EpaperKHI_21-10-28

Thursday, 28 October, 2021 I 21 Rabi-ul-Awwal, 1443 I Rs 15.00 I Vol XII No 119 I 12 Pages I Karachi Edition

TLP ProTesTs Turn vioLenT wiTh aT LeasT 4 PoLicemen marTyred, over 250 injured

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T least four policemen were martyred and over 250 injured as thousands of workers of the banned Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) clashed with law-enforcement personnel in Gujranwala on Wednesday.

Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar said in a tweet that the four police personnel were martyred due to firing by TLP workers, adding that 253 others were injured in the violence. He announced that strict legal action will be taken against those involved in the violence.

Earlier, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that the government will not allow anyone to take the law into their hands.

The PM went on to reiterate that he has issued orders to stop the long march planned by the TLP. The PM took the decision during a meeting of the federal cabinet. He was given briefing on the banned outfit’s protest march, and it was later decided by the government that it will not allow protesters to march beyond Jhelum.

The PM said that “the government and the state are on one page regarding the protests” and the protesters will be “dealt with severely if they try to enter Islamabad.”

On the other hand, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said that the violence by the TLP “should end now”, while urging the protest to be ended “immediately.”

Minister for Interior Sheikh Rashid Ahmad directed the authorities to block social media accounts of the banned outfit.

Additionally, Pakistan Railways announced that the trains heading and departing from Rawalpindi and Lahore have been directed to alternate routes. The railways’ spokesperson said the trains were being rerouted via Lahore, Sheikhupura, Sargodha, Jhang.

The spokesperson added that the operations of Subak Khram, Islamabad Express, Rawal Express were suspended, while the Orange Line’s route from Rawalpindi to Lahore was also suspended.

A day earlier, Sheikh Rashid had revealed that the government will fulfil all

coronavirus in

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the demands of TLP except for the one seeking to close the French embassy.

“We have various constraints regarding the matter of French ambassador,” Rashid had stated.

The hardline party had announced the long march last Friday but postponed it on Sunday night reportedly after receiving assurances from the government that its demands — which include the expulsion of the French ambassador — would be accepted.

ROADS BLOCKED: The administrations in Islamabad and Rawalpindi sealed roads linking the twin cities to stop the anticipated entry of the protesters from the TLP party in the capital.

Anticipating protestors, the Rawalpindi administration sealed both sides of Murree Road from Faizabad Interchange to Marir Chowk in Saddar neighbourhood with containers in the wee hours of the morning.

Rawalpindi Metrobus service was also suspended from Saddar to Faizabad until further orders. A section of Murree Road from Faizabad to Chandni Chowk was also blocked with containers and deployment of police contingents.

School-going children returned to their homes due to blocked roads which also caused blockages for the public.

The situation forced many commuters to walk to their destinations.

Heavy contingents of police have been deployed to protect the section from Faizabad to Sixth Road.

According to reports, the Punjab government has directed district police officers (DPOs) of several districts to deploy forces to tackle any untoward law and order situation.

The demonstrators last night camped near the town of Muridke on the G.T. Road leading to Islamabad, continuing a protest that saw clashes in Lahore last week in which three policemen were killed. News Desk

On Black Day, Imran urges world to stop rights violations in occupied Kashmir ISLAMABAD APP

Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday urged the global community to play its role in exerting pressure on India to bring an end to the rights violations in occupied Jammu and Kashmir region.

In a message on the occasion of Black Day, the prime minister said the world should help secure the right of the people of Kashmir to determine their own future in line with UN Security Council resolutions.

Pakistan and people living on either side of the Line of Control (LoC) celebrate October 27 as Black Day to recount, and inform the world, how India had invaded the princely state in 1947.

Khan said: “We stand united in support of the Kashmiris’ inalienable right to self-determination.”

He said this day was also to remember the innumerable sacrifices rendered by the people of Kashmir while resisting the inhuman occupation of India. The occupation was meant to suppress the just aspirations of Kashmiris for determining their future, he noted.

The prime minister said despite

Two soldiers martyred in terrorist attack near Kurram: ISPR

CONFIRMED CASES:

1,270,322

NEW CASES:

13

516

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more inside

Coronavirus transmission rate at its lowest ever: minister STORY ON PAGE 02

Rangers to be deployed in Punjab for two months following clashes with TLP: Rashid

LAST UPDATED AT 10:36 AM ON OCTOBER 27, 2021

DAY'S DEATH TOLL:

the oppression and cruelty of Indian forces for the last seven decades, the people of Kashmir were determined to secure freedom. “We salute the courage and determination of Kashmiris including women and children.”

The people of Kashmir are a source of inspiration for the freedomloving people of the rest of the world, he said, adding the longstanding dispute was on the agenda of the UN Security Council agenda since 1948.

The prime minister said after accepting the resolutions of the Security Council and making promises with the world body, Pakistan, the international community and people of Jammu and Kashmir, on August 5, 2019, India unilaterally took an action which was a violation and disrespect of international law and was an effort to undermine the resolutions and aspirations of the people of Kashmir.

Unfortunately, in today’s India, the ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was prevalent and in its extremist ideology there was no place for Muslims and other minorities, he observed.

STORY ON BACK PAGE

RECOVERED:

DEATHS:

1,217,935 28,405 SINDH:

PUNJAB:

468,401

439,450

KPK:

BALOCHISTAN:

177,646 AJK/GB:

33,211 ISLAMABAD:

34,450/10,387

106,777

The military’s media affairs wing stated that on Wednesday, two soldiers were martyred in an exchange of fire with terrorists attempting to cross the fence along the Pak-Afghan border into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kurram district, According to the statement by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), terrorists from inside Afghanistan attempted to enter Pakistan at late night on October 26.

The ISPR revealed that the “Troops initiated a prompt response and thwarted the attempted illegal crossing by engaging the terrorists.”

The soldiers who were martyred in the attack included 24year-old Lance Naik Asad, a resident of Kurram, and 21year-old Sepoy Asif, a resident of Lakki Marwat.

The ISPR stated that “Pakistan strongly condemns the

use of Afghan soil by terrorists for activities against Pakistan and expects that [the] interim Afghan government will not allow such activities against Pakistan in [the] future.”

The statement added that the Pakistan Army is determined to protect the country’s frontiers against terrorism. “Sacrifices of our brave soldiers further strengthen our resolve,” the statement concluded.

PM Imran thanks crown prince after Saudi Arabia announced to deposit $3bn in SBP STORY ON PAGE 02

India's top court probes spying charges against Modi-led BJP govt STORY ON BACK PAGE

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Thursday, 28 October, 2021 | KARACHI

NEWS

CoronaviruS tranSmiSSion ratE at itS lowESt EvEr: miniStEr ISLAMABAD

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Staff RepoRt

AKISTAN Wednesday reported the lowest number of new Covid19 cases in nearly a year, with new infections dropping to just under 516, Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar said.

The last time the nation witnessed as many cases in a single day was in October last when Pakistan was averaging between 400 to 700 cases daily.

In a post on Twitter, the minister, who also heads the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), said: “We have [recorded] lowest patients on critical care and lowest daily mortality in a year.”

The decrease in new cases is due to the vaccination campaign, but the drive must continue at full pace, he cautioned.

“Globally, 7,500 died of Covid Tuesday,” he recalled.

With the latest cases, the number of total

confirmed infections has risen to 1.2 million, according to the NCOC. Another 13 people lost their lives to the infection over the last 24 hours in Pakistan, taking the toll to 28,405, the NCOC said, adding that 1,487 are in critical condition.

Over the last 24 hours, 717 patients recovered from Covid-19, bringing the total number of recoveries to 1.2 million, said the NCOC. The government has administered a total of 102 million doses as of October 27. At least 39 million people are fully vaccinated while nearly 69 million have received one dose of the vaccine. As many as 603,182 people were jabbed in the last 24 hours.

The government has further eased coronavirus restrictions, allowing the reopening of cinemas, shrines and outdoor activities for fully vaccinated citizens across the country.

Pakistan has also started rolling out coronavirus booster shots for healthcare workers and Pakistanis travelling abroad.

PM Imran thanks crown prince after Saudi Arabia announced to deposit $3bn in SBP ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday offered thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after Saudi Arabia pledged to provide $3 billion in assistance to Pakistan to help bolster its shrinking foreign reserves.

Shaukat Tarin, the de facto finance minister, also tweeted that Riyadh — a leading supplier of oil to Pakistan — will additionally supply $1.2 billion worth of oil to Islamabad on credit.

“I want to thank […] Prince Mohammad bin Salman for supporting” Pakistan, the prime minister tweeted.

The kingdom has “always been there” for Pakistan in its testing times including “now” — at a time when the world is confronting rising oil and commodity prices.

The Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), a Saudi Arabian government agency that provides development assistance by financing social and infrastructure projects, announced a deposit of $3 billion with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to help shore up its reserves, Tarin said last night.

The latest development came hours after Prime Minister Khan returned from a visit to Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan’s economy is currently under pressure because of an increase in oil prices in the international market. The government has repeatedly increased oil prices at home, drawing criticism from the nation.

PM highlighted Kashmir dispute at every global forum: MP ISLAMABAD app

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MP Sana Ullah Khan on Wednesday said Prime Minister Imran Khan highlighted the gross rights violations in occupied Kashmir at every international forum.

Talking to the Associated Press of Pakistan, Khan said the prime minister has presented the cause at every important global forum to make them understand that peace in the South Asian region cannot be ensured without the implementation of UN resolutions on Kashmir.

He said Kashmir is under the occupation of India for the last 74 years.

“India after landing its forces in the region illegally and immorally on October 27, 1947, made a commitment before the United Nations to extend self-determination right to the Kashmiri people to decide their political future,” he said.

Responding to a question, he said the international community needs to understand the importance of the Kashmir dispute and realise the fact that durable peace in the region could only be ensured through resolving the Kashmir issue as per the aspiration of the Kashmir people.

ECP serves notices on Chaudhry, Swati ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) issued yet another show-cause notice to Minister for Information and Broadcast Fawad Chaudhry and Minister for Railways Azam Khan Swati directing them to explain their caustic remarks against the agency. The commission first served notice on the duo on September 16, asking them to provide within week evidence of the charges of “bribes and always rigging” the elections they had levelled against it and Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja. Last month, during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs to discuss proposed amendments to the Elections (Amendment) Act, 2021, Swati came down hard on the agency and said it should be “set on fire” for making fun of the government and “ruining” the democracy in Pakistan. Responding to Swati, the ECP rejected his allegations and decided to demand evidence from Chaudhry and him in this regard. The ECP members also expressed anger over ministers for accusing them of taking bribes. The allegations are baseless and unacceptable as the ECP is a constitutional department, they said. A twomember bench comprising commission’s members Nisar Ahmed Durrani and Shah Mohammad Jatoi chaired the proceedings on Wednesday. Swati’s counsel, Muhammad Zubair, said the minister had appeared before the bench Tuesday, but couldn’t make it today (Wednesday) due to a road closure. “We [the counsels] too faced great difficulty in reaching the commission [premises],” he said. At this, the bench recalled this was a second notice served on Swati. The first, they said, was heard Tuesday. The first notice also directed Chaudhry to appear in person before the agency, while the second tagged Adviser to Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan. The agency had also summoned Chaudhry but neither he nor his counsel appeared before the agency. Subsequently, while issuing the notices, it adjourned the hearing until November 16.

Thursday, 28 October, 2021 | KARACHI

NEWS

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China CommittEd to PEaCEful dEvEloPmEnt, win-win CooPEration: SEnator ISLAMABAD Xinhua

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HINA remained committed to the path of peaceful development, win-win cooperation and reform and opening-up, an international relations and foreign policy experts said at a webinar. China has been a major contributor to global development, remains committed to multilateralism and has always been a defender of the international order, said the experts during the online conference held by the think tank Center for Global & Strategic Studies in collaboration with the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan to mark the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the lawful seat of China in the United Nations.

“It was not just a victory for China but for other peaceful countries as well who voted in the favor of the country. China has been a voice and remains a voice of the poor against the rich, the weak against the strong, and the small against the big,” said Mushahid Hussain Syed, chairman of Pakistani Senate’s Defense Committee.

Talking about the Global Development Initiative proposed by China recently, Syed said it is an important initiative and Pakistan looks forward to working closely with China in this regard because it will facilitate the achievement of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Noting that China has made remarkable development in the shortest period of time, the senator said great leadership, readiness to learn from other countries and a peaceful foreign policy were among the reasons behind China’s unmatchable success.

He said China has also been sharing its prosperity with other developing countries including Pakistan under

the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, contributing to global development.

Riaz Khokhar, a former foreign secretary, said it was unfortunate that other powers had denied the legitimate rights of the People’s Republic of China for more than 20 years regarding its lawful seat in the UN. Over the years, China has conducted itself with great

maturity, vision and remained focused on peaceful development, he said, adding that China has laid down key guidelines of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation.

China has made great achievements in eradicating absolute poverty and it continues its support for all developing countries around the globe, the former

NCOC daily update: 516 new cases, 13 deaths from Covid-19 ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

Pakistan added 516 new Covid-19 cases over the last 24 hours, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said on Wednesday.

The number of overall confirmed cases has risen to 1,270,322, according to the NCOC, the department leading the campaign against the pandemic.

Another 13 people lost their lives to the coronavirus over the last 24 hours in Pakistan, taking the overall death toll to 28,405, according to the NCOC, adding that 1,487 are in critical condition.

Over the last 24 hours, 717 patients recovered from Covid-19, bringing the total number of recoveries to 1,217,935, said the NCOC. Sindh is the worst-affected province by the pandemic with 468,401 infections, followed by Punjab which has reported 439,450 cases.

diplomat said.

“China believes in peace and development and is a defender of world order based on equity and justice, fair play, democracy and openness, and not a world order dictated by any hegemonic forces in the world. China believes in multilateralism and benefits of globalization,” he said. China assured the UN of peace and cooperation and believes in upholding the authority of the UN, he said, adding that today China is playing a special role in supporting UN peaceful missions around the world.

At the moment, the world is confronted by regional as well as global issues such as terrorism, cybersecurity, biosecurity and climate change, said Zamir Awan, a professor at the National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan.

Only more inclusive global governance, more effective multilateralism mechanisms, and more active regional cooperation, as promoted by China, can help address these issues, the professor said.

On the occasion, Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Nong Rong said that China will not forget that Pakistan made significant contributions to restoring China’s legitimate seat in the UN, and helped China break through the diplomatic blockade of the Western countries.

Over the past decades, despite the changing international and domestic landscapes, China and Pakistan have firmly stood together, overcome numerous difficulties and obstacles, and delivered remarkable outcomes in bilateral cooperation, he said.

“A high degree of mutual trust, mutual assistance, seeking peace and promoting development together are the most distinctive features of China-Pakistan relations, and the underlying rationale of our ironclad friendship,” he added.

Gunmen kill four policemen near afghanistan border PESHAWAR the aSSociated pReSS

Unidentified gunmen attacked a police patrol overnight in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing four before fleeing the scene, a police official said Wednesday.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack in Lakki Marwat, a town in the province bordering Afghanistan. Police official Umar Khan said a search operation for the culprits was still underway. Khan provided no further details and only said the funeral of slain officers was held Wednesday morning. Pakistan has witnessed scores of such terrorist attacks in recent months, most of which have been claimed by the Afghanistanbased Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and the Islamic State groups. Both organisations have been emboldened by Taliban resurgence in the neighbouring nation where anti-Pakistan militants are still believed to be hiding. Before the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, Pakistan often berated Afghanistan for turning a blind eye to militants operating along their porous border.

India probes Kashmir students for cheering Pakistan cricket win SRINAGAR afp

Police have launched an investigation after several hundred students in occupied Kashmir celebrated India’s recent defeat to Pakistan in the cricket World Cup, officials said Wednesday.

Anti-India sentiment is widespread and runs deep in the Muslim-majority territory where an armed freedom movement has raged for decades by the people wanting independence or to be part of Pakistan.

Around 300 students in two top Srinagar medical colleges gathered in two hostels watching the match on Sunday and burst into celebrations when Pakistan crushed India in the high-octane contest in Dubai.

Videos of the students shouting “Long live Pakistan” went viral. Footage also showed thousands of people in the city and several other towns cheering on the streets and setting off firecrackers in support of Pakistan.

On Tuesday, police opened two investigations under the Unlawful Prevention Activities Act (UAPA) and raided one of the hostels, but no one was detained,

a police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“The videos are being closely scrutinised to identify cheerleaders who raised proPakistan and anti-Indian slogans at the end of the match and indulged in anti-national activities,” the officer said.

India has used the vaguely-worded UAPA legislation against thousands of Kashmir residents, journalists and dissidents, according to activists.

It allows people to be held for six months — often rolled over — without being charged and bail is virtually impossible.

In a separate similar incident, police detained six residents in the Jammu region of the territory for questioning after a video showing them supporting Pakistan’s cricket team emerged on social media.

“Why is loyalty to the Indian cricket team being demanded from us? Is it a crime to cheer the victory of your favourite side?

Many of us are petrified for being charged under terrorism laws or even being arrested or dismissed from college,” a medical student told AFP while declining to be named.

Kashmir’s former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti took to Twitter criticising the police action, saying “Instead of trying to ascertain why educated youth choose to identify with Pakistan, GOI (Government of India) resorted to vindictive actions.”

On Monday, a group of Kashmir students in the northern state of Punjab reported being attacked after they celebrated Pakistan’s victory, and an Indian schoolteacher in Rajasthan was dismissed after she posted celebratory messages on social media.

Anger against New Delhi has simmered since August 2019 when Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi’s government cancelled the disputed region’s semiautonomy and brought it under direct rule.

Since then, over 2,000 people have been arrested under the UAPA, with almost half of them still in jail, according to officials and rights activists.

On Wednesday, National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf criticised the police action in a series of tweets marking the day when the Indian military took control of Kashmir in 1947.

“This is a country where Kashmiri youth

have been attacked, beaten up and booked just this week only because they supported Pakistan in a cricket match against India and

celebrated our victory,” Yusuf said.

Since their independence, the rivals have fought two wars over Kashmir.a

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Thursday, 28 October, 2021 | KARACHI

04 NEWS

IHC stAys ZARDARI’s InDICtment In susPICIOus tRAnsACtIOns CAse ISLAMABAD

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TLTP

RAMING of charge sheet against former president Asif Ali Zardari has been stayed as the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday restrained the accountability court to indict the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) cochairperson in the multi-billion rupees sus-

picious transaction case for two weeks.

Asif Ali Zardari has invoked the jurisdiction of Islamabad High Court against the order of the accountability court that has decided to indict the PPP co-chairman in the NAB reference of more than Rs8 billion suspicious transaction on Thursday (today).

Accountability Court Judge Syed Asghar Ali had on October 14 decided to reject the PPP co-chairman’s acquittal plea in the NAB

reference of a suspicious transaction of more than Rs8 billion, however, counsel for Asif Ali Zardari has challenged the accountability court order in the IHC on Challenging the accountability court order, counsel for Zardari made Chairman NAB, Accountability Court and Federation as respondents saying the accountability court will indict his client in the case on October 28 (today).

Appearing before a division bench of the

Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Aamer Farooq on Wednesday counsel for petitioner Farooq H Naek requested the court to declare the accountability court’s decision in the matter as void. After a brief hearing of the matter, the bench restrained the accountability court from indictment till the next hearing. It also issued notice to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and summoned its reply in the case within two

Women parliamentarians express satisfaction over performance of gender protection unit ISLAMABAD PR

A delegation of women parliamentarian Wednesday visited gender protection unit, established at police facilitation center sector F-6 to respond the victims of gender-based violence.

They lauded the move of Inspector General of Police (IGP) Islamabad Qazi

abad residents that had been widely acknowledged across the country.

At the onset, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Amna Baig who was in-charge of the unit briefed the delegation about the functioning and performance of the unit.

Female police officers were deputed to help women and transgender in distress 24/7 via helpline 8090 as well as at the

Jameel-ur-Rehman for providing women and children a sense of security in the federal capital. Secretary women parliamentary caucus, Munaza Hassan who was heading the delegation said since its inception the federal capital has seen a significant decline in harassment cases of women and children.

She said federal capital has taken multiple initiatives to relief the Islam-

CDA starts work on plastic road project

desk, she added. She said the unit so far has received over 550 complaints of various natures including harassment, domestic violence, mental and physical torture.

As many as 331 complaints were received at the desk, 219 via helpline out of which 397 were resolved while 44 under process at various police stations.

The force has registered cases against 22 persons. The ASP said legal, psychiatrist and medical staff have also been deployed at the desk to help the affected women and children under one roof.

IGP Islamabad while interacting with the delegation said the victims of sexual harassment and domestic violence were being given full support and Islamabad Police was making all out efforts to ensure women’s rights and justice. The capital police, he said was ensuring safety of women in offices, streets and bazaars. The parliamentarians included Zile-e Huma, Fauzia Arshad Nourin Farooq, Uzma Riaz, Nafeesa Khattaq, Dr. Shazia Sobia, Romina Khurshid Alam, Technical Advisor Hassan Hakeem, Coordinator Wasim Kazmi, Researcher Jawariya Nisar and Social Media Rabia Basri.

BOI to facilitate industrialisation in Pakistan ISLAMABAD PR

The Board of Investment, Islamabad joined hands with Pakistan China Center, China-SCO-Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA), and Everest International Expo Pvt. Ltd, to facilitate over one hundred top industrial Chinese companies which will be participating in the Pakistan Industrial Expo 2021 being organised both online and offline in Lahore on October 29.

Chinese and Pakistan Companies participating in the Expo will showcase their products during the Expo i.e., mainly CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machinery, construction machinery, new energy, building material, agricultural machinery, plastic ma-

chinery, hardware, chemical, auto-parts, etc.

The newly appointed Honorary Investment Counsellor (HIC) of Pakistan, who is also the Deputy Head of Pakistan Centre in SCODA, stated that he is glad to join hands with BOI in this meaningful event, and is looking forward to promoting B2B collaboration. He informed that organizers are looking forward to get some impactful MoUs signed in the manufacturing sector with the provinces of Shandong, Henan, and Punjab. Mr. Asim Ayub, Project Director, CPEC Industrial Cooperation of BOI, while expressing his views during a preparatory video conference with Mr. Wang Zihai, the Executive Director of Pakistan China Center, state that this format for organizing the Expo is the optimal possible solution to ameliorate the impact of COVID-19.

weeks. The bench adjourned further hearing of the case for two weeks.

Earlier, Islamabad accountability court had rejected the plea filed by former president Asif Ali Zardari seeking his acquittal in the Rs 8.3 billion suspicious transaction case. The PPP co-chairman had moved the acquittal plea on the basis of the recent amendments made to the country’s accountability law.

FBR, KP’s revenue department sign agreement for data sharing

ISLAMABAD PR

Building further on its vision to improve efficiency and transparency in the tax collection system, and to promote digital integration, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has achieved another important milestone by signing an Agreement (MoU) for data sharing with Board of Revenue and Estate, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, here in FBR HQs, today. Under this Agreement, the two organizations will share specified digital data, including data about land/property ownership and agricultural income, which will help both organizations to improve their tax collection activities in their respective domains. The Agreement was signed by the Senior Member, Board of Revenue and Estate, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mr. Zafar Shah and the Member IT, FBR Dr. Ashfaq Ahmed Tunio in a simple ceremony at FBR, attended by Member (FATE) FBR, Chief (FATE)/Director Media FBR, Chief IT (BDT) and other officers of the two organizations.

The Agreement also envisages to develop integrated IT based platforms through which automated exchange of data will be possible in future. FBR has been making consistent efforts to acquire third party data by linking its IT systems with different provincial departments and other organizations in order to broaden the tax base and improve transparency in the tax collection system. For this purpose, several Agreements have already been signed with provincial excise and taxation departments and development authorities, from where valuable data is being acquired.

ISLAMABAD PR

The management of the Capital Development Authority has started work on the plastic road concept. In Iine with directions of Chairman CDA trial project has been started at F.9 Park., This is the first project of its kind in Pakistan which is being launched in collaboration with a private company. It is pertinent to mention here tgat CDA had signed a MoU a month ago with a private beverage company, under which work has now been started on a test project. Once the results of this project are positive, this concept will not only be utilized in Islamabad but will also be replicated in other cities of the country. After observing results of tests prohect, initially one Kilometer road will be constructed on plastic road concept The test engineering results of the project will be taken from tomorrow, after which this technology will be introduced in other parts of Islamabad for road construction while this tecnology will be transferred to asphalt plant of MPO Directorate after evaluating results. It is expected that the plastic road will be more sustainable and duarable than the conventional road. It is worth mentioning here that 500 to 600 tons of municipal waste is being collected in Islamabad on daily basis which contains 150 to 180 tons of plastic waste. By recycling the collected plastic, environmental pollution can be reduced as well as help in construction of roads there.

IHC urged to take notice of anomalies in FDE ISLAMABAD TLTP

A petition has been filed in the Islamabad High Court seeking implementation of the inquiry report’s findings relating to irregularities in postings and promotions in the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) seven years ago.

In 2019, the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training had formed a high level committee in response to irregularities in the number of posts, especially deputy directors, assistant directors and superintendents who were appointed on non-existing posts.

The petitioner made the federation of Pakistan through federal education minister, secretary, Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, director general, Federal Directorate of Education Islamabad and prime minister

officer through its secretary, Islamabad as respondents in the matter.

The petitioner submitted that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had issued directives through its verdict on November 25, 2011 that the Federal Government cannot absolve itself from the responsibility of providing Education to its citizens. He further said that in the light of the Supreme Court Judgment, a summary was moved to the Prime Minister of Pakistan who was pleased to approve the renaming of the Ministry as “Ministry of Education and Training” which was duly notified by the Cabinet Division on 24th July, 2012. Subsequently, the Council of Common Interest (CCI) in its meeting held on 8th November, 2012 endorsed the renaming of the Ministry and approved its functioning with the subjects already assigned to it.

CMYK

The petitioner also apprised the court that time and again he approached respondents and pointed out irregularities urging them to take steps to repatriate those officials who were illegally promoted. He also alleged that some FED officials have received millions of rupees from the head of evening shift in the Islamabad Model Colleges without performing duties.

He urged the court to issue directives to the respondents to get the inquiry report’s findings implemented, saying it has come to the fore that there have been several irregularities in the FDE. Terming the irregularities a cause of great distress for the petitioner as an educationalist and citizen of Islamabad. The petitioner alleged that the respondents have acted in an arbitrary manner while ignoring the recommendations of the inquiry committee say-

ing several employees of the DG FDE have suffered due to the irregularities in the department. “It is settled law that persons similarly placed cannot be treated differently. The employees of FDE have been discriminated against on the basis of personal preference.

Furthermore, no action has been taken on the suspicious appointments of several employees of the FDE”, the petitioner submitted.

He sought the court directives to respondents to ensure the enforcement of all the recommendations of the inquiry report, alleging that the actions of the respondents since the new government has come to power makes it clear that they only want to appoint people of their own choosing and not based on merits, which should not be allowed in any civilized society as it would curtail the growth of scholars in Pakistan.

Thursday, 28 October, 2021 | KARACHI

NEWS

ChiNa always stays true to its origiNal aspiratioN

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nong rong

N October 25, Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the Conference Marking the 50th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Lawful Seat of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations, saying that “The restoration of New China's lawful seat in the United Nations was a momentous event for the world and the United Nations. It came as the result of joint efforts of all peace-loving countries that stood up for justice in the world. ” Five decades ago, the 26th session of UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758, deciding to restore all the rights to the People’s Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the UN. It was a victory for justice and fairness in the world. Over the past 50 years, China has firmly adhered to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and gradually participated in a wide range of issues of the UN affairs. Now China has become the largest contributor of peacekeepers among the permanent members of the UN Security Council. China has actively engaged in South-South cooperation and North-South dialogue, making efforts for the world sustainable development. China has joined almost all universal inter-governmental organizations and many international treaties.

Chairman Mao Zedong once said, it was our fellow developing countries that “carried” the People’s Republic of China into the United Nations. Ever since, China has acted in the same spirit by firmly upholding the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries, and speaking up for the developing world. Whether in the past, at present, or in the future, China is committed to standing together with the developing countries. China’s vote in the United Nations is always for the wellbeing of developing countries, and for the justice of the entire world.

In particular, China will not forget that Pakistan made significant contributions to restoring China’s legitimate seat in the United Nations, and helped China

to break through the diplomatic blockade of the Western countries. The coverage of that historical moment appeared on the front pages of many Pakistan’s newspapers, in which the joy that Pakistan has shared equally with China so spontaneously on bearing of the massive favorable voting is still fresh. And there is a Pakistani veteran journalist named Ali, who has witnessed and covered the story half a century ago. When recalling the memory, he said “I have never seen such a resounding applause in my life” .

Over the past 70 years, despite the changing international and domestic landscapes, China and Pakistan have firmly stood together, overcome numerous difficulties and obstacles, and deliv-

ered remarkable outcomes in bilateral cooperation. History has proven time and again, that China and Pakistan are ironclad friends sharing weal and woe. A high degree of mutual trust, mutual assistance, seeking peace and promoting development together are the most distinctive features of China-Pakistan relations, and the underlying rationale of our ironclad friendship.

Looking forward to the future, as President Xi said in his recent call with Prime Minister Imran Khan, China and Pakistan should stand together more firmly, advance our all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and build an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era. On the world stage, our two countries should enhance coordination, practice true multilateralism, promote international equity and justice, safeguard common interests and world peace and stability.

To this aim, President Xi Jinping solemnly proposed the Global Development Initiative. This major Initiative has set out a blueprint for the development of countries and international development cooperation, and pointed the way forward for global development and international development cooperation. We are ready to work with Pakistan to set an example for implementing the Global Development Initiative, to improve global governance, and to jointly promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

On Black Day, Imran urges world to stop rights violations in occupied Kashmir contInueD froM pAge 01 He said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was using oppressive schemes to suppress the voice of the people of Kashmir and deny them the right to self-determination.

India on August 5, 2019, took the illegal actions and has, for the last 815 days, been keeping the people of Kashmir under military siege while resorting to a complete media blackout and other restrictions, he explained.

Khan said fake encounters, rape and severe violations of human rights and extrajudicial killings were the unspeakable crimes against the Kashmiris.

The Indian government introduced the laws of domicile to make demographic changes in the held Kashmir region which showed the intention of India to change the ground reality in an internationally recognized dispute, he commented. The prime minister said in the last two years, Pakistan has strongly opposed the illegal measures of India and openly supported the rights of oppressed people of Kashmir.

Pakistan raised the issue of Kashmir at all the forums including the United Nations, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and during the bilateral meetings with the world leaders. It was worth mentioning that the dispute of Jammu and Kashmir was considered in the Security Council of the United Nations for the first time in the last 55 years, he pointed out.

He said the Security Council took up the issue of Kashmir three times and rejected the claim based on lies that Kashmir was an internal matter of India.

Today, the United Nations and all international or-

ganisations had increased their condemnation of Indian measures in Kashmir.

“But this is not enough as a dossier released by Pakistan last month providing irrefutable evidence of inhuman behaviour of India, should be exposed before the world.”

He said it was the responsibility of the Security Council to ensure the implementation of its resolutions on Kashmir so that the people of Kashmir could get their right to self-determination.

The just resolution of the dispute according to the UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the people of Kashmir was imperative for sustainable peace and stability in South Asia, he added. ‘resolVinG disPute onlY Path to PeaCe’: In his address, President Dr Arif Alvi said the peaceful resolution of the dispute in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions and wishes of the people of Kashmir was the “only way to ensure peace in the region”.

In his message, the president said contrary to Indian claims, Jammu and Kashmir region was an internationally recognised dispute that had been on the agenda of the Security Council for over seven decades.

He said Pakistan called upon the international community to take practical steps to hold India accountable for its gross and systematic human rights violations in Kashmir.

He said 74 years ago on October 27, India deployed troops to Srinagar in an unlawful intervention and illegally occupied the state.

“The reign of terror and oppression that started on that day continues unabated,” he said.

President Alvi said successive Indian governments during the course of seven decades had subjected the people of Kashmir to worst forms of state-terrorism.

“The fascist regime of BJP, under the Hindutva ideology, has started persecuting Muslims and other minority communities,” he said.

Moreover, he said, India took illegal and unilateral actions on August 5 two years ago to deprive the Kashmiri people of their economic, political and land rights and change the demography of the Kashmir region.

“Pakistan would not accept these illegal actions as they are in clear violation of several UNSC resolutions and the international law,” he said.

The president said India’s use of state-terrorism against people of Kashmir including extra-judicial killings, fake encounters, cordon-and-search operations, custodial torture, enforced disappearances, incarceration of local leadership, use of pellet guns, and destruction of houses had not succeeded in breaking the will of the people of Kashmir.

“The people of Kashmir remain steadfast and have written with their blood a glorious chapter of commitment, courage and sacrifice in the annals of history,” he said.

He said Pakistan pays tribute to the resilience and the indomitable spirit of the brave people of Kashmir.

“India’s illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir will definitely come to an end,” he said.

President Alvi said Pakistan would continue to stand with our Kashmir brothers and sisters in their just struggle for self-determination in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions.

05

Four accused attend hearing via video link in Noor murder case Owing to the blocked roads across the city, an Islamabad session court on Wednesday continued hearing into Noor Mukadam murder case after giving directive to four accused, including prime accused Zahir Jaffer to appear through video conferencing. It is to note that the court had begun the trial of the case on October 20. In today’s hearing, lawyers Shehzad Qureshi and Akram Qureshi represented Therapyworks employees; Asad Jamal represented Asmat Adamjee, and Sajjad Ahmed Bhatti appeared as legal counsel of the household staff of Jaffer’s house. As the proceeding begun, Akram Qureshi informed the court that his clients could not appear today, owing to the blocked roads. On which, the additional Sessions Judge Ata Rabbani stated that the accused may attend the proceedings via Skype, a video-conferencing application. The court directed the police to provide copies of the first statements of the accused they had given to law enforcers. The father of prime accused Zahir Jaffer, Zakir Jaffer informed the court that he has hired Advocate Basharat to plead his case. For cross examination, the three witnesses, constable Abid Latif, who delivered the complainant’s application, Assistant Sub Inspector Basharat, who collected the fingerprints and police constable Aqsa Rani were produced in the court. Defence counsel Akram questioned Latif whether he was asked to reach the spot by his higher-ups. “You said in a written statement that you received the information and in the court, you said you reached the spot on your own,” the lawyer pointed out. As a response, Latif responded that there were no senior police officers present at the time of the incident. The lawyer refuted his claims by claiming that he was hiding the truth. The second witness, Basharat, stated that he had reached the crime scene soon after the incident, where he saw a number of police officers already present and investigating the crime scene. He added that he had been asked by Inspector Abdul Sattar to record the fingerprints. The third witness, Constable Aqsa stated that she had examined the body of Noor Mukadam and informed the investigators about the important details. She added that none from the higher-ups had arrested anyone from the crime scene.

The court has given a directive to the police to produce four other witnesses, map-maker Amir Shehzad, computer operator Mudassir, ASI Muhammad Riaz and Head Constable Firasat Fahim in the next hearing, which is scheduled to be held on November 3. news desk

Tragic tales of Guantanamo Bay prison ISLAMABAD AnAdolu Agency

Even as a federal court in the United States recently declared Asadullah Haroon Gul’s 14-year imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay illegal, an eyewitness who visited the world’s “dreaded” detention centre said many captives did not deserve to be there.

“Not everyone lodged there was a terrorist. Many captives were at the wrong place at the wrong time when they were arrested,” said Syed Nazakat, an award-winning journalist-turned-data analyst. He was the first Asian journalist allowed to access the facility, located outside the US borders, in 2014.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, he mentioned the case of Ismail Agha, a 12-year-old Afghan boy who spent 14 months in the

“harrowing” detention centre.

“He was arrested by an Afghan warlord in 2002 and allegedly handed over to US troops for $5,000 bounty. He had been detained for 14 months and was released in 2004,” he said. Located on the coast of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, 840 kilometres (521 miles) off Miami, the “Gitmo” detention centre in the middle of the US naval base continues to generate controversy.

Nearly 800 prisoners from 50 countries have passed through its gates since 2001. In the past 20 years, nine captives have also died in the prison. Currently, 39 prisoners are lodged at the facility, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks in the US, and four co-conspirators who face trial by military commissions.

Also, 10 of them have been approved by US agencies for release but are still being held. Among them is Saifullah Paracha, a 74year-old Pakistan national — the oldest detainee at Guantanamo and who has never been charged with a crime.

Ten prisoners are facing military commission proceedings. One is nearing the end of a military sentence and is due to be released in February next year. So far under US President Joe Biden’s administration, only one detainee, Moroccan national Abdul Latif Nasser, has been released.

‘Child detainees Could be more’: Spread over 120 square kilometres (74 square miles), the detention centre is administered by the Joint Task ForceGuantanamo (JTF-GTMO) and is staffed with personnel from the US Air Force, army,

cMYK

navy, marines, the Coast Guard, the Central Intelligence Agencies (CIA), and other investigative arms of the US government.

According to case files, at least 17 detainees who spent years in cells of the “notorious” prison were below the age of 18, and at least two were below 14.

“The number of child detainees could be more, as the ages of many detainees were deleted or remain unknown. Noting in files shows that the US army quickly concluded that the children were innocent. Yet they remained in Gitmo for years,” said Nazakat, who is also a member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN).

He said one of these children, Yasser, 16, had committed suicide. Quoting doctor at the Camp Delta, a temporary hospital inside Guantanamo, he said many detainees were

suffering from acute depression, and many attempted suicide.

Obaidullah was 19 when he was arrested from his home in eastern Afghanistan in 2014. He completed 12 years in prison.

“He was nabbed in the middle of the night after US troops found landmines and a notebook on his family’s property nearby.

They also found a borrowed van in the compound, with bloodstains on the back seat.

The soldiers suspected that the van was used to ferry wounded al-Qaeda men across the border into Pakistan,” said Nazakat, now founder of a firm DataLEADS, India’s first data-driven platform.

Obaidullah’s lawyer, Maj Derek Poteet, a US Marine, who visited Afghanistan thrice to collect evidence, found something shocking.

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Thursday, 28 October, 2021

06 COMMENT

Choron Ka Sardar Imandar?

Another great escape Saudi Arabia bails out Pakistan

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rEdIT must be given to the present government for the $4.2 billion package it has secured from saudi Arabia, comprising a cash deposit of $3 billion and $1.2 billion worth of deferred payments for oil.

However, this should not be seen as a substitute for the IMF package, for its obtaining was merely the leading condition for the restoration of its suspended EFF. Before anyone gets hopes too high about this package, it should be noted that it does not bring with it the IMF’s ‘seal of good housekeeping’, without which the World Bank and the Asian development Bank will not be willing to lend, and without which Pakistan would have to go the international money market with a rating approaching junk-bond for its script.

The saudi package includes a cash component which will help Pakistan handle the loan repayments falling due this financial year, and also a deferred-oil-payment component which will help with the crisis of paying for imports, but the political cost, as Pakistan has learnt from experience, may be high. It might not have escaped memory that saudi Arabia demanded back its deposit with the state Bank of Pakistan after Foreign Minister shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke up about saudi Arabia’s reluctance to let the Kashmir issue be raised at the OIC, which would have displeased India very much. saudi investment in India has caused it to want Pakistan to draw closer to it. It would also like Pakistan not to grow too close to Iran. saudi Arabia’s pro-Us tilt will probably have it trying to get Pakistan to draw away from China.

This government success should not disguise its failure to carry out the sort of reforms that make such fancy footwork unnecessary. Indeed, it is not as if saudi Arabia is unused to Pakistan asking urgently for help. Only three years ago, in October 2018, it had given a similar package, worth $6 billion, again to help avert an immediate crisis. At that time, there was some hope that the PTI government might carry out the sort of reforms that would make such emergency help no longer necessary, but now it seems as if the PTI is merely coasting its way to the next election, which is less than two years away. One consequence of this is that Pakistan will find that there will be political coasts.

Time will tell, as it has done before, what they are.

How this sardar makes a difference

Dr FariD a Malik

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UrINg the recent PdM (Pakistan democratic Movement) Jalsa an interesting question was raised. Can the sardar (leader) of Thieves be honest himself?

Coming from a PML(N) leader, it makes some sense. Mian Nawaz sharif of gowalmandi was launched by the third usurper general Ziaul Haq, to lead a gang of political bounty hunters to derail the democratic order.

It was a perfect example of ‘the blind leading the blind’ or ‘Choron Ka Sardar Chor’ (The Leader of thieves wou;d be athief), or even better explained by the saying ‘Birds of a feather flock together’. The PML(Nawaz) was an extension of the earlier sarkari outfit launched by the first dictator general Ayub Khan called THE PML (Convention).

The Muslim League House on davis road was the launching PAd, which is now being controlled by the PML-Q under the leadership of the famous ‘chor sepoy’ gang of gujrat. These establishment-founded parties were founded for vested purposes through compromised individuals. Imandari or honesty of purpose is not their forte. There were very few exceptions with

Covid-19 retreats But there is no room for complacency

The Naxalites challenge not just the Indian state, but its patriarchy too aMjeD jaaveD

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VErY now and then, Indian newspapers flash news about Maoist insurgents, including women, being killed. They usually avoid mentioning how many soldiers were killed in encounters, whether fake or genuine. Here is a glimpse of such news: A woman fighter, along with a male c-fighter, was killed in a clash with government forces in Odisha’s Malkagiri district last december.

In another incident in October 2020, a woman Maoist was killed in an encounter with India’s security forces in sukma district of Chhatisgarh. A woman Maoist was also killed near Anrapali forest (Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh). And, another woman Maoist, carrying rs 1.6 million reward on her head, was killed in gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. sometimes there are pitched battles between the Indian forces and the Maoists, including women. For instance, there was a head-on confrontation between a Maoist group and government forces of over 1500 troops, equipped with state-of-the-art weapons and helicopters, at the Bijapur-sukma border. Without air power, the Maoists, armed only with machine guns, gunned down 22 soldiers belonging to the Central reserve Police Force, the Commando Battalions for resolute Action (Cobra), and the Bastariya Battalion of the Central reserve Police.

The Maoist ideology ingrained the sense of empowerment in them. The Maoist manifesto teems with such words as “mahila sasahktikaran” (women’s empowerment), “raise their voices” (awash uthaunne), “get their voices represented” (mahilako awaj ko pratinidithyo) and “understand women’s grief” (mahila ko dukka bhujnne).

The Maoist struggle is commonly known as “the people’s war”. The “war” aims at abolishing the feudal system, and creating a democratic egalitarian society. The bulwark of the Maoists is rural population, lower castes and women. Women and men of all castes, classes, ethnic backgrounds and education levels joined the movement.

The Maoists have incorporated women’s emancipation in their ideological manifesto, actually a “40point demand-document”. The gender equality is enshrined in points 19, 20 and 21, and points 19 and 20 are as follow: “19. Patriarchal exploitation and discrimination against women should be stopped, girls should be allowed to access paternal property as their brothers.

Dedicated to the legacy of late Hameed Nizami

Arif Nizami (Late) Founding Editor

Yousaf Nizami M. A. Niazi

Umar Aziz

Joint Editor

Joint Editor

Executive Editor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

The writer is ex-Chairman, Pakistan Science Foundation. He can be contacted at: fmaliks@hotmail.com.

Participation of women in the Maoist Naxalbari movement

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sAd Umar yesterday confirmed Pakistan’s Covid positivity ratio was at its lowest ever, signaling the end of the country’s fourth wave of the pandemic.

It goes to the credit of the PTI government that it was able to identify the uptick in cases of the delta variant back in July in a timely manner and through the NCOC began taking necessary measures to control its spread. decisions to restrict large indoor gatherings, rolling back in-person teaching at schools and reducing office attendance to 50 percent were just some protocols that evidently helped keep the positivity rate contained and eventually drop to its current acceptable level of 1.3 percent. The careful and conservative easing off of these restrictions that corresponded with the diminishing virulence of the virus is also commendable. However, now that the country has largely opened up, no amount of complacency on part of either the federal or provincial governments should be acceptable as the virus is always on the prowl to mutate, often into a more dangerous version of itself and brings another wave of illness and death. Mandatory mask wearing and social distancing protocols are therefore still necessary and while it is the responsibility of the authorities to ensure compliance with government guidelines, it is as much the duty of the citizenry to cooperate with and contribute to the safety of the public at large. This not only requires keeping oneself safe but respectfully reminding those who aren’t of the importance of following these new rules of social engagement. Pakistan has fared well compared to regional countries, especially India, with over 450,000 deaths and 34 million cases. That there is no apparent scientific rationale to explain why it is so, makes it all the more imperative to be wary of a situation that has so far not been witnessed and would therefore not be easy to deal with.

Vaccination against covid-19 is perhaps the only dependable and demonstrably fastest way towards reaching an end to the pandemic. According to the NCOC, 16 percent of the population is fully vaccinated while 29.5 percent has received one dose. These numbers need to be much higher to achieve the required ‘population immunity’ that would significantly reduce the possibility of a dangerous resurgence of covid-19. Eliminating misconceptions and misinformation about vaccines and encouraging people to get them while ensuring their ample supply is critical in this endeavour. With dengue spreading like wildfire, the easing off of covid-19 is some much-needed relief. One hopes the government sustains this advantage for the foreseeable future.

Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

ghulam Haider Wyne being one of them. He resided there as he had no other place to live before he moved to the Chief Minister’s House in gOr down the road.

A few months back I happened to be in the Prime Minister secretariat. While I was waiting for a meeting, the Principal secretary to the sAPM for Mining and Natural resources mentioned that he had worked with Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan when he was the minister in the Nawaz Cabinet. Out of curiosity I asked him about the abilities of his former boss in doing file work. He heaped praise on Chaudhry sahib and was impressed by his honesty and integrity. In surprise I posed a question to him, “How did he manage to work with the Mukmuka’ leaders on top of him?” I got an evasive answer, “ One has to compromise to survive.”

Yes, for able and honest individuals to survive in a corrupt-to-the-core system is not easy. Wyne sahib lost his life for doing the dirty work of his bosses while Chaudhry sahib was eventually sidetracked and remains in political wilderness till today.

In April 1996, Imran Khan launched his movement under the banner of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as a clean option in the murky politics. In the 1970s, Bhutto had launched his party with a promise to bring change. He was not taken seriously by the entrenched gang of Chors (thieves). A fresh start was made, ‘Clean Comrades’ joined in hoards. He won big in the Western Wing with the help of these ‘Newcomers’ who had solid credentials of serving, not exploiting the people. In the next electoral contest in 1977, Bhutto dumped his ‘Ideologue Companions’ and replaced them by the same old Chors that he had earlier defeated in the 1970 electoral contest. When the crunch came, he found himself alone, and there was no one there to fight for him. The rest is history as they say.

By contrast IK had a much longer struggle. The PTI remained clean till the massive show of strength in the October 2011 Minar-e-Pakistan Jalsa at Lahore.

The same old ‘Chors’ now with the new brand name of ‘electables’ joined in droves. With the lure of power, IK allowed them to control the party, pushing the ‘Comrades’ to one side. The manipulation started with the intra-party elections. Comrade Ahsan rashid, one of the founding members of the party, was made to lose the contest for the coveted position of President of Punjab, while dr Arif Alvi, a party old guard was ousted from the pivotal position of secretary general.

While Bhutto came into power without the Chors’, IK

did not. Now he is the Imandar Sardar of the Chors who surround him.

IK’s personal honesty and integrity remains aboveboard. despite persistent efforts to uncover wrongdoings by him, the opposition has badly failed. Even his well-respected father, Ikramullah Niazi sahib, a foreign qualified Civil Engineer has not been spared. Niazi sahib resigned from his position of superintending Engineer due to differences with the then governor Amir Muhammad Khan of Kalabagh. Then his sister Aleema Khan, a businesswoman, is usually mentioned while the sharif brothers claim complete disconnect from the corrupt business practices of their children. dr Kenneth Blanchard the famous author who wrote the book The One Minute Manager also penned a very interesting booklet, The Power of Ethical Management which is worth reading. While there is no defense for the Chors, if honest the sardar is a force to be reckoned with. general Zia, after deposing Bhutto, announced national elections in 1977, hoping for his political demise, but he was baffled by the receptions he got all over the country. He then decided to go after him.

As there were no cases of corruption against him, he had to be framed. The judiciary was used for his political murder together with the support of the ‘ Political Chors’ who now claim to be crusaders of democracy. Bhutto, Benazir and Muhammad Khan Junejo are in a different league who should not be bracketed with political bounty hunters like the sharifs of gowalmandi and the Chaudhrys of gujrat whose corruption dossiers are overflowing on the racks of the agencies. strength of character comes with Imandari (honesty) and never without it. While the Chors’ will fade out, the Imandar Sardar’ will live on to fight future battles for the much-needed course correction in the land of the pure whose purity has been taken away by the Chors, who have ruled over us in the past and some of whom even continue to do till today in their new guise. Though the task at hand is daunting but with honesty and grit it can be accomplished once the Chors have been weeded out of the arena. In the end truth will prevail and Pakistan will come out stronger together with its revived institutions.

Today most political parties are infested with Chors’ but the clear difference being that while the ‘sardars of Chors are also Chor’ the PTI is an exception where the ‘ Sardar is Imandar’ which has created hope for the much-needed course correction.

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Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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20. All racial exploitation and suppression should be stopped. Where ethnic communities are in the majority, they should be allowed to form their own autonomous governments.”

The Maoist proved their heart-felt commitment to the manifesto by punishing rapists, wresting back the usurped land of single women, penalising men for polygamy, and prohibiting the sale of liquor as drunken men more often beat the women. Jan adalats (“people’s courts”) ferociously uphold women’s rights on issues of social and domestic violence.

Women were given political or combat position on the basis of merit. Untouchability and gender discrimination has been abolished. The points 19, 20 and 21 of the Maoist manifesto relating to women stress the need to transform state and customary laws to redress gender inequality at all levels.

In 2002, in recognition of their female constituency, the Maoists introduced the so-called “prachanda path,” creating a women’s department in the Central Committee. In several cases, it is the women who slay the incorrigible feudal tyrants. The women realise that they are “agents of change” who have to fight out repression in all its manifestations.

The women have become politically aware that they have the right to make decisions about their marriages, children’s education, and other everyday gender needs.

Indian police admit it was the women fighters who were in the vanguard of a deadly attack in Chhattisgarh, where 24 people, including some top politicians, were killed.

Because of its liberal manifesto, the insurgency has spread to 11 states, with Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Odisha as epicenters. It has become entrenched in all central and eastern Indian states, often referred to as the “red Corridor.”

In addition, India launched special teams for simultaneous searches in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka at suspected Maoist training centres and hideouts. The effort was counter-productive because India’s national Investigation Agency framed charges against the innocent people. during searches, the Indian forces were surprised to learn that gurkha soldiers who had retired from both British and Indian Armies harbour sympathy for the Maoists.

They trained the Maoists to use firearms efficiently. some Maoists demonstrated their alacrity and military skills in planning bank robberies, and extorting ransom from rich businessmen. Besides arms and ammunition snatched from police stations, the Maoists are believed to have amassed over rs 5 bil-

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

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Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

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lion from bank heists. The general impression in people’s minds is that the Indian forces dare not pursue the Maoists in the forests. The insurgents pick up places where to ambush the security forces, and make off with booty with impunity.

Having failed to arrest the momentum of the movement, India organised a private army of salwa Judum led by Mahendra Karma from among the villagers. To boost their morale, they were given the honorary rank of “special police officers.”, and the government sponsored counter-militias and split tribes into those “for” and “against” Maoists. Those willing to fight the Maoists were offered guns, money and honorary police ranks.

The Maoists shot dead Mahendra Karma and several members of the ruling Indian National Congress whose brainchild the salwa Judum was. It later transpired that the salwa judum had been cobbled together with help of child soldiers recruited under duress or financial allurement. It was involved in gross human rights violations. When the People’s Union of Civil Liberties in India brought its atrocities to the supreme Court’s notice, it declared it illegal in 2011.

Charu Mazumdar started the movement as a “revolutionary opposition” in 1965. The world came to know of it in 1967 when the Beijing radio reported “peasants’ armed struggle” at Naxalbari (siliguri division of West Bengal). In July 1972, the police arrested Charu Mazumdar and tortured him to death on the night of July 27-28. The Naxalite ideology has great appeal for marginalized strata (particularly dalit and adivasis) of India’s caste-ridden society. The Naxalites Central Committee’s resolution (1980) visualises creating a base for spreading people’s democratic revolution. It would include : ‘Homogenous contiguous forested area around Bastar division (since divided into Bastar, dantewada and Kanker districts of Chhatisgarh) and adjoining areas of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, East godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrapur and garchehiroli district of Maharastra, Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh, Malkagiri and Koraput districts of Orissa. The Naxalites want to carve out an independent zone extending from Nepal through Bihar and then to the dandakarnaya region extending up to Tamil Nadu to give them access to the Bay of Bengal as well as the Indian Ocean.

The writer is a freelance journalist, has served in the Pakistan government for 39 years and holds degrees in economics, business administration, and law.

He can be reached at amjedjaaved@gmail.com

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

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Thursday, 28 October, 2021

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

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

Absence of girl guides in Balochistan THE girls guide culture first started in 1910 presided by Miss Agnes.

Meanwhile today, 113 countries have adopted this actuation. Likely, the girls guide in Pakistan began in 1947 under Fatma Ali Jinnah. Pakistan girl guides Association aims to train girls in such a way that they can be a useful benefactor of their country: take care of the feelings and emotions of others, serve the people without any discrimination on the basis of race, creed and religion.

A girl guide is trained in civil defense, nursing and emergency response. Undoubtedly, this plays an integral role in girls empowerment and they are very important for a community, not only for personal but also social defence. Unfortunately in Balochistan , there is a lack of girl guides,both in urban and rural areas.Perhaps,lack of facilities is one reason as there is no training centre in the rest of Balochistan except Quetta.

Consequently, most girls in Balochistan cannot afford to travel or cover a long distance from their land to Quetta. Moreover, it is the conservatism in Baloch families that does not allow girls to join scouting. And heartrendingly, one cannot find a single girls scout who can independently defend herself or the nearby girls in any incidental conditions. so I, keeping in mind the serious accidents that grew dangerous due to inactive response and lack of girls scouts, highly demand and urge the Pakistan girl guide Association to fulfill its aim and establish scouting courses in the areas of Balochistan. Additionally, the nationals should be provided with essential facilities of scouting and it should spread awareness campaigns in the Baloch community to awaken them about the importance of girl guides in any society so that more of them can emerge in scouting.

MARIA NASEEM TuRbAT

Historicizing Islamophobia and the way to counter it

Child abuse

‘I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose.’ Mesut Özil, German footballer of Turkish descent

Faysal Hayyat

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HE history of racial bigotry and bias against a particular community has always been a norm of the so-called civilized people of the world. One class is victimized to foster the interests of another class and provide them with a guise to hide their nefarious agenda.

Islamophobia is one such ideology that is severely misused by the West to veil its heinous crimes.

Looking at the history of Islamophobia, there is some credibility in the presumed fears among westerners against Muslims. still, by digging deeper into the facts, it becomes apparent that there is no truth in those assertions.

Islam’s inception right after Judaism and Christianity gave birth to perpetual conflict between these religions. One equated another one with false religion and vice versa. This religious bigotry was acquainted in the minds of Western people by using cultural dogmas like the backwardness of Arabs, paganism, and their unwillingness to create a milieu where Westerners can easily compete with them. The annals after the seventh century Ad are full of such examples and exhibitions.

The conquest of spain by the Muslims also left indelible marks on the minds of the natives that Islam is a religion of violence and forced conversion. As a result, their abhorrence of Islam slowly and gradually morphed into a deep stigma still haunting their consciousness.

The renaissance writers also did nothing to chart out the natural causes of these erroneous notions. They helped their leaders to propagate writings against the Ottomans to augment military prowess because they were their main adversaries at that time. The Ottomans’ treatment of their subjects in the Balkans aggravated the conditions further. Between 1911 to 1979 was a period of great turmoil in communism and the liberal world order, thereby clouding the islamophobic trends.

However, as soon as the Ussr collapsed, the book was written by samuel P Huntington glaringly put the world into another discord— the clash of civilizations. He vociferously pointed out certain antithetitical and antagonistic ideologies to the liberal world order- Islam was the kernel preoccupation.

The West has always been at crossed swords with the East in exemplifying itself as a brand of revered and epitomized values, thereby alienat-

ing all other credos. In the aftermath of 9/11, the world witnessed another horrifying onslaught by the extremist sections of Islam, who challenged the oppressions and marginalization caused by the liberal system. In essence and historically, liberalism is only a lacklustre ideology that needs hypothetical enemies to wage war against them and further the interests of capitalist elites.

The recent example of the AUKUs pact is a glaring example of this subpar ideology; communism is being targeted for being inhuman and antithetical to fundamental rights, while in the true sense a war against China’s supposed ascent as a global power. All-powerful countries employed this egregious agenda to substantiate and validate their violations of sovereignties by using a phony version of Islam.

They scrutinized the closed version of Islam and propagated it through their political and media platforms. As a a result, a perverse mindset against Muslims stigmatized Muslims in the minds of the common populace. They used the orthodox version of Islam, which ostensibly involved the imposition of sharia law, no rights for women, use of coercive measures by Muslims to spread their ideology, and the moral corruptness of a few, to portray an altogether negative image of Muslims.

Their media and other news outlets also contextualized Muslims as people of the Neolithic age having no civility. This is the one side of the picture; the other side depicts the dismal approach adopted by the Muslim countries themselves to nullify this sinister and ominous proposition.

The predicament got worse day by day.

Muslims lacked unity, and their platforms like OIC acted as a dupe where the euphemism of words was the primary tool to counter these perennial threats. Their response was mild and less intense towards the biased attitude of people from a country considered a city on a shining hill, most of the time because their economic interests were associated with them. Intra-Muslim battles, mistrust among them, and division of Muslim countries further aggravated the plight of the Muslim ummah.

The inception of right-wing populist leaders further exacerbated the turmoil and assaulted Muslims and immigrants vociferously to gain a victory in their elections. Muslims were castigated in political debates and talk shows, and President donald Trump even banned Muslims from the UsA. The attacks in New Zealand influenced by white supremacists and racial big-

otry, the attacks in Canada, the unapologetic and the discriminatory ban on Muslim women’s veils in France unveiled the superficial nature of secularism.

The time to rectif0y and reconstruct things to repair these nefarious attitudes, has come.

They have done more harm than good to the peace of the world. How can the idea of an egalitarian world materialize, when one nation isn’t ready to accept another area based on untruthful and specious notions.

The following actions can help to rejuvenate the idea of universality.

First and foremost is an equitable approach by the Western leaders towards Muslims. Take the case of China’s Uighur Muslims; every other leader finds it very comfortable to criticize China’s ill-treatment, but they lack words and mettle when it comes to charging their unlawful atrocities. Their invasion of Muslim countries, the fiasco created by them, the covert support of various armed groups are glaring examples of their bigotry. They wreaked havoc in almost every part of the world. What if the victim of a drone attack whose whole family is brutally carangid takes up arms and chooses the violent way to avenge those cold-blooded murders?

Will you call him a terrorist?

A Muslim’s violent act is deemed terrorism, but what about the acts of a national of their own country? Fair treatment of every violence can settle matters. secondly, it needs to be understood that no ideology and no religion is extremist. It is the people, its particular version, which, of course, doesn’t represent the whole ideology, is terrorist. They have a negative attitude, and sometimes they are merely puppets of world superpowers. The Taliban were good against communism, but they stood against the liberal world order to safeguard their homeland. They were seen solely through the prism of Muslimhood.

Lastly, the attitude of the Muslim world in general and Muslims, in particular, is crucial for the rencostruion of Islam. Muslims must focus on representing themselves as a torchbearer of the upbeat version of Islam. Intellectuals must write about the openness of Islam, and Muslim countries must strengthen their economic clout to make them heard through their platforms.

This is the way forward, or the situation will worsen, and Islamophobia is going to increase.

Lastly, the attitude of the Muslim world in general and Muslims, in particular, is crucial for the rencostruion of Islam.

Muslims must focus on representing themselves as a torchbearer of the upbeat version of Islam.

Intellectuals must write about the openness of Islam, and Muslim countries must strengthen their economic clout to make them heard through their platforms.

The writer can be faysalhayyat79@gmail.com

reached

at

CHILd abuse is becoming a major issue all over the world but is getting really common in Pakistan. Child abuse is destroying the lives of children all over Pakistan.

As compared to 2017, child sexual abuse cases increased drastically. Out of the reported cases, 985 were of sodomy, 787 were rape, 89 were pornography and child sexual abuse and 80 were of murder after sexual abuse. Futhermore, Karachi is the most affected by this problem where every day children are being lost and their bodies are being found. Unfortunately, now many new cases gave been reported in Balochistan as well.

Child Abuse is unfortunately a common occurrence in Pakistan which tries to cover itself under the guise of religion but it is shocking and sad that pedophilia or child abuse is rampant in Pakistani society. The infamous Zainab case in Kasur and the Kasur child abuse scandal are just two infamous incidents which present a very crucial picture of the disease that is plaguing our society and government officials and other important persons fail to address this issue and even if they do, it is too late and the cycle continues. Child abuse haunts Pakistani society due to many reasons. There are often chances that the perpetrator might be a family member and the lack of communication gap between parents and their children and their blind trust for family members contributes to child abuse occurring in this society.

Children who are victims of this menace lead a difficult life as they have to deal with this trauma for the rest of their lives. some are able to leave it behind and others cannot let it go which has a negative impact on their mental health affecting their way of life such as in school, the workplace or in social interactions.

In the case of Zainab Ansari, the accused was awarded the death penalty.

While from an emotional aspect, this seemed like an appropriate decision at the time of need, it does not prove effective to end child abuse. To deal with this horror that has grasped our society, it is important to take measures from a grass root level. Protection services need to be improved and the criminal justice system has to be reformed. Appropriate and proper training should be provided by the Pakistani government to police, doctors, NgO’s and those dealing with this subject in order to provide a protective environment for children in Pakistani society. Last but not the least sex education should be mandatory in the Pakistani education system and the taboo regarding it should be erased so our children can live in a safer environment.

SAbA bARAAN TuRbAT,KEch

Solid Waste Management in Pakistan sOLId waste is the main source of land pollution in Pakistan. The waste materials found in solid form include plastic bags, plastic bottles, pieces of glasses, styrofoam, materials blocked in sewage, agricultural and chemical wastes, hospital wastes, and domestic wastes. When these materials are dumped in open places then these continue to be the cause of land pollution for indefinite periods of time. If plastics and styrofoam items are burned then toxic gases released by them become the cause of air pollution. Their ash enhances the land pollution. For this reason these waste materials should neither be dumped into open places nor burned in order to protect environment from their pollution. special pit holes called landfills are made to manage solid waste materials or these are burned at high temperature. However, government or organizations should play a key role in management of waste materials and in this regard appropriate technologies should be introduced.

The situation of solid waste management in Pakistan is a matter of grave concern as more than 5 million people die each year due to wasterelated diseases. In Pakistan roughly 20 million tons of solid waste is generated annually, with annual growth rate of about 2.4 percent. Karachi, the largest city in the country, generates more than 9,000 tons of municipal waste daily. All major cities, be it Islamabad, Lahore or Peshawar, are facing enormous challenges in tackling the problem of urban waste. The root factors for the worsening garbage problem in Pakistan are lack of urban planning, outdated infrastructure, lack of public awareness and endemic corruption. Waste practices in the Pakistan need to be improved.

This can start with awareness to the public regarding health and environment impact that dumped and exposed waste causes. It is imperative for the greater public to become environmentally educated, have a change in attitude and take action.

Being the 6th most populated country in the world; there is a lot of consumerism and with it a great deal of waste being produced. Like other developing countries, waste management sector in Pakistan is plagued by a wide variety of social, cultural, legislative and economic issues.

Abdul QAdIR TuRbAT

08 WORLD VIEW 28th October 21_Layout 1 10/27/2021 9:10 PM Page 1

Thursday, 28 October, 2021

08 WORLD VIEW

Why TAjIkIsTAn Is TAkIng A sTAnd AgAInsT The TAlIbAn

Carnegie MosCow Centre

I

temur umarov

N recent weeks, tajikistan has hit the headlines for its hardline stance on Afghanistan, where the taliban recently returned to power. It might seem that if anyone should be concerned about maintaining good relations with the taliban, it’s tajikistan. It has an extensive mountainous border with Afghanistan that is difficult to control, and the tajik military is believed to be the weakest in Central Asia. tajikistan is a transit stop for most of the drug traffic from Afghanistan to Russia and Europe, and the country has suffered numerous terrorist attacks in the last few years.

Yet unlike its Central Asian neighbors, plus Russia and China, tajikistan isn’t rushing to establish ties with the new government in Kabul. On the contrary, it has assumed the role of the taliban’s main adversary, allegedly supporting the remnants of the Afghan opposition forces (though Dushanbe denies this).

President Emomali Rahmon has returned to the topic of Afghanistan’s misfortunes under the taliban in practically every recent public speech he has made, even those unrelated to foreign policy. At international meetings and forums, Rahmon has repeatedly said that tajikistan will not recognize any other government formed in Afghanistan through oppression and persecution, without considering the position of the entire Afghan people, especially all of its ethnic minorities.

According to Rahmon, ethnic tajiks comprise over 46 percent of Afghanistan’s population, though most researchers’ estimates hover around 20 percent.

Back in the summer, tajikistan was the only country in the region that promised to

BY STANDING UP AGAINST THE TALIBAN, TAJIK LEADERSHIP IS COUNTING ON BOOSTING ITS POPULARITY, BOTH AT HOME AND ABROAD take in up to 100,000 Afghan refugees. Rahmon also posthumously awarded the prestigious Order of Ismoili Somoni to ethnic tajik anti-taliban leaders: the legendary mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud and Afghanistan’s former president Burhanuddin Rabbani. there have been persistent rumors that tajikistan is also aiding the remaining antitaliban forces: the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan in Panjshir Province, where over 98 percent of the population are ethnic tajiks. It’s the only territory that the taliban haven’t yet taken over completely. According to some reports, resistance leaders Ahmad Massoud junior and Afghanistan’s former vice president and self-proclaimed acting president Amrullah Saleh are currently in tajikistan. Dushanbe denies the reports of its support for the National Resistance Front, and says that Ahmad Massoud junior simply came to tajikistan to participate in negotiations with the taliban that ultimately never took place. the taliban have responded by saying they will not tolerate “interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs” and dispatched fighters to the tajik border. tajikistan is also actively demonstrating its military preparedness. For the first time since declaring independence in 1991, tajikistan has put hundreds of thousands of its troops on alert and recalled its reservists to test their combat readiness. twenty thousand soldiers were sent to the Afghan border. Rahmon personally visited the country’s border regions

for the first time in several years, addressed the troops, and reviewed a military parade.

Nevertheless, it’s too early to say that tajikistan and Afghanistan are on the brink of war. Despite Rahmon’s harsh rhetoric, he and other high-ranking tajik officials are acting with extreme caution and avoid direct references to the taliban, limiting their criticism to the fact that Afghanistan’s new government is not inclusive enough of the country’s ethnic minorities.

Many of Dushanbe’s bold statements remain on paper. the July promise to accept 100,000 refugees, for example, is unlikely to be fulfilled in the near future. tajikistan’s interior minister, Ramazon Rahimzoda, said in September that tajikistan was unable to take in a large number of refugees or asylum seekers because “in twenty years, not a single international organization has provided practical assistance in creating infrastructure for taking in refugees and asylum seekers.”

In reality, Dushanbe is sending thousands of refugees back to Afghanistan and does not publish accurate statistics. In mid-October, the head of the State Committee for National Security, Saimumin Yatimov, reported that up to 600 Afghans try to cross the border every day, and the country is currently home to 15,000 Afghan refugees. that translates into rather modest growth, since that figure was already 10,000 in early September, immediately after the taliban came to power. tajikistan has also refrained from severing trade relations with the new Afghan government, even though Afghanistan accounts

for just 1.5% of the country’s total trade volume. Electricity, tajikistan’s main export item to Afghanistan, is still being supplied across the border, even though the taliban can’t pay for it at the moment, and has already accrued over $11 million in debt.

Some in the taliban’s ranks are willing to improve relations with tajikistan, but Rahmon can hardly afford to make such agreements. His regime is reeling from economic difficulties and general fatigue with his almost thirty-year rule, so playing the ethnic nationalist and pan-tajik defender card ensures his support among the tajik people.

Ever since the taliban captured Kabul, ordinary tajiks have been inundated with shocking photos from Afghanistan on social media, appeals for the international community to heed the plight of the tajik people in Afghanistan, messages in support of resistance forces, and online petitions.

It’s no less popular to criticize tajikistan’s other neighbors, such as Uzbekistan — whose foreign minister, Abdulaziz Kamilov, was the region’s first high-ranking official to negotiate with the taliban in Kabul—for its willingness to cooperate with the taliban.

Uzbekistan also talks of inclusivity and is concerned about the rights of Uzbeks in Afghanistan, but, unlike Dushanbe, tashkent doesn’t treat the country’s Uzbeks as “its own people,” or representatives of the Uzbek diaspora, but primarily views them as Afghan nationals.

Dushanbe understands that no supranational tajik entity exists, but throughout his po-

litical career, Rahmon has held himself out to be “the guardian and patron of all tajiks in the world” (as his associates call him publicly), and the tajik government actively encourages nationalist sentiment among the public. the political crisis in neighboring Afghanistan, therefore, has gifted the tenured tajik leader a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of his people. His trademark mantra about the “peaceful sky over our heads,” of which the public had started to tire, is now relevant once again.

As well as securing support at home, Rahmon has also benefited from being in the international spotlight. He was the only Central Asian leader that French President Emmanuel Macron invited to negotiations in Paris on Oct. 13, when Rahmon and Macron discussed possible French assistance to tajikistan to stabilize the situation. Rahmon also met with President of the European Council Charles Michel, the EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, and other international officials during the same Europe trip. tajikistan has no intention of getting into a direct confrontation with the taliban.

Rather, by taking a few more risks than its neighbors, the tajik leadership is counting on boosting its popularity both at home and abroad. Dushanbe can afford to take such risks, certain that as a last resort, it can always fall back on the Russian troops that secure the tajik-Afghan border. tajikistan also engages in close military cooperation with China.

Assuming that the situation in Afghanistan is unlikely to stabilize in the foreseeable future, it may fuel the Rahmon regime for another few years. At the same time, Dushanbe is cautious enough not to go overboard with its rhetoric, meaning Rahmon will still be able to establish contact with the taliban if the tension brewing along the Afghan border becomes too dangerous.

Is the era of Islamists coming to an end?

FOR DECADES, THE MEDIA HAS FORECAST THE ‘END OF THE ISLAMISTS’. AMID RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN MOROCCO, ALGERIA AND TUNISIA, HAS THIS PREDICTION FINALLY COME TO PASS?

Middle east eye

A

François Burgat

t the dawn of the Arab Spring in 2011, just months before Islamists sailed to victory in Egypt’s presidential election, the leading lights of French “jihadology” had forecast the collapse of the Islamist camp, arguing that it had discredited itself by its supposed absence from the protest movement. today, the cue to repeat the claim of Islamist decline is a simultaneous shift in three radically different countries: Morocco, Algeria and tunisia. A crushing election defeat last month for Morocco’s Justice and Development Party (PJD) supposedly echoed the difficulties faced in tunisia by the Islamist party Ennahda, in the face of President Kais Saied’s authoritarian offensive. to this, some analysts seek to add the poor showing in Algeria’s June parliamentary elections of the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP, or the “Algerian Hamas”) - or even that Islamists are supposedly absent from the ranks of the highly popular hirak protest movement.

Granted, for once, the Cassandras are not all drawn from the cohort of automatic Islamist-bashers. Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi himself has reportedly said: “the problem of the Islamists is that they are appreciated in opposition, and hated as soon as they are in power.”

Indeed, dozens of party members have resigned, openly citing their dissatisfaction.

In the long term, each passing season does indeed bring us nearer to the time when “Islamism” will no longer be the reference point that decisively organises the political stages of North Africa and the Middle East.

ROCKET OF DECOLONISATION: the conception I have proposed on the rise of Islamists is as follows: they first emerged to condemn the excessive colonial, then imperial, western cultural presence in the Muslim world, and then the generalised authoritarianism of the first generation of independence leaders. they are a product of

reactive mobilisation, but the key ingredient of their mobilising capacity was circumstantial. As such, their resources were destined to weaken in parallel with the weakening of the West’s intrusive omnipresence, whether directly or through the proxy of authoritarian regimes.

If Islamism is indeed the third stage of the rocket of decolonisation, as I have argued elsewhere, there will necessarily come a time when formerly colonised societies will reach a certain “weightlessness” vis-a-vis their western alter-egos. the long- and wrongly-heralded era of “post-Islamism” may then begin. But are we there yet?

In tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, Islamists have paid the price for their proximity to power. Islamists from tunisia’s Ennahda, to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhoodlinked Freedom and Justice party, have certainly committed errors that must be taken into account. these were tied to their inexperience in government.

Islamist trends everywhere feature highly ordinary generational divides, which themselves fuel the dynamics of renewal. Almost all the Cassandras fail to recognise the increasing popularity of such movements as Algeria’s Rachad, as demonstrated by the obsessive efforts of the political and military establishment to criminalise its image. Rachad is, in many ways, an extension and deep renewal of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which showed impressive mobilising potential in 1990. Equating the weakness of the “Algerian Hamas” with the end of that mobilisation thus presents an analytical impasse.

Similarly, analysing the PJD’s death notice as part of a generalised Islamist decline is coherent only if one can show that the same holds for the Islamist movement Al Adl Wal Ihsane, founded by Abdessalam Yassine. Clearly, this is far from being the case. As opposed to their PJD rivals, the “lions” of Al Adl Wal Ihsane have so far refused to become the “lapdogs” of the Moroccan regime.

FRONTLINE OF OPPOSITION: It is important to recall that the overwhelming majority of the difficulties and setbacks experienced by Islamist parties, like the errors they have committed, do not relate to the “Islamicity” of their political agenda. Far more simply, they relate to the fact that, for various historical reasons, these parties have for decades constituted the frontline of opposition to regimes that are both deeply rooted in their respective national contexts, but also blindly supported by their counterparts and the West. throughout the region, the relative weakening of those who have peacefully confronted the powers-thatbe has one common denominator: they never truly tasted

the “roses” of proximity to power, but suffered from its “thorns”. through attrition and, sometimes, through being discredited, they have paid the price for being associated with unpopular policies of which they were not the true initiators.

Can the weak electoral performance of Algeria’s MSP seriously be considered a sign of the “end of the road” for the Muslim Brotherhood, and of a generalised Islamist decline in North Africa? Such analyses curiously set aside the fact that, from the day the MSP was founded to counter the popularity of the FIS, it has been in the hands of Algeria’s intelligence services. those who fail to acquire, or allow themselves to be robbed of, oppositional credibility are punished. this was always the case for the “Algerian Hamas”, which managed to dupe only the regime-backed media and some less-discerning supporters - and in a very different context, it has also become the case for Morocco’s PJD. As Moroccan journalist Ali Lmrabet magnificently summarised for Middle East Eye: “In Morocco, governing is done by the palace alone - and sharing even the slightest shred of power with opposition groups is utterly out of the question.” More than “the Islamists”, then, what Moroccan voters violently rejected were the Islamist underlings of many unpopular political decisions, from dismantling public services to normalising with Israel. they did so with the help of the monarchy, which amended the electoral law, and clearly wanted to be rid of its PJD underlings.

UNNATURAL ALLIANCE: In tunisia, the tensions within Ennahda arise from a plurality of factors. Aiming to avoid the return of a Ben-Ali-era autocracy, tunisia’s Constituent Assembly set up a highly inclusive and demanding parliamentary system. In this context, Ghannouchi’s extreme pragmatism saw him opt for an alliance with Qalb tounes, one of the parties that more or less emerged directly from the ancien regime. this unnatural alliance was exacerbated by the strategy of “the worse, the better” that Saied deliberately adopted as soon as he was elected - by 73 percent of the vote, even while he was a total unknown. But he was hamstrung by a constitution that deprived him of the type of powers that matched his ambitions.

Critics accused Saied of blocking the creation of a constitutional court and opposing almost all attempts at reform. Paradoxically, this atmosphere of political paralysis that was very largely Saied’s creation eventually provided him with a window of opportunity to launch

his July “coup”, discreetly but powerfully backed by the Emirati leaders of the Arab counter-revolution.

Unquestionably, while in power, Islamists - in Egypt, tunisia or even Morocco - made mistakes. But the overwhelming majority of these errors were tied to their lack of experience in governing, the weakness of their international networks, and their naive belief in certain legalist principles promoted by their western environment. the West hastened to betray these principles by backing the terrible repression that targeted Islamists in Egypt after the overthrow of former President Mohamed Morsi. Indeed, in the context of the Arab Spring, Islamist movements were very quickly targeted by a hostility from their European and western interlocutors that their “leftist” rivals would likely not have provoked so systematically. the errors made by these movements had little to do with the “Islamist” dimension of their political beliefs.

Rather the recurrent and common flaw of almost all Islamist experiences of power appears to be that they have exercised power without ever truly holding the levers of power, whether military, economic, media or judicial.

REGIONAL CHESSBOARD: In the Sahel as in the Middle East, jihadism remains an important component of the regional chessboard. With the taliban’s resounding victory in Afghanistan, it appears that this “radical Islam”, whose defeat has so often been announced, has taken another country out of the West’s direct sphere of influence. the final error, of which the jubilation of French media at the (supposed) “defeat of the Islamists” is a part, is to believe that the political differential between Europe and North Africa is tied only to the “Islamicity” of the political vocabulary of the Islamist trend - in other words, that an alternative, post-Islamist political generation would accept unquestioningly the full range of bad behaviour from the West.

Absolutely nothing grounds this claim. Most of the “anti-imperialist” sentiments that the Islamist generation proclaims today mirror what the “Arab nationalist” or even “leftist” oppositions proclaimed in their time. Is the era of post-Islamism on the way? Doubtless, but it is in no rush.

François Burgat is Emeritus Research Director at France’s CNRS (IREMAN Aix-en-Provence). An expert on Islamist movements, his latest book is titled ‘Understanding Political Islam’ by Manchester University Press (2019).

Thursday, 28 October, 2021 | KARACHI

NEWS

Bitcoin slips to $58,990 as crypto market sheds 5.6pc ISLAMABAD TLTP

The cryptocurrency market faced a bearish trend on Wednesday, with the market capitalisation shedding 5.6 percent to fall to $2.60 trillion as of 1340 hours GMT. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, shed 5.06 percent to reach $58,990. With this decrease in price, the market capitalisation of the biggest cryptocurrency has reached 1.11 trillion. Likewise, ether (ETH) price shed 4.50 percent to reach $4,000. With this decrease in price, the market capitalisation of ETH has reached $469.4 billion. Similarly, XRP price shed 8.06 percent to reach $1.02. The market capitalisation of XRP stands at $102 billion after this decrease. Likewise, cardano (ADA) price shed 8.03 percent to reach $1.99. Its market capitalisation has reached $64.4 billion with this decrease. Similarly, dogecoin (Doge) price went down by 10.87 percent to reach $0.238. With this decrease in price, the market capitalisation of doge has reached $31.2 billion. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin Fund, a closedend investment vehicle-based in Canada, has received regulatory approval from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA). The fund debuted on Nasdaq on June 23, 2021, and became the first listed digital asset fund in the Middle East. The fund’s goal is to provide investors with exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) and the daily price changes of Bitcoin in United States dollars, as well as long-term capital appreciation. The fund is a diversified portfolio of digital assets that invests in Bitcoin and U.S. dollar-denominated money market instruments. A report by Trade Arabia states that the Bitcoin Fund is now in a position to list up to $200 million worth of units on Nasdaq Dubai, following its approval by the DFSA. This allows the region’s first cryptobased product, which is listed on a regulated platform, to satisfy growing demand from institutional investors. The Bitcoin Fund will be available to investors of all levels from big banks to individual traders. Nasdaq Dubai is the first official stock exchange in the Middle East to offer this new service, which is part of its commitment to embracing fintech. TLTP

Crude oil prices dip 1.5pc over increase in inventories

PakIstan CLOsE tO agrEEmEnt wIth ImF: tarIn a

DVISOR to the PM on Finance Shaukat Tarin has said that Pakistan is close to reaching a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the release of a $1 billion tranche under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).

“You can take an assurance from me right now, we are very close [to an agreement],” Tarin told reporters on Wednesday.

“There are just one or two things which we are still discussing,” he further said, adding the pending issues would be resolved in a “day or two.”

The advisor’s comments came after media reports that talks between the IMF and Pakistan had concluded

on Friday and failed.

Last week IMF Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department, Jihad Azour, said there is ‘progress’ in talks between officials from the IMF and Pakistan.

The three-year, $6 billion package, approved in 2019, was aimed at shoring up fragile public finances and strengthening a slowing economy. Negotiations for the release of the latest tranche started in the first week of October in Washington.

Five reviews of the programme had been completed by March. The sixth one has been pending since June this year, which, if completed, will enable Pakistan to receive around $1 billion from the fund. NEWS DESK

Dollar slips to 172.78 as rupee recovers 1.44pc Pakistani rupee snapped a six-session losing streak against the US dollar in the inter-bank market on Wednesday with the local unit rebounded with a gain of Rs2.49 (+1.44 percent) after Saudi Arabia announced an assistance package for Pakistan.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan, the US dollar opened at Rs175.27 and closed at Rs172.78. Within the open market, the rupee was traded at 174/ 175 per dollar.

A day earlier the Saudi government announced to deposit $3 billion with the State Bank of Pakistan to help the country in the balance of payment. Moreover, the Saudi government has announced to provide $1.2 billion

crude oil on deferred payment of one year.

Currency experts said that the foreign currency market witnessed positive sentiment throughout the day. They were of the view that the local unit may gain appreciation in the coming days as there is strong likelihood of resumption of $6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Pakistani rupee made an all-time low of Rs175.27 on Tuesday last due to external payment pressure. The Pakistani rupee gained Rs1.22 during this week against the US dollar, while depreciation during the fiscal year 2021-22 has been Rs15.36. The

local unit has shed Rs12.51 against the US dollar in the current year 2021. The local currency has maintained a downtrend after it touched 22-month high of Rs152.48 in May 2021, losing a cumulative Rs20.47 in the past five months to date.

The official foreign exchange reserves of the State Bank recorded a decline of $1.646 billion to $17.492 billion by the week ended October 15, 2021 as compared with $19.138 billion by the week ended October 08, 2021.

The SBP attributed the decline in foreign exchange reserves to external debt repayment, which included repayment of $1 billion against Pakistan International Sukuk. NEWS DESK

ISLAMABAD TLTP

Crude oil prices came down on Wednesday after an increase in fuel inventories last week in the United States. At 1320 hours GMT, Brent, the international benchmark for twothirds of the world's oil, shed $1.30 (-1.50 percent) to reach $85.10 a barrel. Similarly, the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) reached $83.32 a barrel, down by $1.31 (-1.55 percent), its highest level since 2014. The price for Opec Basket was recorded at $83.42 a barrel with a 0.07 percent increase, Arab Light was available at $84.04 a barrel with a 0.37 percent decrease, while the price of Russian Sokol slipped to $86.41 after shedding 0.40 percent. The American Petroleum Institute (API) on late Tuesday reported a 2.32 million-barrel build in US commercial crude oil stockpiles last week, running against expectations for a 100,000-barrel draw. Gasoline inventories meanwhile rose by 530,000 barrels, while distillate stocks climbed by 986,000 barrels.

Nonetheless, crude oil prices have posted gains for the past nine weeks, with the Relative Strength Index on a daily chart for the NYMEX contract showing oil prices sitting squarely in overbought territory. Analysts have said that at current levels, oil prices were due for some profit-taking. The longer-term narrative, however, remained bullish. With a persistent supply deficit and the ongoing energy crisis not going away soon, oil prices still have room to climb, analysts said. The energy crisis could maintain a bullish momentum in crude for the coming days and weeks, interrupted by small pullbacks, they added. They added the bottom line is that the bullish narrative has taken a strong hold and despite a fair amount of speculative froth in crude, there is nothing on the horizon so far to trigger a correction.

09

Gold price goes down to Rs99,900 per 10gm Gold price remained almost flat in the international market on Wednesday despite retreating US bond yields and weaker US dollar.

Gold in the international market was available at $1,795.50 per ounce after gaining $1.30 at 1355 hours GMT. Meanwhile, the price of 10 grams of yellow metal in Pakistan decreased to Rs99,900 on Tuesday with a decrease of Rs1,400.

Gold in the local market was available at Rs101,300 per 10 grams on Tuesday last. The decrease in gold price in the local market was due to appreciation of the Pakistan rupee against the US dollar, which recovered 1.44 percent against the greenback on Wednesday.

According to experts, gold continued showing some resilience below the 100/200-day SMA confluence and attracted

some dip-buying ahead of the $1,780 level for the second successive day. They said the US dollar met with some fresh supply on Wednesday and reversed the previous day's upbeat US macro data-inspired gains to over oneweek tops. This, in turn, was seen as a key factor that acted as a tailwind for dollar-denominated commodities, including gold.

Apart from this, a softer tone around the equity markets extended additional support to the safe-haven precious metal. Bulls further took cues from an extension of the recent pullback in the longer-dated US Treasury bond yields, which tends to benefit the non-yielding gold. In fact, the yield on the benchmark 10-year US government bond declined for the fourth straight session and slipped

below the 1.60% threshold.

From a technical perspective, the emergence of fresh buying at lower levels favours bullish traders. The recent pullback from an intermediate hurdle near the $1,812-14 region warrants some caution. Gold might then accelerate the momentum further towards challenging the $1,832-34 heavy supply zone.

On the flip side, the $1,783-82 region now seems to have emerged as immediate strong support. Next level of support lies near the $1,76564 zone en-route monthly swing lows, around the $1,745 area. Failure to defend the mentioned support levels will shift the bias in favour of bearish traders and turn gold vulnerable to test $1,722-21 support before eventually dropping to the $1,700 round-figure mark. NEWS DESK

Employment impact from pandemic worse than expected: ILO GENEVA TLTP

The loss of working hours in 2021 because of the pandemic will be significantly higher than previously estimated, as a two-speed recovery between developed and developing nations threatens the global economy as a whole, says the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The ILO is now projecting that global hours worked in 2021 will be 4.3 per cent below prepandemic levels (the fourth quarter of 2019), the equivalent of 125 million full-time jobs.

This represents a dramatic revision of the ILO’s June projection of 3.5 per cent or 100 million full-time jobs. The eighth edition of the ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work , warns that without concrete financial and technical support, a “great divergence” in employment recovery trends between developed and developing countries will persist. In the third quarter of 2021, total hours worked in high-income countries were 3.6 per cent lower than the fourth quarter of 2019. By contrast, the gap in low-income countries stood at 5.7 per cent and in lower-middle income countries, at 7.3 per cent. From a regional perspective, Europe and Central Asia experienced the smallest loss of hours worked, compared to pre-pandemic levels (2.5 per cent). This was followed by Asia and the Pacific at 4.6 per cent. Africa, the Americas and Arab States showed declines of 5.6, 5.4 and 6.5 per cent respectively.

Vaccines and fiscal stimulus: This great divergence is largely driven by the major differences in the roll-out of vaccinations and fiscal stimulus packages. Estimates indicate that for each 14 persons fully vaccinated in the second quarter of 2021, one full-time equivalent job was added to the global labour market. This substantially boosted the recovery. Globally, losses in hours worked - in the absence of any vaccines - would have stood at 6.0 per cent in the second quarter of 2021, rather than the 4.8 per cent actually recorded. However, the highly uneven roll-out of vaccinations means that the positive effect was largest in high-income countries, negligible in lower-middle-income countries and almost zero in low-income countries. These imbalances could be rapidly and effectively addressed through greater global solidarity in respect of vaccines.

PSX trading remains suspended for 2.5 hours due to technical issues Trading at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) was temporarily suspended on Wednesday for more than two hours due to a "technical issue", the bourse announced. The recently launched trading system, JADE Trading Terminal (JTT), at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) is facing backlash from market participants as they are suffering from technical issues while consummating transactions.

The PSX suspended trading for 2 hours i.e. from 12:00pm to 2:00pm as there are technical issues being identified in the JTT. In order to conduct a detailed review of the issues and to protect the interest of the in-

vestors, the PSX decided to suspend trading session for 2 hours; however, this suspension lasted for two-and-a-half-hour.

The new trading system was installed on Monday last in order to integrate local bourse with regional and international stock markets while ensuring improved security features for better safeguarding investors’ data. The new system was supposed to be capable enough to provide a user-friendly smooth trading experience along with a strong surveillance system to prevent data leakages and notify theft attempts.

However, the user experience of NTS

presents a completely different story. Since its launch, so many complaints have been received by numerous members who are facing difficulties in consummating transactions.

The Stock Brokers Association, in its letter to the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan said that investors all over the world use various trading platforms, including but not limited to, KATS, KITS, online, and internet-based trading which connect them directly with the trading engine, provided by the exchange. This essentially means that any financial loss, incurred by the investors at large due to usage of NTS

will not be the responsibility of the securities brokers/market participants, the letter said.

The letter also underlined that members of the Stock Broker Association voluntarily provided all the required assistance to help the exchange authorities to make this new system efficient, effective, and smooth to implement as a goodwill gesture. In this process, 18 mock sessions were conducted and errors, flaws & imperfections could not be addressed/removed in their entirety. “This has compelled us to state that the Exchange is being damaged by unprofessional decision-making,” said the letter.

“NTS went live without fixing errors thereby investors around the globe had to suffer and public money has been put at stake. Volumes have shrunk drastically due to hasty decisions based on the impractical system causing revenue loss not only to the Exchange, our members but also to the public at large. We fail to understand the logic behind its abrupt implementation during the rollover week,” it added.

It also highlighted that this NTS is missing important decision-making features which were available in the previous system KATS. NEWS DESK

Thursday, 28 October, 2021 | KARACHI

10 FOREIGN NEWS

Taiwan HaS no rigHT To join UniTed naTionS: CHina NEW YORK

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AFP

HINA said Wednesday that Taiwan had no right to join the United Nations after the United States ratcheted up tensions with a call for the democratic island to have greater involvement in the world body.

In a statement marking 50 years since the UN General Assembly voted to seat Beijing and boot out Taipei, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday he regretted that Taiwan had been increasingly excluded on the world stage.

“As the international community faces an unprecedented number of complex and global issues, it is critical for all stakeholders to help address these problems. This includes the 24 million people who live in Taiwan,” Blinken said.

“Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the UN system is not a political issue, but a pragmatic one,” he said.

“That is why we encourage all UN mem-

ber states to join us in supporting Taiwan’s robust, meaningful participation throughout the UN system and in the international community.” china considers Taiwan — where nationalist forces fled in 1949 after losing a civil war to the communists — to be a province awaiting reunification.

It responded to Blinken’s statement with

strident, albeit familiar, statements emphasising its position that Taiwan’s government had no place on the global diplomatic stage.

“Taiwan has no right to join the United Nations,” Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, told reporters.

“The United Nations is an international

governmental organisation composed of sovereign states […] Taiwan is a part of china.”

The United States has long called for Taiwan’s inclusion in UN activities.

Defence of Taiwan But the latest statement adds to an escalation of diplomatic rhetoric and military posturing over Taiwan. china is regularly setting records for its number of warplane flights near the island.

US President Joe Biden last week told a televised forum that the United States was ready to defend Taiwan from any chinese invasion.

Those comments were quickly walked back by the White House amid warnings from china, continuing a strategy of ambiguity on whether it would intervene militarily if china attacked.

The United States switched recognition in 1979 to Beijing. But congress at the same time approved the Taiwan Relations Act that obligated the supply of weapons to the island for its self-defence.

Blinken on Tuesday reiterated that the

United States still recognised only Beijing.

But he emphasised the democratic credentials of the island of 23 million people.

“Taiwan has become a democratic success story,” Blinken said. “We are among the many UN member states who view Taiwan as a valued partner and trusted friend.”

Blinken pointed to Taiwan’s exclusion from meetings associated with the International civil Aviation Organization and the World Health Organization.

He noted that Taiwan was hailed for its “world-class” response to covid-19 — which largely spared the island after early intervention — and that tens of millions of passengers go through Taiwanese airports each year.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen welcomed Blinken’s remarks. “Grateful for #US support for expanding #Taiwan’s international participation,” she said on Twitter. f”We stand ready to work with all likeminded partners to contribute our expertise in international organizations, mechanisms & events.”

US challenges Assange extradition block in UK court LONDON AFP

Hiroshima nuclear bomb survivor and campaigner dies at 96 TOKYO AFP

Hiroshima A-bomb survivor Sunao Tsuboi, who became a prominent campaigner for nuclear disarmament and met Barack Obama on his historic visit to the city, has died aged 96, his advocacy group said Wednesday.

Tsuboi was on his way to engineering school in 1945 when the first nuclear bomb attack was launched by the United States, turning the bustling metropolis into an inferno. “I suffered burns all over my body,” he told AFP in 2016. “Naked, I tried to run away for about three hours on August 6 but finally could no longer walk.” Then aged 20, he picked up a small rock and wrote on the ground “Tsuboi dies here”, before losing consciousness and waking up several weeks later. He later developed cancer and other diseases but became a prominent advocate for atomic bomb survivors and a lifelong campaigner for a nuclear-free world. “I can tolerate hardships for the sake of human happiness. I may die tomorrow but I’m optimistic. I will never give up. We want zero nuclear weapons,” he said. Tsuboi was among a handful of Hiroshima survivors who met then US president Obama when he visited the city in 2016. He smiled broadly as he shook Obama’s hand, with the two men conversing for upwards of a minute. “I was able to convey my thoughts,” a satisfied Tsuboi said afterwards. Tsuboi “passed away on Saturday due to anaemia”, an official from Nihon Hidankyo — a group that represents survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of which Tsuboi was a key leader — told AFP. There are 127,755 survivors of both attacks still alive and their average age is 84, according to the health ministry. Around 140,000 people died in the bombing of Hiroshima, a toll that includes those who survived the explosion but died soon after from radiation exposure.

Three days later the US dropped a plutonium bomb on the port city of Nagasaki, killing about 74,000 people and leading to the end of World War II.

The US government will appeal against a British judge’s decision to block the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face trial for publishing military secrets, it was learnt on Wednesday.

At a two-day hearing, Washington will ask the High court to overturn District Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s January ruling that Assange is a serious suicide threat if extradited across the Atlantic.

The United States has said it was “extremely disappointed” at her decision, arguing the judge “didn’t appreciate the weight” of expert evidence that said Assange was not at risk of suicide.

Its lawyers have argued Baraitser was “misled” in evidence from Assange’s psychiatric expert Michael kopelman, who they claim concealed things such as that his client had fathered children while holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

During a preliminary hearing in August, the High court granted the US government’s request to appeal against the ruling on five grounds.

Whatever the court’s two senior judges decide, months if not years of further legal wrangling loom.

If the US appeal is successful, the case will be sent back to a lower court for a new decision. And whoever loses can also ask

for permission for a further, final appeal to the Uk’s Supreme court.

IndIcted: Assange, 50, was arrested in Britain in 2019 for jumping bail after spending seven years inside the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faced allegations of sexual assault. These were later dropped.

Despite his extradition being blocked, he has been denied bail pending the outcome of the US appeal, amid fears he would abscond.

He is being held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, which his fiancee Stella Moris — a former member of his legal team who is also the mother of his two young boys — this week branded “a terrible environment”.

Assange is wanted in Washington to face 18 charges relating to the 2010 release

by WikiLeaks of 500,000 secret files detailing aspects of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He has been indicted for violating the US espionage act and for hacking, based on the alleged assistance he provided former military intelligence officer chelsea Manning in obtaining the documents from secure military computer systems.

If convicted in the US, he faces a maximum sentence of 175 years in jail.

Baraitser had said it was not clear that Washington would be able to ensure his safety in US prisons known for “harsh conditions” while he awaited trial.

She rejected US experts’ testimony

that Assange would be protected from selfharm, noting that others such as disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein had managed to kill themselves in custody. ‘not survIve’ Australian national Assange has a vocal campaign of supporters, led by Moris and his legal team.

Moris said on Monday that she had visited Assange in prison last weekend and was shocked by how thin he looked.

“He was looking very unwell,” she said. “The point was that Julian would not survive extradition, that was the conclusion of the judge.”

Legal expert carl Tobias, from the University of Richmond in Virginia, said there was “some chance” of the US winning its appeal.

“The US may be able to convince the High court that Baraitser assigned too much weight” to the kopelman report, he told AFP. “However, even if the High court agrees with the US contention that she accorded too substantial weight to the expert report, that may not be sufficient to warrant overruling her entire decision,” he added.

Assange sought, but failed, to obtain a pardon from Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, whose 2016 election campaign benefited from WikiLeaks’ release of materials that damaged his Democratic opponent, Hillary clinton.

VACCINATED BUT STUCK

Indians await WHO nod for homegrown shot to travel abroad PANDALAM

S

ReuteRs

TUck in a village in southern India for nine months and unable to return to his job in Saudi Arabia, Sugathan P.R. is hoping the World Health Organization will approve the Indian covid-19 shot covaxin, paving the way for his trip back.

Like Sugathan, millions of Indians have taken covaxin and many have complained of travel struggles as the vaccine has not been recognised for international travel by several countries.

“I cannot continue to remain idle here any further,” said 57-year-old Sugathan, who returned to Pandalam village in kerala in January to be with his family after missing his father’s funeral last year when the pandemic disrupted flights.

“I had the option of going to Saudi and taking (additional doses of) covishield after a four-day institutional quarantine, but I was not sure of its implications on my

health,” said Sugathan, referring to AstraZeneca’s vaccine. “If the covaxin approval does not come, I will take the risk of going and taking a Saudi-approved vac-

cine,” he added, sitting in his spacious twostorey house fronted by paddy fields.

WHO chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said after a meeting on Tuesday that its independent experts had sought “additional clarifications” from covaxin maker Bharat Biotech for a final assessment on November 3.

The global agency has been deliberating on data supplied by Bharat Biotech since early July but has said it cannot “cut corners” in making a decision.

Without a WHO nod, the two-dose covaxin is unlikely to be accepted as a valid vaccine globally and would complicate travel plans for Indians who have taken it.

Rajan Pallivadakethil Unnunni, 59, who worked in kuwait as a welder for two decades before flying to India late last year, has been unable to go back as kuwait

Thursday, 28 October, 2021 | KARACHI

SPORTS 11

England thrash BangladEsh in t20 World Cup ABU DHABI AFP

E

NGLAND raced to a second successive victory at the Twenty20 World Cup with an eight-wicket drubbing of Bangladesh on Wednesday in the two nations’ first ever meeting in the format.

Opening batsman Jason Roy smashed 61 off 38 balls as England romped to their victory target of 125 in 14.1 overs in the Super 12 clash in Abu Dhabi.

Roy reached his seventh T20 half-century with a straight six in his 50th match and put on a key partnership of 73 with Dawid Malan, who made an unbeaten 28.

Left-arm quick Tymal Mills took three wickets to combine with spinners Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone to restrict Bangladesh to 124-9.

Eoin Morgan’s England, the world’s number oneranked T20 team, top Group 1 with two big wins after a six-wicket thrashing of holders West Indies in their tournament opener.

Bangladesh, who were beaten in their opening Super 12 match by Sri Lanka, lost regular wickets after electing to bat first in Abu Dhabi.

After giving away 10 runs in the opening over of the innings, Moeen hit back to be on a hat-trick in his second over, only to be denied by Mushfiqur Rahim, who topscored with 29.

Moeen, an off-spinner, had Liton Das caught at deep square leg for nine and then sent back Mohammad Naim

trudging back to the pavilion for five.

Bangladesh found themselves in trouble at 26-3 when Chris Woakes claimed Shakib Al Hasan’s key scalp with Adil Rashid taking a good catch running backwards. Shakib fell for four.

Mushfiqur and skipper Mahmudullah Riyad, who made 19, tried to repair the damage in a 37-run partnership before Livingstone broke through.

Livingstone trapped Mushfiqur lbw, but England had to use the umpire referral to have the decision in their favour after the onfield official ruled it not out.

Bangladesh kept faltering as a run-out cost Afif Hossain his wicket for five and Mahmudullah departed, for 19, soon after with Livingstone getting his second wicket.

Number nine Nasum Ahmed hit an unbeaten 19 off nine balls to give the Bangladesh total some respect as he smashed Rashid for two sixes and a four in the 19th over.

But the effort remained well below par with the England batsmen having little trouble in their batting reply despite Jos Buttler’s wicket for 18.

Roy smashed five fours and three sixes in his attacking knock that took the steam out of the Bangladesh bowling.

Malan, playing in his first T20 World Cup match, got useful batting time after the left-hander did not get a chance to bat in the first match.

Jonny Bairstow hit the winning boundary in his unbeaten eight.a

Waqar apologises for remarks on rizwan’s prayer during pak-india match

Trumpelmann, Smit help Namibia down Scotland ABU DHABI

News Desk

AFP

Ruben Trumpelmann led a lethal bowling show to set up Namibia's stunning four-wicket win over Scotland in their first ever Super 12 clash of the Twenty20 World Cup on Wednesday.

Chasing a tricky 110, JJ Smit made an unbeaten 32 to drive the team home with five balls to spare in Abu Dhabi and extend Namibia's win streak to three in the tournament after the team came through the qualifying round.

Smit and David Wiese, who made 16, put on a key partnership of 35 in the low-scoring match to hand Scotland their second loss of the group stage.

Trumpelmann began the show with three wickets in the first over to return figures of 3-17 with his left-arm pace and restrict Scotland to 109-8.

The left-arm quick justified his team's decision to bat first as he struck with the first ball and then got two in successive deliveries including Richie Berrington for nought.

Berrington, who was standing in as captain with regular skipper Kyle Coetzer out nursing a finger injury, reviewed the call but replays suggested the ball would have hit the leg stump.

The opening over provided a superb start for a team, ranked a lowly 19, that stormed into the Super 12s after wins over Netherlands and Ireland in the qualifying stage.

Trumpelmann returned his T20 best figures in his sixth international in the shortest format.

David Wiese trapped Craig Wallace lbw for four to rattle Scotland, who lost

their Super 12 opener to Afghanistan by 130 runs. At one stage Wednesday, the Scots were 18-4.

Opener and wicketkeeper-batsman Matthew Cross attempted to stem the rot with Michael Leask but another leftarm fast medium Jan Frylinck bowled him for 19. Cross took 33 balls for the effort. Leask played a lone hand with his 44 off 27 deliveries before being bowled by Smit.

The bowlers kept up the pressure in the final few overs with Frylinck returning figures of 2-10 from his four

overs. Chris Greaves made 25 and was run out on the final ball of the innings.

In reply, Craig Williams and Michael van Lingen got the team off to a solid start with an opening stand of 28 but Saafyan Sharif claimed the first breakthrough to check Namibia.

He dismissed Van Lingen for 18 and soon Chris Greaves struck with his leg spin to see the back of wicketketkeeper-batsman Zane Green, for nine.

Spinners Leask and Mark Watt also chipped in with a wicket to make the chase challenging for the T20 World

Cup debutants, but Smit stood firm at one end to extend his team's dream.

Teams: Scotland: George Munsey, Matthew Cross, Calum MacLeod, Richie Berrington (captain), Craig Wallace, Michael Leask, Chris Greaves, Mark Watt, Josh Davey, Safyaan Sharif, Bradley Wheal.

Namibia: Craig Williams, Zane Green, Gerhard Erasmus (captain), David Wiese, Michael van Lingen, JJ Smit, Jan Frylinck, Pikky Ya France, Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Ruben Trumpelmann, Bernard Scholtz.

Former Pakistan bowling coach Waqar Younis apologized on Wednesday after his comment over Mohammad Rizwan praying in the field Pak-India T20 World Cup match sparked controversy on media. While appearing in a show, a day earlier, Younis while lauding Pakistani squad stated that “God has willed [Mashallah], Rizwan offered namaz in a ground in the midst of Hindus. That was something very, very special for me.” The comment landed the former bowling coach in hot waters, as it evoked criticism from masses on social media. Pakistani journalist and television anchor Raza Rumi also condemned Younis’ comments, terming them “shameful”. “There is a large Muslim community in India. We have millions of Hindus living in Pakistan. Sport is sport, not a battle of religions,” he tweeted. Indian cricket commentator and analyst Harsha Bhogle expressed dismay on Younis’ comments, saying: “For a person of Waqar Younis’ stature to say that watching Rizwan offering namaz in front of Hindus was very special to him, is one of the most disappointing things I have heard.” “A lot of us try hard to play such things down and talk up sport and to hear this is terrible,” Bhogle added. “You would think that cricketers, as ambassadors of our game, would be a little more responsible … We need to unite the cricket world, not divide it by religion,” he added further. Younis, after facing criticism stated that “In the heat of the moment, I said something which I did not mean which has hurt the sentiments of many. I apologise for this, this was not intended at all, genuine mistake,” he said. “Sports unites people regardless of race, colour or religion. apologies.” “I was all excited that Pakistan has won the match … and in that excitement I might have used some word that could have hurt someone’s sentiments. So I apologise if anyone is hurt because of me,” he said. “I never meant it, it was a game, it was [in] the heat of the moment, and I apologise.”, he went on to clarify. He concluded by stating that “it was wrong of me and I should not have made those comments.”

Shoaib Akhtar walks out of television show after stoush with host INFORMATION MINISTER FORMS COMMITTEE TO PROBE INCIDENT IsLAMABAD News Desk

Former speedster Shoaib Akhtar ignited a controversy after he walked out of a television show Tuesday night following disagreements with the host, cricket commentator Nauman Niaz.

Akhtar, during the live programme for T20 World Cup on PTV Sports, said he “resigned” as a cricket analyst of the channel and walked off after Niaz called him “rude”, adding the former paceman was “free to leave” the show if he wished so.

The problem began when Akhtar apparently ignored the line of questioning by the

host and decided to talk about pacer Haris Rauf, which annoyed Niaz who accused him of “misbehaving with him”.

Akhtar was asked whether Pakistan made a mess of the chase against New Zealand. He did not agree and, ignoring the line of questioning by the host, decided to talk about Rauf and chose to lavish praise on Lahore Qalanders, a Pakistan Super League (PSL) franchise, and its coach, Aaqib Javed for discovering and nurturing the bowler.

“This is the guy who deserves all the credit. It was Lahore Qalanders who gave us Haris Rauf,” Akhtar said, pointing towards the former Test pacer, as Noman tried to interrupt him.

The host, clearly annoyed and irritated, told Akhtar he had been “misbehaving with him” and he would not tolerate that and in such circumstances, it was better if he left the show and then went for a commercial break. Following the break when the transmission resumed, there was more drama when Akhtar said he would like to “close the unpleasant incident” but demanded an apology from the host first who did not budge and started discussing the game.

A few minutes later, Akhtar turned to his fellow experts on the panel and, after apologising to them, announced his resignation from PTV Sports.

“My apologies for this but I am resigning immediately from PTV Sports as I have been insulted and treated badly on live television in front of the nation,” he said.

He subsequently got up, took off his mi-

crophone, and left. Host Niaz did not attempt to call him back and showed no reaction at all and carried on with the show as normal.

After video clippings of the incident went viral on social media, Akhtar took to

Twitter to give a video statement.

“Multiple clips are circulating on social media so I thought I should clarify. Dr Nauman was obnoxious (sic) and rude [when] he asked me to leave the show,” he tweeted.

Thursday, 28 October, 2021

PrAyer Timings

NEWS

FAJR SUNRISE

ZUHR

ASR MAGHRIB ISHA

5:20

12:16

3:31

6:35

5:56

7:13

RangeRs to be deployed in punjab foR two months following clashes with tlp: Rashid

i

NTERIOR Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has stated on Wednesday that the government has called Rangers to maintain law and order in Punjab for two months, after recent clashes erupted with the banned outfit, Tehreek-iLabbaik Pakistan (TLP).

While addressing a presser in Islamabad, the minister stated that a summary in this regard has been sent to the federal cabinet for approval. He still maintained that he has requested the banned outfit to end their protest.

It is pertinent to note that recently, another episode of violence erupted between the police forces and TLP supporters near Sadhoke in Gujranwala district on Wednesday, leaving at least four policemen were martyred and over 250 injured.

Earlier, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry stated that TLP will be treated as a “militant” group and not a religious party, therefore, it won’t be allowed for them to challenge the writ of the state.

Later, Shiekh Rashid claimed that the group is working on “another agenda, so I am authorising Punjab govt to call in Rangers.”

The minister revealed that he had spoken to the TLP authorities at 3:30am last night and “told them that the French ambassador is not even in Pakistan. This shows that they have another agenda.”

The minister went on to reveal that earlier the group vowed that all the blocked

roads would be reopened soon.

The minister in this regard added that he has given directive to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to take stern action against those spreading fake news on social media.

The minister said that TLP could be banned internationally for taking law and order in their hands, as three policemen had been martyred and 70 injured, of whom eight were in critical condition.

“It could be included in the list of international terrorists and then we would not be able to do anything in their case,” Rashid stated.

He added that it was being said that he was being “too flexible” in the matter. “But this is my political thinking of keeping the doors open [for talks].”

The minister further stated that certain “international powers” wanted to impose sanctions on Pakistan and “had their eyes on the country’s nuclear programme”.

“This is the sixth time the TLP has done this,” he said, adding he was being “compelled” to do this press conference. “They [TLP] have become militants. In Sadhoke, they fired at police with Kalashnikovs [but] the cops only had lathis.”

Rashid further revealed that “just like in Karachi”, he was deploying Rangers under Article 147 of the Constitution (which allows the provincial government to entrust its functions to the federation) on the request of the provincial government.

As per the reports, the notification stated that Pakistan Rangers (Punjab) have been entrusted powers in terms of Section 4(3)(i) of ATA within Punjab to prevent the commission of terrorist acts and scheduled offences under ATA, to exercise powers of police officers provided in the Code of Criminal Procedure, read with Section 5 of ATA for a period of 60 days.

Adding to that, Punjab IG Rao Sardar Ali Khan has stated that TLP has repeated its history of damaging state property and harming police officials.

Punjab government spokesperson Hasaan Khawar stated that “[They want] that laws are made according to what they desire, and foreign and internal decisions are made according to what they want.”

He added that “Today, dozens are injured […] they fired bullets straight at us which injured 253 officials and killed four.

Are police officers and law enforcers not lovers of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him)?”

He added that “Protecting the people of the province is our responsibility.”

Earlier today, Fawad Chaudhry has stated that the banned group will not be allowed to challenge the writ of the state and will be treated as a “militant” group and not a religious party.

While addressing a presser, Chaudhry said that the banned group was established in 2015 and since then, their agenda has been

to come out on the roads and block them.

“But there is a limit to the state’s patience”.

Adding to that, he said that people have a right to their “ideas” but can’t be allowed to take up arms if their ideas are not heard.

“In today’s cabinet meeting, it was decided that such activities will not be tolerated. We will not tolerate those who challenge the writ of the state,” he stated.

“No one should make the mistake of thinking that the state is weak. Those who made this mistake later realised they were wrong”, he added.

Fawad Chaudhry went on to state that the TLP had no “status” or access to arms like other terror groups. He said that a “show” had been staged the past six times, and the government had shown “great restraint”.

The minister said that last time, six policemen were martyred and more than 700 injured in clashes with TLP workers. Now, three cops have been martyred in two days and more than 49 are injured, he said.

“We don’t want blood to be spilt but some of their [TLP’s] leadership don’t care about whether people are killed. They want blood to be spilt on the roads” he added.

He further stated that “A clear policy decision has been taken. The banned TLP will be treated as a militant party. We will not treat them as a political party […] the rest of the country’s institutions should also play their role.”

At UN, Pakistan urges developed countries to deliver on climate action UNITED NATIONS APP

mosques vandalised in india in protest against bangladesh violence Indian security forces guarded mosques in the northeastern state of Tripura Wednesday after right-wing groups attacked Muslim targets in apparent revenge for deadly violence against Hindus in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Authorities have banned gatherings of more than four people in the most tense northern parts of the state while police have issued warnings about "provocative messages" spreading on social media. Tripura has a 850kilometre (525 miles) long border with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, where seven people were killed when a mob ransacked a Hindu temple this month. The riots spread to 12 districts in Bangladesh. India has expressed concern at the attacks and troubles erupted in Tripura on the sidelines of a rally of hundreds of followers of the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad group. At least four mosques were vandalised and shops and homes owned by Muslims were ransacked. Tripura is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Leaders of India's minority Muslim community say they have increasingly faced attacks since the Hindu nationalist party came to power in 2014. AfP

Pakistan has called for urgent action to limit global warming, which poses an existential threat to humanity, during a high-level debate at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

The day-long meeting on Tuesday came just ahead of the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow for countries to deliver on the promise of keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement.

In his remarks, Ambassador Aamir Khan, Pakistan’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, urged developed country to present a clear roadmap at COP26 in Glasgow on their obligations to mobilise $100 billion per year, and to urgently initiate the process within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on setting a new collective quantified goal on finance.

“It is unfortunate that the countries that have contributed the least towards environment degradation are bearing the brunt of climate catastrophe,” the Pakistani envoy told the 193-member General Assembly.

In this regard, he referred to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s statement at the Middle East Green Initiative (MGI) in Riyadh that Pakistan’s per capita carbon emissions are among the lowest in the world; less than 1% of global emissions.

Pakistan was the 8th most affected country in the world by climate change, Aamir Khan said, pointing out that since 2010, more than 30 million Pakistanis have been affected by climate change with the loss and damage exceeding $14 billion.

On its part, Pakistan had taken bold actions, highlighting the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Poroject that alone has contributed to sequestration of 8.4 Metric Tons of CO2 during 2016-2021.

By 2030, he said 60% of all energy produced in the country will be generated from renewable energy resources and 30 % of all new vehicles sold in Pakistan in various categories will be electric vehicles.

A moratorium on new imported coal power plants has already been announced, and two of the existing new coal fired power projects have been replaced with hydropower projects.

“These actions have enabled us to reduce emissions by 9% in 5 years,” the Pakistani envoy said, stressing international cooperation in terms of finances, capacity building, and technology transfer in accordance with the commitments of the Paris Agreements.

“We believe that funding for adaptation must be stepped up urgently by developed countries,” he said, adding that at least 50% of all climate finance must be allocated for it.

“We also urge that, at COP26, consensus should be achieved on a

multilaterally agreed definition of climate finance and the related methodologies for accounting”.

In his opening remarks, Assembly President Abdulla Shahid highlighted the “blunt realities” of climate impacts such as rising sea levels, which are threatening island nations like his homeland, the Maldives.

However, as the architect of a “Presidency of Hope”, Shahid stressed that countries can confront these challenges if they work together.

“Today’s event will not solve climate change, only action will,” he said, speaking from the rostrum.

“Today’s event is about reminding people of what we are capable of if we act in concert, trust in science, and intelligently mobilise the many resources we have at our disposal.”

The UN and its General Assembly, where all 193 member states are represented, were created so that countries could unite to address common crises such as climate change, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the meeting.

COP26 in Glasgow will be a moment of truth, he added, because despite the alarm bells, governments’ actions so far “simply do not add up to what is so desperately needed.”

The world currently remains on a track for global temperature rise of 2.7 degrees Celsius, far from the 1.5 degree goal, or what Guterres called “the only liveable future for humanity.”

It is pertinent to note that the TLP had launched protests in Lahore on the 12th of Rabiul Awwal, to put pressure on the Punjab government for the release of its chief, Hafiz Saad Hussain Rizvi, the son of its late founder Khadim Rizvi.

Saad Rizvi has been kept in detention by the Punjab government since April 12 for “maintenance of public order”.

TLP had earlier announced to march on Islamabad, prompting the government to block the routes leading to the capital. However, TLP leader Pir Ajmal Qadri had later said the purpose of the move was “respect for the Holy Prophet (PBUH)”, while also demanding Rizvi’s release.

In a fresh episode of violence by TLP workers, at least three policemen were martyred in clashes with them.

On Monday, Rashid had assured to fulfil the commitments the government made with the TLP during negotiations a day earlier, saying the matter would be discussed during a federal cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

A day later. Rashid had said that the government did not have any “reservations” on the TLP’s demands and there was agreement on all issues discussed with the group — except for the matter of the French ambassador’s expulsion.

On Wednesday, the group had accused the minister of lying about the settlement of matters between the party and the government. news desk

mullah yaqub omar appears first time before media The current defence minister of Afghanistan who is also the son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, Mullah Yaqub Omar recently made his first appearance before the media in Kabul on Wednesday. It is pertinent to note that Mullah Yaqub currently heads the Taliban military commission. He has recently moved from Kandahar to Kabul. It merits mention that he is said to be the driving force behind taking control of Afghanistan by leading Taliban after the US withdrew its forces. The announcement that Mullah Yaqub would address the gathering took the participants and the media personnel by surprise because nobody knew about his presence. Yaqub made his first appearance while addressing a ceremony at Kabul’s Shaheed Sardar Daud Hospital by urging the wealthy people of the Afghan society to invest in the healthcare sector so that Afghans don’t have to rely on neighboring countries, adding that those who have more resources should contribute towards nation-building. It won’t be wrong to say that Yaqub is still one of the most wanted men in the US. The 27-year-old son of Mullah Omar is the founder of the Taliban. He grew up in Balochistan and received his religious education in Pakistan’s southwestern province as well. He later moved to Kandahar.

Yaqub is considered to have expertise in large scale operations. He was later appointed as the head of the military commission by the Taliban. After the appointment, he moved back to Afghanistan from Pakistan. The Taliban leader was made a shadow defence minister after the killing of Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a drone strike in 2015. Yaqub and Mansour didn’t particularly get along as the former refused to recognise the latter as the head of the Taliban. Sources reveal that Yaqub is a close friend of Mullah Haibatullah in military operations. Yaqub is “considered as a final authority” on military operations and related appointments. news desk

India's top court probes spying charges against Modi-led BJP govt India’s top court on Wednesday established a committee of experts to look into accusations that the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi used Israeli military-grade spyware to monitor political opponents, journalists and activists.

The Supreme Court order came in response to petitions filed by a group of Indian journalists, rights activists and opposition politicians following an investigation by a global media consortium in July. The committee, headed by a retired judge, is expected to give its findings by year-end.

India’s opposition has been demanding an investigation into how the Israeli spyware, known as Pegasus, was used in India.

Modi’s government has “unequivocally” denied all allegations regarding illegal surveillance.

India’s information technology minister Ashwani Vaishnaw in Parliament dismissed the allegations in July, calling them “highly sensational,” “over the top” and “an attempt to malign the Indian democracy.”

But the government in an affidavit did not tell the court whether it used the Israeli

equipment for spying, citing security reasons.

On Wednesday, the court said the state cannot get a free pass every time by raising security concerns.

"Violation of the right to privacy, freedom of speech, as alleged in pleas, needs to be examined,” the Press Trust of India cited Chief Justice N.V. Ramanna as saying.

Based on leaked targeting data, the findings by a global media consortium provided evidence that the spyware from the Israelbased NSO Group, the world’s most infa-

mous hacker-for-hire company, was allegedly used to infiltrate devices belonging to a range of targets, including journalists, activists and political opponents in 50 countries.

The company said in July it only sells to “vetted government agencies” for use against terrorists and major criminals and that it has no visibility into its customers’ data.

Critics call those claims dishonest and have provided evidence that NSO directly manages the high-tech spying. They say the repeated abuse of Pegasus spyware high-

lights the nearly complete lack of regulation of the private global surveillance industry.

Pegasus infiltrates phones to vacuum up personal and location data and surreptitiously controls the smartphone’s microphones and cameras. In the case of journalists, that allows hackers to spy on reporters’ communications with sources.

Rights groups say the findings bolster accusations that not only autocratic regimes but also democratic governments, including India, have used the spyware for political ends. AP

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