is the love of a country. But to do so, one has to necessarily love one’s own countrymen/women, even if we have disagreements with them. to use Napoleon’s words, “I love thee (country) with all thy faults”.

Patriotism is beyond waving the flag, it is about the spirit to be righteous. Patriotism is a respectable and venerable word, only if it is judiciously and duly practiced. All distinctions and division arising out of linguistic preference, color, creed, sect, sub-sect, caste, and so on, have to be permanently buried for any semblance of patriotism to emerge. Internal division can never lead us to patriotism, which demands the reflection of a harmonious and cohesive society. If the country is good to him, why shouldn’t any citizen be good to his country. each citizen owes a debt to the country that gives him or her an identity, an image and most significantly, respect. Proud to be a Pakistani should be a common and unifying slogan of the entire populace.

Patriotism is not to be used as a smoke screen for any hidden agenda to harm the country. this vein of thought is best described in Samuel Johnson's words, “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels”. If the motive to demonstrate patriotism is ignoble, then it is without doubt outside the ambit of acceptability. Are all citizens patriots?

Do we need to evidence existence of patriotic feelings? everybody is a patriot, as a given thing, to be demed otherwise requires evidence. the freedom to declare and accuse anybody unpatriotic must not exist in any society. Irrefutable evidence alone will determine if anyone is not a patriot. those individuals who are willing to “sell” the “interest “ of their country for a dime, must be the ones who should be legally pursued, for declaring these as anti-state.

Since our birth as an independent nation state, there has been no reduction, but only growth, in

eCONOMIC productivity of a country could be enhanced manifold by empowering the penniless women folk and Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal (PBM) was doing exactly the same to help becoming resource less women self sustaining as promised in the manifesto of Pakistan tehreek-e-Insaf (PtI). According to the World Bank’s 2012 World Development report: Gender equality and Development, closing these gender gaps matters for development and policy making. PBM was running 156 Women empowerment Centres (WeCs) to impart vocational training among deserving women. PBM has spent rs 638 million on imparting technical training among 30,000 women in 2019-20. the women trainees were being paid rs 30 daily allowance on attendance basis. the trainees having workable business plan of rs 25,000 to rs 100,000 would be provided personal loans in collaboration with Pakistan Poverty Alleviation fund. the loan will be returnable in the time span of 18 months first six months as grace period. As many as 13,322 trainees are currently getting training from these schools whereas some 135,220 trainees have been passed out. WeCs plans to impart technical training among 62400 deserving women in the next four years. Currently, the WeCs are imparting 16 different trades including drafting, cutting, sewing, designing, interior decoration, beautician, cooking, tie and dye, glass painting, computer and current Microsoft office applications to deserving women. A total of 33 senior citizens were residing in Great Home for Senior Citizens in Lahore.

PBM has established Child Support Program (CSP) in five districts. A total of 28,462 children were benefitting from the CSP program. the objectives of establishing these schools was to wean away children from the hazardous child labour environment, impart primary education and bring poor children into mainstream of social milieu. the enrolled children were being provided rs 10 as daily stipend while parents receive rs 300 per month as subsistence allowance. It is PBM initiative to pull out the children from bonded labor and imparting them education, in line with the UN & other International Organizations conventions. 159 SrCL,s are functional all over the country. the children involved in child labor are enrolled in these schools are imparted free education upto primary level. they are provided free books, stationery, uniform / shoes and rs.10/- daily stipend / parents subsistence allowance of rs.300/- per month and rs.4100/ year as passed out incentive. Out of 159 SrCL, 46 are in Punjab, 20 are in South Punjab, 37 are in Sindh, 24 are in KPK, 14 are in Baluchistan, 13 are in ICt/AJK and 5 are in G.B. 18519 children were enrolled in these schools in f.Y.19-20. till now 38059 students have been passed out. 712 millions were utilized during f.Y.19-20. A total of 5,683 scholarships and 18,519 education stipends had been given to deserving students during financial year 2019-20. Some 21,618 deserving persons had been provided medical assistance in last fiscal year. Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal is offering scholarships to deserving students admitted in any Government College or University. PBM has planned to establish Great Homes for senior citizens in many cities. Great Homes will provide basic necessities of life in a dignified manner and in a family like environment including boarding, lodging, food, clothing, medical case and recreation. PBM also providing grant in aid to registered non government organisation (NGOs). PBM has established facilitation Centres at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and Nuclear Medicine, Oncology and radiotherapy Institute (NOrI) to promptly complete medical assistance case of the deserving. Some other facilitation Centres would soon be established at provincial headquarters and at divisional levels to facilitate the beneficiaries.In the third phase, the facilitation centres will be established at district level. the facilitation Centres have already been working at PBM head office and it regional offices to provide speedy, hassle free medical services to the beneficiaries visiting the office and stream lining the process of providing medical assistance. PBM was contributing in poverty reduction through various Individual financial Assistance (IfA) programmes including general financial assistance, education stipend, individual rehabilitation programmes, etc. Likewise, PBM is planning to establish 15 more Women empowerment Centres (WeCs)

by June 2021.

SyEd ZAhId MAJEEd LAhorE

Schools closure After the meeting of provincial and federal education ministers on the recent wave of Covid-19 and its effects on educational institutions, there are great issues facing the students of Kech. federal education Minister, Shafqat Mehmood announced that from 26th of November till 25th of December, all educational institutions across the country will remain closed, but the education will be ongoing through online system. to bring the issue in noticed, most of the areas in Balochistan don't have internet facilities, how do the students continue their education? I am a resident of turbat city, 4G network was cut before 5 years and still we suffer due to internet, but now I guess we must suffer more and go backward. Here turbat is ruining with PtCL connections which most of the time deceive, sometimes internet leaves working, if works then extra slowly that can't open a google page, how can it run an online system? It is my humble request to the federal education Minister, Shafqat Mehmood and concerned authorities to look towards the internet connectivity of Kech and then go for online education system, we are as well part of the country, aren't we?

AdnAn MAqSood TurBAT

Health of teachers DUrING the second wave of corona, schools have been closed but faults, confusions and dangers have been created specially by KP ministry of education. the decision of gathering a crowd of the entire teaching staff ranging from 22 to 70 persons in the school for a single class everyday is unwise rather beyond understanding . either virus did not infect teacher' s health /life or they are taking teacher's life for granted ; in a society where no SOPs are observed . It will be better to call only those 5-8 teachers per day who teach the specific class to minimize the hazard of spreading the virus.

AnonyMouS PEShAWAr

Saturday, 28 November, 2020

08 WORLD VIEW

It Is tIme to decoLonIse tHe WorLd BAnk And tHe ImF THESE INSTITUTIONS WERE DESIGNED WITH COLONIAL PRINCIPLES IN MIND, AND THEY REMAIN LARGELY COLONIAL IN CHARACTER TO THIS DAY

al Jazeera

m

JAson Hickel

OSt people assume that inequality between the global South and the global North (the United States, Western europe, Japan, Canada and Australia) has been declining over the past few decades. After all, colonialism is behind us, and surely poorer countries are gradually “catching up” to richer ones. But, oddly enough, exactly the opposite has happened. the per capita income gap between the South and the North has quadrupled in size since 1960, in what can only be described as a striking pattern of divergence. this trend is due in large part to power imbalances in the world economy. to put it simply, rich countries have disproportionate influence when it comes to setting the rules of international trade and finance – and they tend to do it in ways that serve their own

economic interests, quite often at the expense of everyone else.

Nowhere is this problem more apparent than when it comes to the distribution of power in the World Bank and the International Monetary fund (IMf), two of the key institutions that govern global economic policy. We might expect that representation in these institutions would be modelled along the lines of the United Nations General Assembly, or perhaps calculated according to population. But in reality, they are deeply undemocratic. the problem starts at the top. the leaders of the World Bank and the IMf are not elected, but are nominated by the US and europe. According to an unspoken agreement, the president of the World Bank has always been from the US, while the president of the IMf has always been european.

Moreover, voting power in these institutions is skewed heavily in favour of rich countries. the US has de facto veto power over all significant decisions, and together with the rest of the G7 and the european Union controls well over half of the vote in both agencies. Middle- and low-income countries, which together constitute 85 percent of the world’s population, have a minority share.

If we look at the voting allocations in per capita terms, the inequalities are revealed to

be truly extreme. for every vote that the average person in the global North has, the average person in the global South has only one-eighth of a vote (and the average South Asian has only one-20th of a vote).

Not only is there minority control over global economic policymaking, there is also a clear racial imbalance at play: on average, the votes of people of colour are worth only a fraction of their counterparts.

If this was the case in any particular country, we would be outraged. We would call it apartheid. Yet a form of apartheid operates right at the heart of international economic governance today, and has come to be accepted as “normal”.

In some cases, the differences between countries are particularly striking. take Bangladesh and Nigeria, both of which were British colonies. In the IMf, a British person’s vote today is worth 41 times more than a Bangladeshi’s vote, and 23 times more than a Nigerian’s vote. And this is the 21st century; many decades after the end of colonial rule. the inequalities that characterise voting power in the World Bank and the IMf have their roots in the colonial period. After all, these institutions were founded in 1944.

Countries that were colonies at the time (like India) were integrated into the system on unequal terms, subordinated to their

colonisers. Other colonies were not allowed to join until after independence, in some cases well into the 1970s and 80s. these institutions were designed under colonialism and they remain in key respects colonial in character.

Voting power in the World Bank is allocated according to each country’s financial shares. In the IMf, it is primarily according to gross domestic product (GDP), with some consideration also given to a country’s “market openness”. As a result, the countries that became rich during the colonial period now enjoy disproportionate power when it comes to determining the rules of the global economy. Inequality begets inequality.

Defenders of this system argue that this is a legitimate approach: it makes sense, they say, that bigger economies should have more power over decisions related to the global economy.

But think of the implications of this claim. In any national political system, we would reject the notion that rich people should have more voting power than poor people, and more influence over economic policy decisions. We would see this as corrupt and morally repulsive. And yet such plutocracy is normalised in the World Bank and the IMf. these imbalances in voting power help explain why the World Bank and the IMf have been able to impose neoliberal structural adjustment programmes across the global South over the past 40 years. these programmes – focused on privatisation, austerity, and forced market liberalisation – have created lucrative profit opportunities for multinational companies, but have had a devastating effect on the South: during the

It’s time to reclaim love from the Hindutva hate ANY LAW THAT COMES IN THE WAY OF SPREADING LOVE BETWEEN COMMUNITIES IS ACTUALLY ENCOURAGING AN ANTI-NATIONAL AND SEPARATIST SPIRIT

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Asim siddiqui

f there is one word that has been used in a most creative fashion to spread prejudices and hate against Muslims in India, it is the word “jihad”.Over the past few years, Hindutva groups have accused Muslims of waging “land jihad” to take over property, “organ jihad” to transplant nonHindu body parts into Hindu bodies, “corona jihad” to spread the virus and “UPSC jihad” to fill the ranks of the civil services with Muslims.

Driving these conspiracy theories is the fear of Islamic expansionism. But the situation on the ground belies these delusions. Most Indian Muslims live in a state of socio-economic and political marginalisation. But despite this, Indian Muslims have faith in Indian democracy and the Constitution.there has not been any widespread unrest in the community leading to calls for “jihad” against another religious community or the Indian state.

Ironically, the word “jihad” in India is used most frequently by Hindutva groups. for instance, the “love jihad” conspiracy delusion was frequently used by the Sri ram Sene group in Karnakata to claim that Muslim men were conspiring to marry Hindu women as a ploy to get them to convert to Islam.

It’s clear that the time has come to reclaim the concept from the Hindutava hate jihadis and spread love in a positive way.

CONFLATING INDIAN MUSLIMS WITH GLOBAL ISLAM the first problem evident in the use of the term “jihad” is that it gets con-

flated with Muslim societies all across the world. Like with any other global religious group, there is a great deal of internal diversity between Muslim societies. Painting all of them with a single brush overlooks these differences. for instance, an article in Swarajya in September compared how ISIS uses Yazidi girls as sex slaves in contemporary times to how Muslim invaders in the medieval times in India committed violence on Hindus in the guise of showing “infidels” their place.

In the Print, the writer AshwinSanghi reiterated this argument, justifying a sense of Hindu victimhood that emerges from the violence done by Muslims invaders and rulers. He hypothesised that the problem lay in what he claimed was the fundamental contradiction of “Abrahamic” and “Dharmic” thought – the former, he believes, is expansionist while the latter is pluralist. the problem with such a simplistic binary, of citing examples from different times and spaces of only Muslims rulers and armies, is that it completely misses the everyday life of common Muslims who have no means, resources or the desire to be expansionist (apart from the very few exceptions, 100 in 172 million, who go and join organisations like the ISIS). they have meagre resources to even get by, and live in close association with different religious communities. they don’t think in terms of infidels and expansion. they follow very localised religious practices that bear no relation to the ideas of extremist groups or medieval rulers.

If these common people are falling in love with someone who happens to be from a different religion or caste, it isn’t because they have a supremacist agenda. they are just falling in love.

Of course, in a casteist society like ours, they are transcending boundaries of endogamy, offending dominant societal norms. Hence, couples who transcend such boundaries are pressured to split with the threat of violence and “honour killings”. But if they manage to persist,

there is the pressure of conversion and assimilation of one into the other.

It bears repetition that no one should be forced to convert for love. It is also worth noting that the root cause for this coercion is not an expansionist agenda but an exclusionary one. All religions have certain exclusionary logic built in them to control kinship relationships. for instance, Islamic law does not allow interfaith marriages beyond Christians and Jews.

It is, of course, essential to reject this exclusionary logic and the need for instrumental conversion, whether that emerges from the logic of caste exclusion, or from patriarchal interpretations of religious laws in Islam.

RECLAIMING LOVE JIHAD Love jihad, as it is being articulated in the new bills in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and other states, gives a sense that most trans-religious marriages lead to forced conversions and therefore must be banned. However, anti-conversion laws already exist in eight Indian states.

In that case, what is the purpose of these new proposed laws? As it has been argued by many feminists, it is primarily a way to control young women’s (and men’s) choices and decisions about whom they love and form relationships with. this is merely a new addition to the range of moral policing tactics that are done on women’s bodies and choices to subjugate their agency and stop the mixing of communities.

Just like anti-conversion laws are meant to undermine Article 25 of the Indian Constitution that guarantees religious freedom, “love jihad” laws are intended to restrict freedom of choice in matters of love and marriage to ensure that segregation between communities persists. thus, reclaiming love jihad will mean two things – one is to critique the need for instrumental conversion in trans-religion marriages, and at the same time support young people who are taking the bold decision to challenge the exclusionary norms of society and are loving beyond community lines.

Both these tasks require us to challenge the logic of segregation between various caste and religious communities in India. Any law that comes in the way of spreading love between communities is actually an encouraging anti-national and separatist spirit.

As important leaders of India’s freedom movement recognised, we can only be a real democracy when we are able to challenge all the segregations in our society and live in fraternity. Br Ambedkar called this process “social endosmosis”, which implied that India’s diverse social groups are so mixed that it isn’t easy to separate one from the other.

Social endosmosis can occur only when we generate the social emotions of love and fraternity that transcend caste, religion, gender, sexuality, class, and language boundaries.

Similarly, Mohandas Gandhi too was convinced that only trans-caste marriages could address the segregations and exclusions in Indian society. He proclaimed in 1946 that only trans-caste marriages would be celebrated in his ashram, especially between savarnas and avarnas. When his own son Harilal converted to Islam, he did not oppose his conversion per se, but he questioned this son’s motive for doing so. According to Gandhi, Harilal had not converted for the right reasons.

In his letters with tolstoy, the main focus of their exchange was how its “only love that can rescue humanity from all ills”. that explains why we need more love jihadis/sangharshis in the country. the jihad/sangharsh that I am talking about does not have an expansionist or exclusionary agenda, as certain politicians and media houses would have us believe. Instead love jihad/sangharsh could be a struggle underpinned with a democratic agenda – to spread love beyond all chasms in our society that challenges exclusions and supremacy.

Asim Siddiqui is an assistant professor of philosophy at Azim Premji University.

1980s and 90s, they caused incomes to decline and poverty to rise, and in some cases triggered decades of recession and stagnation. to this day they continue to have a negative impact on health outcomes, including infant and maternal mortality. Such ruinous policies would never be acceptable under democratic principles. there have long been calls by civil society and political leaders in the global South to democratise the World Bank and the IMf. At minimum, critics have argued that the leaders of these institutions should be elected in a transparent process. And they have called for a “double majority” system such that significant decisions should require not only shareholder majorities but also member-state majorities. this would ensure that global South countries have a fairer say in the decisions that affect them, and power to block harmful policies. for decades, these demands have fallen on deaf ears. But this year they received a boost from the UN Secretary-General AntónioGuterres, who, while giving a lecture for the Nelson Mandela foundation, called for democratic reform of voting power at the World Bank and the IMf. this represents an historic opening, and campaigners should seize it. If we want to have a shot at a fairer global economy, we need to start by decolonising the institutions of economic governance.

Dr Jason Hickel is an academic at the University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His most recent book is "The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions," published by Penguin in May 2017.

Love jihad bogey

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Times of india

fter Madhya Pradesh government’s announcement that it would table a bill to prosecute ‘love jihad’, Uttar Pradesh has now passed the UP Prohibition of Unlawful religious Conversion ordinance making forced religious conversions – whose meaning will include conversion for marriage – punishable by tough jail term and fine. the UP ordinance mandates that those willingly wanting to convert for marriage need to inform the district magistrate two months in advance. the law will pose great difficulty for interfaith couples. Not only does it undermine personal liberty and free will, it also incentivises hooligans, who may take advantage of the advance notice to intimidate interfaith couples.

In a contemporaneous judgment, the Allahabad high court has correctly held that the right to choose a partner, irrespective of religion, is intrinsic to right to life and personal liberty protected by Article 21 of the Constitution. Quashing an fIr against a man accused of forcefully converting and marrying a Hindu woman, the bench observed that to disregard the choice of an adult person would not only be antithetical to freedom of choice but also a threat to the concept of unity in diversity. Given the rash of ‘love jihad’ laws coming up in states, the Supreme Court must also uphold this tenet of constitutional liberty. these draconian laws not only contradict BJP’s long stated view of ushering in a Uniform Civil Code, they also invert the principle of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’ enunciated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi by giving the state a veto on personal matters. If these laws are pushed through, New Delhi must prepare for likely unflattering portrayals in international media comparing India to South Africa under apartheid (which also put legal obstacles in the path of interethnic marriages among its citizens). Among other things it would be a blow to Indian diplomacy, which championed the anti-apartheid movement.

At a time when the country is facing multiple challenges from the Covid-19 pandemic and economic recession to the twin security threats posed by China and Pakistan, the people of this nation need to be united. Divisive and polarising ‘love jihad’ laws undermine such unity and aid our adversaries. taken together, the BJP central leadership should tell its state governments to reverse course. A better path would be to simplify the provisions of the Special Marriage Act that allows interfaith couples to marry without converting.

Saturday, 28 November, 2020

bUSiNeSS 09 MARKET DAILY

Stocks snap three-day rally to lose 223 points KARACHI STAFF REPORT

The three-day winning streak at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) came to an end on Friday, with the benchmark index succumbing to selling pressure amid range-bound activity. "The stock market opened on a negative note and maintained the bearish momentum during the first half of the session. However, buying activity in banking, refinery and technology sectors helped the index recover some ground post interval," a report issued by Arif Habib Ltd read. "E&P and cement stocks observed selling pressure primarily due to concerns on slow cement despatches as well as staid crude prices." The benchmark KSE-100 remained in the red for almost the entire session, registering its intraday low at 40,753.30 after losing 277.73 points. It closed lower by 223.94 points at 40,807.09. Among other indices, the KMI-30 Index plunged 629.57 points to end at 65,731.71, while the KSE All Share Index dropped 76.69 points, settling at 28,719.60. The overall market volumes increased from 389.17 million shares in the previous session to 397.25 million shares (+2pc).

Average traded value, however, declined by 18pc, from $100.5 million to $82.5 million. Unity Foods Ltd (UNITY +2.50pc), TRG Pakistan Ltd (TRG +6.56pc) and K-Electric Ltd (KEL +0.27pc) led the volume chart, exchanging 53.46 million, 45.96 million and 23.11 million shares, respectively. Sectors that dragged the benchmark index lower included oil & gas exploration (-78.69 points), cement (-50.28 points) and fertilizer (36.32 points). Among the companies, Pak Petroleum Ltd (PPL -31.53 points), Lucky Cement Ltd (LUCK 27.08 points) and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDC -23.15 points) dented the index the most.

Shedding 1.61pc from its cumulative market capitalization, the oil & gas exploration sector emerged as the market's weakest link, with OGDC (-1.61pc), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (MARI -1.52pc), PPL (2.33pc) and Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (POL -1.40pc) closing in the negative.

No reduction in fares despite ban on in-flight meals KARACHI

ADB APPrOveS $300M lOAN fOr PAkiStAN’S MAcrOecONOMic StABility

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HE Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Friday approved a $300 million policy-based loan to help promote macroeconomic stability in Pakistan by facilitating improved trade competitiveness and export diversification.

The loan agreement was signed by Economic Affairs Division Secretary Noor Ahmed and ADB Country Director Xiaohong Yang. Minister for Economic Affairs Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar was also present on the occasion.

"While Covid-19 hit Pakistan at a critical point in its macroeconomic recovery, the government’s ongoing efforts to ensure stability have started showing encouraging results this fiscal year,” said ADB Principal Public Management Specialist Hiranya Mukhopadhyay. “ADB’s programme will support these efforts

and help Pakistan improve its export competitiveness — now more important than ever given impact of the pandemic.” ADB’s programme will help Pakistan recover its current account deficit in a sustained manner and continue to facilitate export diversification. It will introduce important tariff- and tax-related policy reforms to help improve Pakistan’s international competitiveness and further strengthen key institutions, including accreditation bodies, the Export-Import Bank of Pakistan, and the Pakistan Single Window.

The new financing falls under Subprogramme-2 of the Trade and Competitiveness Programme. Under the first phase, ADB helped the government usher in key reforms, including reducing or abolishing tariffs and ad hoc duties on a large number of raw materials and intermediate goods. Several steps were also taken

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia agree to boost trade ties ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have agreed to further promote bilateral cooperation in diverse fields of economy, particularly in the energy sector.

The understanding was reached during a meeting between Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud on the sidelines of the 47th session of OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Niamey, Niger, according to a statement issued on Friday.

The Saudi foreign minister said his country holds in high esteem its historical, deep and longlasting relations with Pakistan, and is committed to promoting bilateral cooperation in various fields. He appreciated the efforts made by Pakistan for establishing peace in the region.

Foreign Minister Qursehi apprised his Saudi counterpart of the grave situation in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He also thanked the Saudi foreign minister for principled and permanent support to the Kashmir issue.

Meanwhile, during his meeting with Afghan counterpart Mohammed Haneef Atmar in Niamey, Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that Pakistan desires peace in Afghanistan besides dignified and honourable return of Afghan refugees to their homeland.

He said that Pakistan will continue to play its conciliatory role for peace in the neighbouring country, adding that the Afghan leadership should remain cognisant of the elements that want to sabotage peace efforts in Afghanistan. Qureshi reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to further strengthen bilateral relations with Afghanistan.

The Afghan foreign minister commended Pakistan’s sincere efforts in the Afghan peace process.

Moreover, in another meeting with Chadian counterpart Amine Abba-Sidick on Friday, Shah Mahmood Qureshi underscored the importance of deepening and expanding economic and commercial ties between the two countries.

Both sides exchanged views on bilateral relations, regional developments and cooperation at multilateral fora.

ARIBA SHAHID

The Civil Aviation Authority has enforced a ban on serving meals in domestic flights in lieu of rising coronavirus cases in the country. The ban is in place for chartered and private flights. As per standard operating procedures, it is mandatory for the cabin crew and passengers to wear a face mask throughout the flight. Previously, before the ban came into effect, passengers would remove their masks during meal times. According to estimates, the cost of a meal averages around Rs200-300 per passenger. It is estimated that keeping all other factors constant, PIA would be able to save around Rs200,000 a day, Rs1.4 million in a week, or Rs6 million in a month. However, the PIA spokesman thinks otherwise. “Food cost is based on the actual cost of production, cost of flight kitchen set up, transportation of food, and other miscellaneous expenses. Only food production has stopped, rest are all intact considering how this is a temporary decision,” said Abdullah Khan, spokesperson of the Pakistan International Airline, while speaking to Profit. “A reduction of Rs200 from the fare won’t be noticeable.” He said it is unlikely that PIA or other airlines will bring down domestic airfares to accommodate the ban on in-flight meals. It is pertinent to note that a number of budget airlines around the world do not serve meals on board as a means to save costs. Khan said that PIA is mulling to serve prepackaged food on flights which most likely will include a wrapped cold sandwich, a juice and a small water bottle. Passengers are currently allowed to bring their own meals on domestic flights by all air carriers. Earlier in November, flights had been banned from serving hot beverages.

to introduce e-commerce, strengthen key institutions involved in facilitating trade, and enhance the export certification process.

Since fiscal year 2004, Pakistan has registered a riseand-fall pattern of export growth reflecting underperformance in its export industry and long-term decline in export competitiveness. This is compounded by lost export growth momentum from Covid-19, which has reduced high-income countries’ demand for manufacturing goods and disrupted the supply of raw materials.

ADB is coordinating its efforts with other development partners and donors while the program complements International Monetary Fund (IMF)-led reform initiatives by helping to improve competitiveness, which will help build robust foreign exchange reserves. NEWS DESK

PM asks industrialists to help promote corporate farming ISLAMABAD: Stressing the expansion of corporate farming, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday sought proposals from industrialists to modernise agriculture sector and enhance production of various crops. In a meeting with the country's leading industrialists and businessmen, the prime minister said national development and prosperity was linked with the development of the business community, facilitation of which was the responsibility of the government. He said the government had included the industrialists’ proposals in policymaking, which have started producing positive results. The PM directed the authorities concerned to resolve export-related issues faced by the industrialists at the earliest. The delegation included Azam Farooq (Cherat Cement), Bashir Ali Muhamamd (Gul Ahmed), Muhammad Ali Taba (Lucky Cement), Saqib Shirazi (Honda Atlas), Fawad Mukhtar (Fatima Fertilizer), Arif Habib (Arif Habib Group Ltd) and Hussain Dawood (Engro Corporation). Industries & Production Minister Hammad Azhar and Advisers to PM Abdul Razak Dawood, Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh and Dr Ishrat Hussain were also present on the occasion. The delegation thanked the premier for patronizing trade activities in the country. They said the highest level of foreign exchange reserves reflected economic stability and expressed satisfaction over the availability of the government's economic team for guidance. The delegation also termed the country surplus current account ‘a welcome sign for national economy’. They informed the PM that the demand of cement was highest in the country's history due to promotion of construction activities, which helped generate immense employment opportunities during the pandemic. APP

Omar Ayub assures domestic consumers of uninterrupted gas supply

HYDERABAD: A vendor prepares a bowl of chicken soup for his customer. INP

PINDI BHATTIAN: Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan has said that the government will ensure uninterrupted gas supply to domestic consumers during the ongoing winter season. Talking to media in Pindi Bhattian after inaugurating various projects, the minister said that the country was facing shortage of gas due to the wrong policies of previous governments. About the current gas situation, he said that there would be gas shortage and pressure problems for one month between December and January, as hydropower generation would decline owing to annual canal closure for maintenance and resultant shift in power generation to local gas and regasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG). "As a result, the overall gas shortfall could be around two billion cubic feet per day (bcfd)," he added. However, he said, domestic and export-oriented industrial sectors would face no disruption during winters.

"The ministry will ensure prioritising residential and industrial demand during winter months without any load curtailment," he added. TLTP

Urea offtake for 2020 likely to clock in at 5.8m tonnes LAHORE HASSAN NAQVI

The offtake of urea is likely to clock in at 5.8 million tonnes in 2020, mainly on the back of higher than expected urea offtake during the first 10 months of the year.

Shankar Talreja, Deputy Head of Research at Topline Securities Limited, said, "We revisited our urea offtake for 2020, wherein we now expect urea offtake to clock in at 5.8 million tonnes, as compared to our earlier estimates of 5.5 million tonnes."

He added that previously, Topline had trimmed urea offtake on expectations of supply side disruptions amid Covid-19 outbreak

and impact of locust attack.

"We are revising up our earnings forecasts for country’s fertilisers by 5-61pc (excluding Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim Limited) for 20202022 on the back of higher-than-expected urea offtake during 10M2020, impact of Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) review petition and review of September detailed accounts," Talreja maintained.

He recalled that the Supreme Court (SC) had dismissed review petitions on GIDC. However, as per the verdict, all fertiliser companies can now pay their outstanding amounts in 48 equal monthly instalments instead of 24 monthly instalments earlier.

The analyst highlighted that all compa-

nies have already accounted for GIDC in their accounts, except for Engro Fertilizer Limited on its Enven Plant, for which the company has taken stay order from the Sindh High Court. “We have also not taken the impact of EFERT's Enven plant in our model,” he said.

FAujI FerTILISer CoMPANy The analyst forecasts a raise of 28pc in FFC earnings primarily due to an increase in urea offtake estimate by 8pc, from 2.3 million tonnes to 2.5 million.

"We also revised our 2021-2022 earnings given that the Supreme Court has allowed GIDC payment over 48 monthly instalments instead of 24." eNgro FerTILISerS LIMITeD

CMYK

Meanwhile, the research analyst revised up the earnings forecasts for EFERT by 861pc for 2020-2022 on the back revision in urea offtake estimate for 2020 from 1.7 million tonnes to 2 million tonnes, one-time tax reversal of Rs2,117 million (EPS impact Rs1.6) in 3Q2020 and incorporating the impact of GIDC review petition. eNgro CorPorATIoN The earnings of ENGRO are also expected to grow 5-28pc for 2020-2022. "Revision is attributed to an upward revision in earnings estimate for EFERT due to the above-mentioned reasons and increase in earnings estimate for Engro Polymer & Chemicals (EPCL) amid higher-than-ex-

pected PVC-Ethylene margins and betterthan-expected 9M2020 earnings."

FAujI FerTILISer BIN QASIM Lastly, Talreja revised upwards the earnings' forecast of FFBL for 2020, from a loss per share of Rs1.63 to an earning per share of Rs1.7. The turnaround is primarily on the back of higher than expected DAP offtake (+37pc YoY in 10M2020), higher than expected margins on DAP, above than expected dividend from FFBL power company and lower effective tax rate at 16pc, he added.

"The forecast was also revised due to injection of new equity via right shares of Rs5bn and incorporating the impact of GIDC review petition (savings of Rs0.23 per share)."

Saturday, 28 November, 2020

10 FOREIGN NEWS

POlICE ASk TO CONvERT STADIUmS INTO PRISONS AS DElhI gRAPPlES wITh fARmERS’ PROTEST NEW DELHI

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AGENCIES

OME 5,000 farmers were allowed to enter New Delhi on Friday for a peaceful protest under police escort. Tensions remained high, with clashes between demonstrators and police continuing elsewhere in India.

Farmers across India are taking part in demonstrations against agricultural reforms. They fear that new rules of sale, storage and pricing — first introduced in September – will strip small growers of bargaining power and leave them at the mercy of big business.

The ‘Dilli Chalo’ (On to Delhi) march was meant to

3 killed, 5 injured in bus fire in western India NEW DELHI AGENCIES

At least three people were killed and five others injured on Friday as the passenger bus hit a low-lying highvoltage wire in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, police said. The bus immediately caught fire after coming in contact with the wire. The accident took place on the Jaipur-Delhi highway at the village of Achrol in Jaipur, the state's capital. "Three people were killed and five others were injured after a bus caught fire immediately following its contact with a low-lying high-voltage wire," a police official said. In a separate development in the state's Singhani village in the Nagaur district, three people were killed as a car crashed into a concrete block as the driver was trying to avoid a stray cow on the road. Deadly road accidents are often seen in India, mostly due to overloading, the bad condition of roads, and reckless driving.

European firm withdraws from Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project in face of US sanctions MOSCOW AGENCIES

The latest extension of punitive measures introduced by the White House against Russia’s natural gas pipeline to Germany has forced one of the sub-suppliers to quit the project. Det Norske Veritas – Germanischer (Lloyd 9DNV GL), whose business is tied to risk management and quality assurance, said that it had to stop working for on project under the threat of US sanctions. “The US State Department has published a new clarification regarding the Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act (PEESA). According to the new guidelines, DNV GL’s further work on monitoring vessels and equipment engaged in the Nord Stream 2 project is seen as subject to sanctions,” the Norwegian-German company said, stressing that it has stopped providing the services that may become subject to PEESA. The firm was responsible for monitoring and certifying the testing and preparation works for equipment that is used by vessels during the construction of the underwater pipeline. The company was also expected to grant a fire security certificate after the project is complete. Meanwhile, the last remaining stretch of Nord Stream 2 goes through the territorial waters of Denmark. In accordance with the regulations of the Danish Energy Agency (DEA), Nord Stream 2 AG, the Russian Gazprom subsidiary that operates the project, may engage any other company for monitoring and certifying works. The Russian pipeline has become a real point of contention for the White House. After numerous failed efforts to dissuade European companies from working on the project, the US finally included the enterprise into the act that is allegedly aimed at protecting Europe from Russian energy dependence.

bring the protest to the capital, but it was met with barricades, tear gas and water cannon. Police say the mass demonstrations pose a serious health risk due to the Covid19 pandemic.

On Friday, the protesters scored a small victory after New Delhi police allowed some 5,000 of them to gather at Nirankari Ground, a large field in the northwest of the capital, a much larger number are reportedly still on their way, their progress stalled by barricades and security forces.

Earlier in the day, the police asked the New Delhi government to temporarily convert nine stadiums in the city into jails, where they could keep arrested activists. The petition was rejected.

Meanwhile clashes between farmers and police continue elsewhere in India. Protesters attempted to dismantle barriers at the Haryana-Delhi border and built a barricade at the Delhi-Bahadurgarh highway.

Water cannon and tear gas were also used at an interstate border with Punjab. The governments of the two states have opposing attitudes towards the march, despite both having large agricultural sectors.

Punjab’s Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh welcomed the decision to allow protesters into the capital, while taking a jab at the Haryana authorities.

His counterpart, Manohar Lal Khattar, earlier accused Singh of spreading “lies, deception and propaganda” to fuel the protest.

US army data on civilian harm in war against ISIL questioned ERBIL AGENCIES

Rights groups and charities have raised questions over the United States military coordinates of civilian harm in Iraq and Syria released last week by the United Kingdom-based watchdog, Airwars.

In a data-sharing agreement hailed by the non-profit as a “groundbreaking decision by the US-led Coalition”, Airwars made public the geographic coordinates of 341 confirmed incidents of civilian harm and roughly 1,400 civilian deaths since the war against ISIL (ISIS) started six years ago.

During the campaign to retake the ISIL-occupied territories in Iraq and Syria, the battles for Mosul and Raqqa marked the height of destruction and civilian casualties.

Airwars estimated that more than 13,000 non-combatants were confirmed killed in the campaign due to the coalition’s actions since 2014. The coalition puts that number at just 1,410.

Once prominent commercial and cultural centres in the region, the two cities were razed to the ground by coalition air raids in the name of liberation. According to the United Nations, much of the old city of Mosul and 70 percent of Raqqa were destroyed.

The data provided by Airwars states that 70 of the 341 credible incidents have been pinpointed to an accuracy of one square metre (10.8 square feet), leaving little margin for error. The remaining 271, however,

are accurate to within 100sq m (1,076sq ft).

“The coalition has the one metre squared coordinates of all events it has deemed credible, though more recently has chosen to withhold publicly that more precise data. We don’t know why and it’s for OIR to explain their reasoning,” said Airwars director Chris Woods. OIR refers to the Combined Joint Task Forces – Operation Inherent Resolve, as the US-led coalition against ISIL is officially known.

In an air campaign that has been described by the British Foreign Office as “the most precise in history of warfare”, the withholding of more precise data has raised eyebrows. “Either the coalition doesn’t have the specific coordinates of the buildings it bombs,

which would be very concerning, or they do have them and we presume they do, so why are they not providing them?” asked Amnesty International’s senior crisis adviser, Donatella Rovera. “It has to do with liability, with not wanting to take responsibility.”

In populated areas such as Raqqa and Mosul, 100 metres (328 feet) “could be the distance between a legitimate military target and a school or an apartment building,” said Iain Overton of the London-based explosive violence monitoring charity, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).

While Amnesty’s Rovera does not dismiss the Airwars findings, she argues that “unless the data is accurate, you won’t be able to do much with it at all”.

Saudi air strikes hit Houthi militia camps in Sanaa SANAA AGENCIES

War planes of the Saudi-led coalition launched multiple air strikes on Houthi militia-held military camps in the mountains of the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Friday morning.

Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported 14 coalition air strikes on Sanaa targeting the war faculty and military camps in the mountains of Hafa, Attan, Ayban, Sama and Jarban.

Meanwhile, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television also reported that the coalition launched multiple air strikes on Houthi militia military sites in Sanaa.

The air strikes came after a Houthi ballistic missile on

Monday hit Saudi Aramco petroleum products distribution terminal in Saudi Arabian Red Sea port city of Jeddah, causing fire in a fuel tank.

The Monday missile attack on Saudi oil facility was the latest in a series of cross-border drone and missile attacks by the Houthi militia in Yemen. Most of the Houthi attacks had been intercepted by the Saudi-led coalition.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014, when the Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of Sanaa. The Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in the Yemen conflict in 2015 to support Hadi's government.

EU call for sanctions on Cyprus ‘disconnected from reality’: Turkey ANKARA AGENCIES

Ankara has denounced a resolution by the EU Parliament lawmakers for sanctions against Turkey over Cyprus after President Erdogan’s recent visit to the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state and the reopening of an abandoned town. “We completely reject the non-binding resolution… on our country and the TRNC,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement on Friday, referring to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The European Parliament MPs urged EU leaders on Thursday to “take action and impose tough sanctions” against Turkey, calling Ankara’s gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean “illegal.” Turkey rejects the charge. Ankara backs dialogue, but Turkey will continue to protect both its own rights and those of the Turkish Cypriots, Aksoy said, slamming the European Parliament resolution. “This decision… once again demonstrates how disconnected from reality and prejudiced the EP is on the Cyprus issue.” The TRNC presidency also said the resolution “ignored the existence of the Turkish Cypriots,” while also “unjustly accusing Turkey.”

On November 15, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state, including Varosha, a beach town that has been abandoned in no-man’s land since Cyprus split in 1974. Northern Cyprus recently reopened part of the fenced-off town, allowing public access. Erdogan said that “a two-state solution must be negotiated on the basis of sovereign equality,” of both Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

The European MPs’ resolution came after Paris, which is at odds with Ankara on several issues, including what Turkey calls “persecution of Muslims” in France, also called for sanctions on Ankara at an EU summit next month. No detailed sanctions have yet been drawn up, but French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said at a French parliamentary hearing this week that “Turkey knows what it needs to do.” The minister warned: “Confrontation or collaboration, it’s up to them.” Ankara is at loggerheads with Greece and Cyprus over hydrocarbon exploration in disputed east Mediterranean waters, and France supports the two EU member states’ claims.

Russia-China trade turnover to exceed $100bn by year-end: CODA BEIJING AGENCIES

Bilateral trade between China and Russia has undoubtedly been affected by the Covid pandemic but is expected to surpass $100 billion by the end of the year, according to the China Overseas Development Association (CODA). Its secretary general, He Zhenwei, told RIA Novosti that "although the epidemic is currently affecting cooperation, trade between the two countries will show significant growth, particularly in the second half of the year.” Domestic demand in China is continuously increasing and Russia is boosting exports to the country, he said. He also noted that Russia produces environmentally friendly non-GMO products. Trade between the two countries has been growing, and in 2019 Moscow and Beijing said they had eliminated all barriers that could impede their fast-developing cooperation. The two sides also announced the ambitious goal of doubling the volume of trade to $200 billion by 2024. China’s new ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui, said that Beijing considers Moscow a trusted partner and is opening its markets more and more to Russian goods. The diplomat added that while Beijing was embroiled in an escalating trade war with Washington and was cutting imports from the US, especially agricultural products, it needed new suppliers, and sees Russia as a good replacement. “We will choose a new supplier. And Russia is the most reliable one,” said Zhang.

Emerging markets see 'strongest pace' of capital flows on vaccine development: IIF WASHINGTON AGENCIES

Emerging markets are witnessing the “strongest pace” of capital flows on positive news related to the Covid-19 vaccine development, according to the latest report from the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

“We see positive news on Covid-19 vaccines as the modern-day equivalent of

the 2009 China stimulus, allowing the world to return to the status quo before the virus... delivering a powerful boost to global demand,” the IIF said, adding, they "are recording the strongest pace of nonresident portfolio flows to EM (Emerging Markets) in many years.”

Factoring in robust offshore bond issuance, the fourth quarter is the strongest quarter since the first quarter of 2012 on cap-

ital flows to the emerging markets, it added.

Global pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have achieved major breakthroughs in developing a vaccine for the treatment of coronavirus in recent weeks. Vaccine candidates being tested by Pfizer and Moderna have shown more than 90 per cent efficacy.

Earlier this year, at the height of Covid-

19 outbreak, the Washington-based institute recorded large capital outflows from the Emerging Markets and in the months that followed, the recovery in non-resident portfolio flows was tepid. However, recent developments on vaccine development triggered the interest of investors towards emerging economies’ assets.

“The exodus of capital from emerging markets is now firmly in the rearview mirror

and robust inflows look set to continue.”

The IIF also said flows to emerging markets outside of China are at their strongest pace since the second quarter of 2014.

The coronavirus pandemic has tipped the global economy into its worst recession since the 1930s. The International Monetary Fund expects global output to shrink 4.4 percent this year and recover only modestly in 2021.

Saturday, 28 November, 2020

SportS 11

Bahrain GP: Hamilton heads Mercedes 1-2 ahead of Perez and Sainz in FP1 AGENCIES Newly-crowned world champion Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in first practice at the Bahrain International Circuit, ahead of his Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas – while Sergio Perez was third quickest for Racing Point.

Pirelli’s prototype tyres for the 2021 season were available for the teams to run in the session, and will be run for a minimum of six laps by all drivers in FP2 this evening in Bahrain.

Hamilton topped the timesheets early on as the circuit was covered in a light dusting of sand, before he switched to Pirelli prototypes and then improved on medium compounds to post a 1m29.033s lap time. His team mate Bottas was 0.449s off the pace in second place on the same compounds.

Racing Point, just ahead of McLaren, Renault and Ferrari in a fierce fight for third in the constructors’ championship, had Turkish GP podium-finisher Sergio Perez third quickest in this session - nearly a second off Hamilton - and Istanbul pole-sitter Lance Stroll ninth. Both set their fastest times on softs.

McLaren's Ferrari-bound driver Carlos Sainz was fourth overall, just behind Perez, as the last driver within a second of Hamilton. Sainz's team mate Lando Norris was 18th in the session, ahead of the Williams duo.

Former Red Bull driver Pierre Gasly will stay at AlphaTauri for 2021 and he went briefly top in the session on medium compounds before falling to fifth overall. His team mate Daniil Kvyat, who hasn’t yet been confirmed at the Faenza-based team and said on Thursday that his chances of staying are 'slim', finished 17th fastest.

Red Bull's Alex Albon took seventh and finished just 0.007s behind sixth-place team mate Max Verstappen in a stronger showing for the Thai driver, while Verstappen spun at Turn 15 with 30 minutes remaining. The Dutchman clocked just 18 laps in the session.

The Renaults were split by Racing Point's Stroll, with Esteban Ocon a late improver to P8 on softs and Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the top 10 on mediums.

As for Ferrari, last year’s Bahrain GP pole-sitter Charles Leclerc ran wide at Turn 3 but continued on to finish 11th as Ferrari tested various parts throughout the session – perhaps with a view to 2021. Team mate Sebastian Vettel finished just off Leclerc in P12 with both Ferrari drivers having used softs to set their fastest laps.

Robert Kubica, now finished with his 2020 DTM campaign, stood in for Kimi Raikkonen at Alfa Romeo and finished 13th, ahead of Italian team mate Antonio Giovinazzi (16th).

Romain Grosjean brought out the first yellow flag of the session with an off deep into the Turn 7 gravel. The Haas driver, out of a drive in 2021, finished 14th in the session while his team mate Kevin Magnussen took 15th. The Dane is expected to make a switch Stateside for next year, while both Haas drivers have been in talks with IndyCar squads.

FORMULA 1 GULF AIR BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX 2020 Practice 1 results POsitiON 1 lewis HaMiltON Mercedes 2 Valtteri BOttas Mercedes 3 sergiO PereZ raciNg POiNt 4 carlOs saiNZ MclareN 5 Pierre gaslY alPHatauri

tiMe 1:29.033 +0.449s +0.967s +0.985s +1.016s

'Good start' for Aprilia's 2021 MotoGP bike at Jerez test AGENCIES The day after the season-ending Portimao MotoGP, Aprilia was on track at Jerez for a shakedown test with the first version of its 2021 RS-GP. Although there are no official MotoGP post-season tests this season, Aprilia's status as the only remaining factory still qualifying for technical concessions meant race rider Aleix Espargaro was able to take part in the private outing.

But while Espargaro was making his way from Portugal to Spain on Monday, Aprilia test rider Bradley Smith conducted the first laps with the 2021 bike, being joined by the #41 at the Spanish Grand Prix

venue in the afternoon.

Both continued testing on Tuesday with Smith and fellow test rider Lorenzo Savadori also completing some Wednesday laps, before the forecast rain duly arrived.

As a private test held behind closed doors, no lap times were released for the new bike. However, Aprilia confirmed to Crash.net that the updates include new chassis, new carbon-fibre swingarm and new engine.

The riders reported good sensations from the chassis and swingarm updates as well as a positive first impression of the revised engine, which was only a 'first evolution' and so not being used in full power specification.

Pakistan cricket team’s isolation behaviour has ‘significantly imProved’: new Zealand govt

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HE Pakistan cricket team’s behaviour in their bio-secure facility in Christchurch had “significantly improved”, New Zealand’s Ministry of Health said on Friday, just 24 hours after the tourists had been warned about breaching Covid-19 protocols.

The ministry had confirmed on Thursday that six of the 53 touring party members had tested positive for the novel coronavirus upon arrival, while there was also evidence there had been breaches of bio-security rules.

“Since the team was issued with a warning, compliance with MIQ (managed isolation and quarantine) rules in the facility has significantly improved,” it said in a

statement on Friday.

“We thank members of the team for their co-operation with the case investigations following the announcement of positive cases within the team. “Co-operation and compliance are critical in ensuring New Zealand is kept safe from Covid-19.”

The positive results had come from tests administered upon the team’s entry to New Zealand, where all arrivals have to undergo 14 days of isolation.

The ministry added that the squad had undergone a second round of Covid-19 testing on Friday.

The team had been given an exemption to train together in small ‘bubbles’ after the second round of testing but that has been temporarily rescinded after the positive results.

Eoin Morgan relishes chance to test full-strength squad in quest for best XI AGENCIES Eoin Morgan has welcomed the prospect of picking from a full complement of England T20I players for arguably the first time in more than a year, but admitted he is no closer to knowing what his best XI should be, given the extraordinary wealth of options at the squad's disposal.

Speaking on the eve of the first T20I in Cape Town, Morgan said he was anticipating an "extremely competitive, well-fought series", much like England's last encounter with South Africa in February, in which they won the T20Is 2-1 after sharing the spoils in the ODI leg.

But, while a string of victories between now and the next T20 World Cup - scheduled to take place in India (or the UAE) this time next year - would go a long way towards confirming England as one of the favourites for the title, Morgan said the most pressing challenge in the intervening months would be to identity England's "best six or seven batsmen", and fit them into roles that bring out their very best attributes.

The competition for places has been intense in the build-up to the series, with two hard-fought intra-squad matches followed by what Morgan admitted had been some "dangerous" net sessions, given the lay-out of the practice wickets at Newlands.

"The guys are trying to hit them into the stands pretty much every second ball," he explained, "and the nets have been pointed towards the changing room and the dug-out where a lot of our stuff is, so it's pretty dangerous. It's eyes open, absolutely all the time."

But short of paring down his options with a few well-directed range hits, Morgan admitted he was at a loss as to how best to juggle a squad that Jason Roy this week said possessed "frightening" amounts of talent.

"The honest answer is we don't know our best XI yet," Morgan said. "There are probably seven or eight guys who are pretty strong candidates to be in our playing XI, but the strength of the squad that we've selected, and the reserves that we have here, has made our full-strength side available for selection for the first time in a long time. That makes it very exciting.

"Winning at the moment would be great, but the process of going through what's best for our team and best for our players, to try and beat the opposition is extremely important," he added. "Given the luxury of players that we have at our disposal, it's more important that we get their roles right and they feel comfortable within that, because if we manage to solve that problem, the results will look after themselves."

Though England reached the final of the last World T20 in Kolkata in 2016, the format had been on the back-burner in the lead-up to the 2019 50-over World Cup, by which stage England had such a settled line-up that their ODI first XI more or less picked itself. But now that the 20-over format has been installed as the white-ball team's priority, England face a race against time and availability to replicate that same level of role clarity that carried them to glory at Lord's last summer.

Their most recent T20I series, a 2-1 win over Australia in September, featured something close to England's best XI, al-

Chants, roars and boos - cricket finds its voice back at Sydney

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HE chants of "Kohli, Kohli". The roar when David Warner was given out on review. The celebrations when Aaron Finch and Steven Smith reached hundreds. The almost collective amazement at Glenn Maxwell's reverse-swept six. The almighty volume when Virat Kohli was dropped by Adam Zampa. The boos when the India supporters thought a Mitchell Starc full toss should have been a no-ball.

The sounds of being at the cricket.

When the gates opened at the SCG early on Friday afternoon, spectators entered a men's international match for the first time since March 13. A few hours later across the Tasman, they came into Eden Park to watch New Zealand take on West Indies (and what a ridiculous game that turned out to be).

Crowds have been at sport in the two countries since the middle of the year as New Zealand and Australia have, largely, led the way in keeping Covid-19 under control.

Crowds have been back at cricket, too, since

September when the Australia-New Zealand women's series had spectators in Brisbane which has been followed by fans at domestic cricket. However, there was a symmetry about Sydney getting there first for men's internationals - if only by a couple of hours, and because of Queensland's U-turn on hosting India - and the volume was something not heard since early this year. Fans were back in the stands for a men's international for the first time since March Getty Images It was at this venue more than eight months ago that the doors were slammed shut on the international game as fans were locked out of the opening ODI between Australia and New Zealand. The ground rattled to the sound of silence (something which has become much more 'normal' since) as everyone got their first experience of social distancing and protocols that would become part of everyday life. The day after, the series was cancelled.

During the intervening months, so much effort has been put in and money spent to keep the show on the road. England managed to get in a full home summer, Pakistan

Health officials were still conducting interviews with the squad. Anyone considered to have been in close contact with the six positives will not be allowed to train.

News of the positive tests and the restrictions being placed on the team sparked an angry response from former Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, who said New Zealand officials had treated them like a club team.

“I want to give a message to New Zealand board (NZC) that this is not a club team, it’s Pakistan national cricket team,” Shoaib said on his YouTube channel. “We don’t need you. You are talking about Pakistan — the greatest country on the planet — so behave yourself and stop giving such statements. “Be careful next time.”

hosted Zimbabwe and in the franchise world, both the CPL and IPL took place behind closed doors. The quality of the cricket has been a testimony to the professionalism and drive of the players, the cut and thrust of the contest helping, in part, to compensate for the empty, soulless stadiums.

But how the big crowds have been missed. Outside the SCG, hours before play started, the Bharat Army was getting into full swing. The roar when Kohli led India onto the field felt almost deafening - of course, it wasn't but going from zero to thousands of people had that effect. When India finally broke the opening partnership, successfully reviewing for an edge against Warner, 17,821 sounded like 50,000. Towards the end of Australia's gargantuan innings, a Mexican wave went around the ground. The India supporters enjoyed Starc's opening over costing 20; the Australians lapped up Josh Hazlewood's three wickets. All these things could have happened without a crowd, but they were so much better with one.

Having spectators also added to two poignant moments: the minute's silence for

Dean Jones before play started (he will be honoured more extensively during the Boxing Day Test) then at 4.08pm when play paused to remember Phillip Hughes - 408 being his Test cap number - on the sixth anniversary of his death with Finch and Warner taking a moment to glance skywards.

Of course, there was a lot that still wasn't quite normal. Not least the speed of security in getting onto the pitch when protesters against Adani, an Indian company involved in controversial coal mining in Queensland, jogged onto the field. For a moment, nobody moved - players starting to wonder what was happening - before eventually security arrived and escorted the men off while trying to maintain their distance.

On a more day-to-day level, QR codes, temperature checks and reminders to social distance are all part of the new experience.

The ground has two zones - controlled and uncontrolled - with the players in the former and no mixing between the two. They are out of quarantine, but for them, the bubble life goes on. This, everyone hopes, will work for the rest of the summer. It has been confirmed

though Ben Stokes was absent for personal reasons and Roy was injured.

But, notwithstanding the prospect of a Covid-19 vaccine in the spring, Morgan said he envisaged all of England's contests taking place in bio-secure bubbles for the foreseeable future. Therefore the T20I team may not get many opportunities to field its best XI, with ten Tests against India and an Ashes tour next winter giving the multi-format players, in particular the likes of Stokes and Jofra Archer, a potentially debilitating workload.

Archer, in fact, has played just four T20Is in his England career to date, and missed the last series in South Africa after sustaining an elbow injury during the Tests. And while Morgan was relishing the prospect of unleashing the IPL's recently crowned MVP, he also warned that Archer would require particularly sympathetic handling in the coming months.

"He's one of the best in the world, so he's incredible to have around," Morgan said.

"But I don't think we'll have him that often, between now and the World Cup. The challenge of him trying to commit to all the Tests and all of the T20s, I think that's too much. So we're just trying to get him into a headspace where he's enjoying his cricket while he's with us, and trying to make the most of the opportunity while he's with us."

One T20I series that Archer will be inked in for, fitness permitting, is the impending tour of India in the new year, given that could be a chance to trial England's first-choice XI in the same conditions that they will face at the World Cup.

that spectators will be able to attend BBL matches across all the states and it appears Adelaide has escaped the risk of having to have the opening Test behind closed doors after the recent Covid-19 scare in the city.

Melbourne, which endured a 100-day lockdown during a second wave, is set to welcome 25,000 for the Boxing Day Test although there is a push for that to be increased. However, recent comments by Victoria sports minister Martin Pakula cautioned over how far things have already come in a pandemic year.

"I know Cricket Australia and the MCG would like a few more," he told SEN Radio.

"What I'd be more inclined to focus on is ... the way I look at it is a month or two ago the idea of the Test going ahead, crowd or no crowd looked so remote, I'm pretty satisfied with the fact we're going to have a Boxing Day Test at 25,000 a day."

Then there are also the reminders of how little it would take to upend the best-laid plans. The events in Adelaide a couple of weeks ago, which led to players being hastily flown out of the state, showed how quickly a situation can change. Across the Tasman, the positive Covid-19 tests among the Pakistan squad and their breaches of the protocol have left the tour on edge.

A warm, sunny Sydney afternoon with chants of "India, India" ringing around the ground, glorious strokeplay, cheers for the runs of Finch, Smith, Dhawan and Pandya, and a high-scoring one-day international was a wonderful, heart-warming experience.

Saturday, 28 November, 2020

PrAyEr TImINGS

NEWS

Iran’S tOP nuClEar SCIEntISt aSSaSSInatEd nEar tEhran a AGENCIES

N Iranian scientist long suspected by the West of masterminding a secret nuclear bomb programme was killed in an ambush near Tehran on Friday that could provoke confrontation between Iran and its foes in the last weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency. The military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed Israel for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and vowed to retaliate for his killing.

“In the last days of the political life of their ... ally (Trump), the Zionists seek to intensify pressure on Iran and create a fullblown war,” Hossein Dehgan tweeted.

“We will strike as thunder at the killers of this oppressed martyr and will make them regret their action.”

Fakhrizadeh died of injuries in hospital after armed assassins fired on his car, Iranian state media reported. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the killing. In the United States, the Pentagon declined to comment and the State Department and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. President-elect Joe Biden’s team also declined to comment.

Fakhrizadeh has been described by Western and Israeli intelligence services for years as the leader of a covert atomic bomb programme halted in 2003, which Israel and the United States accuse Tehran of trying to restore in secret. Iran has long denied seeking to weaponise nuclear energy.

“Unfortunately, the medical team did not succeed in reviving (Fakhrizadeh), and a few minutes ago, this manager and scien-

tist achieved the high status of martyrdom after years of effort and struggle,” Iran’s armed forces said in a statement carried by state media. The semi-official news agency Tasnim said “terrorists blew up another car” before firing on a vehicle carrying Fakhrizadeh and his bodyguards in an ambush outside the capital.

Regardless of who was responsible for the attack, it is certain to escalate tension between Iran and the United States in the final weeks of Trump’s U.S. presidency.

Trump, who lost his re-election bid on Nov. 3 and leaves office on Jan. 20, has repeatedly accused Iran of secretly seeking nuclear weapons. Trump pulled the United States out of a deal under which sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. Biden has said he would restore it.

A U.S. official confirmed earlier this

month that Trump had asked military aides for a plan for a possible strike on Iran. Trump decided against it at that time because of the risk it could provoke an uncontrollable wider Middle East conflict.

Last January, a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander. Iran retaliated for that attack by firing missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq, the closest the two foes have come to war in decades.

Fakhrizadeh is thought to have headed what the U.N. nuclear watchdog and U.S. intelligence services believe was a coordinated nuclear weapons programme in Iran, shelved in 2003. He was the only Iranian scientist named in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2015 “final assessment” of open questions about Iran’s nuclear programme.

The IAEA’s report said he oversaw activities “in support of a possible military dimension

Covert Israeli-Saudi meeting sends Biden a strong message on Iran RIYADH/TEL AVIV AGENCIES

A historic meeting between Israel’s prime minister and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has sent a strong signal to allies and enemies alike that the two countries remain deeply committed to containing their common foe Iran.

Last Sunday’s covert meeting in the Saudi city of Neom, confirmed by Israeli officials but publicly denied by Riyadh, conveyed a coordinated message to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden that Washington’s main allies in the region are closing ranks.

It was the first publicly confirmed visit to Saudi Arabia by an Israeli leader and a meeting that was unthinkable until recently as the two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations. But it underlines the depth of the two countries’ concerns about Iran, and shows how opposition to Tehran is bringing about a strategic realignment of countries in the Middle East.

“It’s Iran, Iran, Iran,” Israeli cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel’s Army Radio when asked about the visit.

“It is very, very important to create the axis which isolates Iran.”

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both enjoyed strong support from U.S. President Donald Trump and championed his “maximum pressure” campaign

against Iran.

They fear Biden will adopt policies on Iran similar to those adopted during Barak Obama’s U.S. presidency which strained Washington’s ties with its traditional regional allies. Biden has said he will rejoin the international nuclear pact with Iran that Trump quit in 2018 - and work with allies to strengthen its terms - if Tehran first resumes strict compliance.

Both Israel and Saudi Arabia have recently ramped up rhetoric against Iran, which is locked in several proxy wars with Riyadh in the region.

Iran has built a network of armed groups across the Arab world, from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon and down into the Gulf and Yemen. Houthi rebels in Yemen attacked Saudi oil installations last week, the latest in a string of attacks on Saudi targets.

Israel is waging a shadow war against Iranian forces, mostly through regular air raids in Syria on Lebanese Shia paramilitary group Hezbollah, on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and on supplies of weapons as they are moved across the country.

SAUDI KING NOT INFORMED: Sunday’s meeting was held in the presence of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israel’s spy chief, Israeli media said.

Pompeo, who has been trying to coax Saudi Arabia to follow the lead of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan in normalising ties with Israel, declined to confirm the meeting. But diplomats in the region said U.S. envoys had privately con-

firmed the meeting took place.

Netanyahu declined comment on the meeting. He has yet to visit the UAE and Bahrain since formal ties were established, with tacit approval from Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia. On Thursday, he said he expected more countries to normalise ties with Israel in the next few months.

There was limited talk of the meeting on Saudi social media, but some opposition figures denounced the visit. Political analysts said the Saudi denial of the meeting could have been a way to test the waters at home.

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, has softened its stance on Israel in recent years, but signalled it is not yet ready to officially normalise ties, which analysts say would be a difficult move for King Salman in the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. “(The meeting with Netanyahu) aimed to highlight that MbS (Mohammed bin Salman) is more willing than his father to take steps towards normalisation without first reaching a two-state solution,” said Neil Quilliam, Associate Fellow at Chatham House think tank.

Despite this, normalisation is not expected to happen while King Salman is alive, said a well-connected Saudi source and a foreign diplomat in Riyadh. “Normalisation ... is a carrot to get (Biden’s) focus away from other issues, especially (Saudi) human rights,” the diplomat said.

The Saudi source and the diplomat

said the Saudi king was kept in the dark about Netanyahu’s visit.

Although the king chaired last weekend’s virtual G20 leaders’ summit, rumours of his declining health have swirled since he was admitted to hospital this summer. A video was leaked during the G20 summit which showed MbS correcting the confused king’s recollection, a leak which sources said was intentional.

The Saudi government media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ISRAELI LEAK: The leak of Prince Mohammed’s meeting with Netanyahu may have been intentional from Israel: an executive jet was used for the direct flight from Tel Aviv, which was quickly spotted on open-source flight trackers, and Israeli censors made no efforts to quash reporting on the trip. The leak gave Netanyahu an opportunity to embarrass his political rival, Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who is due to take over as prime minister a year from now under a power-sharing agreement.

It included news that Netanyahu had not informed Gantz about the flight, in effect implying to Israeli voters that the centrist politician cannot be trusted to keep a secret, following speculation that an early election is on the cards.

Gantz called the leak “irresponsible”.

Netanyahu has acknowledged he also kept Gantz in the dark about secret negotiations with the UAE that led to normalisation.

FAJR SUNRISE

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ASR MAGHRIB ISHA

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to (Iran’s) nuclear programme”.

‘REMEMBER THAT NAME’: He was a central figure in a presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu in 2018 accusing Iran of continuing to seek nuclear weapons.

“Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” Netanyahu said at the time.

During the final months of Trump’s presidency, Israel has been making peace with Gulf Arab states that share its hostility towards Iran.

Earlier this week, Netanyahu travelled to Saudi Arabia and met its crown prince, an Israeli official said, in what would be the first publicly confirmed visit by an Israeli leader.

Israeli media said they were joined by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

On Friday before the news of the attack on Fakhrizadeh emerged, an Israeli official said Israel was discussing with Gulf Arab states how to tackle Iran.

“The story is not Trump, nor even Israel.

The story is Iran - the growing dread that a new U.S. administration will go back to the nuclear deal which threatens the very existence of the Gulf countries,” Tzachi Hanegbi, who sits in Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Tel Aviv radio station 102 FM. “We will know how to handle the issue of the Iranian threat, even if through our own means.”

OPEC+ panel to hold informal online talks on Saturday MOSCOW/DUBAI AGENCIES

A panel of OPEC+, a group of leading oil producing countries, will hold informal online talks on Saturday prior to meetings scheduled for next week, a letter seen by Reuters showed and source with the knowledge of the matter said. OPEC+ is debating whether to ease oil output cuts from Jan.1, as it previously agreed, or to continue producing at the same rate amid sluggish oil demand and fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The letter from the OPEC, seen

by Reuters, said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak will attend Saturday’s informal consultations of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee’s heads.

Novak was energy minister until earlier this month, leading Moscow’s efforts to forge close ties with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and clinch the deal on output cuts. Saudi Arabia will be presented by its Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. OPEC+ will meet on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 to decide output policy for next year. The group was due to raise output by 2 million barrels per day in January – about 2% of global consumption – as part of a steady easing of record supply cuts implemented this year. But with demand for fuel weakening because of a second wave of the pandemic, OPEC+ has been considering delaying the increase or even making further cuts.

Trump says he’ll leave if Electoral College seats Biden AGENCIES US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will leave the White House if the Electoral College formalises PresidentElect Joe Biden’s victory even as he insisted such a decision would be a mistake as he spent his Thanksgiving renewing baseless claims that massive fraud and crooked officials in battleground states caused his election defeat.

“Certainly I will. But you know that,” Trump said on Thursday when asked whether he would vacate the building, allowing a peaceful transition of power in January.

But Trump — taking questions for the first time since Election Day — insisted that “a lot of things” would happen between now and then that might alter the results.

“This has a long way to go,” Trump said, even though he lost.

The fact that a sitting American president even had to address whether or not he would leave office after losing re-election underscores the extent to which Trump has

smashed one convention after another over the last three weeks.

While there is no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud Trump has been alleging, he and his legal team have nonetheless been working to cast doubt on the integrity of the election and trying to overturn voters will in an unprecedented breach of democratic norms.

Trump spoke to reporters in the White House’s ornate Diplomatic Reception Room after holding a teleconference with US military leaders stationed across the globe.

He thanked them for their service and jokingly warned them not to eat too much turkey, then turned to the election after ending the call. He repeated grievances and angrily denounced officials in Georgia and Pennsylvania, two key swing states that helped give Biden the win.

Trump claimed, despite the results, that this may not be his last Thanksgiving at the White House. And he insisted there had been “massive fraud,” even though state officials and international observers have said

no evidence of that exists and Trump’s campaign has repeatedly failed in court.

Trump’s administration has already given the green light for a formal transition to get under way. But Trump took issue with Biden moving forward.

“I think its not right that he’s trying to pick a cabinet,” Trump said, even though officials from both teams are already working together to get Biden’s team up to speed.

And as he refused to concede, Trump announced that he will be traveling to Georgia to rally supporters ahead of two Senate run-off elections that will determine which party controls the Senate.

Trump said the rally for Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler would likely be held Saturday. The White House later clarified he had meant December 5.

One of the reasons Republicans have stood by Trump and his baseless claims of fraud has been to keep his loyal base energised ahead of those run-offs on January 5.

But Trump, in his remarks, openly

questioned whether that election would be fair in a move that could dampen Republican turnout.

“I think you’re dealing with a very fraudulent system. I’m very worried about that,” he said. “People are very disappointed that we were robbed.”

As for the Electoral College, Trump made clear that he will likely never formally concede, even if he said he would leave the White House.

“It’s gonna be a very hard thing to concede. Because we know there was massive fraud,” he said, noting that, “time isn’t on our side”. “If they do,” vote against him, Trump added, “they’ve made a mistake”.

Asked whether he would attend Biden’s inauguration, Trump said he knew the answer but didn’t want to share it yet.

But there were some signs that Trump was coming to terms with his loss.

At one point he urged reporters not to allow Biden the credit for pending coronavirus vaccines.

“Don’t let him take credit for the vaccines because the vaccines were me and I

pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before,” he said.

As for whether or not he plans to formally declare his candidacy to run again in 2024 — as he has discussed with aides — Trump said he didn’t “want to talk about 2024 yet”. All states must certify their results before the Electoral College meets on December 14, and any challenge to the results must be resolved by December 8.

States have already begun that process, including Michigan, where Trump and his allies tried and failed to delay the process, and Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Vote certification at the local and state level is typically a ministerial task that gets little notice, but that changed this year with Trump’s refusal to concede and his unprecedented attempts to overturn the results of the election through a fusillade of legal challenges and attempts to manipulate the certification process in battleground states he lost. Biden won by wide margins in both the Electoral College and popular vote, where he received nearly 80 million votes, a record.

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