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C M YK

E R I T SA Sunday, 23 - 29 February, 2020 I Issue 159 I Pages 04 I Sections 06 I Rs 30

NY Times under fire for also giving Haqqani regular sex column

he new York Times has come under fire after giving Sirajuddin haqqani a weekly sex column in their print and online editions. The criticism follows the already considerable fallout over the paper giving space on its op-ed pages to the deputy leader of the Taliban. “We’ve seen this happen time and time again,” said Farishteh

Soumayi, an Afghan women’s rights activist. “They become ‘the more equivalents of the founding fathers’, then they become the demons reporting to the devil himself and then they become ‘reformed moderates.’” “expect them to be seen as emancipators of women soon enough – whatever the US wants,

according to their interests,” she said. The column is to appear every Wednesday in the new York Times and is already in talks for syndication with smaller papers and a book deal with harper Collins. A movie deal is not far off and Sony Pictures are already said to be interested. g

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Mother Tongue Day

BS be included as one of national languages, demand nation’s BSers Govt inaugurates Special Explosion Zone as part of Free Terror Agreement

islamabad

rime minister imran Khan on Thursday inaugurated the ehsanullah Terror Allowance City, a Special explosion Zone (SeZ) under the Continental Pakistan explosion Corridor (CPeC) and the Free Terror Agreement (FTA) with regional militant outfits. Addressing the groundbreaking ceremony of the SeZ, the prime minister dubbed the project a golden opportunity for terrorists in Pakistan and the SeZ the first step towards creating safe havens for local militants to continue their terror without impacting ‘mainland Pakistan’. “This government is your close friend, and it is developing with leaps and bounds in every field. You have a great opportunity to make progress by

learning from your colleagues from other countries, and diversifying your skills and boosting economic cooperation during your activities in this SeZ,” the premier said. Pm Khan urged the local workforce of the terrorism industry to not lose heart by some ‘difficult decisions’ taken by the government, maintaining that while the militant activities would be limited to the SeZs for the time being, in time they would be asked to spread again ‘like before’. “many terror groups want to invest in Pakistan. i have met many investors during my overseas visits and they showed keen interest in investing here provided we give them suitable environment. This SeZ will provide that environment to them and give them confidence to relocate their industries in Pakistan,” Pm Khan said. g

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hAnTing their demand for Bullsh*t to be included as one of the national languages in the upcoming census, the nation’s largest body of Bullsh*tters gathered on Constitutional Avenue in islamabad on Saturday. “We demand for what is the national lingua franca, come to think of it, to be included as one of the slots we can tick in the language category in this census,” said Shabbir Ahmed, one of the leaders of the protest. “We have been ignored for far too long!” “We do not want to adapt ourselves to whatever machination the positive framework of the state has set for us,” said ghayas hassan. “Our brethren are forced to write Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, Urdu, Seraiki, hindko,

Khowar and a host of other languages, but none can enter the language that they feel most comfortable in.” “Because of crackdowns, some amongst us have even started hiding their language. in fact, we have it on good authority that a large number of the nation’s political leadership also speaks it. Also key figures in the civil

Veteran playboy still using same pickup lines on everyone

islamabad

Orld renowned playboy, who has global following and outreach, continues to use the age old tactic of using the same pickup line on anyone and everyone he’s trying to woo, sources close to the veteran player have told The dependent. Those within the entourage of the playboy, who continues to enjoy international fame and according to his lovers still has the rock star appeal, say that he has always been a firm believer in not fixing what is not broke. The playboy’s aides

confirm that he has had a major success rate over the years and decades in wooing his targets by using the same lines on everyone. “Often those targets would be wooed by the same pickup lines during the same period of time. Sometimes those targets would be in the same room while simultaneously being wooed,” confirmed a member of the entourage while talking to The dependent. The aides further confirm that while the habit of using the same pickup lines has tended to work throughout the many careers

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of the playboy, it is actually his raw appeal that has meant that he has never had to give those lines much thought. “Or anything else for that matter. he’s never given anything much thought, because he always believes he’ll get whatever he wants just through his pretty existence,” said another aide. g

and military bureaucracy,” continued hassan. “This is one of the saddest things i have seen anywhere.” “now, if you excuse me, i have to go to the mechanic who is fixing my mercedes and then go to this party my cousin is throwing, where i can assure you, mahira Khan is also expected to show up.” g

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E D I TO R ’S N OT E The Dependent is a completely satirical publication. The articles within are not true and meant to be taken in good humour. The Dependent is an “equal opportunity offender” and we would urge all concerned to humour our attempts at humour.

The Dependent is a completely satirical publication. The articles within are not true and are meant to be taken in good humour.

C M YK

02 OPINION&EDITORIAL IMAGES OF THE WEEK

Sunday, 23 -29 February, 2020

E D I TO R I A L

Polio virus

Introducing our newest columnist

N a couple of weeks, the Op-ed page of Pakistan’s Paper of record, The Dependent, is going to feature the Polio virus as a regular columnist. Yes, we’ve waged a war against the said virus for decades now but now it’s time for an end to these endless hostilities and see if we can

find common ground. What if the virus and the country have gotten off on the wrong foot? Oh, we beg your pardon; that came across as a horrible pun. It was unintentional, we assure you. Humour like that is not unfunny, but morally, it has no leg to stand on. We feel we need to hear the others side out. We are all

organisms, after all. We should not fall for the Sunk Costs Fallacy and stop worrying about all the resources spent on fighting the virus. We should also not focus on the lives lost to, or limited by, the virus and see if we can come to a middle-ground. We owe it to the future generation and also the virus. g

OPINION

Dear life, there’s only so much an honourable man can take. Enough is enough!

N OT T H E D E P E N D E N T

By Angoor AkmAl

ear life, Just how much can you kick the same person down? In fact, I should ask you in how many ways can you kick the same person down? Perhaps even better would be to ask, in how many ways can you kick the same person down in such a short span of time? There’s only so much that an honourable man can take. enough is enough! Just cut it out, and let me be in piece – in one, single, glorious, strong off the back foot, piece. It was only a few days ago that I had to strip naked to preserve my dignity and self-respect. Do you read this, life? Striping to preserve respect? I am pretty certain no one in human history has had to go through that ordeal. In fact, scratch that, let’s go further back. In September, I was made the scapegoat for the failure of the entire team. I mean I have been failing for almost a decade now – how on earth can you blame me for doing what I always do? Worse still, it was sold as the reason why everyone else seemed to have lost their heads – and it was bought as such as well. Of course, we could go further back, but you’ll see the same patterns, which you, I and the readers of this newspaper are all familiar with. Now after that striptease, just when everything was about to be okay. The PSL season was about to start, where as always, I was about to become one of the top run getters, where the team I play for was about to win a lot of matches with perhaps another run to the final and perhaps a defence of the title. When all of that good stuff was about to happen, I was banned. I mean why leave it so late? Why do it at the brink of the greatest pleasure. Why take it away at that very moment when one is on the verge of getting it. With such mean things

happening in my life, perhaps the most excruciating experience is watching others make fun of my english. Seriously, my english? Instead of choosing to mock me for failing in the one thing I’ve trained all my life for, you choose to mock me for failing to do something I have never learned? Not to mention there are scores of things one can criticise me for. But language proficiency? You know what is even more annoying than those who make

fun of my english are those SJWs who come to my supposed defence by calling english an imperialist language imposed on us – all of which is designed solely to give them woke points, and is almost always written in english. My linguistic prowess has been made clear in this Op-ed, which I can assure you will only be tweaked a bit by the editors. So I urge you to focus on other wrongs in my life – of which there are oh so many! . g

SatirE

The Dependent is a completely satirical publication. The articles within are not true and are meant to be taken in good humour.

C M YK Sunday, 23 - 29 February, 2020

WORLD

‘Last year’s airforce jets were also unofficial,’ claims indian government

Trump’s $1-per-tweet Pakistan-based freelance content writer gets 5 cent raise

he one dollar per tweet earning Pakistan based Twitter content writer of US President Donald Trump this week was given a five percent hike in earnings, The Dependent has reliably learnt. The now 19-year-old freelance content writer from Wazirabad, who specialises in paraphrasing assignments, has been serving as Trump’s Twitter content writer for the past three years – the duration of the ongoing presidency. According to correspondence between White house officials and

the content writer, whose name is being kept anonymous for security reasons, the freelancer will henceforth earn $1.05 per tweet, translating into a 5 percent pay raise after three years in the job. As per the correspondence, hacked exclusively by The Dependent, the content writer has been asked to diversify the pool of public figures whose words are to be paraphrased in the future tweets, while the focus should remain on the already assigned target which is former US

President Barack Obama. The exchange further reveals that the Trump administration is satisfied with the progress made on Twitter, and with 2020 being the election year, the ‘hefty raise is well-deserved’. Furthermore, the writer has been urged to keep the focus on the Democratic debates in the next few months, and to dedicate more effort on spelling and grammar mistakes, which in the recent tweets have been ‘suspiciously low’. g

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he group of Airforce jets, including a captured wing commander, have belatedly created controversy after participating in an aerial dogfight with Pakistan in February 2019. The participation came without any official permission or clearance by the Indian government, officials in New Delhi claimed on Thursday. A year after the aerial combat took place, India has now denied sending any jets to Pakistan, with the Indian Air Force (IAF) too washing its hands off the row by saying that it had not sent any aircraft or pilots across the border to take on the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). “No one gave any permission to any pilot or jet to go to Pakistan. Issuance of giving visa is the sovereign prerogative of a country, we have no role in granting

visa, which we assume would have been given to those who participated in the aerial dogfight across the border. We'll talk to the IAF on whether it was an informed visit or not,” Indian home Minister Amit Shah said in an official statement. The controversy has surfaced 12 months after Pakistan got the better off India in terms of capturing pilots, downing jets, and fulfilling strategic goals. however, the Indian government is adamant that even though the participants in last year’s contest weren’t official, the triumph still belonged to them given the results of the 2019 General election in India. g

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Sunday, 23 - 29 February, 2020

LOCAL

Pakwheels.com takes down review of Vigo Double Cabin

Literature festival panellist discreetly Googles ‘hermeneutics’ meaning on phone while nodding head to moderator’s question

BALAKOT/NEW DELHI

AheeM hassan, a panelist at a talk at the Lahore Literary Festival discreetly looked up the meaning of the word ‘hermeneutics’ while nodding his head towards the moderator’s question which had contained said word. “Where do the hermeneutics come in,” said Dr Shumaila Faizy. “Or do they come in at all, quite frankly?” Thankful for a second half of the question, hassan, an author and columnist, picked up his telephone and quickly typed the word on his browser in a motion that he tried to pass off as fidgeting with his mobile while thinking about the question. “Well, it’s all about finding a balance,” said fellow panelist

Ar sales marketplace and blog pakwheels.com took down on Monday a review of the Toyota hilux Double Cabin Vigo that was published earlier the same day. “Though there is no way on God’s earth that I could afford the daala, but I wanted to read up on it because, hey, I also read Mercedes reviews,” said hassan Zaidi, a Lahore-based car enthusiast. “And I started

reading it, but ammi called me to fix her tablet and when I went back to my room, I saw it had been removed.” “Yeah, they 404’d that review,” said Saleem Ahmed, Assistant Sales Manager, Khuldunia Toyota Motors, rawalpindi. “I mean, we don’t need any helping moving these units; I don’t even know who

reads Pakwheels before buying cars. Just wanted to see what they’d written.” When contacted by The Dependent, Mudassir hassan, Pakwheels Assistant editor, said that there was just a misunderstanding. “We haven’t reviewed the daalas because we don’t have access to one. No, no, the three parked outside our office aren’t our own.” g

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Shazia Bhatti, who had employed a safe response since she her phone had run out of charge. “I don’t think we can even come close to understanding the issue at hand if we don’t look at the whole picture. That is how I would answer your question. In fact, that is how I have answered your question. Because I understood it. The issue and the question and the words it contained.” Though hassan was thankful he didn’t have to go first, he was upset that he could not play the safe option anymore. “I think Gramsci’s praxis has already answered this question,” he said, in his response. “I find he has tackled it well. We could also learn from what he had to say on the issue.” g

Satire

The Dependent is a completely satirical publication. The articles within are not true and are meant to be taken in good humour.

C M YK Sunday, 23 - 29 February, 2020

NATIONAL

FatF-shackled Jamaat-udDawa urges youth wing to make most of Kamyab Jawan Program

Inaugural Fazl Aman Mela celebrates new symbol of leftist revolution

lAHoRe

he inaugural Fazl Aman Mela, a congregation organised by the fans of the great revolutionary Fazl-urrehman since the times of Zia, was organised at Open Air Theatre Bagh-e-Jinnah on Sunday. Scores of activists participated in the gathering held under the aegis of Fazl Aman Mela Committee, with different sessions of opportunistic political dialogue, scripture recitation and fatwa performances. The venue was also marked

with Islamist flags, a symbol of the 2020 working-class revolution. The event resonated with intermittent slogans of revolution, most notable among them echoing the new symbol of leftist revolution and his struggle against ‘yahoodi saazish’. The participants also raised slogans against privatisation exercised by everyone else, condemned imperialism imposed on them, maintaining that it can only be encountered by Islamist imperialism on the rest of the world. The event also underlined

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he youth wing of the lashkar-e-Taiba (leT), alias Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), will take part in the upcoming hi-tech courses under ‘hunarmand Pakistan’ to boost their skills for upcoming radical assignments. The courses, which will be offered by the NuTeCh Skills Development Department (NSDD), and will include Computer Graphics (uI/uX), Cloud Computing, robotics, Mobile App Development and IOT (Internet of Things), are being introduced as part of the government’s Kamyab Jawan Program, with the JuD hopeful of acquiring the requisite skills in the realm of terrorism. Sources within the JuD have confirmed that the senior leadership of the outfit has urged the youth wing to make the most of the programme so as to ensure that they graduate with the required skills and can demonstrate a tech savvy repertoire

required of an aspiring militant in the year 2020. The instructions have come in light of the recent developments at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting in Paris this week, which have shackled the JuD, forcing the senior members of the outfit to wait before they get the green signals to initiate their next project. “We’re hoping that in the meantime the youngsters can boost their skill set with the aid of the likes of the Kamyab Jawan Program. In fact, it was the government’s idea to incorporate the youth of JuD and Jaish-eMohammed in their programs while the FATF situation is sorted out,” a senior leT leader told The Dependent. g

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Sunday, 23 - 29 February, 2020

SPORTS

Heartless bullies judging athlete on fitness, host on communication skills

the challenges faced by radicals in the 21st century, the most prominent among them being women and Jews, and by extrapolation, Jewish women. Multiple renowned speakers, all aficionados of Fazl-ur-rehman, some belonging to large mainstream opposition parties especially lauded the revolutionary stand against the establishment. “We will keep condemning the selectors till they select us,” noted Mufti Kifayatullah, a leader of the country’s only true leftist party, Jamiat ulema-eIslam-Fazl. g

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KARACHI

ruly condemnable incidents of bullying were witnessed on the opening day of the fifth season of the Pakistan Super league (PSl) on Thursday, when two particular individuals were relentlessly targeted for shortcomings that were completely unrelated to their professions. The first instance was seen amidst the opening ceremony of PSl 2020, where the host was relentlessly mocked, most notably on social media, for basically lacking the required communication skills and speaking in a bizarre fashion. The heartless bullying first compelled the poor host to tell all those

bullying him to not be jealous and actually work hard in life like he has, and the next day called the perpetrators out for being their heartless, callous selves. The second instance of bullying was seen in the opening match between Quetta Gladiators and Islamabad united, where an athlete was mocked was being body positive. The athlete was jeered during the field, with harsh comments coming from the crowd and on social media. The athlete, however, had the last laugh making a match winning contribution, which reminded his critics that no one – especially those athletes making bundles of money through physical performances – should be judged on their physique. g

Satire

Spot-ﬁxing racket suspends bookie for approaching Umar Akmal

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he spot fixing racket working on the ongoing Pakistan Super league said on Friday it had suspended the ‘rookie’ bookie who approached umar Akmal with immediate effect under its anti-corruption code. In its official message, the unnamed racket, anonymously declared, that the bookie, whose name can’t be disclosed, “cannot take part in any fixing-related activity pending the investigation being carried out by the group’s Anti-Corruption unit.” The announcement came a day after Akmal’s Quetta Gladiators began their Pakistan Super league title defence, beating Islamabad united in Karachi. “The group is already investigating the matter of the bookie who approached umar Akmal and the franchise will not make any comment until inquiry is concluded,” noted the spot-fixing group, which

has already applied for a replacement. Sources within the spotfixing racket confirmed that the bookie in question had been penalised for the ‘rookie mistake’ of approaching a completely loose batsman for a task that requires control over one’s actions.

“Thanks to timely action against a move, and the person making that move, we’ve saved ourselves lots of money. Imagine asking umar Akmal to play a particular stroke on a particular ball…” said a member of the spot-fixing racket while talking to The Dependent on a secure line. g

Satire

The Dependent is a completely satirical publication. The articles within are not true and are meant to be taken in good humour.