E-Paper PDF 15 July (LHR)

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Monday, 15 July, 2019 I 11 Zul-Qadah, 1440 I Rs 20.00 I Vol X No 16 I 60 Pages I Lahore Edition

PM forMs coMMission to fix resPonsibility in reko Diq case ISLAMABAD

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rime minister imran Khan on Sunday issued orders for the formation of a commission to investigate and fix responsibility for the massive loss borne by Pakistan in the reko Diq case.

The statement comes as the first official response by the government on the $5.976 billion penalties imposed on Pakistan in the matter by the international Centre for Settlement of investment Disputes (iCSiD).

“The prime minister has directed the formation of a commission to investigate into the reasons as to how Pakistan ended up in this predicament; who were responsible for making the country suffer such a loss and what are the lessons learnt, so that mistakes made are not repeated in the future,” read the statement.

A thorough internal review of this long-standing arbitration shall also be conducted in the due course, it added.

The government notes with disappointment the Award by a Tribunal of international Centre for Settlement of investment Disputes (“iCSiD”) in the matter of Tethyan Copper Company (“TCC”) vs Pakistan. The Tribunal has rendered an award of $4.08billion in favour of TCC against their claim of $8.5bn,” read the statement.

“This [attorney general’s] office and other stakeholders, particularly the Balochistan government, are studying the award and reflecting upon its financial and legal implications”. The July 13 statement said the Pakistani government shall consult with the provincial government involved to devise a strategy for the future.

“For now, the federal government reserves its right to pursue any and all legal remedies available to it under the iCSiD regime, international law and all other relevant laws to safeguard its interests,” the statement read.

“The government takes note of the press release dated 12 July 2019 made by Antofagasta Plc, one of the parent companies of

TCC, and of the statement by William Hayes, the chairman of the board of directors, in which he expressed a willingness to work towards a negotiated settlement.”

“The government of Pakistan welcomes this approach to work towards a mutually beneficial solution that works for both sides,” it further said. reiterating islamabad’s commitment to its international obligations, the statement said Pakistan “welcomes all foreign investors and assures them that their lawful rights, interests and assets shall always be protected”. “The mineral resources in reko Diq are the collective resource of the people of Balochistan and Pakistan.

Pakistan is keen for the development of this resource to ensure that the development needs of some of the poorest people on the planet are addressed.” “international Tribunals are also urged to consider the implications of their decisions and the impact on development and poverty alleviation,” the statement said.

CONTINUED ON BACK PAGE

‘ALL-TIME CLASSIC’: ENGLAND WIN WC IN HISTORIC FINAL

British tabloid accuses Shehbaz, family of ‘massive money laundering’

PML-N to sue Daily Mail for publishing ‘planted’ story STORIES ON BACK PAGE & 02

KARTARPUR CORRIDOR

’80 per cent and beyond agreed upon’ STORY ON BACK PAGE

Heavy rain leaves scores dead in Nepal, India, Bangladesh

STORY ON BACK PAGE

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STORY ON BACK PAGE

in today’s issue

Monday, 15 July, 2019

02 NEWS

British taBloid accuses shehBaz, family of ‘massive money laundering’ ISLAMABAD

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n investigative report published by the British tabloid Daily Mail on Sunday alleged that the Shehbaz Sharif and his family embezzled millions of pounds from £500 million given in aid to his government in Punjab during his tenure as the chief minister of the province.

Denied by the Shehbaz and his Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-n), the report concerning the massive money-laundering and the corruption was also refused by the United Kingdom’s (UK) Department for International Development (DIFD). In a statement, it rebutted that their “robust system” had protected the British taxpayers’ money from fraud and embezzlement.

DAILY MAILS ‘EXPOSES’ MONEY LAUNDERING: The Mail’s David Rose, in the report, alleged that DFID had poured in £500 million of UK taxpayers’ money in the form of aid to Punjab during Shehbaz Sharif’s tenure as chief minister.

“Yet, say investigators, all the time that DFID was heaping him and his government with praise and taxpayers’ cash, Shehbaz and his family were embezzling tens of millions of pounds of public money and laundering it in Britain. They are convinced that some of the allegedly stolen money came from DFID-funded aid projects,” the report said. The British tabloid claimed to have based its report on the interview of key witnesses held on remand in jail, including a UK citizen Aftab Mehmood, consequent to a high-level probe ordered

by Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The paper had access to the results of the high-level probe. In his interview, Aftab Mehmood claimed that he had laundered millions on behalf of Shehbaz’s family from a nondescript office in Birmingham – without attracting suspicion from Britain’s financial regulators, who inspected his books regularly.

The legal documents alleged that Shahbaz’s son-in-law received about £1 million from a fund established to rebuild the lives of earthquake victims – to which DFID gave £54 million from UK taxpayers.

Moreover, the investigators have also launched inquiries into alleged thefts from DFID-funded schemes to give poor women cash to lift them out of poverty and to provide healthcare for rural families. It is worth noting that same British daily had also disclosed last year the case against former premier nawaz Sharif who had built a London property empire worth £32 million.

“Ironically, for years, Shehbaz was feted as a third world poster boy by DFID and last year, the head of DFID’s Pakistan office Joanna Rowley and her colleague Richard Montgomery had lauded his ‘dedication’ without knowing where their taxpayers’ money was really going,” the report added. The report claimed that the investigators were convinced that some of the allegedly stolen money came from DFID-funded aid projects.

Since 2014, DFID had given more aid to Pakistan than any other country – up to £463 million a year.

The British daily claimed that the stolen millions were laun-

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dered in Birmingham and then allegedly transferred to Sharif family’s accounts by the UK branches of banks, including Barclays and HSBC. It said that the self-confessed Birmingham money-launderer Aftab Mehmood said that he had his accounts audited every three months by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs – who failed to notice anything was amiss.

The paper also quoted former international development secretary Priti Patel demanding an inquiry and saying, “As someone who has served as secretary of state at DFID, I find it shocking that British funds may have been abused, especially given the background of poverty in Pakistan which aid is meant to alleviate.

We spend millions on anti-corruption initiatives and yet it seems clear that Britain is still a money-launderers’ paradise.”

According to Transparency International Policy Director Duncan Hames, corruption first comes to light through evidence of money- laundering. “First you identify suspicious transactions in the banking system and then you follow the money trail back to discover where they came from,” he said.

A “confidential” investigation report, seen by the newspaper, stated the family was “worth just £150,000 in 2003 but by 2018 their total assets had grown to about £200 million”.

Among other properties, Shehbaz owns a 53,000 sq ft palace in

Lahore. According to the report, the family’s legitimate income sources could not account for their riches.

The money, the report stated, was channelled from abroad – via several elaborate money-laundering schemes, in which Britain played a central role. The laundered payments were made to Shehbaz’s children, his wife and his son-in-law Ali Imran.

The report added that Shahbaz “was the principal beneficiary of this moneylaundering enterprise, by way of spending, acquisition of properties and their expansion into palatial houses where he lived”.

DFID REFUTES REPORT: DFID on Sunday discredited a report published by the British daily, saying, “The UK’s financial support to ERRA over this period was for payment by results – which means we only gave money once the agreed work, which was primarily focused on building schools, was completed, and the work audited and verified.” “The UK taxpayer got exactly what it paid for and helped the vulnerable victims of a devastating earthquake.

We are confident our robust systems protected UK taxpayers from fraud,” it added.

DFID further said the Mail on Sunday provided little substantial evidence.

“The report says investigators in Pakistan ‘are convinced that some of the allegedly stolen money came from DFID-funded aid projects’ without providing any substantial evidence this was the case with the earthquake fund,” DFID added.

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NEWS

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PM IMrAn’S vISIt to booSt PAk-US tIES, SAyS QUrEShI MULTAN

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OREIgN Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Sunday said relations between Pakistan and America would move forward further during Prime Minister Imran Khan's visit.

He said important matters of the region would be discussed in the meeting between PM Imran and President Trump as relations between the both countries were the need of hour for promoting peace in Afghanistan.

Qureshi said Pakistan wanted durable peace in the region and it was making sincere efforts for peace process in Afghanistan. He expressed these remarks in a ceremony at residence of Haji Fiaz Khan, a leader of Pakistan Kissan Ittehad.

Russia, China and America had ac-

knowledged Pakistan's role for peace process in Afghanistan, the FM said and added that Pakistan had already stated that dialogue was the only way for peace in the region.

Qureshi said the PTI government was paying an immense focus on the foreign policy as the past government of the PML-N did not have a foreign minister for four-and-a-half years which was an enmity with the country.

About his recent meeting of Countries of Common Wealth, he said that his visit remained successful. The FM added that he met with foreign ministers of different countries and the secretary general of the Common Wealth lauded the active role of Pakistan.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that they had activated an economic diplomacy and foreign missions had been given tasks to bring investment in the

Siraj says masses can’t be suppressed by curbs on media

country.A consultative body on foreign affairs had also been introduced to discuss multi-strategies on foreign affairs, he said. The ongoing economic crisis was due to corruption of the previous rulers, Qureshi said and added that the incumbent government was taking effective decisions to steer the country out of crises.

Prime Minister Imran Khan had categorically said that no NRO would be given to corrupt elements and the looted money would be retrieved. In the past, NRO was given to those who plundered money, he said.

About south Punjab province, he said the province would be established during the present PTI government. He added the PTI government was ensuring record development funds as people of south Punjab gave a heavy mandate to the PTI, and the incumbent government would fulfill its promises made with the public.

DRAP action against unregistered drugs on the cards LAHORE

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As many as 2,000 unregistered, unapproved and aphrodisiac medicines, whitening creams of different categories including allopathy and herbal, are still available in the markets and the Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP) had decided to take action against them.

Sources associated with DRAP and manufacturing of medicines revealed it here and added that mostly such brands fall under the category of aphrodisiac, spu-

Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan, Senator Sirajul Haq has said that if the government did not mend its ways and listen to the people, time would go out its hands. Talking to the media after addressing the concluding session of the five day JI workshop for party workers at Mansoora on Sunday, Sirajul Haq said that at present, the masses were only staging protest but if the rulers did not see reason, the furious crowds could march to their palaces and besiege them. He said that the arrogance of the rulers was pushing the people towards protest and their voice could not be suppressed by placing curbs on the media and harassing the anchors.

He said that when a government started to strangulate the media, its downfall would begin.

The JI chief said that playing cricket and governing the country were two different things and the government had crumbled within one year. He said that the Prime Minister was not aware of the gravity of the situation and was taking decisions only on here-say due to which everything was left half-way. The JI was the only party that was playing the role of real opposition, he added. Siraj said that instead of listening to the cries of the oppressed masses, the rulers were laughing at them. The princes residing in Islamabad were not aware that the people were unable to make both ends meet.

The government had promised to create ten million jobs but till now it had snatched the jobs of five lakh people. Similarly, the government had promised to build five million houses but thousands of people had been deprived of their homes, he added. He said it was due to incompetence of the government that an International court had imposed a heavy fine on Pakistan in the Reko Dig case. He said that if the government had hired competent advocates to handle the case, the situation would have been different. The JI chief said that the government was patronizing the mafias by increasing the prices of sugar, cement and medicines. He said that those who had voted and supported the PTI were worried now as the government policies were a 120 per cent failure.

Sirajul Haq said the government had become nervous over the complete shut down by the traders and was saying that political parties were behind the strike. He said that this impression was wrong as it was shut down by the traders and not the political parties. He said that even businessmen who had voted for the PTI with great expectations, were in the forefront of the shut down. Referring to the issue of NAB court judge Arshad Malik, he said this was the issue of the entire judiciary and not a single judge and must be resolved at the earliest. He said that if the peoples’ faith in the judiciary was hurt, the result would be anarchy. Siraj said that the JI would stage another Awami March in Rawalpindi on July 19, at which he would give his line of action for pulling the country out of the economic crisis.

Earlier, Shah Mehmood Qureshi participated in Qul Khawani of late Malik Ejaz Bappi.Later, he also met a delegation led by Naseem Raan at his residence

rious and unregistered medicines, which are smuggled from India, China and Afghanistan and often sold online through mobile phones, putting the health of public at risk. Over 2,000 brands of such medicines including Viagra, Black Cobra, vivax,vigorex, vimax and many other such brands were being sold without any check.

A big market of Rs 5.50 billion consists of only aphrodisiac drugs in which Rs 4 billion medicines were smuggled into the country without paying any tax.

The owners of companies of these medicines were minting money at their own free will, it was learnt.

Similarly, mushroom growth of poor-class cosmetics including whitening creams production by unregistered companies might create skin diseases. These creams have not been approved by the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), a report added.

Another matter of concern is that no online data of prices is available from the pharmaceutical companies.

while Ameen Ansari from UC 22 briefed the FM about different public issues. The foreign minister issued orders for resolving problems of people.

Eight drug dealers arrested MARDAN APP

Police in its ongoing crackdown against narcotics smugglers have arrested eight ice drug dealers (methamphetamine). District Police Officer Sajjad Khan said all police stations of district were taking part in this crackdown against drug dealers. He said that special teams on tip-off caught drug dealers red-handed and were shifted to prison. Police said that overall 25 ice drug dealers were arrested since the start of operation. DPO said that operation would continue unless society is clear from menace of drug. He called on parents to be vigilant and keep close eye on activities of their children. DPO underlined the importance of increasing awareness among general masses regarding drug abuse and its danger to society.

Ehsas will alleviate poverty through transparency: SAPM ISLAMABAD APP

LAHORE: Citizens headed to Greater Iqbal Park on Sunday as mercury dipped after the downpour in the morning. ONLINE

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr. Sania Nishtar has said that Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division of Ehsaas program has adopted a comprehensive set of policy parameters aiming at promote efficiency, transparency and accountability for results. In a statement on Sunday, she said we have to ensure that the funds allocated to poverty alleviation are reaching the communities that need them most, and strong governance is fundamental to ensuring that. Radio Pakistan reported. Dr Sania Nishtar said a gender policy will be mandatory to ensure the integration of the gender perspective into every aspect of governance, policy formulation, operational functioning and in data collection.

Politicians hail UN report on Kashmir LAHORE APP

government and opposition leaders on Sunday hailed the reports by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for unwarranted use of force by Indian forces leading to civilian casualties, subjective detention, and human rights abuses in occupied Kashmir.

Talking to APP, Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf leader Zakaria Butt said the report was a wakeup call for the world

powers on the endless violence wreaked upon the Kashmiris who were seeking their right to self-determination under the decades-old UN resolutions. PPP Senator Sehar Kamran said that despite brutal atrocities by 700,000 Indian troops in Indian occupied Kashmir the spirit in Kashmiri people for freedom struggle could not been suppressed.

Kamran said that the indigenous struggle for the right of self-determination by Kashmiris has now been ongoing for 70 years, adding Indian

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troops were using every weapon in their arsenal to destroy the Kashmiri spirit. She said that India has failed in the face of the boundless bravery and unbending resolve of courageous Kashmiris.

PML-N Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed said that India has been using diversion tactics every time on the issue of Kashmir, and the inhumane treatment of Kashmiris by India was being exposed globally.

Mushahid said that the people of Pakistan stand firmly with their Kash-

miri brothers and sisters, adding, Pakistan will not turn a blind eye to Indian atrocities.

He said Pakistan will continue its efforts to unmask India as so-called flag bearer of democratic values.

It is pertinent to mention here that UNOHCHR has issued a report for the second consecutive time on the adverse situation in India occupied Kashmir, and called for setting up a Commission of Inquiry for thorough probe into rights abuses committed by Indian occupation troops in the valley.

Monday, 15 July, 2019

04 LAHORE

WEATHER UPDATES MONDAY

FAJR SUNRISE

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ASR MAGHRIB ISHA

12:09

5:03

5:09

7:09

230C

TUESDAY

300C

240C

WEDNESDAY

330C

260C

THURSDAY

330C

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One killed, several wOunded in rain-related incidents

PRAyER TIMINgS 3:32

330C

8:45

Minister suspends chakwal dHQ Ms CHAKWAL: Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmeen Rashid has suspended Medical Superintendent (MS) of District Headquarters Chakwal Asad Aslam for poor performance. The Health Minister paid surprise visit to DHQ Chakwal on Sunday to review medical facilities being provided to the patients. She was accompanied by Provincial Minister for Higher education Yasir Humayun. During the visit, Dr Yasmeen Rashid reviewed medical facilities in emergency, operation theatre and different wards. She inquired after health of the admitted patients in the hospital. She also asked patients about the medical facilities being provided. Speaking on the occasion, she said that we are trying to ensure best ever medical facilities to the patients in government hospitals of Punjab by making such surprise visits. We will make these government hospitals best according to the direction and vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, she assured. INP

LWMC PUT ON RAIN ALERT LAHORE

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T least one person was killed while seven others were injured in rain-related accidents in different parts of Punjab on Sunday.

Intermittent heavy rain in Lahore, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Sahiwal and other areas have dropped down the mercury. In Lahore’s area of Shershah Colony, a man lost his life and three others were wounded when a roof of a house

collapsed in the area due to heavy rain.

In a separate incident in Jaranwala, a mother along with her four children sustained wounds in the rain-related incident. According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), the rain spell is expected in various regions across the country on Sunday (today).

According to Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), widespread rain thundershower (few moderate to heavy falls) with windstorm is expected in Kashmir, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Lahore, Faisalabad, Malakand, Hazara, Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat, Bannu divisions, while at isolated places in Zhob, DI Khan, DG Khan, Multan, Bahawalpur and Sahiwal divisions. Heavy to very heavy falls are

also expected at isolated places in Hazara, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore divisions, Islamabad and Kashmir.

Hot and humid weather is expected elsewhere in the country.

LWMC PUT ON RAIN ALERT: Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) has put its all workforce on high alert under a comprehensive plan in the wake of monsoon season and dedicated special resources to avoid any untoward situation during more rains.

Following the strategy, the LWMC workers were deployed at 88 designated choking points, who responded quickly as it started to rain on Sunday. Turk contractors also ensured deployment of all their resources, workers and machinery in field during rains. Meanwhile,

LWMC staff with the coordination of WASA officials performed the desired task in storm water areas. According to a spokesperson of LWMC, an emergency control room has also been established at LWMC head office, which will remain functional round the clock for close coordination with field staff.

Weather alerts in coordination with regional Metrological department will be disseminated through control room.

The LWMC will support and facilitate WASA during whole monsoon season and depute its staff in WASA control room for smooth execution of assigned tasks. LWMC Managing Director Khalid Nazir has already issued instructions that all officials should remain in field and act according to the plan.

Mother, children electrocuted FAISALABAD: Three family members, including mother and two children, were electrocuted on Sunday. According to details, two children, while playing on rooftop, of their house located in Ismailabad area of Jaranwala in district Faisalabad, were electrocuted after they mistakenly touched the low-lying hightension power line passing over. In attempt to save children, their mother was also electrocuted to death. The bodies were shifted to hospital where they were handed over to heirs after medico-legal formalities. The dwellers of the area held protest against WAPDA for their negligence and demanded Punjab chief minister to take notice of the incident and direct action against the officials concerned for inattention which claimed three precious lives. INP

LAHORE: Motorists face trouble due to accumulated rain water at Local Avenue. ONLINE

One dead, 3 injured in roof collapse LAHORE: At least one person died and three others injured when roof of a house collapsed in the provincial capital on Sunday. Rescue source said that dilapidated roof of a house located in Sher Shah Colony of Lahore suddenly came down. Resultantly, four people got buried under the rubble. One person expired before he could be rescued while three others sustained serious injuries in the incident. The rescue personnel, relatives of the affected family and dwellers of the area through joint efforts pulled out the body and injured after removing the rubble and shifted them to hospital. INP

CITy NOTES M.A. NIAzI eLL here we had Imran Khan trying to set out on a career of quoting an author when a judge’s video exploded in his face, and distracted everyone from how he had quoted Ayn Rand recently.

We have become a literary nation, it seems, with a chief justice who quotes Mario Puzo (while he was quoting Balzac) and a PM quoting Ayn Rand.

A far cry from the Nawaz era, in which Mian Nawaz was actually antiintellectual, and looked with suspicion at anyone who could read a calendar.

For some reason, probably because of her publishers trying to sell her books, Rand is known as something of a philosopher.

A long time ago, when Imran had not yet won the World Cup, PTV made a serial out of one of her books, the one Imran quoted from, The Fountainhead.

It was about an architect who didn’t conform to the rules.

Well, it seems Judge Arshad Malik

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Govt has introduced reforms to change the system: CM Buzdar ASSURES LBA OF RESOLVING THEIR ISSUES ON PRIORITY BASIS LAHORE INP

Punjab Chief Minister Usman Ahmad Khan Buzdar has said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is committed for durable development of human resources.

In a statement issued here on Sunday, Usman Buzdar said that to materialise the pledged reforms in system, the PTI government has introduced basic reforms.

He expressed his hope that the steps taken by the

incumbent government will benefit the country and its people in long terms instead of accommodating them temporarily. The chief minister regretted that formers governments did nothing for the betterment and wellbeing of the people which intensified their miseries.

Usman Buzdar said that provision of the civic amenities of life to the people is the fundamental responsibility of the state and PTI government will leave no stone unturned to fulfil this responsibility in letter and spirit. Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has assured that issues faced by the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) would be resolved on priority basis. The chief minister made the assurance while talking to President LBA Asim Cheema who called on him here on Sunday.

He said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)

government was bringing ease for people from every segment of life. He said that lawyers community play a compelling role to provide common man with justice and their service in this regard can’t be ignored.

Usman Buzdar said that he himself been a lawyer so well aware of their issues that is why we are talking robust steps to solve their issues. He assured that their issues will be solved at preference. He said that economic and social justice is vital for development of any society. He said that they will not only take measurements to solve their issues but will also give them resources. The chief minister said that dispensary of Lahore Bar Association will be upgraded. He directed Commissioner Lahore Division to visit that dispensary and take necessary steps for its up-gradation.

Literary or literate? put paid to all Imran’s hopes of being remembered as the intellectual who became PM. He was the judge in the Azizia reference against Mian Nawaz, and allegedly confessed on video that he had been pressured into the decision by quarters which had a video of him in a compromising position when he was posted in Multan.

He has been repatriated by the chief justice of the Islamabad High Court back to the Lahore High Court. I wonder if he will be posted back to Multan.

He has conceded knowing the person seen with him in his confessional video, Nasir Butt. Nasir Butt has been acquitted in murder cases, and it is not known how he was acquainted with the judge so well that he confessed the involvement, and got involved in convivial sittings, in which he apparently swung what Wodehouse called ‘a dashed efficient shoe’, to the tune of a PTI campaign song.

It’s said that this judge’s video, which was disseminated by Mian

Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam, was meant to get the Islamabad High Court to order a retrial. It seems to have vexed Imran that Nawaz’s narrative has got traction.

Well, if Judge Malik, Justice (r) Javed Iqbal and any other judges who have been videotaped are anything to go by, there could be a better judiciary.

I wouldn’t be in any judge’s place nowadays, especially of one who hasn’t ever done anything wrong. Try convincing one’s wife of that. Judges might make decisions in their courtrooms, but I doubt if many wives are impressed.

Why else do they seek refuge in the houses of the Nasir Butts of this world?

And if you think judges have suspicious wives, what price the domestic life of every lawyer who appeared before Judge Malik? Lawyers must exert all their eloquence to get off. There seems no use being eloquent in court, not when the decision has already been made.

It seems that legal troubles are at

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work the world over. Imran might look forward to meeting US President Trump at the end of the moth, but Trump has just lost his Labour Secretary, who couldn’t explain the deal he made as US Attorney in a case involving the sex trafficking of minors with Jeffrey epstein. epstein has been accused again, giving rise to the impression that the first deal allowed him to prey yet again on minors.

This being held as an example of how wealth protects. Apparently, Americans don’t know how to handle these things. epstein should not have had a deal; he should have walked scot free, after having had the SHO spoil the case.

And the medical evidence should have shown the victims were untouched. And there would have been birth certificates to prove that the victims were no longer minors.

Of course, that was a resignation Trump couldn’t stop. The one he proba-

bly welcomed was of the British ambassador, whose reports to the home government on Trump were both decidedly uncomplimentary, and made public.

He hung on for a few days, but as soon as he saw that he wouldn’t be supported by his home government, he resigned. He was lucky he wasn’t a Roman or else he would have had to fall on his sword.

Sarfraz Ahmed has not even left the Pakistan captaincy, let alone committed suicide. If he had set an example, maybe some other players might have done the honourable thing with a revolver, or with rat poison, or even with the old-fashioned cutthroat razors.

But old cricketers do much more, and never find a palmful of water to drown themselves in, whether or not they have won a World Cup, or built a cancer hospital.

Imran has done all of those. But he has not established a literary reputation.

He showed though that he knows how to read. Maybe that’s why he made Hammad Azhar a minister.

He had heard he knew how to do sums. That was the problem with Asad Umar. He had reached algebra. And he not only lost the PM, but his job.

Monday, 15 July, 2019

Rangers apprehend nine suspects in Karachi KARACHI STAFF REPORT

Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, on Sunday claimed to have arrested at least nine suspects from various parts of Karachi.

According to a Rangers’ spokesperson, the paramilitary forces carried out operations in different parts of the metropolis city and took the nine suspects into custody. He said that the arrested suspects were allegedly involved in street crimes, robberies, drug smuggling and other heinous crimes. He said that weapons, narcotics, looted cash and valuables were recovered from their possession.

Later, the suspects were handed over to police for further legal action. The spokesman further said that the Rangers along with the officials of irrigation and police departments also conducted joint operations in Districts Sajawal, Thatta, Sanghar and Badin against water theft and disconnected at least 93 illegal connections. Earlier on July 9, the Sindh government had extended Rangers’ special policing powers for 90 more days in Karachi. STAFF REPORT

Massive fire in garMent factory

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Mother, daughter survive train accident HYDERABAD INP

A fortunate woman and her minor daughter survived with minor wounds after being hit by a train on Sunday.

According to details, a woman with her minor daughter in attempt to ride train fell on track and hit by train.

Murtaza Wahab lauds Excise Police’s performance KARACHI INP

Adviser to Sindh Chief Minister on Information & Archives, Law and AntiCorruption Barrister Murtaza Wahab has acclaimed the efforts of Excise Police authorities for impounding a truck in Kashmore and recovering 336 kilogram heroin from its secret compartments. According to an estimate of the Excise Police, the seized fine quality heroin worth around five billion rupees was being smuggled to Karachi. The Police had registered an FIR against the arrested person who was being interrogated to track down his accomplices. Barrister Murtaza Wahab while applauding the efforts of Excise Police said that valiant efforts like this were needed to rid the province of drug menace. The Adviser to CM said that it was a huge success of Excise Police against the drug peddlers.

Those who looted national exchequer will be taken to the task, says Ali Zaidi

Quetta to get first-ever IT park Balochistan government has planned to set up the first Information Technology (IT) Park at provincial capital with the estimated cost of Rs 500 million in a bid to provide one-step solution to expand IT enterprises.Talking to APP, an official said that the government is working to convert 100 secondary and high schools by introducing virtual technologies at a cost of Rs45m to educate the children in the remote areas of the province through online learning system. Replacing paper-based data with android applications with smooth regulatory procedures to ensure efficiency and on-time delivery the provincial government had allocated Rs 200 million rupees in the current Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) to set up Quetta Data Centre, he added. The Balochistan government, he said, had allocated Rs 1.867 billion for expanding economic contribution in the province whereas the initiative had been taken while considering the importance of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

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ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

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IREMEN on Sunday were struggling to put out a fire that broke out in a garment factory in Karachi’s SITE area in the morning. According to media reports, the firemen were facing difficulty to reach the source of the fire due to lack of proper access and smoke in the building.

According to the officials, over one dozen fire tenders were put to use in an attempt to douse the fire, but the fire was still blazing by time this report was filed.

According to a Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) official quoted by a local media outlet, the fire inside the textile mill started at around

9:54am on Sunday. The few fire tenders sent to control the situation weren’t enough, given the state of fire, so additional fire tenders were called from across the metropolis. Pakistan Navy’s fire tenders also joined in the efforts to control the blaze The official added that the godown, which was located on the first floor of the two-storey building, was a huge one where ‘rejected’ clothes were kept in a haphazard manner. Moreover, there was no ‘proper way’ to enter the point of origin, hence they were facing difficulties in accessing it.

The deputy fire chief of the city, Imtiaz, while talking to media gathered

on the spot confirmed that the fire has erupted on the first floor of the building, where a large number of clothes and machinery were stored.

The chief said that in order to reach the place of fire, they had to break the walls of the building at eight different points. Furthermore, since the affected building was filled with smoke, the firemen were facing difficulties in controlling it.

He said that at present, nothing can be said about the exact cause of fire and estimation of loss. However, there was no injury to human life as no one was present there at the time of the fire. NEWS DESK

Partial Moon eclipse on July 16-17 night KARACHI INP

The world will be able to witness a partial lunar eclipse on 16 and 17 July in many parts of the world including most parts of Pakistan.

According to Pakistan Meteorological Department all phases of partial moon eclipse will be visible in the country.

The eclipse will also be visible from much of Europe, much of Asia, Australia, Africa, North America,

South America, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Antarctica, according to reports.

Penumbral eclipse will begin at 23:44 PST (on 16th July, 2019), while partial eclipse will begin at 01:02 PST on 17th July, 2019, the met office said.

The entire lunar eclipse will begin at 02:32 PST, while the partial eclipse will end at 04:00 PST, the weather department said.

During a lunar eclipse, the Earth casts a shadow on the Moon. This shadow has a central and outer

shadow called umbra and penumbra, respectively. When the Moon completely passes through the umbra or when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are perfectly aligned, a total lunar eclipse occurs. When it partially crosses through the umbra and penumbra, we get to see a partial lunar eclipse.

A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon doesn’t fall in the umbra at all and is always present in the penumbra. Naturally, a partial lunar eclipse always starts off as a penumbral lunar eclipse.

Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Ali Zaidi on Sunday said that the incumbent government will not compromise and those who were involved in money laundering will be taken to task. In his tweet, Zaidi said, “Over the years, these 2 families have brought nothing but an international embarrassment to Pakistan.” “They’ve protected criminals, bribed/pressured members of the judiciary, killed innocent people & now this”, he continued. British newspaper Daily Mail in its report said that millions of pounds stolen from donors aid money were transferred to Birmingham. The newspaper also urged the British Government to cooperate with Pakistan with regard to money laundering.

Two dead after car falls into gorge QILA SAIFULLAH: At least two people died and four others including women and children were injured when a car fell into gorge here on Sunday. According to details, due to over speeding, the driver lost control of the vehicle and it plunged into a ravine in Muslim Bagh area of Qila Saifullah. Two people died on the spot in the accident while two children and two women were seriously injured.

The rescue personnel pulled up the bodies and injured from the gorge and shifted them to hospital. INP

Intermittent heavy rain inundates parts of country SIndh’S coASTAl dISTrIcTS To receIve rAInfAll In lAST week of July

LAHORE STAFF REPORT

Intermittent heavy rain in parts of country has inundated low-lying areas on Sunday.

According to details, the weather has turned pleasant after rain lashed Lahore,

Gujranwala, Gujrat, Pattoki, Mandi Bahauddin, Sheikhupura, Narowal, Daska.

The current monsoon spell also broke the heat in Chiniot, Kasur, Shakkargarh, Islamabad and Hazara.

According to Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), widespread rain thun-

dershower (few moderate to heavy falls) with windstorm is expected in Kashmir, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Lahore, Faisalabad, Malakand, Hazara, Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat, Bannu divisions, while at isolated places in Zhob, D.I.Khan, D.G.Khan, Multan, Bahawalpur and Sahiwal divisions.

Heavy to very heavy falls are also expected at isolated places in Hazara, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore divisions, Islamabad and Kashmir.

Hot and humid weather is expected elsewhere in the country.

Rainfall (mm) during Last 24 hours: Punjab: Noorpurthal 65, Hafizabd 50, Gujranwala 47, Lahore(City 33, A/P 26), Attock 31, Islamabad (Z.P 32 Golra 16, A/P 04, Bokra 02), Chakwal 25, Rawalpindi (Chaklala 22, Shamsabad 20), Sargodha, 15, Gujrat 14, Kasur 12, Faislabad, Okra 11, Jhelm 08, Joharabad 07, Sialkot(A/P 5, City 01), Murree 04, Narowal 02, Mangla 01,Kashmir: Muzaffarabad(City) 01,Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Cherat 15, Malmjabba,

CMYK

05,Peshawar (A/P 04, City 03), Balochistan: Barkhan 02 & Kalat 01.

COASTAL DISTRICTS TO RECEIVE RAINFALL IN LAST WEEK OF JULY: A spell of gusty winds has entered in coastal districts of Sindh, causing damage to mud houses and crops in the rural areas on Sunday.

According to the Met Office the windy spell in Sindh will subside from July 18.

The weather department has forecast monsoon wet spell in coastal districts of the province from July 23 to 30.

Sindh’s southeastern districts on the coastal belt, Badin, Thatta, Tharparkar and Sujawal will likely to receive heavy rainfall during the rainy spell, according to the weather forecast.

Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has predicted partly cloudy to cloudy weather in Karachi with occasional gusty wind and chances of light rain or drizzle during morning and night today and tomorrow (Monday).

However temperature may range up

to 36 degrees Celsius and 75 percent humidity on Sunday.

According to the met office, seasonal low lies over northeast Balochistan. Moderate monsoon currents are reaching upper parts of the country and likely to strengthen today. Westerly wave is present over upper parts of the country.

Widespread rain thundershower with windstorm is expected today and on Monday in Kashmir, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Lahore, Faisalabad, Malakand, Hazara, Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat, Bannu divisions, while at isolated places in Zhob, D.I.Khan, D.G.Khan, Multan, Bahawalpur and Sahiwal divisions.

Heavy to very heavy falls are also expected at isolated places in Hazara, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore divisions, Islamabad and Kashmir.

Hot and humid weather is expected elsewhere in the country.

Highest maximum temperatures yesterday recorded at Nokkundi 47°C, Dadu 46°C and Dalbandin 45°C.

Monday, 15 July, 2019

06 WORLD VIEW

CoCaine to KGB – SuBramanian Swamy’S ConSpiraCy theorieS aGainSt Gandhi family THE NEHRU-GANDHIS HAVE BEEN SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY’S FRENEMIES SINCE EMERGENCY pRiNt

t

KAVEREE BAMZAI

HIS week, the Congress party filed two FIRs – in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh – against BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy for alleging that its former president Rahul Gandhi uses cocaine.

Swamy countered the FIRs with his customary bluster, calling the action “stupid” and suggesting that “Buddhu”—his almost-loving nickname for Rahul Gandhi—would fail a dope test if administered one.

But aficionados of the Tom and Jerry show that the Gandhi-Swamy saga has become may be forgiven for being overcome with a feeling of déjà vu. The Nehru-Gandhis have been old frenemies of Subramanian Swamy, ever since Indira Gandhi’s Emergency forced Swamy to go underground, donning a variety of disguises, among them Nanaji Deshmukh’s Sikh driver and a Chinese man named Moto Moto—if Swamy has to indulge in racist stereotypes, at least he could do them correctly. Among his many escapades, the best known was when he turned up in the Rajya Sabha in 1976 to announce the “death of democracy” just as the Speaker was reading the obituary notices.

Yet a few years later, when Indira Gandhi asked him to speak to the Chinese on behalf of the government, he was only too willing, writes Samanth Subramanian in his excellent 2012 profile of Swamy.

Speaking Mandarin is one of his many accomplishments, which include a PhD from Harvard in economics. This unevenness has defined his relationships with the other Gandhis as well.

‘SONIA MAINO’ MUST GO: Swamy was, by his own admission, close to Rajiv Gandhi, often meeting him at 2 am or 3 am at night for various discussions. He was critical in forming the association, which saw Chandra Shekhar briefly becoming Prime Minister in 1990. It was a tea party in 1999 he hosted for J. Jayalalithaa (who called it a “political earthquake”) with Sonia Gandhi as a special invitee at Delhi’s Ashok Hotel that saw the former pull out of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government after 13 months.

Yet, his life’s single-minded purpose now, apart from becoming finance minis-

ter, if not prime minister, is to see Sonia Gandhi aka “Sonia Maino” aka “TDK” (Tadaka, a demoness in the Ramayana) in prison along with son Rahul Gandhi aka “Raul Vinci” aka “Buddhu”.

In a toxic arsenal, Swamy reserves a special kind of poison for them. Among the many things he has suggested about Sonia Maino is that she has stolen antiques from India with her sister Anushka, that her father was a Fascist, and worse, that she plied a trade that he believes is questionable when she was a student at Cambridge—an English language school in the town and not the actual university, he is always at pains to point out. He has suggested both she and Rahul are not Indian citizens, and most recently, that they profited from the National Herald. It is a case that he has long pursued, and one where the two are currently on bail.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have spent many speeches describing the ma-beta in disparaging terms, calling the mother a “Jersey cow” and “Congress ki vidhwa”, and the son “Naamdar” and “Shahzada”, but it is not a patch on the active conspiracy theories Swamy has spun around the Gandhis.

CONSPIRACY GALORE: Read the 2001 theory by Subramanian Swamy: In “Sonia met Rajiv Gandhi in Cambridge in 1963 and got married only in 1968” with a good part of the intervening period being “spent in London”, where a KGB bond was either created or strengthened.

In his letter on 3 March 2001, Swamy had asked Minister of State for Personnel Vasundhara Raje to direct the CBI to look into his allegations that Sonia was soft on the Tamil Tigers, the PMK and the “proLTTE and secessionist Dravida Kazhagam”. LTTE cadre also acted as “runners”, Swamy told India Today, to facilitate a smuggling operation.

He pointed to a CBI inquiry of 1993 into a consignment originating from Chennai port that violated the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1972. The artefacts were, the CBI recorded, meant for one “Guide Zanderige” of Verona, Italy. Swamy said that this man is an employee of the Mainos and was procuring goods for “Etnica in Rivolta or Ganpati in Orbassano”, shops “owned by her (Sonia’s) family”. That’s not all. He also wrote to the law ministry seeking action against Sonia—who he says voted in the

1980 election but got Indian citizenship only in 1983—under Section 10(2)(b) of the Citizenship Act. A similar allegation was made by Swamy in late 2015 about Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship in a letter to Prime Minister Modi. Swamy claimed Rahul Gandhi had declared himself a British citizen to float a private company in London. “The name of the company is BACKOPS Limited and the Director and Secretary of this company was Mr. Rahul Gandhi, presently Lok Sabha MP,” the letter stated. In 2013, however, Swamy had alleged that Gandhi was an Italian citizen. “Rahul Gandhi can never become the Prime Minister…He is an Italian citizen. I will bring out this in details very soon,” he said.

WHAT MADE SWAMY HATE SONIA: What explains Swamy’s anathema towards the Gandhis? Veteran journalist M.D. Nalapat who has known Swamy for over 30 years, told ThePrint that it all boils down to 1999. “After Jayalalithaa withdrew support from the Vajpayee government, Swamy was looking at recreating the Chandra Shekhar government. He didn’t blame Rajiv (Gandhi) for the fall of the Chandra Shekhar government, he blamed people around the prime minister. But he had expected Sonia Gandhi to follow through on her promise of Congress support from outside or inside a probable United Front government. But then he switched on television one day and found Sonia Gandhi laying claim to government formation

with the infamous ‘We have 272’ comment,” Nalapat explained. “As you know, she couldn’t form the government, there was a general election and Vajpayee returned as prime minister. That was the trigger that broke their relationship,” he said, adding that he then forever saw Sonia as being power-hungry.

Ironically for someone who is now in the BJP (he joined in 2013), Swamy possibly disliked Vajpayee even more than Sonia. The story goes that after the 1977 elections, when Swamy was not made finance minister in the Morarji Desai government, he blamed Vajpayee who he claims spread a rumour calling Swamy a CIA agent. Swamy, whose Twitter profile says “I give as good as I get”, responded by describing Vajpayee as a drunk who was so intoxicated at an official party in Delhi that he was publicly upbraided by then prime minister Morarji Desai.

DESTROYING PILLARS: The BJP may not reward him with the portfolio he most craves, finance ministry, but the party cannot ignore the work he has done in destroying the myth of invincibility around the Gandhis.

Jaya Jaitly, his one-time colleague in the Janata Party, told ThePrint that Swamy is “the little boy in the classic tale who stands by as the ceremonial procession goes past, daring to point out that the Emperor has no clothes. The entire Congress party is self-destructing because of its decades-long fixation on the Gandhi family”. Anyone who has ever underestimated Swamy’s doggedness has usually lived—or perhaps not lived long enough—to regret it.

Witness the criminal complaint he filed against Jayalalithaa in 1996, which led to her conviction in 2014. Or the letter alleging that the former intelligence chief had asked Department of Telecommunications to tap the phones of politicians and businessmen in Karnataka in 1988, which led to the resignation of then Karnataka chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde (which Swamy described, rather colourfully, was like catching a padre in a brothel, according to Roxana Swamy in her book Evolving With Subramanian Swamy: A Roller Coaster Ride). Or the fact that he sued IIT Delhi for wrongful dismissal in 1973, and finally not only won the case but also the salary owed to him between 1972 and 1991 with 18 per cent interest in 2019.

It may take a while but the six-time MP does end up on the winning side.

The author is a senior journalist.

It’s plainly obvious that Donald Trump has no Iran policy HIS DIM TWEETS AND RASH THREATS HAVE PINNED THE US IN A CORNER WITH TEHRAN

New Republic ADAM WEINSTEIN

Last month, the president seemed close to taking military action against Iran over the still-mysterious bombing of two foreign tankers in the Gulf of Oman—and then nothing happened. Shortly after, Trump approved a strike against Iran over its shootdown of a U.S. drone—and then he tweeted that he had scrubbed the mission, minutes before it was set to launch.

Both of these mini-crises came and went without open conflict, much like the White House’s announcement in May of new troop deployments around Iran and its trial floating of full-on war plans with the nation of 82 million people.

Now, the president has returned to saber-rattling, amid unsurprising reports that Iran is enriching uranium above the limits set by the Obama-era nuclear accord, which Trump withdrew from in May. “Be careful with the threats, Iran,” he tweeted last week.

“They can come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!” Then, on Wednesday morning, he tweeted: This is

happening despite Trump’s claims on multiple occasions over the past two years that economic sanctions on Iran were “full,” “the most biting sanctions ever imposed,” and yet endlessly increasing. It is also happening despite recent assurances from U.S. officials that “we want [Iran] to stay in the deal.”

All this confusion has led to contradictory headlines. “US accuses Iran of nuclear extortion but remains open to talks,” Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Iran’s moves are easily explainable in terms of Kissingerian realpolitik: When treaties are rendered meaningless by a counterparty, you seek leverage outside them.

Tehran has consistently and loudly warned international actors of what escalating actions it might take, and it’s taking them; right or wrong, the Islamic Republic’s position hasn’t been terribly ambiguous or irrational.

Contrast that with the United States, which under Trump has regularly issued factually shaky, belligerent statements on Iran and subsequently buried or reversed them under an avalanche of new statements.

While Trump seemed to find a niche for his particular brand of mercurial, dishonest brokerings in direct negotiations with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, his limited intellect and toolbox of tricks

are increasingly pinning him in a corner; he seems frustrated by the complexities of the Iran problem and its many players.

While he has backed off repeatedly from open conflict with Iran, the president made his bones on the campaign trail and in subsequent rallies with hawkish threats toward Iran, a traditional conservative stance with many supporters in Washington. Senate Republicans like Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio have long made Iranian regime change a centerpiece of their pro-nationalist campaigning and fundraising; administration insiders like National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been far out ahead of Trump in calling for military action against Iran.

It was Pompeo, in fact, who first publicly blamed the Gulf of Oman attacks on Iran, and it was Pompeo who, on the day that Pat Shanahan announced he was stepping down as acting defense secretary last month, took an unprecedented solo trip to U.S. Central Command headquarters to talk with the generals and admirals who might be responsible for a war with Iran.

The apparent result of that CENTCOM visit was a tasking to military planners: Organize a coalition of willing U.S. allies to patrol the Middle East high seas, while Pompeo shuttled across the region in search of partners. Marine General

Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the existence of a “specific plan” to reporters Tuesday.

One of those reporters, Associated Press correspondent Robert Burns, noted that new acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper trekked to NATO headquarters late last month to rally allies, “but no nations were ready to commit to participating.”

Of course, despite their hesitance to materially support the effort, lots of nations are willing to help Trump wave his sword at Iran. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates benefit directly from a weakened Iran and have supported the U.S.’s tough talk (though they’re having second thoughts now). Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump ally who is fighting for his political future (and facing a criminal investigation), on Sunday compared Iran’s breach of the uranium limits to Hitler’s 1936 march into the Rhineland.

And British Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson, looking for a path to 10 Downing Street, told an interviewer this week that he favored Iran sanctions, in part because “I don’t want people to think I’m in any way soft on Iran.”

None of those leaders or nations, however, are promising military might to back up Trump’s position. And why would they? Trump’s position, such as it

is, is self-contradicting and demonstrably weak; as The Washington Post’s Daniel Drezner notes, Trump is now asking for what the previous U.S. administration got; he has proven he’ll back down from a military confrontation at the eleventh hour; and he is increasingly making Iran’s nuclearization more likely, not less.

“The Obama policy on Iran made sense, even if you disagreed with it,” he wrote. “The hawkish policy on Iran also made sense, even if you disagreed with it.

The Trump administration is not pursuing a hawkish policy any more. It’s implementing a contradictory train wreck.”

Even that critique, blistering as it is, seems to give Trump too much credit for policy coherence. What is clear is that sanctions have strangled the Iranian economy and unsettled its domestic politics, increasing the current regime’s incentives to ditch the nuclear deal and vilify Trump.

What will the president do in response?

He will continue to tweet wild stabs at escalation and propose more double-secret sanctions, before de-escalating and repeating the cycle, because it is all he knows to do. For many of the people who surround him in the administration, brinksmanship may be a means to some other end. But for Trump, and many of the people who voted for him, pushing the world onto a dangerous brink is an end in itself.

Adam Weinstein is the national security editor for The New Republic. He previously edited for Task & Purpose, Mother Jones, and the Wall Street Journal.

Monday, 15 July, 2019

Hong Kong protesters marcH in new outpouring of grievances CENTRAL

p

Agencies

ROTESTERS demanding the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive and an investigation into complaints of police violence filled the streets of a northern town on Sunday, adding to an outpouring of grievances against the territory’s leaders.

Some of the more than 10,000 people marching in Sha Tin called for genuinely democratic voting in the former British colony. A handful called for an independent Hong Kong.

Protests that began in opposition to a proposed extradition law have swelled to include complaints about an influx of mainland Chinese into Hong Kong and that local leaders are more responsive to the Beijing government than to the territory’s people.

On Sunday, protesters demanded an investigation into complaints police assaulted participants in earlier demonstrations against the extradition law.

Some carried signs reading “Police Are Liars.” Other signs read “Defend Hong Kong.”

They were watched by hundreds of police officers wearing helmets and carrying clubs and shields. Some protesters wore surgical masks as protection

against possible police use of pepper spray or tear gas.

The protests reflect mounting complaints that Hong Kong’s leaders are eroding the freedoms and autonomy promised when the territory was returned to China in 1997.

Some protesters carried American or colonial-era Hong Kong flags.

The government of Chief Executive Carrie Lam sus-

pended action last month on the extradition bill, which would have allowed Hong Kong crime suspects to be transferred to the mainland, where the ruling Communist Party controls the court system.

Lam apologised for her handling of the legislation, but critics are demanding she resign.

On Saturday, police used clubs and tear gas to break up a crowd of mostly young protesters who called for tighter control on mainland traders who visit Hong Kong. Critics say they are improperly undercutting Hong Kong businesses.

Earlier on Sunday, a group representing Hong Kong journalists marched to Lam’s office on Hong Kong island to highlight complaints that police beat and obstructed reporters at earlier demonstrations. They handed a letter addressed to the territory’s police commissioner to an officer.

Macron showcases Europe military prowess at Paris parade PARIS Agencies

President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday sought to showcase European military cooperation in France’s annual Bastille Day parade at a time of growing tensions between Europe and the United States.

Key EU leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, joined Macron in Paris to watch the parade down the Champs-Elysees that commemorates July 14, 1789, storming of the Bastille fortress in Paris during the French Revolution.

Some 4,300 members of the armed forces, including regiments from other European armies, marched down the avenue’s famed cobblestones in a tradition that dates back to the aftermath of World War I. Army dogs festooned with medals, members of France’s celebrated Foreign Legion and mounted cavalry in glittering uniforms brandishing ceremonial sabres all paraded in front of the high-ranking guests.

Meanwhile, French inventor and entrepreneur Franky Zapata showed off his futuristic flyboard, soaring above the Champs Elysees and the assembled leaders.

“The army is transforming: it is modernising for our soldiers, our sovereignty and our independence,” Macron told France 2 television in brief remarks. Standing in an open-top command car alongside France’s chief of staff General Francois Lecointre, Macron was met with some jeers and whistles from supporters of the “yellow vest” movement who have staged weekly protests against the government since last fall.

Two prominent members of the movement, Jerome Rodrigues and Maxime Nicolle, were both detained by the police, sources told AFP. Closer European defence

FOREIGN NEWS 07

As US agents prepare to arrest 'thousands,' migrants live in fear WASHINGTON: Thousands of undocumented immigrants were waiting in fear and uncertainty ahead of nationwide raids Sunday that President Donald Trump said would lead to a wave of expulsions.

Demonstrators in dozens of cities protested the planned raids, and local and state officials called for restraint, but to no effect. Before dawn on Sunday, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are expected to hit the streets of at least 10 major American cities with plans to arrest some 2,000 undocumented migrants who entered the United States recently. The scope of the operation appears far more modest than the “millions” Trump had promised would be detained and expelled when he first mentioned the raids — and subsequently postponed — last month. But that has not eased the anguish felt by those who fear they might be targeted. Adding to their concerns are media reports that ICE agents are prepared to scoop up not just those targeted by removal orders but also other undocumented migrants that agents may come upon incidentally.

That, potentially, could include some migrants who have been in the country for years, with homes, jobs and children who are US citizens.

IT IS TRAUMATISING: “This uncertainty, this fear, is wreaking havoc,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on CNN. “It’s traumatizing people.” Trump insisted on Friday that “most mayors” want the raids.

“Most mayors do. You know why? They don’t want to have crimes in their cities,” he said, repeating his frequent — and incorrect — assertion that migrants are more likely to be criminals than nativeborn Americans. Several mayors have expressed concern about the federal operation. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez pointed out that in 2018, his first year in office, his Florida city experienced its “lowest homicide rate in 51 years — so I don’t understand the rationale for choosing Miami.” “It doesn’t make it easier for us, as mayors, to keep our citizens and those who are in our city … quiet and calm.”

A POLITICAL ACT: Some city officials, as well as pro-migrant and civil rights groups, have sought to educate those who might be targeted on their rights in the event of a raid. “We’re asking people, if you are in fear of deportation, to stay in on Sunday, to travel in groups,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms said on CNN. If “someone comes to your door, please don’t open the door unless they have a warrant.” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told MSNBC he sees the raids as “a political act to convince a lot of people in America that immigrants are the problem.” Agencies

Canada says another citizen detained in China amid row

cooperation has been one of Macron’s key foreign policy aims and the president shows no sign of wavering despite growing political turbulence in Germany and Britain’s looming exit from the European Union.

At the 2017 parade, Macron’s guest of honour was the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump as the young French leader sought to take the initiative in forming a bond with his US counterpart. But since then ties between Trump and Macron have soured over the US pullout from the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, as well as France’s new law for a tax on digital giants, mostly US companies.

“President Trump has been an excellent ambassador for a Europe of defence,” Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly told the Parisien newspaper Sunday, pointing to “questions, even thinly veiled threats he made

towards Europe or on the durability of American commitment”. Macron, who pushed the idea of the European Intervention Initiative (EI2) to undertake missions outside of existing structures like NATO, insisted on the importance of European defence cooperation.

EYES ON MERKEL: A German A400M transport plane and a Spanish C130 took part in fly-bys, as well as two British Chinook helicopters.

The Chinooks are a major symbol of British-French defence cooperation even as Brexit looms, with Britain deploying three of the aircraft and 100 personnel for France’s operation in the African Sahel region.

Outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May had been expected to attend, but Britain was instead represented by senior cabinet minister David Lidington, the Elysee said.

TORONTO: China detained another Canadian citizen amid sour relations between the two countries, Canada’s foreign ministry said on Saturday, though the reason for the jailing remains unclear.

“Global Affairs Canada is aware of the detention of a Canadian citizen in Yantai, China,” a spokesman told AFP. He added that “Canadian officials are providing consular assistance” but no further details could be disclosed due to privacy laws. The detention follows Beijing’s jailing of two Canadians earlier this year after Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer for Chinese tech giant Huawei, was taken into custody in Vancouver on a warrant from the United States. However a source familiar with the latest detention said there is no indication it’s related to the cases of Canadians Michael Kovrig, an ex-diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a consultant. The pair are facing espionage charges that Ottawa has called “arbitrary” and which have sparked questions over whether the allegations are a retaliation for Canada’s Huawei arrest. China has also sentenced two other Canadians to death for drug trafficking and blocked imports of Canadian agricultural products. It remains unclear if this latest detention was related to last week’s arrest of 19 people in a drug case centering on the local branch of a language school in Xuzhou, a city southwest of Yantai. Among those arrested were seven teachers and nine foreign students, whose nationalities have not been specified. The British embassy in Beijing on Friday said four of its nationals had been arrested in Jiangsu province where Xuzhou is located, without specifying if the arrests were related to the drug case. Agencies

Former Bangladesh military dictator Ershad dies at DHAKA Ag e n c i e s

Former Bangladesh military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad died Sunday aged 89, after weeks in a Dhaka hospital, officials said.

General Ershad ruled Bangladesh for nearly a decade before being ousted from power in a pro-democracy upsurge in 1990 and was jailed for years on corruption

charges.

He passed away due to complications from old age, Kazi Firoz Rashid, a longtime colleague and lawmaker from his Jatiya Party, told AFP. Armed forces spokesman Abdullah bin Zaid confirmed the death.

Ershad, who was also a prolific poet, was the head of the country’s armed forces in 1982 when he took power in a bloodless coup after removing an

elected government from power.

In comments made to local reporters from jail in 1996, he said that his “greatest failure… was running the country softly with a heart of a poet”.

Despite the slew of cases against him, Ershad emerged as one of Bangladesh’s major power brokers in the 1990s after his Jatiya Party became the country’s third biggest political outfit.

Since his ouster at the

hands of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and main opposition leader Khaleda Zia, the two women have become bitter rivals, with the government last year jailing Zia for a decade over graft charges.

The former general became a key ally of Hasina and remained hugely popular in his home district in the country’s north from where he was elected member of parliament six times in a row.

Monday, 15 July, 2019

08 COMMENT

Shopkeepers will be shopkeepers

Reko Diq ruling Those responsible must be identified

T

He World Bank’s international Centre for the Settlement of investment Disputes has ruled in a 700-page judgement that Pakistan must pay the Tethyan Copper Company $5.8 billion for cancelling the reko Diq lease agreement with it. The Company had its lease application rejected in 2011, and had filed a case against this. The Supreme Court had declared the agreement void in 2013. However, Tethyan went abroad with its case claiming damages of $11.43 billion. The government says it will go into review, but recent experience makes success doubtful. it just lost an appeal in the London High Court against an arbitration award of $33 million to Broadsheet LLC, which had been contracted by NAB, during the musharraf regime, to probe the assets abroad of over 150 Pakistanis, including the Sharif family. The contract was terminated by NAB in 2003, but Broadsheet went into litigation.

The government must exhaust all legal remedies, but should not merely assume that it can put off forever the payment of huge sums, and that too in foreign exchange, when agreements are not fulfilled.

Foreign companies are not bound to keep quiet, and officials used to riding roughshod over local businessmen should not assume that they can do the same with foreign companies. To put things in perspective, the damages awarded to Tethyan are more or less the same as the recent imF package. The company still wants to do business, and may well use the award as a means of getting the deal.

However, Pakistan should not just be looking at how it is to pay this money, but at why it finds itself forced into this position. it should not be finding itself in such a position that it has to cancel a deal. While NAB’s agreement with Broadsheet seems partisan, reko Diq was a strictly commercial deal. it seems to have gone terribly wrong, and it is not enough to plead that foreign courts are prejudiced. in fact, this is all the more reason to make sure that officials conduct due diligence. Why are our dispute resolution mechanisms not trusted? There should be a proper investigation into both deals, with the emphasis being fixing responsibility on the officials concerned. After all, vast sums are involved in both cases. While those responsible may be unable to pay, at least an example can be set.

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HOPKeePerS are the same everywhere. And it doesn’t matter what lofty name– trader, businessman, dealer, distributor, mill-owner, supplier– a shopkeeper is dignified with; he is still a shopkeeper. So, it’s hardly surprising that the Pakistani shopkeepers aren’t overly keen to give away the decades-long tax holiday they have been enjoying. Where the Pakistani shopkeeper stands out amongst his counterparts in other parts of the world, however, is the quality of his gall which makes him impervious to any shame in openly refusing to submit to documentation of his business– an ignominy rather than which he would much rather shut down his business. At least he claims so, although it would be interesting to call his bluff on this one.

As expected, all the right noises are being made about the poor customer, the slowdown of the economy, the increase in unemployment and the like; but the main issue, of course, is the refusal to document sale and purchase, which would make incomes transparent. if made mandatory, the ordinary man will give a copy of his iD card (like he already does if it’s a piece of land or an automobile he is buying). The real issue which is not letting the shopkeeper sleep peacefully, is of course his horror of revealing his own true income, and that of making the whole sale-chain transparent. Any wonder that one constantly keeps hearing announcements of strikes on the part of the textile– or some other– industry?

Shopkeepers will be shopkeepers. But this scuffle is not about under-invoicing or false accounting– ‘legitimate’ tricks among the international business fraternity. instead, it’s flat-out refusal to get their businesses registered, or to agree to demanding iD card copies from their customers for sales in excess of rs50,000. And

Followers learn from leaders

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He report in the Daily Mail, about PmL-N President mian Shehbaz Sharif, as Punjab Chief minister, filching funds given by the UK’s Department For international Development (DFiD), has been strongly denied by mian Shehbaz’s son as well as the DFiD. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the report, it should not be forgotten that it is at this stage merely a newspaper story, and there is still a long road to be travelled before it leads even to a court case, let alone to a conviction. However, what it has led to is a PTi barrage of criticism of the DFiD. This is strange among representatives of a party that is desperate to get foreign investors to put their funds into the country.

The tendency has grown among ordinary PTi members because the party’s leader imran Khan, though he has become Prime minister, has been a oneissue politician. His constant hammering against corruption, preferably by a member of the Sharif family, has led to his first tweet on the controversy surrounding the video of the accountability judge who tried mian Nawaz, in which he has castigated the Sharif family as a Sicilian mafia because it tried to bribe the judge. Did he realise that he had conceded something which has been a matter of debate: whether the video was genuine or not? it seems that the myriad problems afflicting the country are subordinated to the hunger with the PTi, its leader at the front, for any evidence, no matter how thin, of corruption by a member of the Sharif family, and no matter how much harm is done to the country’s interests, as in the present case, it will plunge forward regardless. mr Khan should set an example of more responsibility, in order to make his followers behave in ways which help rather than harm.

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Arif Nizami Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

Umar Aziz

Asher John

Joint Editor

Executive Editor

Deputy Editor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

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no wonder, because while a large number of businesses don’t pay any taxes on account of being unregistered, those that are registered pay paltry amounts in taxes: according to the Federal minister for economic Affairs, an annual average of rs20,000 and rs30,000 per shop at Hall road and Brandreth road, respectively!

Shopkeepers will be shopkeepers. But this is a poor country where, leave aside hard-core capitalists, even the self-proclaimed leftists and socialists can be found cheering for the shopkeepers and against anybody that even looks like taking their collective might on. Those who have a soft corner for the PPP for its muchvaunted leftist bent, and even members of the Awami Workers’ Party: the likes of Ammar Ali Jan who do so under the guise of concern for, you guessed it… the slowdown of economy. The things bias against a personality can make one do! No wonder that where the left is in a sorry state worldwide, it’s an outright joke in Pakistan.

Shopkeepers will be shopkeepers. But why single out shopkeepers when many other sectors behave like shopkeepers? Lawyers and doctors, for example, who earn millions of rupees and yet pay negligible taxes. That’s the next battle– expect a huge clamour and commotion when that one ensues. And one can predict the slogans that are sure to be pressed into service then: ‘Leave the messiahs alone to heal the sick and the weak!’ and ‘Justice for justice-givers!’

Shopkeepers will be shopkeepers, and they always were. What’s different in the New Pakistan is that the government seems to be in earnest to document the economy. When was the last time a Pakistani government looked to seriously broaden the tax net beyond salarymen whose taxes are perforce deducted at the source? When

was the last time a government took on the might of the shopkeepers, who everybody knows evade taxes, but who are too strong as a group to be taken on? indeed, as things stand today, united by their greed, and backed by many influential quarters, they seem to be winning. That said, if anybody can lock horns with them, it’s imran Khan. it’s true that like the Greek heroes, Khan has a tragic flaw: hubris. That’s why he was so consistently written off as a politician. Of course, he has shown his critics what he is capable of, despite this flaw (or perhaps because of it); but in a fight like this one, his single-minded resolve bordering on insanity may precisely be the quality that could help him be a match for anything the shopkeepers throw at him, and more. The second thing in Khan’s favour is that with his back squarely against the wall, he doesn’t have any other option.

Sometimes it’s good not to have the luxury of backing down. it will be an uphill task, regardless. if Khan loses this battle against rent-seeking– as many circles, even outside the shopkeeper community are so desperately hoping he does– somebody will still have to wage the same war against the same mafia, and win. if Pakistan is not to end up like sub-Saharan African states, that is. This is for those who are cheering for the shopkeepers purely because they hate Khan’s guts. Better now than in future, for time is running out fast (some say it’s already too late). Because the cycle of borrowing short-term to keep the dollar artificially down (a criminal thing at the best of times) is not sustainable anymore. meanwhile, the time-bomb keeps ticking…

Syed Kaswar Gardezi is a lawyer and a columnist. He can be contacted at kaswargardezi@gmail.com

Tourism and sports economics in Pakistan Both tourism and sports lack a research-based approach

Dr Omer JaveD

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Going too far

Imran Khan’s toughest test yet

SyeD KaSwer GarDezi

rime minister imran Khan has been rightly emphasising the importance of tourism for the economic development of the country. in this regard, schemes such as the ‘Billion Tree Tsunami’ received international recognition and appreciation, and rightly so. more than that, it is indeed vital to plant trees in the country, which has one of the lowest levels of forest cover in the world.

This is coupled with the country having many cities that rank high in terms of being densely populated; along with its being one of those countries that will be highly affected by the phenomenon of climate change. Along with creating needed institutional structures, the above stand as strong challenges if Pakistan has to drastically improve the living conditions and in turn exploit its otherwise huge potential as a tourist destination.

Any future investment– financial or technocratic– into raising the level of tourism attraction, therefore, requires understanding the theoretical and practical aspects of the underlying economics of this sector. it is important to comprehend the variables and their dynamics, development of which allow creating strong a) institutional incentive and governance structures, b) organisational hierarchy, and c) market fundamentals in the tourism sector. Hence, indigenous research needs to be established in this sector to not only assist in achieving the above, but also help in creating effective public-private partnerships, along with better channelising foreign assistance provided by development partners.

Overall, tourism economics will help bring to local knowledge, international best practices in a clear methodological framework, so that comparative models of tourism being adopted regionally and globally– in terms of both demand and supply-side factors– could be better understood and indigenised.

Not just the developed world, a Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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number of developing countries, have since many years now introduced the subject of ‘Tourism economics’ as part of other applied courses in university faculties of economics. Donor funding has been engaged at many places to create capacity-building programmes independently, and within the overall umbrella of universities. in addition, public-private initiatives have included setting up student and teacher/researcher exchange programmes, at both the certificate and more advanced degree programmes.

For instance, while undertaking my doctoral studies at the University of Barcelona (Spain), i found that the university was in collaboration with some other countries, in terms of their universities, and public and private sectors, to conduct different degree and certificate programmes on a yearly basis in the field of tourism economics. Not only masters degrees in this field were provided, skills’ training was also made available in the tourism and hospitality industries. An elaborate internship programme was also made part of the studies, so that students/researchers and people working in the public and private sectors attending the courses gained practical experience; and in the case of exchange programmes international experience.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no such tourism economics programme exists in Pakistan.

Overall, the education of economics in Pakistan needs to expand in a modern direction, where in addition to traditional subjects being taught in the field of economics, more subjects of applied and heterodox nature are focused on. A better tourism industry requires an improved supply of practitioners, and it will not be possible if formal programmes of tourism economics are not made available on the lines indicated above. Both the departments of education and higher education have a huge responsibility in this regard.

Pakistan has a huge potential

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

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for the development of tourism, to exploit which the country needs to actively work towards adopting the field of tourism economics, and forge regional and international partnerships in this regard. in fact, the provinces of the country also need to learn from each other in terms of tourism resources and the thought process regarding its optimal exploitation. Hence, there should be provincial exchange programmes for students and researchers, along with public and private practitioners. moreover, through collaborations with other fields like history, politics, environment, archaeology, architecture, fine arts and even literature, tourism economics could establish programmes that create holistic policy input for the public sector to evolve tourism hotspots; including developing religious tourism sites in a more methodical way. imagine the employment creation potential here, including the attraction and attention it will create among students and others into pursuing such collaborative, multi-dimensional affairs. This holds opportunities for international collaborations on both the theoretical and practical sides, including establishing tourism-specific research journals, and in cultivating interest of international agencies at the back of finding more authentic and systematic knowledge that in turn brings greater funding from national and international organisations, and placing new places on the international list of important archaeological sites. All of this will also help produce greater investment and business partnerships in the tourism industry, at both the national and international levels, and in an environmentally responsible way.

Similarly, in a country blessed with many seasons and varied geographical terrain, and which has a huge youth bulge, there should also be the introduction of the field of ‘Sports economics’ into mainstream economics programmes at universities in Pakistan. Sports significantly

Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

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helps builds countries into not only healthy, active and proud nations, it also generates a lot of revenue.

Sports is a huge industry and above all a science. Unfortunately, in Pakistan this field is being run in an adhoc manner, having no formal linkages with the field of sports economics; especially with indigenous research, since this does not exist in the absence of this field being introduced in academia.

Sports economics is a specialised applied field of economics, which helps policy through informed research on institutional development of various sports, and the incentive and infrastructure structures required for the development of sports. it also helps devise a good marketing strategy, and in creating effective brands and funding for sports.

Here, international best practices are available to learn how to make a sport into a viable entity that not only creates funds to support current and retired players, but also how to attract finances and greater viewership.

There also exists agglomeration economies here, which not only help reduce costs by collaboration of various sub-industries involved in the sports sector, but also support in harnessing talent and developing certified support staff locally. By streamlining the field of sports economics, the agglomeration economies receive a sound research-based framework for these to properly come into play for the sports industry.

Hence, Pakistan needs to adopt modern streams of applied economics to unlock the huge potential it has in many fields, including the tourism and sports sectors.

Dr Omer Javed holds PhD in Economics from the University of Barcelona, Spain. A former economist at International Monetary Fund, his work focuses on institutional and political economy, macroeconomic stability and economic growth.

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Monday, 15 July, 2019

COMMENT 09 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

Illiteracy and its demons

The media under siege?

Autocratic regimes worldwide curb media freedom zaeem mumtaz Bhatti “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”

–voltaire

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very democratic country holds dear the freedom of opinion or expression.

This particular freedom is the most cherished one, taking precedence over others. Shortly put, it lies at the heart of the democracy. media freedom and democracy go hand in hand. No democracy can flourish without a free press and no autocracy can consolidate its hold, power and influence for a long tenure with a free press. Just as democracy is considered antithetical to autocracy, so is a free press.

An independent media is the voice of the people. On the other hand, a media that is on a tight leash only serves as a propaganda machine to further the vested interests of the authoritarian and autocratic regimes. Coercive measures are the favourite resort by them to muzzle and gag the media. Censorship is another way to control the media. False or fake news is yet another tool in the armour of the anti-democratic forces to deal with the real news. if we go back in time, and study the history of journalism, it becomes evident that whenever autocratic regimes take up the reins of the government, they first make an assault on the media. Journalists were put behind the bars and severely tortured, all in an attempt to silence the dissident voices. Silence becomes a virtue. ‘Seal your lips or you will have to bear the consequences’ is the motto of these regimes. They regard “freedom of speech” as a direct threat to their existence. They fear every independent voice taking them to task, exposing the monstrous injustices, brutalities and egregious mistakes committed by them.

They make determined and concerted efforts to intimidate and coax into silence the consciences of the independent journalists.

When it comes to freedom of press or opinion, Pakistan has come a long way. Pakistani journalists made enormous sacrifices and laid down their lives in pursuit of the truth. They literally offered blood, toil, tears and sweat to help journalism take root. They have been fighting long and hard against those trying to chip away at their freedoms. They cannot simply let the hard-earned freedoms be stripped away so easily.

Ziaul Haq’s tenure saw journalists flogged and incarcerated en masse. it was, by comparison, the darkest era for journalism. The author, Ahfazur rahman, in Sab Se Bari Jang (the Biggest War) painstakingly documents the massive brutalities committed against the journalists in the period 1977-8. From the upper echelons of power to the lower, the state machinery was exploited to callously crush any dissident voice. yet another three books, the Press in Chains, the Press Under Siege

and the Web of Censorship, by Zamir Niazi, meticulously chronicle four decades of state repression and the resistance put up by the journalists. it was Gen Pervaiz musharraf who gave the media leeway, which was hitherto unexpected and unthought-of. Needless to say, he did it to justify his despotic rule and in pursuance of “enlightened moderation”. Nevertheless, it was the media which literally became a Frankenstein’s monster for him and ultimately, he asphyxiated and stifled the independent media by shutting down the channels, when he had imposed emergency on 3 November 2007. His tenure saw direct attacks on two private channels in a bid to coerce them into retreating, but kudos to them that they refused point-blank to bow down to pressure. in point of fact, the media was instrumental in bringing his autocratic rule to a close.

Our neighbour, india, faced the worst kind of censorship and the freedom of press was effectively undermined when indira Gandhi imposed emergency on 26 June 1975. it was the darkest period for the country in general and indian newspapers in particular, who had to buckle under rampant “selfcensorship”.

Coomi Kapoor, the contributing editor of the Indian Express puts this in her book, the Emergency: A Personal History in the following words: “emergency had been proclaimed in the country, press censorship had been imposed, senior leaders had been arrested and fundamental rights had been suspended. it was then that i realised that we were staring at a dictatorship”. To drive the point home more forcefully, one may make reference to the late Kuldip Nayar, the great indian journalist. He in his autobiography, Between the Lines, wrote that his weekly column in the Indian Express was stopped by the cronies of indira and he was ultimately detained like other journalists. ironically, it was mahatma Gandhi, the father of the india, who said “The restoration of free speech, free association and free press is almost the whole of Swaraj (self-governance)”.

This is not all. A few independent journalists in india, that write against the monstrous barbarities committed by indian forces in Kashmir, face the worst kind of criticism from all walks of life, including the liberals. Chief

among them is the author Arundhati roy. if we look around the world, it becomes crystal clear that even in the developed countries like Australia, the press’s freedom is curtailed and curbed. A case in point is the Australian police raid on the ABC building in Sydney.

The USA, the champion of press freedom, is no different. it too indulges in such practices. Before even taking the office, Trump openly made mocked the press and journalists. His sarcastic tweets about the new York times and the Washington Post bear this out.

He gave a shut-up call to a CNN reporter, Jim Acosta, raising many an eyebrow.

A very recent book, truth In Our times, published this year, written by David e mcCraw, deputy general counsel of the new York times laments that “... the president himself asked the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation to find out the identity of “Anonymous,” a senior government official who had committed the “crime” of writing a times op-ed capturing the president’s erratic behaviour, impetuous policy choices, and disregard for the rule of law”.

Which brings us to the recent attempts made by the ruling party here to censor the media. While maryam Nawaz was holding a press conference, the sound was muted and three channels were pulled off the airwaves for giving live transmission. Worse yet, a recent interview of maryam Nawaz was forcefully taken off the air, dealing a severe blow to media freedom.

Needless to emphasise that right from the very beginning, the media freedoms have been suffering setbacks under imran Khan’s rule. The veneer of freedom is increasingly vanishing into thin air, as if Pakistan was slipping into authoritarianism. The ruling party should avoid taming and shackling the media in this day and age when the social media is increasingly getting stronger by the day. mr Khan should not forget that it was the media that played a profoundly active role in paving the way for his election win.

And it is the media that has the capability to expose any attempt at misadventure. The sooner he realises this, the better it will be.

Media freedoms have been suffering setbacks under Imran Khan’s rule. The veneer of freedom is increasingly vanishing into thin air, as if Pakistan was slipping into authoritarianism

Zaeem Mumtaz Bhatti is a lawyer based in Lahore. He tweets at @zaeem8825. He can be contacted at zaeem.bhatti89@gmail.com

DeAr sir, i am a student of Sir Syed University and my department has given me an assignment to publish a letter in a newspaper. Through the column of your esteemed daily, i venture to put forth my point of view regarding the curse of illiteracy still destroying our society. illiteracy is a problem that many underdeveloped nations have been struggling with, and the results vary widely among these nations. Some have had considerable success, while others have had relatively little. Unfortunately, Pakistan falls into the latter group. Pakistan has been struggling with illiteracy for ages; and illiteracy seriously threatens the continued development of nations. illiteracy threatens the basic fabric of the society. it not only threatens the economic order of society, but also gives rise to a profound injustice. This injustice has serious consequences, such as the inability of people to make better decisions for themselves, the inability to contribute to the betterment of the country, the inability to think for their own welfare. illiteracy if not combatted will exacerbate. i urge the higher authorities to start some critical campaign which transcends the current debate over illiteracy and motivates people to pursue education. Through an ideological lens, literacy had to be viewed as a social construction and a power that can bring massive change in the progress of the whole country. i hope my letter stirs the concerned authorities regarding this pertinent issue.

JAvErIA SALEEM Karachi

Protect our surroundings DeAr sir, recently France recorded the all-time highest temperature, attracting the heavy reports from media houses across the world. Not just in France alone, vast areas across the world have been reeling under the effect of heat-waves. As a result of this, issues like water shortage, food crisis, poverty have been greatly discussed through the media houses, often as frequently as possible. On the other hand, the growing population and the immigrant people add to this mess now. i personally have no idea where we are all heading for now.

Clearly, there have been so many loopholes and shortfalls in the whole ongoing process. Against issues like climate change, food crisis, the people and the countries have to take the first initiative – as distinct from crying wolf over such issues.

Having worked for long years, personally and professionally, i being a supporter of good causes have no time now to watch the beautiful natural vistas like big trees, beautiful fields, scenic beaches in my native areas like Tiruchendur, Korkai, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu.

After all it is in the hands of the people around to keep mother earth safe by strongly voicing for the green revolution.

P SEntHIL SArAvAn DUrAI Mumbai

The mobile phone addiction WiTH due respect, i would like to draw the attention of the concerned authority to the issue of rising addiction of mobile phones. Latest research indicates that the use of the internet and mobile phones becomes an obsession with the students. it may be considered one of the biggest non-drug addictions of the century. The youth are most affected by this. Although mobile phones have become a necessity today, young people must be aware of how to effectively use them. Workshops can be conducted to raise awareness among the people about the issue. i expect that through your newspaper this issue would be looked upon as soon as possible.

HAMMAD LODHI Karachi

Child labour in Pakistan CHiLD labour is the employment of children for work.

According to the iLO, Child Labour is defined as work that has the potential to deprive children of their childhood, their dignity and is also harmful for their physical, moral and mental development. it also interferes with their education (either by not allowing them to attend school, leaving school prematurely, or forcing them to juggle school attendance with heavy work). it is a great problem in Pakistan.

The Human rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that in the 1990s, 11 million children were working in the country, half of whom were under age ten.

A large section of these children is employed through an informal economy in streets, in private structures or in their homes. This also deprives them of any form of safety and recognition. Denying children their fundamental right to be educated between the ages of five to sixteen exposes them to health hazards, hampers their development and puts them at risk to other forms of violence, which may be physical, psychological and sexual. moreover, children in the labour environment are highly vulnerable to exploitation, including commercial and sexual, as well as trafficking. The new government must take note of this problem and should take some steps to help these children.

ArEEBA MUnEEr Karachi

Monday, 15 July, 2019

10 FOREIGN NEWS

UK envoy said TrUmp diTched iran deal To spiTe obama: reporT LONDON

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Agencies

RITAIN’S ambassador to Washington believed US President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal because it was associated with his predecessor Barack Obama, according to leaked documents published Saturday.

“The administration is set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism, seemingly for ideological and personality reasons — it was Obama’s deal,” ambassador Kim Darroch wrote in a diplomatic cable in May 2018.

The cable was included in the second batch of leaked reports published by the Mail on Sunday newspaper, the first of which caused Darroch to resign earlier this week.

Separately, the Sunday Times reported that a government investigation into the leak had identified a civil servant as the person responsible.

Working with officials from the National Cyber Security Centre, part of spy

agency GCHQ, and MI6, the probe has homed in on a suspect who had access to historical Foreign Office files, the paper said. The first leaked reports authored by Darroch were published last weekend, causing major turmoil between Britain and its closest ally.

The ambassador was reported to have described the White House as “inept”, prompting Trump to claim the ambassador was a “pompous fool” whom he would no longer deal with.

Darroch resigned on Wednesday, saying it was now “impossible” to do his job.

In May 2018, Britain’s then-foreign minister Boris Johnson went to Washington to try to persuade Trump not to abandon the Iran deal.

In a cable sent afterwards, Darroch reportedly indicated there were divisions in Trump’s team over the decision, and criticised the White House for a lack of long-term strategy.

“They can’t articulate any ‘dayafter’ strategy; and contacts with State Department this morning suggest no sort of plan for reaching out

to partners and allies, whether in Europe or the region,” he wrote.

He reported back that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during his talks with

Johnson, “did some subtle distancing by talking throughout about ‘the President’s decision'”. The newspaper reported that, according to Darroch, Pompeo also hinted that he had tried but failed to “sell” a revised text to Trump.

In 2015, the United States, China, Britain, France, Russia and Germany signed a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for a partial lifting of international economic sanctions.

Trump had long been critical of the deal and withdrew the United States on May 8, 2018.

As well as a government investigation into the leaks, police are also looking into a potential breach of the Official Secrets Act. London’s Metropolitan Police sparked widespread condemnation on Saturday after a warning to journalists that publishing leaked documents could be a criminal matter.

Johnson, who is now in the race to succeed May as prime minister, said that prosecuting media outlets would have a “chilling effect on public debate”.

US warnings of heavy rain, tornadoes from weakening storm Barry WASHINGTON Agencies

Branded as 'infiltrators', Muslims in India's Assam fear for future KAMRUP Agencies

Born in India 71 years ago, Mohammed Rehat Ali is still traumatised a month after his release from a detention camp, struggling to shake off a fear for the future shared by millions — many of them Muslims — under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The push to render stateless people described as “infiltrators” by Modi’s right-hand man has been limited to the north-eastern state of Assam, but his Hindu nationalist party wants to replicate it nationwide, alarming Muslims, who critics say are the real focus. “I have never expected that I would have to prove my citizenship. I am an Indian citizen, we are born here in Assam and living here for generations,” Ali, an illiterate farmer, told AFP. But when he was unable to produce the required documents, a “Foreigners’ Tribunal” declared him a Bangladeshi and sent him to a detention camp. After three years, his sons secured his release by appealing to a higher court, but only after selling their land and cattle to raise legal fees.

FOUR MILLION: He is one of the lucky ones. Over four million others in the state of 33 million — where immigration has been a hot topic since British colonial rule — were left off a draft “National Register of Citizens” (NRC) last July. They could not prove that they or their parents or grandparents were in Assam before 1971, when millions fled Bangladesh’s war of independence into India. Those excluded have been able to appeal, but up to two million people could be left off a final list due at the end of this month, reports say. Understanding the process and producing the necessary documents in a state where many are illiterate and lack even basic papers is a nightmare for many. One case that for critics encapsulated the absurdity was Sona Ullah, a retired Indian army captain and a veteran of the 1999 Kargil conflict with Pakistan. He was sent to a detention camp in May due to a mismatch in his papers. Police even seized his old uniform and he was only granted interim bail after an outcry.

WICKETS: Those who fail to make the cut have to go to one of around 100 “Foreigners Tribunals” currently in place. Another 200 are being set up. These are a lottery however, campaigners say, and the staff often unqualified. According to online magazine Scroll, Assam’s coalition government, which is led by Modi’s party, has removed tribunal members if their “performance” falls short. “The atmosphere has become such that there is a competition to be, what members joke among themselves, the highest wicket-taker — the one who can declare the maximum number of people foreigners,” one former tribunal member told Scroll, using a cricketing analogy.

Tropical Storm Barry buffeted the US state of Louisiana on Sunday, bringing warnings of heavy rain and possible tornadoes even as it weakened.

After briefly becoming the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, Barry was downgraded to a tropical storm after making landfall Saturday. It nevertheless packed a serious punch as it moved inland, though there were few indications of widespread flooding.

Flights in and out of the airport in the state’s biggest city New Orleans resumed Sunday after all were canceled a day earlier.

Thousands of people had abandoned their homes, tens of thousands lost power and first responders were poised for action.

Fears that the levee system in New Orleans could be compromised eased after the Army Corps of Engineers voiced confidence that it would hold, but Mayor LaToya Cantrell urged residents not to be complacent.

“We are not in any way out of the woods,” she said, adding that flash flooding could still occur into Sunday. President Donald Trump warned of “major flooding in large parts of Louisiana and all across the Gulf Coast. “Please be very careful!” he said on Twitter.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said Saturday that the storm would intensify into Sunday, with many areas seeing more rain overnight than they had during the day.

“Don’t let your guard down thinking the worst is behind us,” he told a press conference. At 8:00 am (1200 GMT), the storm packed maximum sustained winds of 45 miles (72 kilometers) per hour and was located southeast of Shreveport in western Louisiana, moving north at six miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said.

“Barry is forecast to weaken to a tropical depression later today,” the NHC said.

Pete Gaynor, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told Fox News “there are still life-threatening conditions that exist” as Barry moves north.

“The rain is the threat,” he added, not only while it falls but in a couple of days when floodwaters move back down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Governor Edwards said he had spoken to Trump about the storm’s impact.

“I thanked President Trump for his support and for approving our request for assistance,” the governor said.

Tornadoes were possible in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, western Alabama and eastern Arkansas, the NHC said.

Rainfall estimates had been lowered to between six and 12 inches (15 to 30 centimeters) over south-central Louisiana but

rivers and canals across the state’s south were full. The heavy winds scattered tree branches across roads and knocked over road signs, and in St. John’s Parish next to New Orleans, local television footage showed some areas under two or more feet (60 centimeters) of water.

CAJUN NAVY: The eye of the storm made landfall at Intracoastal City, a speck of a town with a few houses and businesses. Part of the main road was flooded Saturday afternoon, as were some waterfront businesses, with water rising by the minute.

News footage showed localized flooding, swollen waterways, and downed power lines and trees across south Louisiana. Rivers overtopped their levees in several locations, including part of coastal Terrebonne Parish, where authorities had issued a mandatory evacuation notice.

The Atchafalaya River swallowed the waterfront pedestrian promenade in Morgan City, which was entirely without power, as

about 10 members of America’s Cajun Navy citizen rescue group assembled under a highway overpass. “We’re just neighbors helping neighbors,” John Billiot, 39, the group’s president, told AFP. The group, which has conducted volunteer rescues since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, had assembled five flat-bottom rescue boats, a high-clearance, military-style truck and 86 other boats across the region in preparation for the latest storm.

“We’re still waiting. Barry is playing peek-a-boo with us,” Billiot said.

For many, the storm and potential for large-scale flooding revived unpleasant memories of deadly Hurricane Katrina.

Thousands packed up and left their homes as floodwaters hit low-lying areas like Plaquemines Parish, where road closures left some communities isolated.

Others hunkered down to ride out the squall, despite mandatory evacuation orders and the risk of dangerous storm surges.

Monday, 15 July, 2019

BUSINESS 11

KP govt allocates Rs36bn for education in tribal districts PESHAWAR inP

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s spokesman has said that the provincial government has allocated Rs36 billion during the ongoing financial year for promotion of education in tribal districts. Talking to media in Peshawar on Sunday, the spokesman said that over 700,000 scholarships will be awarded to students to decrease the dropout ratio in the schools. Similarly, the government will construct 500 playing areas in schools besides setting up 400 science and IT laboratories in these districts, he added.

The spokesman further stated that vacant posts in schools in tribal districts of province will be filled at the earliest.

FBR extends date for filing tax returns till August 2 ISLAMABAD inP

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Shabbar Zaidi on Sunday extended the deadline to submit tax returns till August 2. According to Radio Pakistan, Zaidi in a press release issued from Islamabad, urged the people to take benefit from this opportunity and file their tax returns timely to avoid difficulties. He said that according to the Income Tax Ordinance, filing of the tax return is compulsory for those who own a house larger than five hundred square yards or a vehicle over 1,000cc. Moreover, the FBR chairman said that according to Clause 181 AA of The Income Tax Ordinance 2001, it is imperative for the commercial and industrial gas and electricity consumers to become part of the Active Taxpayers List (ATL).

Social media increasing outreach of female owned home-based enterprises

InFlAtIon Should Be StoPPed BeFoRe It BecomeS thReAt to govt: PeW ISLAMABAD

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inP

HE Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Sunday urged the government to control inflation before it becomes a threat to it.

PEW President Dr Murtaza Mughal said that the government is trying to increase its revenue but reforms in the tax administration are equally important and should not be ignored.

He added that agriculture sector forms about 26 per cent of the GDP which should be brought into the tax net, while documentation of this sector is necessary as it has become a safe haven for the tax evaders.

“Last year, the government collected almost Rs4 trillion in revenue. Increasing it to Rs10.5 trillion by 2024 will be a challenge,” Dr Mughal said. He added, “He said that complete documentation of the economy and complete control over smuggling are ambitious targets which have not been achieved by any country.”

Lauding the action against benami accounts, the PEW president said that 99 per cent of such accounts are being operated by the business community which should be dealt sternly. He added that the business community is protesting tax measures to get relaxations while the government has decided to implement all the decisions

LONDON

ISLAMABAD Social media has changed the face of female entrepreneurs running home-based enterprises in the twin cities as there has been an increasing trend of household start-ups for food, clothing and other home-made items where women working from home were selling goods to online buyers. Stay-athome women were not lagging behind working women in terms of creating their own means of income using social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram for selling homemade food or different style of clothing. Asma, mother of two running an online food delivery business in Rawalpindi, said that the idea of generating her own income while sitting at home was intriguing. “With two minors at home, I can’t go out to work daily, I created my own Facebook page advertising my food items and received adequate response initially. But once I established my repute as credible entrepreneur providing quality food, my business started flourishing,” she said. Another young entrepreneur, Sara from Islamabad, said that after completing her education, finding job was difficult in this economic situation. “At the suggestions of my friends and family, I started my own line of clothing with a small investment and used Instagram for advertising for my brand,” she said. Sara said that she owns a small shop in Aabpara market now. “On my online outlet, not only I sell my own brand but I also display the work of women working from home but their work is undermined by big brands and they are paid with less wages,” she added.

over taxation issues is not in the national interests.

Suggestions were also given that profiteers should be dealt with an iron hand as they have crossed all limits to plunder masses as the country is moving from medium to high inflation.

Facebook's Libra currency under fire agencies

aPP

in letter and spirit in the national interest.

“In the current set of circumstances country can neither afford confrontation nor any tax relaxation. The economy must be fast enough to generate more revenue,” he said, adding that a deadlock

Facebook's planned virtual unit Libra, already under heavy attack from US President Donald Trump and global regulators, faces scepticism among the wider cryptocurrency community as well. One theme - besides Brexit - dominated discussion among the movers and shakers from London's financial technology or FinTech industry as gathered for their annual get-together: The future of virtual currencies.

"Can I just ask you to raise your hand if you would not be willing to use Libra?" asked the moderator at an event at London's recent 'FinTech Week'.

In the room, filled with about 100 experts and media who closely track the sector, about two-thirds of participants raised their hand to express distrust at the upstart currency.

Helen Disney, founder and boss of Unblocked Events, which promotes the blockchain technology that powers many cryptocurrencies, acknowledged growing doubts over who exactly would oversee and regulate Libra's operation.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE: People are "concerned about how the governance ... would work", Disney told AFP. "The cryptocurrency community is very libertarian in thinking," its "about giving power to

the people, democratisation of finance, keeping away from big banks and companies who control (the) economy," she said. Last week's gathering came one month after Facebook announced to the world its plans for the virtual currency.

Libra, which is widely regarded as a challenger to dominant global player Bitcoin, is expected to launch in the first half of 2020.

Whereas Bitcoin is decentralised, Libra will be co-managed by 100 partner firms, including Facebook's newly-minted financial services division Calibra.

The companies behind Libra - which will be backed with a basket of real-world currencies -- include payment giants Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, as well as taxi-hailing services Lyft and Uber.

To access Libra on smartphones, users will go through a virtual wallet that will also be named Calibra.

While Facebook boasts an enormous customer base dotted across the globe that should facilitate Libra's uptake, it firm also been plagued by privacy concerns that could make users hesitate.

"Can't wait for a cryptocurrency with the ethics of Uber, the censorship resistance of Paypal, and the centralisation of Visa, all tied together under the proven privacy of Facebook," said Sarah Jamie Lewis, head of non-profit research organisation Open Privacy.

Libra has meanwhile raised eyebrows among

the world's financial regulators, including the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve.

But Disney believes that Libra will finally force regulators to present clear regulation guidelines, as demanded by the cryptocurrency community itself.

"We have been waiting for a long time for a clearer signal (regarding) the regulation of cryptocurrencies and digital assets," she said.

But James Bennett, head of cryptocurrency research firm Bitassist, argues that Libra should not be seen in the same light as Bitcoin.

"In the long run, people may realise that Libra is not a cryptocurrency," Bennett said at the FinTech Week event.

"A true cryptocurrency should be resistant to attacks by all parties, from sovereign states to global corporations," he said, adding that "cryptocurrency is a type of money used to transfer value over the internet that cannot be stopped, confiscated or destroyed by any single entity".

Trump has meanwhile unleashed a vicious attack on virtual currencies, slamming them for their alleged shadowy nature and arguing that Libra had no standing nor dependability - unlike the dollar.

"I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air," Trump tweeted Thursday.

Toyota IMC embezzlement victims ask NAB chairman for justice RAWALPINDI inP

The victims of Toyota Indus Motor Company (IMC) and its dealerships’ embezzlement of Rs400 million have urged National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal for justice and fair investigation.

Talking to media here on Sunday, the victims of the Toyota Hyderabad Motors (THM) and Indus Motors action committee rejected the investigation of NAB Karachi after it failed to provide relief to them in the past three years. The committee members included Sheikh Inamullah from Layyah, Ali Akram from Gujranwala, Hamid Sarfaraz, Aqib Javed, Saud Awan, Sufyan Bajwa, Waseem Khan, Zeeshan Khan, Ahmed Gul and other victims of the fraud.

They alleged that Toyota Hyderabad had offered them to sell cars at a low price as they had excessive quota of cars

available in Sindh. At the outset, Toyota Hyderabad Motors had swiftly provided cars on comparatively lesser rates than the market and after gaining the confi-

dence and trust of the victims,it booked 200 cars worth over Rs400 million, which were not even delivered to the affectees.

The victims said that Asad Ali Malik

of THM was conducting meetings in the company’s office, entertaining victims and using the land line number of THM. They also claimed that Malok was not only a sales agent, but also a partner of Shoaib Sumro, the owner of the Hyderabad Motors.

When the affectees, after waiting for a long time, went to Toyota Hyderabad Motors office, they were told that the vehicles had been delivered to the owners and the office denied any relationship with Asad Ali Malik.

The issue had been taken up by NAB Karachi, which appointed Inquiry Officer Irfan Ali to probe the case. After thorough investigation, Shoaib Sumro and Asad Ali Malik were arrested and a weak, incomplete and contradictory interim reference was filed in the Accountability Court in which out of 200 cars, claim for only 16 cars was filed while the claim of remaining cars was deliberately omitted.

The main accused, Shoaib Sumro,

was acquitted before the trial began on the basis of no evidence.

It was reported that 200 cars were sold in the market on fake letter heads and signatures, although the standard operating procedure of Toyota Motors also required that the cars were delivered to the owners after proper identification and taking a photograph standing before the car delivered. However, no such procedure was followed and the cars were delivered to other people without verification.

They victims also said that the quota system of Toyota Company revealed that it offered less quota to region with higher demand and larger quota to area with lesser demand of cars, deliberately creating a shortage in order to charge a higher premium (ON). They urged the NAB chairman to take notice of this and transfer the case to Islamabad and order fresh inquiry into the matter to provide justice to the affectees.

Monday, 15 July, 2019

12 BUSINESS

Saudi oil giant Aramco to restart preparations for mega IPo RIYADH agencies

Saudi Arabia is restarting preparations for a potential initial public offering of oil giant Aramco, months after putting the planned listing on hold, people familiar with the matter said.

Aramco, the world’s most profitable company, recently held talks with a select group of investment banks to discuss potential roles on the offering, according to the people.

Detailed work on the IPO may pick up speed later this year or early next year, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. The revived IPO plan will still face significant hurdles, including the ability of the kingdom to achieve the $2 trillion valuation it’s been seeking for the company. Demand for the share sale would also likely be affected by lower oil prices as well as growing concerns among top institutional investors about pouring money into fossil-fuel companies that contribute to climate change. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is also keen to list Aramco in New York, but advisers are wary of opening up the company to the risks of U.S. litigation. Prince Mohammed has insisted that the IPO will still take place in 2020 or 2021. After working with banks for more than two years, Aramco formally put the IPO plans on hold last year and instead decided to buy a $69 billion stake in local chemical giant Saudi Basic Industries Corp. Aramco is planning to wait until the Sabic acquisition is completed before conducting the IPO, one of the people said. Aramco, officially known as Saudi Arabian Oil Co., was originally working with Evercore Inc., Moelis & Co., HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley on the planned share sale. It wasn’t immediately clear if all the banks had been approached again or if some new firms are also being considered. No final decisions have been made, and the timeline for the share sale could still change, the people said. The IPO project was first announced in 2016 as the cornerstone of the Vision 2030 plan to modernize the Saudi economy, with a target of listing in the second half of 2018. The kingdom wants to raise a record $100 billion from selling a 5% stake in Aramco, which would make it the biggest IPO in history and a windfall for any banks that win a role. The IPO was “never fully suspended,” though Aramco had been working on the Sabic acquisition and on raising capital, oil minister Khalid Al-Falih said following a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies in Vienna on Tuesday. “Now that all these issues have been cleared -- the Sabic transaction, the bond offering which was extremely successful -- we believe we are ready to start planning for the IPO of Aramco,” Al-Falih said, declining to comment on the time frame beyond saying that the company is aiming for a listing in 2020 to 2021. In April, Aramco sold $12 billion in bonds, which was one of the most oversubscribed debt offerings in history and the energy giant’s first major step onto the global financial stage. The strong demand for Aramco’s debut bond offering was so robust it allowed the energy giant to borrow at a lower yield than its sovereign parent. The debut also forced Aramco to share financial data and operational secrets with investors -information that had been held closely since the company’s nationalization in the late 1970s. The success of the deal was a contrast to the unease bankers showed toward the kingdom last year in the wake of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a former Saudi insider-turned-critic who had moved to the U.S. In June, a United Nations expert assigned to investigate the killing recommended probing Prince Mohammed’s possible involvement.

BoI FoR enhAncIng RegIonAl connectIvIty thRough economIc IntegRAtIon ISLAMABAD aPP

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HE Board of Investment (BOI) on Sunday said that with economic stability as its major goal, Pakistan is pursuing the policy of promoting stronger trade links with regional countries to increase its exports and slash the trade deficit.

“Trade with neighbouring countries is our priority, particularly with the energy-rich Central Asian Republics,” BOI Chairman Zubair Gilani told APP in an interview.

The chairman, who took charge of his office last week, is determined to steer the Board towards promoting regional trade and export-led growth besides discouraging red-tapism to encourage investment culture in the country.

Gilani was confident that the nine Special economic Zones (SEZs) being established along the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would offer huge opportunity for the foreign and local investors. “The opportunity is immense in terms of low-cost business facilities including cheaper energy, decade-long tax-free zones and provision of land on lease,” he added.

He said that the BOI was committed to ensuring facilities for starting new businesses, property registration and resolving insolvency for ease of doing business, especially for Small

BOARD’S CHAIRMAN SAYS GOVT WORKING TO IMPROVE ALL INDICATORS OF ‘EASE OF DOING BUSINESS’ and Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs) in Lahore and Karachi.

He said that the government was working to improve all the nine indicators of ‘Ease of Doing Business’ including starting a business, paying taxes, credit, resolving insolvency, construction permits, trading across borders, property registrations, electricity and enforcing contracts to be implemented to attract foreign investment.

Through integrated approach and the coordination between all the concerned institutions, including Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), a mechanism would be developed for improving ease of doing indicators, he said.

On World Bank’s report of ease of doing business, the BOI chairman said that the government on its own was making efforts to implement these indicators in small cities and towns to promote SME sector.

The chairman further said that the Board was

Mohmand Dam to be constructed at a cost of Rs291bn

fully concentrating to complete all the nine SEZS in stipulated time.

The SEZs have been established in all four provinces including Rashakai Economic Zone in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dhabeji in Sindh, Allama Iqbal Industrial City in Punjab and Bostan Indusrial Zone in Balochistan, he added.

He said that Rashakai had a strategic significance as it was closer to Afghanistan and central Asian countries. On the SEZs of Hattar and Information Technology Zone in Islamabad, he said that these two zones were on the priority list of the government and all the issues including land and electricity had been resolved in this regard.

Gilani said that the Board was strengthening its capacity to have specific desks and teams to deal with investors from different countries, as well as to work on important assignments, including all SEZs. He termed red-tapism a big issue which was hindering foreign investments, and stressed reforms to bring the BOI at par with international standards.

Moreover, he said that the utilisation of local fuel was the best choice for decreasing the current account deficit, suggesting that Thar coal energy should be utilized for this purpose.

He added that public-private partnership in industries would prove to be the best option to grow the local industry and attract foreign investor for joint ventures.

Ideagist increases technology investment to $100mn for Pm's entrepreneurship initiative ISLAMABAD aPP

ISLAMABAD aPP

The cost of constructing Mohmand Dam has been estimated to be Rs291 billion and it would take around five years to complete, official sources told APP. They said that Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) would provide 67 per cent fund for the project while remaining 37 per cent would be provided by the government. The multi-purpose dam will be ready before the flood season of 2024 as work is in full swing.

The local people had already transferred land for the project and it would help mitigate flooding in the area forever and also generate 800 MW cheap hydel electricity.

Sources said that the contract for civil and electro-mechanical works of Mohmand

Dam Project had already been awarded to a joint venture comprising the China Gezhouba Group of Companies (CGGC) of China and DESCON of Pakistan.

Mohmand Dam Hydropower Project would phenomenally contribute towards water, food and energy security of Pakistan. They also said that the dam would go a long way in stabilizing the national economy besides alleviating poverty and ushering in an era of development in the project area.

Mohmand Dam Hydropower Project is historic and unique in nature being constructed on River Swat in tribal district Mohmand of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On completion, the project will store about 1.2 million acre feet (MAF) of water, generate 800 megawatt (MW) of low-cost hydel electricity and help mitigate floods in Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera.

IdeaGist, the world’s largest incubator, announced to increase its technology investment from US$55 million to US$100 million for supporting Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision on entrepreneurship and innovation in emerging technologies. The additional amount of $45 million would be invested in incubating and accelerating new ventures in emerging technologies, said IdeaGist founder Hassan Syed in a statement issued here on Sunday. He congratulated the prime minister and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on the successful launch of Rs100 billion finance programme within months of its conception. The SBP on Saturday had launched a subsidised financing programme worth Rs100 billion for startups and small-to-medium enterprises to create employment and opportunities for others in the country.

Hassan said that it makes total commercial sense to invest strategically in Pakistan’s Innovation ecosystem and urged the prime minister and minister for science and technology to find creative ways of investing in emerging technology ventures and promote a culture of innovation.

IdeaGist has already launched an accelerator and incubator programme around seven key emerging technologies including 3D Printing, Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Vehicles, Smart Robots, Blockchain, Internet of Things and Augmented Reality.Being world’s largest digital incubator and the largest supporter of the prime minister’s start-up programme, IdeaGist is set to establish 590 incubation and accelerators across the country.

Businessmen call for free access to US markets to stabilise Pakistan’s bleak economy ISLAMABAD aPP

The Pakistani business community Sunday hoped that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s upcoming visit to the United States (US) would bring both the countries closer and will help in exploring new venues for mutual cooperation, besides seeking direct access to American markets on zero-rate duty to help stabilize Pakistan’s bleak economy.

In a press statement issued here on Sunday, Pak-US Business Council Chairman Iftikhar Ali Malik said that Pakistan needs immediate direct access to US mar-

kets and not aid as it has suffered colossal financial losses for playing a frontline role in the war on terror.

The US must support Pakistan to achieve its economic prosperity and selfreliance, he said. He added that joint efforts are needed to further cement the existing economic ties between the private sectors of Pakistan and the US. Malik also demanded that US President Donald Trump should announce packages of incentives for the quick revival of the Pakistani economy as the country had suffered economic losses in the war against terror.

Iftikhar Malik, who is also the vice

president of SAARC chamber, said that USA is the largest trading partner of Pakistan with a trade volume US$6.7 billion.

He added that Pakistan’s major exports to the United States are sports goods, surgical goods, leather and finished leather products, textile, cotton yarn, garments, carpets, and rice.

“Pakistan’s main imports from the US are electrical machinery, equipment, medicines, dry fruits, perfumes, coffee, mangoes, dates and other food items,” he said.

Malik also called for negotiation on bilateral investment treaty for promotion of investment. He suggested that both the countries should expand coop-

eration on the 2013 Joint Action Plan on Trade and Investment, as the US remains Pakistan’s significant source of foreign direct investment.

Moreover, the chairman said that the USA should remove the bottlenecks in bilateral investment treaty and efforts should now be made on signing a free trade agreement (FTA) at the earliest.

“It is now imperative that the USA should offer same package and incentives which it offered to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in textile exports, such as duty concessions and market access,” he said in the statement.

Commenting on the visa restrictions,

Malik said that these restrictions should be eased for the Pakistani businessmen and exporters and joint efforts were needed to further strengthen the existing economic ties between the private sectors of both the countries.

He also urged the need to restore relations to the level of pre 9/11 days, adding that good relations between the US and the Muslim Ummah would help restore confidence and attain world peace.

With South Asia becoming the hub of international economic activity, restoration of peace in the region is all the more necessary, he concluded.

Hareem Farooq breaks the stereotypical image of a dulhan in the newly released trailer of Heer Maan Ja and we can’t wait for the movie now!

Hareem seems to be breaking the image of all stereotypical brides with her peppy character.

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By Hina GHaffar

he megahit on-screen couple of hareem Farooq and Ali Rehman Khan are back together in IRK Films & Arif Lakhani Films’ upcoming movie ‘heer Maan Ja’, that’s all set to release worldwide this eid-ul-Azha.

Knowing that the movie is a project from the super talented makers of Siyaah, Janaan and Parchi, we already couldn’t wait to the see what this movie will bring us. But after watching the electrifying trailer of the movie that has just been released, we are now completely on edge! eid-ul-Azha can’t arrive sooner!

What a terrific visual! The trailer is a perfect glimpse of the epic roller-coaster ride heer Maan Ja is expected to be! You can find romance, you can see action, and you can also find yourself smiling at the hilarious scenes from the movie! Also…how adorable does hareem Farooq look in that

stunning orange and pink lehenga? We honestly can’t take our eyes off of her!

hareem seems to be breaking the image of all stereotypical brides with her peppy character in heer Maan Ja. heer is giving us the vibes of a runaway bride, however, that’s just a small part of the film. The first look of heer Maan Ja divulges hareem Farooq as the coolest bride ever. has anyone noticed the silver sneakers she’s donning underneath? hareem’s character looks very different from eman in Parchi! heer seems like a very bubbly and lively character, standing next to a rather nervous-looking Kabir. heer Maan Ja is going to be a romantic comedy with a punch of laughter, emotions, thrill and action sequences. Featuring a stellar cast, exceptionally talented directors and a brilliant production team, heer Maan Ja is going to fill our Bari eid with a whole lot of entertainment.

‘A love story that has a past’ – and we wonder what past is that? The trailer makes us question quite a lot of things; why were they separated to begin with? Why does heer look like a run-away bride? Why is Kabir asking her for forgiveness?

We can’t wait for the Bari eid to find out now!

The trailer is a perfect glimpse of the epic roller-coaster ride Heer Maan Ja is expected to be!

PEPSI BATTLE OF THE BANDS SEASON 4, EPISODE 3: READY, SET, BATTLE!

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he third episode of Pepsi Battle of the Bands season four opened with host hina Altaf introducing DJ and actor Ali Safina on stage to join her as the show’s co-host. The two laid down the format of the upcoming battle, explaining to the audience that the 12 bands had been divided into two groups. Six of the bands will battle in one-on-one competition in this episode, and the rest will fight it out in the next.

But before the battle begins, Strings performed a song ‘Chal Para’ from their latest album 30, which celebrated the band’s three decades as a unit. After an inspiring performance tracing the journey back to the early days of the Pakistani music industry, the battlefield was set.

The proverbial war paint was applied. And the battle cries were heard. And the bands were all set to step into the battleground.

The first round dictated that the bands perform their original songs, keeping in tradition with the Pepsi platform’s motive to promote original music. The first face-off was between Skehlaaj and e-Sharp. e-Sharp began the round, performing ‘Awaami Mulazim’ in their signature devil-may-care attitude fused with thought-provoking lyrics. Skehlaaj followed it up with a banger titled ‘Motion’, fusing heavy riffs and husky vocals. however, the jury eventually decided in favor of e-Sharp, citing the creative and vocal limitations in Skehlaaj’s music.

Next up was Neon vs Mousiqa.

Neon made the first move, performing their original ‘haddi Daal Do’. In fact, this was also the band’s first performance in front of

a live audience. Mousiqa returned fire with ‘Dhudun Kya’. The jury pointed out flaws in both the band’s performances. Fawad Khan said he didn’t feel anything, pointing out the weak lyrics. While the judges appreciated the song structure of Mousiqa’s original, they eventually made the decision in favour of Neon. It looks like their light hasn’t dimmed yet and they move on to the next round.

The final showdown of the episode was between Star Zone and Aarish. Star Zone struck first with their soulful ‘Taaron ki Roshni’ while Aarish answered the strike with ‘Awaaz’. Perhaps the most difficult one-on-one battle so far, Aarish vs Star Zone left the judges wishing they could send both the bands into the next round. however, it had to be only one and that was Aarish.

Further, Bilal Maqsood gave a brand new Ibanez guitar, signed by all judges, to who they considered the best performer of the episode: e-Sharp.

Lastly, the jury exercised their power to save one out of the three bands in the danger zone: Skehlaaj, Mousiqa and Star Zone. Faisal Kapadia told all bands not to lose hope and continue their journey. The jury made the collective decision to save Star Zone to end the episode.

Aries: Your spontaneity is often the ticket to fun, but the consequences can be costly.

HOLLYWOOD BOLLYWOOD

Taurus: You may be overly confident that your personal strategy to soothe the troubled soul of a friend is the only possible answer.

Gemini: Public displays of affection may not be your cup of tea.

However, due to extenuating circumstances, you’re about to make an exception to your own rule.

Ed Sheeran confirms marriage with First Ghostbusters 2020 childhood sweetheart Cherry Seaborn Photo Released Popular British singer/songwriter ed Sheeran has finally confirmed he is married to his childhood friend and long-time girlfriend Cherry Seaborn, whom he first met at school at the age of 11.

Sheeran, 28, confirmed the news in a Youtube video interview on Friday, the day he released his new album titled 'No.6 Collaborations Project'.

British media had reported earlier this year that Sheeran tied the knot with accountant Seaborn, 27, in December at their home in Suffolk at a small, secret wedding ceremony in which only close family and friends were invited. But neither Sheeran nor Seaborn had publicly confirmed the news—until today.

In the video, then interviewer asks him about some personal lyrics on the song 'Remember the Name', Sheeran answers: "Watch how the lyrics in the songs might get twisted / My wife wears red, but looks better without the lipstick."

Ghostbusters 2020 director Jason Reitman on Friday revealed the first look at the new cast in a photo snapped as filming gets underway in Calgary, Alberta.

“The family’s all here,” Reitman wrote when tweeting a photo of stars Mckenna Grace (Captain Marvel), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Carrie Coon (Avengers: Infinity War). Also pictured is Reitman and father Ivan Reitman, director of 1984’s Ghostbusters and 1989’s Ghostbusters II. The stars play a small town family who have an undefined connection to the original Ghostbusters.

“This is a new movie about a new set of characters, it takes place in a new place, a new location,” Reitman said at Ghostbusters Fan Fest in June, where he revealed he first envisioned the project when dreaming up the 12-year-old girl character eventually played by Grace.

CMYK

Cancer: An eccentric person crosses your path now, revealing a whole new way of seeing the world.

Leo: Take stock of the people in your life who are the most influential to you, and compile a list of contacts based on those conclusions.

Virgo: A lovely surprise is in store for you today. Someone who has resisted your efforts in the past may suddenly come around to your way of thinking.

Libra: Your mind might be racing with radically brilliant ideas which you believe could make a great foundation for a business plan.

Scorpio: The law of attraction is reverberating in your thoughts now, and it’s a clear directive.

Sagittarius: A family member’s insistence that you need to spend money to make money isn’t ringing true for you today.

Capricorn: Showing your love rather than talking about it may be more your style, but someone you care for very deeply needs your reassurance now.

Aquarius: Your famous independent streak strikes today.

Pisces: Your senses are particularly keen today, making you hypersensitive to your surroundings.

Monday, 15 July, 2019

14 SPORTS

HamiltoN takES rEcord SixtH BritiSH GP wiN SiLVErSTonE

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Agencies

ORMULA One champion Lewis Hamilton hailed his home fans after celebrating a record sixth British Grand Prix win on Sunday and stretching his lead over luckless Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas to 39 points.

Bottas, on pole position, finished a distant second after a safety car period turned the race decisively in Hamilton’s favor by handing the home favorite a free pitstop in a thrilling race. It was Hamilton’s seventh win in 10 races this season and 80th of his career.

The five-times world champion, now on 223 points to Bottas’s 184, also banged in a late fastest lap, on a set of tyres that had already done 30 laps, to se-

cure an extra point. “Ah, what a day! I love you Silverstone,” Hamilton exclaimed over the radio after rapper Stormzy had waved the chequered flag, with Bottas 24.9 seconds behind.

Ferrari’s Monegasque Charles Leclerc was third after team mate Sebastian Vettel rammed into the back of Red Bull’s young charger Max Verstappen.

Vettel, who had been third but finished 16th, had to pit for a new front wing and collected a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision.Verstappen ended up fifth and behind his French team mate Pierre Gasly. Victory lifted Hamilton clear of Frenchman Alain Prost and the late Jim Clark, who both won five times in Britain, and the champion pulled over to collect a Union Jack from a marshal on his cooldown lap. “I can’t tell you how proud I am to be here today,” declared Hamilton, inter-

viewed by 2009 champion Jenson Button after parking up. “So many British flags out there and I could see them lap after lap.

Every year I’ve been coming I’ve seen it and noticed it and appreciated it. You’d think you’d get used to something like that but I tell you, it feels like the first time.” saFETY Car: Hamilton and Bottas battled for the first few laps, with the Finn losing and retaking the lead, but the decisive moment came when Italian Antonio

Giovinazzi spun his Alfa Romeo into the gravel on lap 20. Bottas had pitted three laps earlier but Hamilton had yet to come in for fresh tyres and was able to take advantage and pit without losing position for hard tyres that took him to the finish.

Behind the Mercedes pair, 21-yearolds Leclerc and Verstappen kept the crowd enthralled with a wheel-to-wheel reprise of their duel in Austria two weeks earlier. Time and again they battled for po-

sition, their positioning inch perfect and with Leclerc being every bit as tough on Verstappen as the Dutch driver had been to him at sunny Spielberg. Vettel, who had pitted with Hamilton when the safety car was deployed, then rammed into the back of the Red Bull on lap 38 after Verstappen had gone past around the outside of Stowe corner. “He passed me and then ran a bit wide, which gave me the chance to come back,” said the German.

Africa Cup of Nations win would top Champions League title, says Senegal’s Mané Cairo Agencies

Neymar renews war of words with PSG, hailing Barcelona ‘remontada’ Paris: Neymar fired another shot in his battle with Paris Saint-Germain after saying his favourite football memory is Barcelona's incredible 2017 comeback win over PSG, which Neymar helped inflict on his current club. Asked by online sports channel Oh My Goal about his best changing room memory, the world's most expensive player chose the aftermath of that win. "We all went crazy afterwards. I think it was the best possible feeling for all of us," the Brazilian star said in the interview, which was posted on Saturday.

Neymar was speaking in Sao Paulo ahead of his belated return to the club on Monday, after insisting last week that he had prior agreement from PSG to stay in Brazil to help his foundation, the Neymar Institute. His comments are set to further strain his relationship with the club. He wants out of the Parc des Princes and would prefer a return to Barca, but is struggling to find suitors due to the 222 million euros ($252 million) the capital splashed out to take him away from Barcelona two years ago. The chances of him rejoining the Catalan giants are further complicated by Antoine Griezmann's arrival from Atletico Madrid for 120 million euros. When Neymar missed last Monday's first training session PSG issued a statement declaring they would take "appropriate action" against the star. Agencies

Formula E set for title showdown in New York The all-electric Formula E title will be decided in Sunday’s season finale after series leader JeanEric Vergne failed to score in the first of two races in New York. The French reigning champion, driving for the Techeetah team, heads into the last race 22 points clear of Audi’s Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi and 25 ahead of Jaguar’s New Zealander Mitch Evans. Sebastien Buemi, winner of Saturday’s eventful race from pole position for Nissan to take his first victory in more than two years, is 26 points behind Vergne and the fourth driver still in mathematical contention. Vergne, still favorite to become the series’ first multiple champion, collided with Brazilian Felipe Massa on the last lap of the Brooklyn street circuit on Saturday. He had earlier being hit from behind by German team mate Andre Lotterer, causing a puncture. Agencies

Senegal star Sadio Mané says helping Liverpool win the Champions League was special, but his "absolute dream" is parading the Africa Cup of Nations trophy through the streets of Dakar.

The west African team known as the Teranga Lions are two victories away from fulfilling the dream of their 27-year-old talisman, starting with a semi-final against Tunisia in Egypt Sunday. "Going to Dakar with the trophy would be extraordinary," said Mané, who shared the Premier League Golden Boot award last season with fellow Africans Mohamed Salah and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

"My absolute dream is to help Senegal win the Africa Cup of Nations – that would surpass even what I achieved with Liverpool in the Champions League. Mané has played slightly in the shadow of Mohamed Salah at Liverpool, and this tournament in Egypt was meant to be all about Salah.

But with Egypt gone and Senegal in the semifinals, Mané has his chance to be

the centre of attention and carry his nation to glory. Senegal have been waiting 54 years for an African title. They played in 14 tournaments since 1965, more than any other team, but without winning the trophy.

"We have to accept being among the favourites and many people are assuming we will play Algeria in the final," said Mané, the scorer of three goals so far in the tournament. "All four semi-finalists are quality sides and all can go on and win this competition.

The champions will be the team that

wants the trophy the most," he added.

TUNisiaN sLOW sTarTErs: Senegal, Africa’s highest-ranking squad, will be taking on secondplaced Tunisia for a place in Friday’s final. It is the first time the Eagles of Carthage have qualified for the penultimate stage since hosting and winning the 2004 edition. Senegal lost narrowly to hosts Egypt two years later, and that was the last time they featured in a Cup of Nations semi-final.

The Senegalese have impressed more than the Tunisians en route to the last four with Napoli centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly and Mané playing leading roles in a four win-one loss run.

Tunisia drew four consecutive matches before taking advantage of jaded giant-killers Madagascar to win 3-0 with captain Youssef Msakni among the goal-scorers. Midfielder Ferjani Sassi, who also found the net against Madagascar, said Tunisia had "gained momentum" since their lackluster start to the tournament.

The team's gaining support, too, with chartered planes making their way across the top of the African continent

carrying fans from Tunis to Cairo.

Three hours after Senegal and Tunisia kick off in the expected mid-afternoon Cairo heat, Algeria face Nigeria 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) away in the other semi-final. An eight-match Cup of Nations rivalry dating from the 1980 final won convincingly by hosts Nigeria continues with Algeria the slightest of favourites to reach the final.

After four consecutive victories – three of them without breaking a sweat – the Algerian Desert Foxes needed a penalty shootout to eliminate the Ivory Coast in the quarter-finals.

Algeria lost outstanding young rightback Youcef Atal to a shoulder injury in that match and coach Djamel Belmadi fears he will miss the rest of the tournament. Nigeria’s Super Eagles recovered well from a shock group defeat by Madagascar to topple defending champions Cameroon and South Africa, who had stunned pre-tournament favourites Egypt. "What I admire about my team is that they never give up. This refusal to accept defeat can take us a very long way," said coach Gernot Rohr.

Equality is my cause: Serena puts legend King in her place London Agencies

Serena Williams delivered a stinging rebuke to fellow tennis legend Billie Jean King who said she should focus on tennis and stop behaving like a celebrity and fighting for equality.King—who was no stranger to fighting for equality for women players when she was starting out—may feel justified after Williams was played off the court in the Wimbledon final on Saturday.She was beaten 6-2, 6-2 in less than an hour by Simona Halep, who had lost on nine of the 10 previous occasions she had played the American.King had said that running a business, looking after a child and battling for equality for women and ethnic minorities, could largely all be dealt with by her staff while she focussed on tennis for a couple of years.

The 75-year-old told the BBC earlier in the tournament that Williams should give up being a celebrity for a year: “Just stop all this insanity.”

Williams, though, hit back on Saturday.“The day I stop fighting for equality and for people that look like you and me will be the day I’m in my grave,” said the 37-year-old in response to the question.King later replied, telling Serena via Twitter: “I would never ask anyone to stop fighting for equality. “In everything she does, Serena shines a light on what all of us must fight for in order to achieve equality for all.”On court, Saturday’s blowout was the third time in the past year that Williams has failed to take the chance to equal Australian Margaret Court’s Grand Slam titles record of 24 -- her stated goal on returning from giving birth to her daughter Olympia.

Losses to Angelique Kerber in last year’s Wimbledon final and then a meltdown in the US Open

final against Naomi Osaka, after which she says she went to see a therapist, were painful enough.Never-

CMYK

theless, Williams refused to accept that the record may elude her. “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, I don’t really think about it. I just go out there and play, see what happens.

“That’s kind of how I’ve been in my whole career. You know, I never thought about time in general.“I feel like I’m just really on this journey of just doing the best that I can, playing the best that I can when I can.”

WaKE UP! Her leaden-footed and lethargic performance—she only really got fired up in the first game of the second set yelling at the ground when she won a point -- provoked one spectator to cry out: “Wake up Serena!”“Actually I did hear it,” she said. “I definitely wasn’t asleep. But I did hear it.

“Actually sometimes the comments help me, whether they’re good or bad. It didn’t bother me at all.”Williams, who had her close friend Meghan, Duchess of Sussex cheering her on from the Royal Box, said she did not know if as age advances she is getting more tense about winning another Grand Slam.“Now, you know, in my 20s—I’m always expected to win, but it’s a different circumstance for me,” she said.

“Seems like every Grand Slam final I’m in recently has been an unbelievable effort to get there.“It would be interesting to see how it would be under different circumstances.“The only thing I can say is today I think my opponent played unbelievable.”However, if anyone thought that such a humbling defeat might prompt thoughts of retirement Williams had a message for them.“I feel like I’m still incredibly competitive or else I wouldn’t really be out here,”“For the most part, I feel like I’m on the right track.“I’m just going in the right direction in terms of getting back to where I need to be.

Monday, 15 July, 2019

djokovic BEatS FEdErEr to wiN FiFtH wimBlEdoN titlE

SPORTS 15

London

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Agencies

HE 32-year-old Serbian saved two match points as he took his Grand Slam tally to 16, four off Federer's overall record.

Djokovic's victory extends to 11 successive Grand Slams won by the big three, himself, Federer and Rafael Nadal.At 4 hours and 57 minutes it was the longest final at Wimbledon.Stan Wawrinka was the last player outside the trio to win a Grand Slam, the 2016 US Open beating Djokovic.The last player to win a Grand Slam aged under 30 was Andy Murray, who won the 2016 Wimbledon title aged 29.Earlier, Djokovic was one set away from victory, leading 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4).

Federer had yet to face a break point in the match and had a set point with Djokovic serving at 5-4 in the third, but sent a backhand return wide.In the tiebreaker, Djokovic jumped out to a 5-1 lead and clinched the set when Federer netted a forehand.Federer was looking for his ninth Wimbledon title, while Djokovic was after his fifth.

kallis, katich part ways with kolkata knight riders nEw dELhi Agencies

This was the pair’s third meeting in the title match at the All England Club. Djokovic won both of those previous matchups, in 2014 and 2015.Federer, who is 37, was

going for his 21st Grand Slam trophy overall on Sunday, while the 32-year-old Djokovic was playing for his 16th.They have played each other 47 times already, with

Djokovic previously holding a 2522 head-to-head edge. This was also their 16th showdown at a major tournament — the most between any two men in the professional era.

World Cup 2019: England’s road to the final London Agencies

England came into the World Cup as outright favourites to win the title. In the years after their 2015 World Cup debacle, England's approach to ODI cricket went through a complete overhaul. Their all or nothing batting style helped them notch up four 400-plus totals and at the World Cup, their bowlers have also stepped up but they have faced some difficulty in reaching the knockout stage.IANS takes a look at the hosts journey to the final, where they will take on New Zealand at the Lord's on Sunday vs south africa (May 30) result: England won by 104 runs: The tournament opener was also one in which England sent a clear signal to the rest of the teams. They got partnerships all the way down the order batting first with Ben Stokes top scoring with 89. Stokes also took two wickets and a blinder of a catch on the ropes to dismiss Andile Phehlukwayo. England had made 311/8 and in response, South Africa were all out for 207. vs Pakistan (June 3) result: Pakistan won by 14 runs: What was expected to a stroll in the park ended up being a sensational defeat. Pakistan batted first and got strong partnerships from their top five. They set up a total of 349. England got centuries from Joe Root and Jos Buttler but the rest hardly scored as they were eventually restricted to 334/9. vs Bangladesh (June 8) result: England won by 106 runs: Jason Roy smashed 153 off 121 balls to help England reach 386/6 in their 50 overs. It did look like they would make well over 400 when Roy was going big guns in the middle overs. Shakib Al Hasan scored 121 but Bangladesh managed to reach only 280, thus sealing the win for England.

vs West indies (June 14) result: England won by 8 wickets: What was expected to be a run-fest turned out to be a bit of a farce. Joffra Archer and Mark Wood took three wickets apiece as West Indies were blown away for 213. However, Roy was injured while fielding which affected England later on. Joe Root opened with Jonny Bairstow and scored an unbeaten hundred as England wrapped up the chase in 33 overs. vs afghanistan (June 25) result: England won by 150 runs: Captain Eoin Morgan smashed a record 17 sixes as he raced to 148 off just 71 balls. Rashid Khan ended with 110/0 in 9 overs, the most expensive figures for a bowler in ODI history. The chase was a farcical one that ended with Afghanistan labouring to 247/8 in 50 overs. vs sri Lanka (June 21) result: sri Lanka won by 20 runs: This match sparked life into the group stages and is one of the main reasons why it didn't end with a series of dead rubbers. Sri Lanka batted first and Angelo Mathews' 85 helped them reach 232/9. The mighty England batsmen were bamboozled by Lasith Malinga, who first got the wickets of Bairstow, James Vince and Morgan before snaffling Buttler later in the chase. Sri Lanka managed to defend the total quite comfortably in the end, dismissing England for 212. Suddenly the hosts' chances of making the knockouts were in jeopardy. vs australia (June 25) result: australia won by 64 runs: Jason Roy was not available for the second match in succession and England's need for an opener of his calibre was seen once again. Australia, on the other hand, got a strong opening partnership with David Warner and skipper Aaron Finch putting up 123 runs. Finch went on to score 100 as Australia scored 285/7. Jason Behrendorff and Mitchell

Starc then blew away the England top order within the first 14 overs. England were kept in the game by the tenacious Ben Stokes and it took a yorker that is a good contender for ball of the tournament from Starc to dismiss him. Starc took four wickets while Behrendorff scalped five. vs india (June 30) result: England won by 31 runs: Jason Roy returned and England went back to winning ways.

Roy and Bairstow put up an opening stand of 160 runs as the latter scored 111. Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler then pummelled the Indian bowlers towards the end of the innings as England posted 337/7. England then saw out a century by Rohit Sharma and restricted India to 306/5. vs New Zealand (July 3) result: England won by 119 runs: Another sublime performance from the openers set the platform for England to beat their eventual title clash opponents by a comprehensive margin. England's top two contributed 194 runs while Morgan's cameo helped push the total to 305/8. England's five-pronged pace attack, with able assistance from Adil Rashid, then blew New Zealand out of the park as the Kiwis were all out for 186. semifinal vs australia (July 11) result: England won by 8 wickets: England's rematch against Australia was in the semifinal and it couldn't be more different from their previous encounter than it was in this case. Australia batted first and Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid and Joffra Archer ensured that they were all out for 223. Roy played a blinder of an innings at the top of the order and would have made a century had it not been for an erroneous caught behind decision that went against him. His 124-run opening stand with Bairstow effectively killed the match as England reached the World Cup final for the first since 1992 by chasing down the target in 32.1 overs.

Kolkata Knight Riders' IPL campaign next year will have a new think-tank after the management announced changes to the franchise's coaching set-up. The two-time IPL champions parted ways with head coach Jacques Kallis and assistant coach Simon Katich on Sunday, the former ending a nine-year relationship - as player and then coach - with the franchise.Kallis was appointed Knight Riders' head coach in October 2015, taking over from Trevor Bayliss, the current England coach. Since his appointment, Knight Riders made three consecutive playoff appearances but failed to make the cut in 2019. Under Kallis and Katich, Knight Riders won 32 of their 61 games - a win-percentage of just over 50. In IPL 2019, the side finished fifth, losing out on playoff qualification based on net run-rate, after a six-match losing streak midway through the season. Katich was appointed around the same time as Kallis, and the former Australia batsman also coached the team's Caribbean Premier League franchise, Trinbago Knight Riders, helping them win back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018. The tenure with Trinbago also comes to an end for Katich, who will now coach the Manchester Originals team in the inaugural season of The Hundred. Kallis, however, could remain a part of the Knight Riders brand, according to team CEO Venky Mysore. "Jacques Kallis has been an integral part of the KKR family and will always remain so," Mysore said, while announcing the changes. "We will be exploring ways of working with Jacques as we pursue our vision of establishing the Knight Riders brand as a global brand." Kallis, too, released a statement following the decision. "After nine fantastic years with KKR since 2011, as a player, mentor and Head Coach, it's time to explore new opportunities," he said. "I would to like to thank the owners, management and fellow players for many happy memories." Knight Riders are yet to announce replacements for the two coaches.

Scantily clad pitch invader foiled at cricket world cup final London Agencies

A pitch invader's attempt to gatecrash the Cricket World Cup final to advertise an adult website was cut short by onthe-ball stewards at Lord's on Sunday. YouTube prankster Vitaly Zdorovetskiy's girlfriend Kinsey Wolanski went viral after interrupting the Champions League final last month with the name of the site emblazoned across a swimsuit.

Zdorovetskiy's mother, Elena Vulitsky, tried a similar stunt at the "home of cricket" during the match between England and New Zealand on Sunday but quick-thinking stewards grabbed her. "My mom is crazy!!!!!" tweeted Zdorovetskiy, alongside a picture of Vulitsky's aborted attempt. According to Wolanski, an attempt to invade the pitch during the Copa America final earlier this month briefly landed her and Zdorovetskiy in a Brazilian jail.

Australia’s Maxwell, Stoinis out of Ashes calculations MELbournE Agencies

All-rounders Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis have been excluded from a 25-player squad for an intra-Australia clash that will go a long way to deciding the makeup of Tim Paine’s Ashes side.Both Maxwell and Stoinis had a disappointing World Cup during Australia’s run to the semi-finals in England, with Maxwell wearing plenty of criticism for his repeated failures with the bat.

The extended squad has seven players from the World Cup campaign, 15 from the Australia A squad touring England and three players - pace bowler Peter Siddle, and batsmen Cameron Bancroft and Marnus Labuschagne - who have been playing in the English county circuit.Players from the squad will be picked in an Australia versus Australia

A clash from July 23-26 in Southampton, with Ashes spots on the line ahead of the first test against England on Aug. 1 in Edgbaston.

Former captain Steve Smith and openers David Warner and Bancroft have all been included, the first time the three have been selected in an Australia squad since serving lengthy bans for the ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town in March 2018.“Cameron (Bancroft) was making a fair amount of headway when he played test cricket last for Australia and that was in South Africa,” said national selector Trevor Hohns.“He’s playing with Durham in the County Championship ... He’s scoring runs on a pretty regular basis.”

Alex Carey is one of three wicketkeepers picked alongside test captain Paine and Tasmania’s Matt Wade following a solid World Cup behind the stumps.Carey scored

375 runs at 62.50 and racked up 20 dismissals. “He’s proving himself to be a very smart cricketer,” said Hohns.“Batting-wise he was very, very good ... We’ve been very impressed with his glovework for some time now so he’s progressing nicely.”Usman Khawaja’s participation in the trial match is uncertain as he races to recover from a hamstring strain sustained during the World Cup loss to South Africa. sqUad: Cameron Bancroft, Jackson Bird, Joe Burns, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Jon Holland, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Michael Neser, Tim Paine, Kurtis Patterson, James Pattinson, Will Pucovski, Peter Siddle, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Chris Tremain, Matthew Wade, David Warner

CMYK

Monday, 15 July, 2019

NEWS

PML-N to sue Daily Mail for publishing ‘planted’ story ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

E

SpOrTS DeSK

NGLAND won the men’s World Cup for the first time as they beat New Zealand following a dramatic suddendeath super over in one of the most thrilling matches in cricket history.

Both sides scored 241 from their 50 overs, meaning they had to bat again for six balls each. England scored 15 in their super over. With two runs needed from their final ball to win, New Zealand batsman Martin Guptill scored one before being run out. That meant the super over scores were tied, and England won the title after a wait of 44 years on virtue of having scored more boundaries in the match.

The barely believable final at Lord’s was tied twice. That it even got to that stage was astonishing in itself, and the first tied World Cup final was played in front of an electric and ecstatic home of cricket. England required 15 from the last over of the regular match. Ben Stokes hit a six and benefited when a throw from the deep hit him and went for four overthrows.

He could not get the two needed from the last ball - Mark Wood was run out coming back for the second - but

ended 84 not out and joined Jos Buttler land still needed 46 from 31 balls. It was at this point that Stokes, the man who at the crease for the super over.

They plundered 15, roared on by an was hit for four sixes in the final over in febrile crowd that belted out Sweet Car- England’s 2016 World T20 final defeat oline in the change of innings. In the and was cleared of affray 11 months ago, New Zealand reply, Jimmy Neesham hit took control. After Liam Plunkett was held at long-off in Neesham’s 49th Jofra Archer’s third ball for six, then over, Trent Boult carried the scrambled to leave Guptill ball over the boundary with two to get. As for a Stokes six beJason Roy’s throw NEW ZEALAND fore Archer was came in from deep bowled. That left mid-wicket, a 241/8 (50.0) 15 needed from diving Guptill ENGLAND 241-ALL OUT (50.0) Boult’s final was short as set. Two dots Buttler reMATCH TIED (ENGLAND WON followed moved the SUPER OVER ON BOUNDARY COUNT) were by a heave bails, sending over deep midEngland and PLAYER OF THE MATCH wicket, then the whole of came the outraLord’s into BEN STOKE geous moment of delirious celebraSPLAYER OF THE SERIES fortune. Diving for tions. Chasing 242, his ground to comEngland were all but KANE WILLIAMSON plete a second run, out of the game at 86-4, Stokes was inadvertently squeezed by New Zealand’s struck by the throw and deflected skilful bowling, sharp fielding and smart tactics. Gradually, they were the ball for four overthrows to make dragged back into contention by Stokes six in total. With three runs needed and Buttler through patience, calmness from two balls, Adil Rashid was run and a little fortune. Buttler was the more out coming back for a second. When fluent, scooping and driving, but when Wood suffered the same fate from the he was caught at deep point for 59, Eng- final ball, the match was tied.

MQM founder gets extension in bail

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Sunday refuted the report of British tabloid The Daily Mail which alleged that the Shehbaz Sharif and his family had embezzled millions from aid money and them to the United Kingdom (UK).

Addressing a press conference, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb termed the report “baseless” and “planted” by the government. She alleged that the report was a story planted by the Pakistani government.

“The reporter came to Pakistan upon Prime Minister Imran Khan’s direction,” she said.

Showing pictures of the reporter’s meeting with the premier, she said that Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar had met the reporter in Islamabad while PM Imran met him at Bani Gala. She further alleged that the incumbent government is “constantly lying to the nation every day”.

Speaking about the contents of the re-

port, Marriyum said that the first five paragraphs of the report acknowledge PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif’s performance as the Punjab chief minister. She also said that the report does not quote any official documents of the British government, adding that it seems like a “conspiracy”. She further alleged that the real case should be about the “18 fake accounts of PM Imran” and the “money laundering of billions by him”.

Meanwhile, Shehbaz on Sunday said that he would take legal action against the British newspaper for publishing a “fabricated and misleading” story.

He also alleged that the story had been published on “behest of PM Imran and his aide Shahzad Akbar” and he would imitate legal proceedings against them as well.

“Have decided to file law suit against Daily Mail. The fabricated and misleading story was published at the behest of Imran Khan and Shahzad Akbar. We will also launch legal proceedings against them. Btw IK has yet to respond to three such cases I filed against him for defamation,” he said in a tweet.

Firdous says Shehbaz should quit politics after Daily Mail’s claims SIALKOT APP

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan has said that a leading British tabloid Daily Mail has also exposed “Shehbaz Sharif’s [alleged] massive corruption and money-laundering”. Talking to the media-persons on Sunday, she said the Sharif family, especially Shehbaz Sharif, plundered 500 million pounds relief aid donated by Britain for the earthquake victims in Pakistan. She said that Shehbaz also deceived the British people as well as the Pakistani nation through alleged massive money-laundering.

She said that the shameful act by the ‘Corruption King’ Shehbaz Sharif and his gang brought a bad name to Pakistan globally and created a bad impression of the country in the comity of nations as well.

She said that all “national institutions in Pakistan would now probe” the matter of Shehbaz Sharif’s reported corruption, pointed out by the British daily. She said: “It is a truth published by the leading British newspaper, and not an act of socalled revenge by the Pakistan government against Shehbaz Sharif and his gang.” She said that the Sharif family also weakened the national institutions for their vested interests and to protect their local and international corruption.

Kartarpur corridor: ‘80pc and beyond agreed upon’

LONDON: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) founder Altaf Hussain has been bailed till September in the incitement speech inquiry pending further inquiries.

According to media reports, the MQM appeared at a police station on the scheduled date of return to answer his bail and was asked to return at a date in the middle of September. The police said the investigation into the alleged incitement speeches continues and that the veteran politician was being investigated on suspicion of intentionally encouraging or assisting offences contrary to Section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. Altaf Hussain was arrested by Scotland Yard in an early morning raid on Tuesday 11 June. He was taken to a south London police station and kept there for just under 36 hours. In a statement, the police said Hussain had been arrested in relation to the hate speech of 2016 in which he had urged his followers to take the law into their own hands during a speech made from London to Karachi. STAFF REPORT

PM forms commission to fix responsibility in Reko Diq case COnTInueD frOM pAge 01 PAKISTAN PAYS LEGAL TEAM Rs1BN: Meanwhile, the government paid ex-British prime minister Tony Blair’s wife Rs1billion on Saturday after a massive $5.976bn fine was announced by ICSID. After former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry suspended the Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) contract, they had approached the WB. Thus, Barrister Cherie Blair and her team were hired at an exuberant cost of Rs1bn to fight the case for Pakistan. Furthermore, it was nuclear physicist Samar Mubarakmand’s statement that determined the extremely high fine awarded to Pakistan. The international tribunal, based on Mubarakmand’s statement, said Reko Diq has assets worth $131 billion and Pakistan can extract gold and other items worth $2.5 billion in order to repay the amount. Earlier, TCC management, the complainant whose contract was terminated, had claimed $11.43 billion in damages. In 2012, TCC filed claims for international arbitration before the ICSID of the World Bank after the Balochistan government turned down a leasing request from the company.

ISLAMABAD INP

Foreign Office spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal said over 80 per cent has been agreed upon between the two sides.

He made these comments following the second round of talks between India and Pakistan regarding the Kartarpur corridor on Sunday at Wagah.

While speaking to media following the talks, the spokesperson said: “In my opinion, around […] 80 per cent and beyond has been agreed upon.” However, he said that he could not share details until a final agreement was reached. Dr Faisal added that another round of talks would be held to address the approximately 20 per cent unresolved factors. How-

ever, he did not provide any details of the meeting.

Following the talks, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that the Indian side has asked Pakistan to permit 5,000 pilgrims to visit Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib using the corridor daily and that an additional 10,000 pilgrims be allowed to visit on special occasions, an India news agency reported.

Additionally, they requested that Persons of Indian Origin with OCI [Overseas Citizenship of India] cards be permitted to use the Kartarpur Corridor facility. The ministry also shared details of a bridge that they were building and “urged” Pakistan to build a bridge on their side. “Pending construction of [a] bridge over old Ravi creek by Pakistan on their territory, India offered to make interim arrangements for making corridor operational in

November 2019, given [the] historic importance of 550th Birth Anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji.” Earlier, in a post shared on Twitter, Faisal confirmed that the talks had begun. India had earlier pulled out of the second bilateral meeting scheduled for April 2 after the two sides had met at Attari on March 14. Dr Faisal led the Pakistani side while an eight-member Indian delegation was led by SL Das. Speaking to journalists, Dr Faisal said that under the directives of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan is “fully committed to materialising” the Kartarpur Corridor into a reality for the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak in November this year. The FO spokesperson said that 70 per cent of the Gurdwara complex, terminal building and road had been completed.

Heavy rain leaves scores dead in Nepal, India, Bangladesh Flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rainfall have killed at least 50 people in Nepal in the past few days, with more deaths reported across the border in India and Bangladesh, officials said on Sunday.

At least 30 other people were missing in Nepal, either swept away by swollen rivers or buried by mudslides since monsoon rains began pounding the region on Friday, Nepal’s National Emergency Operation Centre said. The centre said nine key highways remained blocked by floods and mudslides, and attempts were underway to open them up for traffic. Among them is the East-West Highway, which connects Nepal’s southern districts.

Other roads were being cleared by thousands of police and soldiers.

Continuing bad weather has grounded helicopter rescue flights. Workers were also repairing fallen communication towers to restore phone lines.

Thirty people have been treated for injuries and more than 1,100 oth-

ers rescued from flooded areas.

More than 10,000 are estimated to have been displaced. Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology warned of more troubles ahead for the southern region near the main rivers, urging people to keep watch on rising water levels and move to

higher ground when needed.

Rain-triggered floods, mudslides and lightning have left a trail of destruction in other parts of South Asia.

In Bangladesh, at least a dozen people, mostly farmers in rural areas, have been killed by lightning since Saturday as monsoon rains continue

Published by Arif Nizami at Qandeel Printing Press, 4 Queens Road, Lahore. Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965. Email: newsroom@pakistantoday.com.pk

CMYK

to batter parts of the low-lying country, according to officials and news reports. Water Development Board official Rabiul Islam said about 40,000 people have been affected, mostly due to their homes being submerged underwater. Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 160 million people with more than 130 rivers, is prone to monsoon floods because of overflowing rivers and the heavy onrush of water from upstream India.

Officials in northeastern India said at least 14 people were killed and over a million affected by flooding, state official Kumar Sanjay Krishna said. Six deaths were reported in neighbouring Arunachal state.

Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, home to the endangered one-horn rhinoceros, has been flooded. Floods and mudslides have also hit some other northeast Indian states, including Meghalaya, Sikkim and Mizoram. In Mizoram, floods have submerged about 400 homes in the small town of Tlabung, police said. AGENCIES