E-Paper PDF 27th October (ISB)

CMYK

27 October, 2019 I 27 Safar-ul-Muzaffar, 1441 I Rs 27.00 I Vol X No 117 I 76 Pages I Islamabad Edition

Ailing nAwAz gets interim bAil in Al-AziziA reference g

ISLAMABAD staff report

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he Islamabad high Court (IhC) on Saturday granted interim bail till Tuesday to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on medical grounds in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference after the latter’s brother, Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif ap-

CourT grANTs BAIl To Former pm AFTer NAB sAys IT doesN’T oBJeCT To NAwAz’s BAIl pleA oN medICAl grouNds

proached the high court for an urgent hearing owing to the deteriorating condition of his elder brother.

As the Lahore high Court (LhC) granted bail to the former PM on Friday, the IhC had postponed the matter till Tuesday. however, it took up the plea on Saturday after Shehbaz Sharif’s request for urgency in the matter.

A two-member bench, comprising IhC Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Mohsin Akhtar

puNJAB HeAlTH mINIsTer sAys ex-pm ‘suFFered mINor HeArT ATTACk oN sATurdAy’, plATeleT CouNT reACHes 45,000 STORY ON PAGE 02

Army says has killed over 60 Indian troops since Feb 27 STORY ON BACK PAGE

Twitter bows down to Indian requests of gagging Kashmir

STORY ON BACK PAGE

China to host talks between Afghan govt and Taliban STORY ON BACK PAGE

Another polio case surfaces in KP STORY ON PAGE 02

STORY ON BACK PAGE

IHC CJ Tells NAB, govT CourT wIll NoT TAke respoNsIBIlITy IN CAse ANyTHINg HAppeNs To Former premIer

Kiyani, granted bail to Nawaz — who is undergoing treatment at the Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS)– after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) said it had no objection to the bail plea.

Subsequently, the court instructed that two surety bonds worth Rs2 million each be submitted to secure Nawaz’s release.

Following the ruling, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb thanked party supporters for pray-

Angina, platelets fluctuation continue to torment Nawaz g

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JuI-F leader banned on Tv after NAdrA says he’s ‘alien’ CMYK

ing for Nawaz’s health and urged them to continue to keep him in prayers.

“Nawaz’s platelet count has improved due to the treatment. I urge you to keep praying for him,” she said.

During the hearing, Nawaz’s counsel Khawaja haris regretted that Nawaz’s health had not been taken seriously for a long time.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 02

CMYK Sunday, 27 October, 2019

02 ISLAMABAD Nawaz gets interim bail continued from page 01 “He was purposely taken away from jail to NAB. He was already in jail and could have been investigated there.” He claimed that his “medical treatment was not done and his doctor was kept away”. The counsel demanded a probe into fears expressed by Nawaz’s children of him being “poisoned”. Commenting on the merit of the plea, the IHC chief justice said the Punjab government shouldn’t have involved the court in this issue, as it already has the authority to decide such a matter. Addressing the interior secretary, Chief Justice Minallah said: “You have half an hour to ask the NAB chairman whether he will oppose the judgment or submit an affidavit (declaring he has no objections).”

“If the government opposes the request

for bail, then we will dismiss the plea for release on medical grounds,” said Justice Minallah, adding that the onus will be on NAB and the government in case something happened to Nawaz. The chief justice put forth the question once more: “Does the government oppose the granting of bail [to Nawaz Sharif]?” “We are unable to comment on the matter at this time,” replied the interior secretary. At this, Chief Justice Minallah said: “Do not put the entire responsibility (of the outcome of the verdict) on the court’s shoulders. If you are confident that nothing will happen to Nawaz Sharif till Tuesday, then take responsibility.”

While the additional attorney general said that the federal government “has no role in the matter”, the interior secretary remarked: “We cannot take any responsibility.” The interior secretary further contended: “You should base your judgment on the merits of the case.”

AnginA, plAtelets fluctuAtion continue to torment nAwAz LaHore

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Staff RepoRt

HE health of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who is undergoing medical treatment at the Services Hospital for the last five days, is still critical with fluctuation in his platelets and an angina attack making the condition worse.

According to Nawaz Sharif’s multiple medical test reports, he has been suffering from diabetes, stress, kidney complications, heart disease, and thrombocytopenia.

The doctors gave him blood thinning drugs after he tested positive for cardiac Troponin T or Troponin I medical tests, which indicate damage to heart muscles.

A troponin test measures the levels of cardiac troponin T or troponin I proteins in the blood. These proteins are released when the heart muscle has been damaged. The more damage there is to the heart, the greater the amount of troponin T and I, there will be in the blood.

Sources said that a medical board examining Nawaz’s health could give him permission to travel abroad for medical treatment if his platelet count recovers to 50,000 and he doesn’t encounter any heart complications.

The medical board has decided to continue Nawaz Sharif’s treatment with immunoglobulin injections in light of the test reports.

It has recommended that the patient needed at least 80 more immunoglobulin injections as these injections can help prevent the patient’s internal bleeding and increase platelets.

MARYAM SHIFTED TO HOSPITAL: Importantly, ex-PM’s daughter Maryam Nawaz has been shifted from the Kot Lakhpat Jail to the Services Hospital to inquire about her father’s health. Her transfer to the hospital was decided in the consultative meeting of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and Governor Chaudhry Sarwar.

Moreover, she also underwent a medical examination at the hospital and has been shifted to the very next room of Nawaz.

Another polio case surfaces in KP PESHAWAR: The total number of polio cases in the country has touched 77 after an infant was tested positive in Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The child had received a zero dose for essential immunisation nor did he receive any inactivated polio vaccine. In a press statement issued Saturday, KP EOC Coordinator Abdul Basit said that the virus was spreading rapidly in southern

CMYK

Meanwhile, Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid said that Nawaz Sharif’s disease has been identified and he was being given treatment.

“He suffered a minor heart attack but his heart muscles were not damaged,” she said, while talking to the media. Rashid said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) should not do politics over his health.

“Nawaz Sharif’s platelets have increased to 45,000 and his blood pressure and sugar is in control,” she said, adding that upon recommendations of a medical board, the ex-premier was being given medicines for rehabilitation.

She further revealed that Nawaz Sharif had suffered angina pain last night, and his bone marrow functioned normally.

“His previous and the current ECG medical report doesn’t show any difference,” she stated, adding that he has been suffering through heart ailments for a long time. “Nawaz Sharif is satisfied by the treatment being given to him,” she concluded.

districts of the province, especially in Bannu which has recorded 32 cases.He said that the only viable solution to the problem is to vaccinate the child in every campaign, as only repeated doses can protect the child from permanent disability and stop the virus circulation. Abdul Basit appealed to the parents not to pay attention to antivaccination propaganda. The EOC report cited “refusals by parents” as the top reason for the scale of the virus’ resurgence witnessed this year. KP leads the number of polio cases with 57. Staff RepoRt

CMYK Sunday, 27 October, 2019

AzAdi mArchers Agree to stAy AwAy from islAmAbAd’s red zone DefeNCe MINIsTer KHaTTaK says agreeMeNT reaCHeD wITH OPP’s raHBar COMMITTee, HOPes rallIes wIll Be PeaCeful ISLAMABAD

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StAff RePoRt

EFENCE Minister Pervez Khattak said on Saturday that an agreement has been reached between the government and Rahbar Committee of the joint opposition according to which participants of the Jamiat Ulema-eIslam-Fazl (JUI-F)-led Azadi March will not enter Islamabad’s D-Chowk in the high security Red Zone. Addressing a press conference, the head of the government’s committee Khattak said that both sides had reached an understanding. “(JUI-F leader) Akram Durrani has assured me that participants of the march will not enter the Red Zone,” he said, adding that the government would remove the containers placed in Islamabad to thwart the protest rally and would also provide food to the protesters.

“Whether it be a sit-in or a political gathering, it should be peaceful,” he added.

Khattak said that the Rahbar Committee had not asked for the prime minister’s resignation neither had it put forth the demand for elections. “We hope the JUI-F will conduct its protest within the

limitations of the constitution,” he said. “If that happens, then the government will not block any roads or create any hurdles for the march.

The containers will start going away,” he added.

Khattak said that according to the agreement, the JUI-F will hold its rally at the Peshawar Mor ground. He refuted allegations that a deal has been reached between the government and the Rahbar Committee.

“No deal has taken place. We are democratic people. This is not like NRO. That happens when someone does something bad,” he said.

In a separate statement to the press, Akram Durrani confirmed that the participants of the Azadi March “will not enter the Red Zone” of Islamabad. “All 11 of the committee’s members are in agreement over the fact that the protesters will not enter the Red Zone,” he said. Durrani said the protest march will be held “on a road” and “won’t be prolonged”.

“We will make further decisions as and when appropriate.” He reiterated the party’s demands, namely, the prime minister’s resignation, fresh elections, no interference from the military, and the protection of clauses pertaining to Islam within the constitution. Durrani also called for NAB

to release all political prisoners.

He rejected the ban on ‘Ansarul-Islam’, the “militant” wing of the JUI-F. “All parties have such wings and it is beyond my understanding why this one was banned.”

The JUI-F leader insisted that the march will be “peaceful” and called on the government “to open all pathways and roads in the face of an existing threat to the law and order in the country”.

He said that the caravans of protesters from the southern districts as well as North and South Waziristan will be personally led by him.

Durrani expressed confidence that the marchers will be given a warm welcome by all districts that they pass through and said that people from Peshawar, Nowshera and other southern areas will join the caravan. He said that caravans from Chitral and the adjoining areas will take the Karakoram Highway.

According to the agreement, the government will not stand in the protesters’ way and “neither will the participants face any difficulty in getting food delivered”. The participants will not be allowed to venture far from the designated venue. Another condition is that the responsibility of the internal security will lie with the organisers. The organisers will be required to submit to the Islamabad administration a written affidavit guaranteeing that all conditions will be met. It was further outlined that in the event of a violation of the terms and conditions and of damage to lives or property, the relevant action

as per the law will be taken.

AZADI MARCH TO KICK OFF ON SUNDAY: JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman himself will “lead the Azadi March caravan in Karachi at 10am on October 27”, a statement issued by the party on Thursday had said. The caravan will proceed to the Superhighway (M9) after smaller demonstrations will depart from the city’s six districts and gather at Sohrab Goth, according to the statement.

The Azadi March will officially begin “after an address by Maulana Fazl at Sohrab Goth” to show solidarity with the people of India-occupied Kashmir, the party had said in the statement. Senior JUI-F leaders have been busy finalising arrangements, which largely include hiring of buses and other vehicles. A senior party member said that the number of buses had already crossed 400. At present, Sindh emerges as the only province where the JUI-F finds a favourable atmosphere to launch its journey towards Islamabad after the remaining three “pro-Centre” provincial governments announced measures that do not sound promising for the right-wing opposition party.

According to a no objection certificate (NOC) issued by the office of the deputy commissioner of Karachi’s East zone, permission has been granted to JUI-F leader Maulana Fatehullah, for the party to hold a rally adjacent to Super Highway, near Total petrol pump in Sohrab Goth.

PPP to expose PM Imran's true face before public: Bilawal KAnDHKot INP

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said on Saturday that his party will reveal the true face of Prime Minister Imran Khan before the public. Bilawal addressing a gathering in Kandhkot said that he would burst the bubble of the government’s performance façade, revealing its incompetence. He said that it was not the ‘Naya Pakistan’ as promised by the prime minister before elections.

Discussing the pre-election time, Bilawal said that Imran Khan made tall claims but failed badly to deliver on them. He said that inflation was at an all-time-high and people had been ren-

dered jobless in the country. “Is this the new Pakistan? The old Pakistan was much better than this,” he said. The PPP chairman also chanted the slogans of ‘Go selected’ with the crowd.

President Xi conveyed Pakistan’s concerns to Modi, says Chinese official BeIJIng StAff RePoRt

Chinese President Xi Jinping conveyed Pakistan’s concerns to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the forceful annexation of Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK) during the recent Sino-Indian summit at Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu, said a Chinese foreign ministry official. Speaking to a select group of journalists from Pakistan, the official said that China will keep playing its role to defuse tensions between the two South Asian neighbors and said that President Xi was working to restart dialogue between Pakistan and India.

“We want both Pakistan and India to re-engage in talks. We would not be acting as mediators but would like to facilitate talks,” said the Chinese official.

“We understand that Pakistan is concerned about the situation in IOK. Pakistan is expressing restraint

and so is India in many respects, but the issues both countries are dealing with are very complex in nature and these complexities pose a big challenge,” the official said. The official added that China wants India to play a constructive role in regional peace and development. “We also have border disputes with India but we have not held our relationship hostage to those disputes,” he said, adding, “We have a strong and trustful partnership with Pakistan and we will stand by Pakistan through thick and thin,” the official said.

UPCOMING JCC TO ADD NEW IMPETUS TO CPEC’S SECOND STAGE: The official said that Beijing believes the upcoming meeting of the Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) of the China, Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) set to be held in November will mark the ushering of the economic corridor into the next stage.

“The (upcoming) JCC would add new impetus to the CPEC’s second

phase. ML-I project can be secured at the JCC. China is determined to help Pakistan overcome its economic challenges and we are carefully discussing issues with Pakistan,” the official said. The official said that China doesn’t want to burden Pakistan with debts. He said China welcomes the formation of the CPEC authority and hopes that CPEC would make strong progress.

The official said that Islamabad and Beijing are on one page on international issues. He said that the two countries were working as key partners for the prosperity of the region.

“The PM’s recent visit was very positive. We discussed all issues and agreed on most of them. We will always remain iron brothers and would stand together on international and regional issues. Pakistan and China are engaged in top-level communication to implement all bilateral contracts,” he said and added that China and Pakistan will work together for a shared future.

PAKISTAN, CHINA TRADE SET TO TOUCH NEW HIGHS, SAYS AMB HASHMI: Pakistan’s ambassador to China Naghmana Hashmi said that Pakistan and China were close friends, partners and brotherly countries and that the bilateral trade volume between the two countries had now touched $19.08 billion and was expected to increase in the coming years. “This relationship has developed with continuous efforts of successive generations of leaders and diplomats from both countries,” she said at a luncheon in honour of visiting Pakistani journalists. The ambassador said that she was committed to working closely with her counterparts in China to further develop this deep-rooted friendship.

“The bilateral trade volume between Pakistan and China is rising.

Pakistan and China are historically connected through the cultural and knowledge corridor,” she maintained.

CMYK

NEWS

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firdous urges fazl to bury the hatchet ISLAMABAD INP

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Saturday urged Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman to resume talks with the government for ‘ending misunderstandings’. “Negotiations are meant to remove misunderstandings and are the only way forward for achieving consensus,” she shared a message on her official Twitter handle. “Conversations can resolve outstanding issues.” Dr Awan urged Fazl to get rid of his “self-centered and egoistic approach, and sheer stubbornness”. “This nation has paid a huge price for achieving peace,” she said, adding that thousands of lives were lost for attaining peace and stability.

“Why does Fazlur Rehman want to disrupt this peace?” she asked. “Pakistan needs unity in the light of intense challenges it has been facing […] all of us need to work effectively for taking this country to greater heights,” she said.

Agp unhappy with handling of nawaz case Attorney General of Pakistan Anwar Mansoor on Saturday expressed displeasure with the way former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s temporary suspension of the sentence in AlAzizia was handled. Following the Islamabad High Court’s decision that granted bail to Nawaz Sharif over poor health, the AGP said the federal government was unaware of the developments in the case as it neither received a notice nor was it a party in the matter. The AGP, however, said that in case the court summoned a representative from the federal government then they will appear before it. He further said that if the former prime minister can get bail, then the same criteria needed to be applied to other prisoners, suffering from acute diseases. NewS DeSk

zardari suffering from low platelets count

ISLAMABAD INP

Former president and co-chairman of Pakistan People’s Party Asif Ali Zardari was diagnosed on Friday with various ailments who is under treatment in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS). The diseases included severe pain in his bladders, dropped in platelets counts and increased in his glands while the doctors have decided to take more diagnostic samples of the expresident. Sources said that Asif Zardari suffered from lowering of platelets count, severe pain in his bladder and it has been decided to treat him under the supervision of a urologist. Sources said that a pathologist has been included in the medical team while the team is considering changing his medicines while medicines will be changed on his diagnostic report.

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For feedback, comments, suggestions and, most importantly, tips, contact us at whitelies@pakistantoday.com.pk

PLENTY of faux concern for the nation’s incarcerated population in the wake of former PM’s bail on medical grounds. What about the rest of the poor prisoners?

Well, a) they are also medically evaluated and b) not even a peep out of this lot about the conditions in the prison and the welfare of the imprisoned otherwise.

In any case, it was also amusing to see the PM tweet about how concerned he was about his predecessor’s health when he had announced from a stage in the US, to cheering fans that he would remove the airconditioner of Sharif’s jailroom, health concerns be damned. * * * * * * * * * A bizarre case with the cancellation of the JUI-F Hafiz Hamdullah’s CNIC. The man stands a non-person in Orwellian terms; he’s stateless, since the Afghan government would also presumably have no record on him.

The case was already going on and we just rejected his application, screams Nadra, nothing to do with the timing, nothing to see here, move along folks!

Yeah, right.

04 LAHORE

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

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Court rejeCts safdar’s bail plea in anti-govt speeCh Case LAHORE

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staFF RepoRt

He district court on Saturday rejected the bail plea filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Captain (r) Safdar in an anti-state speech case.

Judicial Magistrate Salman Asif heard the petition of PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz‘s husband.

During the hearing, the party’s lawyer Farhad Ali Shah submitted that the police do not have the authority to register the case. Shah stated that even if a provocative statement was issued, the notification would have to be written as per law whereas Safdar was not notified about it.

The lawyer added that his client was arrested in a false lawsuit to prevent him from following his wife’s cases.

After the statements of the defendant’s lawyer, the court reserved its verdict, whereas District Public Prosecutor Rai Mushtaq did not appear in the court.

The court, ruling on the petition, dismissed the bail appeal of the PML-N leader who was arrested over provocative speech against state agencies on October 22 near Ravi Toll Plaza.

During the hearing, the public prosecutor argued that Safdar was arrested by police in connection with serious allegations of provocative speech.

During the hearing, the government lawyer presented the speech of Captain

(r) Safdar to the court. The government lawyer asked the court for a 14-day physical remand of Safdar since his audio and video tests were to be conducted.

Safdar’s lawyer, Syed Farhad Ali Shah, said no one could be arrested on the basis of their intentions. Before implementing Section 16, the directive of the government is necessary, and the government has not issued any notification regarding Safdar’s supervision.

He said that the deputy commissioner can order a written inquiry, but no written order has been issued. “My client has nothing to do with a banned organisation.

They have been arrested only on political grounds”. “even if accused over the video issue, the police still do not have

FIA officer escapes abduction attempt LAHORE Fida Hussnain

A group of kidnappers attempted to kidnap a serving officer of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Johar Town here on Saturday. Mian Saqib, an Assistant Director of FIA’s Cyber Crime Wing, was on his way to drop his children off to school when his car was intercepted by a threemember gang on Canal road. The kidnappers tried to abduct Saqib and shift him into their car but they failed since the car’s door was locked. Saqib’s window, however, was rolled down and allowed the kidnappers to reach out for his car keys and try to drag him out of the window.

At this point, Saqib started honking his car’s horn which attracted the attention of passersby, who then surrounded the vehicle while the abductors managed to escape.

After the incident, Saqib lodged a First Information Report (FIR) at Johar Town po-

lice station. Police lodged the FIR under Section 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 which pertains to cases of threats and does not deal with ‘kidnappings’. “Mian Saqib was on his way to school to drop his children when kidnappers attacked him,” said an FIA officer seeking anonymity.

“He approached the police but the police did not register an FIR under kidnapping charges despite him having clearly told them about the incident,” he added. The FIR stated that the persons who intercepted Saqib’s vehicle seemed to be of Afghan origin and that their vehicle was registered under a Sindh number plate: AFV-409.

The FIR also said that the abductors, on their failure to kidnap Saqib, hurled threats and abuses at him. “The kidnappers suddenly appeared in front of my car when I was at the corner of Doctor’s Hospital,” said Mian Saqib, adding, “One of the kidnappers approached my car and started pulling my car door – which was locked –

and then tried to get hold of my car keys through the open window.”

He said, “I put my hand on the horn to attract attention after which the kidnappers dispersed and then got in their car and drove off to the other side of the Campus Bridge.” Incidents of kidnapping of women and children are on the rise in the city as police has proven unable to take on kidnapping gangs. This latest incident involving FIA officer Mian Saqib speaks volumes of the police’s inability to curb crime. When contacted, an investigation officer of Johar Town police station said that they had been looking into the case and were tracing the vehicle used in this incident. “It is unclear what the motive behind this incident was; it is possible that the suspects were unaware of who they were attempting to abduct but it can also be that the suspects had personal motivations to abduct Mian Saqib,” said the police official.

Govt committed to taking forward journey of development, public service: CM LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has said that the government is committed to take forward the journey of development and public service. He said this during a meeting with parliamentarians belonging to different districts of the province who called on him in Lahore on Saturday.

The Chief Minister said that the people of Pakistan will never support the elements which want to destabilize the country for the sake of personal benefit. He said that public representatives should increase their contact with the people and leave no stone unturned to resolve their problems. staFF RepoRt

Punjab IG seeks Rs200m for Azadi March security LAHORE: The Inspector General of Punjab Police has sought additional funds of Rs200 million to ensure security for the JUI-F antigovernment Azadi march.

He has written a letter to Punjab government to this end. According to sources, this additional money will be required for providing police force with food, shelter and security equipment for the duration of the Azadi march. staFF RepoRt

the authority to arrest him,” he stated.

Capt (r) Safdar said that his wife and the Sharif family are attending court proceedings. “In the accountability court, the police tortured women. A case was registered against me when I tried to intervene.

I was granted bail but got arrested in an-

other case,” he added.

The PML-N leader said that he said something in a casual conversation with friend which was recorded on video and later uploaded on the internet. “I was kept in detention for 24 hours while the FIR was registered in the morning,” he added.

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

NEWS

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Kashmiris on both sides of LoC to observe bLaCK day today PRESIDENT, PM SAY PAKISTAN WILL DO EVERYTHING TO SUPPORT KASHMIRIS IN THEIR FIGHT FOR FREEDOM ISLAMABAD App

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He people of Jammu and Kashmir dwelling on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) and rest of the world are all set to observe Black Day on October 27 (Sunday) to mark strong protest and indignation against the forced and unlawful occupation of Jammu and Kashmir for the last 72 years since this bleak day in 1947.

The Kashmiri people consider October 27 as the Black Day in the history of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir when India had landed its armed troops against their aspirations and the wishes.

The day is observed every year to mark extreme resentment and indignation over the continued unlawful and forcible occupation of bulk of Jammu and Kashmir state by the Indian tyrannical forces.

This year, the day is being observed at the time when the Kashmir freedom movement has reached at its climax following the massive protests by the people of occupied state for the last 84 days against August 5 Indian sinister action of scrapping special status of the disputed region after abrogating article 370 and 35-A of her constitution.

In Mirpur, the major protest rally will be taken out by District National events Organizing Committee with the coordination of various social and political parties at District Courts premises which will be addressed by the leading personalities representing diverse segments of the civil society.

The speakers will reiterate demand for restoration of the special status of the disputed state and most particularly the early grant of the birth right to self-determination to Kashmiris.

PAKISTAN AFFIRMS SUPPORT TO KASHMIR CAUSE: President Dr Arif

Alvi and Prime Minister Imran Khan have reaffirmed Pakistan’s unflinching moral, political and diplomatic support to the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) with the solemn pledge that it would continue till the realization of their legitimate right to self-determination.

In a message on Kashmir Black Day being observed on October 27th to mark the darkest chapters in the history of Jammu & Kashmir, they said on this day the Indian security forces landed in Srinagar to occupy, oppress and terrorize the innocent people of Indian Occupied Kashmir in blatant violation of international law and morality.

“Today, we pay homage to the martyrs for the cause of Kashmir and honour all those who have suffered at the hands of Indian occupying forces,” he added.

The president said the United Nations Security Council through several of its resolutions had upheld the fundamental right of the Kashmiri people to decide their own future through a fair and impartial plebiscite held under the UN auspices.

He noted that reneging on its repeated commitments to the international commu-

Resolution slams Indian oppression in Kashmir

LAHORE stAff RepoRt

The Raiwind Diocese of the Church of Pakistan on Saturday passed a unanimous resolution condemning the Indian oppression on innocent Kashmiri Muslims and the imposition of curfew and lockdown in the region for the past 80 days.

Punjab Minister for Irrigation Mohsin Leghari was the chief guest at the occasion.

Also present at the event were Bishop of Multan Leo Roderick Paul and renowned medical practitioner and social worker Dr Zarqa Taimoor. Addressing the second day of the 16th Triennial Council Meeting of the Raiwind Diocese held at a local hotel here,

Bishop of Raiwind Dr Azad Marshall said that Pakistani Christians stand in solidarity with their Kashmiri Muslim brethren and urge the United Nations, UN Security Council and other global forums to take notice of their plight and pressurize India to ease the lockdown in the occupied region.

“We also strongly demand of India to allow the people of Kashmir to exercise their right to self-determination and desist from imposing its will on them,” he said.

He said that not only Kashmiris, but Christians and other religious minorities were also suffering from persecution being carried out by the Hindutva-inspired members of the RSS and the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).

US lawmakers ask India to end Kashmir curfew WASHINGTON Agencies

United States Congressmen on Saturday penned a letter to the Indian ambassador in Washington requesting more specific information pertaining to the human rights violation in occupied Kashmir.

The US lawmakers called upon the Indian Ambassador Harsh Vardhan Shringla earlier this month to discuss the lockdown and communicate blockade in the occupied region.

The congressmen raised concerns about the abrogation of Article 370 as well as the communication blackout, arrests of politicians and activists and the draconian curfew.

“As we discussed during the meeting, many of our constituents have painted a much different picture of the situation than what you shared with us,” the letter read, fol-

CONGRESS MEMBERS SAY ‘CONSTITUENTS HAVE PAINTED A MUCH DIFFERENT PICTURE OF THE SITUATION THAN WHAT INDIA SHARED WITH THEM’ lowed by several questions.

The US lawmakers asked when the communication barrier would be lifted and when internet access would fully be restored.

“How many people have been detained under the Public Safety Act or other legal provisions since August 5?

Please be as specific as possible,” the next question read.

The congressmen also questioned when the government will allow residents to return to “uninhibited movement”.

They also criticised the use of pellet guns for crowd control by authorities, questioning whether

there are any known cases of protesters being blinded by rubber bullets.

The US officials urged the Indian government to provide access to Congress members and foreign journalists into the occupied valley.

“We believe true transparency can only be achieved when journalists and Members of Congress are allowed free access to the region. We encourage India to open Jammu and Kashmir to both domestic and foreign journalists, and other international visitors, in the interest of open media and increased communication,” the letter concluded.

CMYK

nity to implement these resolutions, India continued on the path of brutal suppression of the Kashmiri people to this day.

“Since August 5 this year, India has imposed an inhuman lockdown over 8 million people in IOK. Use of torture, enforced disappearances and restrictions on freedom of movement and assembly are the stark realities today,” a press release quoted the president as saying.

He said Indian occupying forces were

perpetrating unspeakable crimes against the Kashmiri people, including women and children, with complete impunity.

“The indefensible curfew and communications blackout, going on for nearly three months now, is illustrative of the state-terrorism that India has wreaked on innocent Kashmiris for decades. No matter how brutal its policies and tactics, India cannot crush the spirit of the Kashmiri people,” he added.

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

06 WORLD VIEW

About 41% of the world’s people Are under 24. And they’re Angry… guardian

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simon Tisdall

spate of large-scale street protests around the world, from Chile and Hong Kong to Lebanon and Barcelona, is fuelling a search for common denominators and collective causes. Are we entering a new age of global revolution? Or is it foolish to try to link anger in India over the price of onions to pro-democracy demonstrations in Russia?

Each country’s protests differ in detail. But recent upheavals do appear to share one key factor: youth. In most cases, younger people are at the forefront of calls for change. The uprising that unexpectedly swept away Sudan’s ancien regime this year was essentially generational in nature.

In one sense, this is unsurprising. Wordsworth expressed the eternal appeal of revolt for the young in The Prelude, a poem applauding the French Revolution.

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven!” he declared.

Wordsworth was 19 years old when the Bastille was stormed.

Yet while younger people, in any era, are predisposed to shake up the established order, extreme demographic, social and political

WORDSWORTH EXPRESSED THE ETERNAL APPEAL OF REVOLT FOR THE YOUNG IN THE PRELUDE, A POEM APPLAUDING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. “BLISS WAS IT IN THAT DAWN TO BE ALIVE, BUT TO BE YOUNG WAS VERY HEAVEN!” imbalances are intensifying present-day pressures. It is as if the unprecedented environmental traumas experienced by the natural world are being matched by similarly exceptional stresses in human society.

There are more young people than ever before. About 41% of the global population of 7.7 billion is aged 24 or under. In Africa, 41% is under 15. In Asia and Latin America (where 65% of the world’s people live), it’s 25%. In developed countries, imbalances tilt the other way. While 16% of Europeans are under 15, about 18%, double the world average, are over 65.

Most of these young people have reached, or will reach, adulthood in a world scarred by the 2008 financial crash. Recession, stagnant or falling living standards, and austerity programmes delivered from on high have shaped their experience. As a result, many current protests are rooted in shared grievances about economic inequality and jobs. In Tunisia, birthplace of the failed 2011 Arab spring, and more re-

Strategy Bridge Thomas alan schwarTz

Winston Lord, the former American ambassador to China and a distinguished American diplomat, begins this short and engaging book by pointing out that Henry Kissinger has never done an oral history. Given that Kissinger has written over 4000 pages of memoirs and sat for thousands of interviews with journalists, the absence of a simple and direct oral history surprised Lord. Yet it gave him and his collaborator, former Deputy National Security Adviser in the Trump Administration K. T. McFarland, an opportunity to contribute to the historical record.

Kissinger on Kissinger is the result of their efforts, a largely uncritical account of the diplomacy of the most famous—and controversial—American diplomat of the 20th century.

Kissinger on Kissinger could also be entitled, “Kissinger as he wants to be remembered.” In the brief introduction he provides to the book, the 96 year-old Kissinger writes—with colossal understatement—that “I did not go out of my way to be self-critical.”

Covering his years as Nixon’s National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, this work emphasizes his best-known foreign policy initiatives as the opening to China, détente with the Soviet Union, and the “shuttle diplomacy” in the Middle East. Lord and McFarland ask sympathetic questions about Kissinger’s role in these policies, and Kissinger expresses his belief that the Administration proceeded from a “strategic blueprint,” which allowed them to move beyond simply responding piecemeal to events and crises. (This comment obviously alludes to more recent Administrations.) Nixon and Kissinger sought to achieve a new balance of power bringing a more peaceful world while still defending America’s interests and values. Their “triangular diplomacy,” exploiting the tensions between the Soviet Union and China, effectively countered Soviet gains, and in the long run, may have proved decisive in America’s overall triumph in the Cold War. In dealing with one of the less successful aspects of his diplomacy, Kissinger defends his conduct of the negotiations that brought an end to the American role in the war in Vietnam. Had Congress not undermined the 1973 Paris peace agreement by cutting economic aid and forbidding any military reaction to North Vietnam’s continuing aggression, he insists, South Vietnam would have had a “genuine opportunity to survive.” Kissinger makes a point that resonates today when he asserts, “The idea of conducting foreign policy on behalf of American credibility is now conventionally ridiculed. But it was one of the key elements of the Vietnamese war, because potential allies, actual allies, threatened countries were bound to assess their future in terms of the American performance in Vietnam.” In the wake of the Trump Administration’s on-again-offagain strikes against Iran and debates about whether

cently in neighbouring Algeria, street protests were led by unemployed young people and students angry about price and tax rises – and, more broadly, about broken reform promises. Chile and Iraq faced similar upheavals last week.

This global phenomenon of unfulfilled youthful aspirations is producing political timebombs.

Each month in India, one million people turn 18 and can register to vote. In the Middle East and North Africa, an estimated 27 million youngsters will enter the workforce in the next five years. Any government, elected or not, that fails to provide jobs, decent wages and housing faces big trouble.

Numbers aside, the younger generations have something else that their elders lacked: they’re connected. More people than ever before have access to education. They are healthier. They appear less bound by social conventions and religion. They are mutually aware.

And their expectations are higher.

That’s because, thanks to social media, the ubiquity of English as a common tongue, and the internet’s globalisation and democratisation

of information, younger people from all backgrounds and locations are more open to alternative life choices, more attuned to “universal” rights and norms such as free speech or a living wage – and less prepared to accept their denial.

Political unrest deriving from such rapid social evolution is everywhere. Lebanon’s “WhatsApp revolution” is a perfect example. Yet some protests, such as those in Hong Kong and Catalonia, are overtly political from the very start. Young Hong Kongers face familiar problems over scarce jobs and high rents.

It is difficult, if not perverse, to watch protesters risking torture and death by challenging Egypt’s dictator, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and not relate their daring both to Hong Kong and, say, to Kashmiris’ efforts to throw off the yoke imposed by another “strongman”, India’s Narendra Modi. When Palestinian youths taunt the Israel Defence Forces with flags and stones, are they not part of the same global fight for democratic self-determination, basic freedoms and human rights espoused by young Muscovites op-

posing Vladimir Putin’s cruel kleptocracy?

In this sea of protest, a common factor is the increased willingness of undemocratic regimes, ruling elites and wealthy oligarchies to use force to crush threats to their power – while hypocritically condemning protester violence. Repression is often justified in the name of fighting terrorism, as in Hong Kong. Other culprits include Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Myanmar and Nicaragua.

Another negative is the perceived, growing readiness of democratically elected governments, notably in the US and Europe, to lie, manipulate and disinform.

Distrust of politicians, and resulting public alienation, is the common ground on which stand France’s “gilets jaunes”, Czech anti-corruption marchers and Extinction Rebellion. As William Hazlitt, the 18th-century essayist

and celebrated mocker of Wordsworth might have said, disbelief is the new spirit of the age.

Perhaps these protests will one day merge into a joined-up global revolt against injustice, inequality, environmental ruin and oppressive powers-that-be. Meanwhile, spare a thought for a different type of protest – the one you never hear about – and what that may entail. The stifling silence that hangs over North Korea’s gulag and Tibet regions, and dark, hidden places inside Syria, Eritrea, Iran and Azerbaijan could yet descend on us all. What helps protect us is the noisy, life-affirming dissent of the young.

‘Kissinger as he wants to be remembered’ THE IRONY IS THAT KISSINGER HIMSELF HAS OFTEN WRITTEN OF THE TRAGIC NATURE OF STATECRAFT AND THE COMPLEX MORAL TRADEOFFS THAT REQUIRE LEADERS TO CHOOSE BETWEEN THE LESSER OF EVILS to withdraw or stay in Afghanistan, Kissinger’s argument for the significance of credibility in international affairs should be taken seriously.

In our era of Twitter diplomacy, recurrent trade wars, bitter disputes with allies, and presidential love affairs with North Korean dictators, it is easy to become nostalgic for Kissinger’s “strategic blueprint,” his brand of cautious realism, and his calls for the “indispensability of American leadership” in international affairs. Both Lord and McFarland place the NixonKissinger foreign policy on a pedestal, regarding it as “the standard by which all subsequent administrations have been measured.” Throughout the book, their questions are polite, friendly, and non-confrontational.

Kissinger, who praised Lord’s service within his National Security Council and even referred to him as his “conscience” in his memoirs, returns the personal warmth toward both interviewers, but especially Lord.

Frequently he makes a point of emphasizing that Lord did not resign after Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia, as three of his other National Security Council assistants did. Lord’s loyalty and willingness to stay with Kissinger afforded him the opportunity to accompany his boss on his secret trip to China, his negotiations in Moscow, and the Paris Peace talks with North Vietnam. Lord jokingly remarks this book allowed him to set forth his reflections on his “mentor and tormentor,” and Lord himself has done a lengthy oral history for the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training that more fully brings out his involvement with Kissinger’s diplomacy as well as some of his disagreements with Kissinger. Nevertheless, Kissinger on Kissinger makes it clear that their friendship has endured over five decades.

Kissinger was one of the first dignitaries to meet with President-elect Donald Trump after his November 2016 victory, and he has been careful in his comments about the Administration in which McFarland served. Nevertheless, it is hard not to read Kissinger’s comments in the book as anything but a critique of “America First.” He explained, for example, that “[w]hat I have tried consistently to do is to think in long-range terms and in the national interest, but in the national interest related to the national interests of other countries. Because if you assert only your interests, without linking them to the interests of others, you will not be able to sustain your efforts.”

There also is a tone throughout the book of regret for how foreign policy and national issues have become so polarized and embittered. Although the Nixon era is not generally remembered for good relations between the president and the press, Kissinger expresses regret that Washington today does not allow for the “backgrounders,” the briefings to reporters he would provide, which were like “a Harvard seminar.” He similarly laments the loss of the

old Washington’s social scene, associated with figures like the columnist Joe Alsop or Washington Post publisher Kay Graham, that allowed for Republicans and Democrats to hash out their problems over weekend dinner parties.

It would be churlish to be overly critical of a book that conveys important lessons about the making of foreign policy as well as nostalgia for a time when Washington actually seemed to get things done. In getting Kissinger to sit for an oral history, Lord and McFarland have made a real contribution to understanding his diplomacy and world politics. Lord has also been exceedingly generous with his own time in helping scholars, including this reviewer, understand the history of this complicated era.

Still, it is worth noting that Henry Kissinger is a complex and complicated man, a figure whose brilliance could often be undermined by his own arrogance and quest for power. Hans Morgenthau—the great analyst of international relations often seen as the father of realism in foreign policy—once described Kissinger with the Greek word, polytropos, “many sided” or “of many appearances.” Morgenthau used the term to explain Kissinger’s skills as a negotiator and mediator in the Middle East, with his ability to convince all sides that he had their interests at heart. But it could also be used to recognize the many different Henry Kissingers, not all of whom are as admirable as the one captured in this book. Kissinger’s judgment could be flawed and influenced by factors other than the national interest, including domestic political considerations, personal ambition, bureaucratic politics, and simple expediency. The book does not address the Nixon Administration’s efforts to undermine the elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile, or the decision to support Pakistan both in its suppression of what became Bangladesh and in its war with India. Cambodia, though a far more complicated issue than most critics of Kissinger suggest, also is barely mentioned. Likewise, how the disclosure of the bombing of Cambodia resulted in the wiretapping of various NSC officials and journalists, including Lord himself, is not discussed.

The irony is that Kissinger himself has often written of the tragic nature of statecraft and the complex moral tradeoffs that require leaders to choose between the lesser of evils. Unfortunately, this aspect of his career is missing from the book, and what emerges is a much-sanitized history of the Nixon and Kissinger years, or diplomacy without the sausage making, to paraphrase Bismarck’s famous aphorism.

Kissinger’s oral history should be tested against other primary sources and materials. Most importantly, Kissinger did have important disagreements with Nixon. He was exceedingly careful in how he expressed these during the first years of the Administra-

tion, although after Nixon was crippled by Watergate, Kissinger became more assertive. It seems clear, for example, that Kissinger wanted, in his words, to “expel” the Soviet Union from the Middle East and secure America’s undisputed role as mediator and hegemon for the region. By contrast, there is substantial evidence Nixon sought to work with the Soviets to impose a superpower settlement on Israel and the Arab states. In a similar vein, the book drastically understates the intense bureaucratic conflict that Kissinger engaged in with Secretary of State William Rogers. It also minimizes the State Department’s important role in correcting the Shanghai Communique to help preserve Taiwan’s autonomy. The KissingerRogers conflicts were legendary, but they are largely airbrushed out of this account. Finally, on Vietnam, Kissinger did have his differences with Nixon, including whether to mine Haiphong’s harbors before the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks summit with the Soviets in Moscow. Despite his concerns about America’s credibility in Vietnam, Kissinger valued a potential nuclear arms agreement more than the survival of Vietnam, a judgment most Americans at the time likely shared. Kissinger also understates his pessimism about Saigon’s survival after the Paris Peace treaty, forgetting he forecast privately that the regime would likely survive 18 months. Allowing North Vietnamese troops to remain in the South—even with an unenforceable ban on their resupply—reflected the Administration’s acceptance of Saigon’s eventual fate.

In his defense, Kissinger recognized most Americans had washed their hands of South Vietnam as soon as the American Prisoners-of-war returned, and any effort to save the South Vietnamese state faced significant hurdles. The Congressional actions toward South Vietnam reflected a broad consensus of public opinion, and Kissinger well understood this.

The attempt to shift responsibility to Congress for the failure in Vietnam, however, does not speak well for Kissinger’s legacy.

Read with these caveats and qualifications in mind, Kissinger on Kissinger is a thoughtful and insightful account of some of the most successful American diplomatic achievements of the 20th century, carried out by its most accomplished practitioner of diplomacy. The book provides an important look into Kissinger’s legacy, although it is only one part of the polytropos that is Henry Kissinger.

Thomas Alan Schwartz is a Professor of History and Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam.

Kissinger on Kissinger: Reflections on Diplomacy, Grand Strategy, and Leadership. Winston Lord. New York, NY: All Points Books, 2019.

sunday, 27 october, 2019

foreign news 07

IRaq foRceS claMp down on pRoteStS afteR BloodShed TEHRAN

I

AGENCIES

RAqI security forces sought to clamp down on protests in Baghdad and across the south on Saturday, a day after dozens died in a bloody resumption of anti-government rallies.

A parliamentary session scheduled for Saturday afternoon to discuss the renewed protests was cancelled after it failed to reach a quorum.

Since anti-government rallies first erupted on October 1, nearly 200 people have died and thousands were wounded in Baghdad and across the country’s Shiite-majority south in violence condemned worldwide.

Almost a quarter of them, 42, succumbed on Friday alone from live rounds, tear gas canisters or while torching government buildings or offices belonging to powerful Hashed alShaabi paramilitary factions in several southern cities.

Tensions remained high across several cities there on Saturday, with security forces cutting off roads and imposing strict curfews.

The storming of provincial headquarters, parliamentarians’ workspaces or Hashed offices marks a new phase in the southern rallies but there have been no such incidents so far in the capital.

In Baghdad, a few hundred protesters dug in around the emblematic Tahrir (Liberation) Square on Saturday morning despite efforts by riot police to clear them with tear gas.

“It’s enough — theft, looting, gangs, mafias, deep state, whatever.

Get out! Let us see a (functioning) state,” said one protester, referring to perceived cronyism and corruption in

the country.

“We don’t want anything, just let us live,” he added as puffs of smoke from tear gas rose behind him.

Oil-rich Iraq is OPEC’s secondhighest producer — but one in five people live below the poverty line and youth unemployment sits at 25 per cent, according to the World Bank.

The staggering rates of joblessness and allegations of corruption sparked the widespread protests on October 1 and the government has struggled to quell public anger by proposing reforms.

Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi has suggested a laundry list of measures, including hiring drives, increased pensions and a cabinet reshuffle.

New education and health ministers were approved by parliament in a session earlier this month, the only time it

was able to reach a quorum since protests began. But protesters seemed unimpressed.

“They told young people: ‘go home, we’ll give you pensions and come up with a solution’. They tricked us,” said one of the rare woman protesters on Saturday, her young son at her side.

About 60 percent of Iraq’s 40-million-strong population is under the age of 25.

Protesters have directed some of their anger at the country’s top Shiite religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is deeply revered among most Iraqis.

Others have been waiting for signal from influential populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has thrown his weight behind protests.

A surge in protests around the world in october PARIS: The past weeks have seen a wave of often unprecedented protest movements erupt in countries around the world.

Here is an overview of the main ones that started this month and others that are continuing.

BOLIVIA: When? Since October 21.

Trigger? The disputed results of the October 20 presidential election which gave outgoing leader Evo Morales almost outright victory for a fourth term.

State of play? There has been violence in several regions; a general strike was launched on October 23. Toll? Several people have been injured in clashes between supporters and opponents of Morales.

CHILE: When? Since October 18.

Trigger? An increase in the price of metro tickets in the capital.

State of play? President Sebastian Pinera suspended the price hike and then announced social measures such as increased pensions and lower electricity costs. But the protests spread, including complaints about living costs and social inequality. A general strike started on October 23.

Toll? 18 dead.

LEBANON: When? Since October 17.

Trigger? A proposed tax on calls made through messaging apps.

State of play? The government of Saad Hariri quickly axed the measure and announced emergency economic reforms. But the protests have widened to demand the removal of the entire political class.

Toll? Peaceful protests, marked by several clashes, have paralysed the country but there have been no injuries.

GUINEA: When? Since October 7.

Trigger? Accusations that President Alpha Conde is trying to circumvent a bar on a third term in office.

State of play? Thousands of people have joined a string of demonstrations organised by an alliance of opposition groups, the FNDC. Toll? Around 10 protesters killed.

ECUADOR: When? From October 1 to 13.

Trigger? The scrapping of fuel subsidies.

State of play? After 12 days of protests,

President Lenin Moreno and the indigenous movement, which has spearheaded the demonstrations, reached an agreement under which the government reinstated fuel subsidies.

Toll? Eight killed and 1,340 injured.

IRAQ: When? Since October 1.

Trigger? Spontaneous calls on social media to protest corruption, unemployment and poor public services.

State of play? After a week of protests that quickly escalated into clashes with security forces, the government announced reforms. Protesters continue to demand an end to corruption and unemployment and an overhaul of the political system. On October 25 the protests resumed, with a new upsurge of violence, fanned by Shiite political leader Moqtada Sadr.

Toll? More than 150 dead the first week.

At least 12 on Friday alone.

ONGOING MOVEMENTS: Other protest movements, which started earlier this year, are continuing: – In Hong Kong, a protest movement started on June 9 in response to a draft government bill that would allow extradition to mainland China.

After months of regular protests, including some of the worst violence the former British colony has known, the extradition bill was withdrawn in September. But the campaign had already broadened to demand greater democratic freedoms.

Initially peaceful, the protests have degenerated into violent clashes between protesters and security forces. Numerous pro-democracy activists have been attacked by supporters of mainland China. On October 1 police shot a protestor with a live bullet but he survived. – In Algeria, the decision by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a fifth term sparked a wave of peaceful demonstrations on February 22. Bouteflika resigned in April but protesters continue to demand an overhaul of the entire political establishment. The opposition rejects elections under the current establishment, called for December 12. AGENCIES

On Friday, Sistani urged protesters and security forces to show “restraint”, warning of “chaos” if violence resumed.

“Sadr, Sistani — this is a shame,” a protester in Tahrir said on Saturday.

“We were hit! It’s enough,” he said, waving a tear gas canister fired earlier by security forces.

Riot police had been trying to keep protesters around Tahrir from reaching the high-security Green Zone across the river, which hosts government offices including parliament.

Speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi said he had visited Tahrir overnight, but many demonstrators have shunned the participation of mainstream politicians whom they see as trying to co-opt their movement. A few dozen people in Babylon, south of Baghdad, gathered for a sit-in on Saturday despite a curfew.

But in the southern port city of Basra, protesters failed to come out in large numbers after security forces imposed a strict curfew.

In Diwaniyah, too, security forces sealed off roads ahead of planned protests later on Saturday afternoon.

Late Friday, 12 protesters died in Diwaniyah alone while setting fire to the headquarters of the powerful Badr organisation.

“Public anger is directed at them in addition to governorate councils, for they were the obvious face of ‘the regime’,” wrote Harith Hasan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center. But it was also a chance for Sadr to swipe at his rivals in the Hashed.

“The Sadrists, especially in their traditional strongholds such as Missan, saw this an opportunity to act against competing militias,” such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Badr, and Kataeb Hezbollah, Hasan said on Twitter.

Russian 'agent' Maria Butina, deported by US, arrives in Moscow MOSCOW AGENCIES

Maria Butina, who served nine months in a United States jail for acting as a Russian government agent, arrived in Moscow on Saturday, a day after her release from prison.

Butina arrived at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after leaving Miami, AFP journalists said. She had been held in Florida’s Tallahassee prison. In brief comments to journalists in the arrivals area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Saturday, Butina expressed “great thanks” to those who had supported her since her arrest in July 2018. Butina, a former American University graduate student, was arrested in July 2018 on allegations of engaging in espionage. She pleaded guilty last December to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for Russia. She admitted that she and a former Russian lawmaker worked to leverage contacts in the National Rifle Association to pursue back channels to American conservatives. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison, half of which was credited as already served.

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

08 COMMENT

Politics of vendetta

Shifting the burden to judiciary

And Sharif’s grave ailment

To subsequently malign it

T

hAT Nawaz Sharif suffers from several ailments, some of which could be life threatening if not treated properly and on time, is widely known.

Besides proper medication, an inmate of the sort needs facilities in jail that attenuate the painful symptoms of ailments like diabetes, blood pressure, kidney stones, prostate and cardiac problems. As if Mr Sharif’s incarceration was not enough, the PTI government also wanted to torture him. As Imran Khan told a gathering of fans in the US that, in his Naya Pakistan. former President Zardari and former PM Nawaz will not be provided air conditioned rooms and homemade food.

Lack of proper facilities led to deterioration in Mr Sharif’s condition. While provincial health minister Yasmeen Rashid’s claim that doctors in Pakistan can treat all sorts of ailments, Mr Sharif who was suffering from platelet related problems, had an angina attack on Friday night. Despite the government having the authority to give anyone, including even a murder convict, bail on medical grounds it preferred to shift the burden to the judiciary to avoid political embarrassment caused by claims of giving none any NRO. Soon after LhC’s verdict to bail out Nawaz Sharif, a campaign was launched to malign the judiciary. There was talk about the relief being part of a deal. This led Islamabad high Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah to tell both the Punjab and Federal Governments that the court would refuse the bail provided they took responsibility that nothing untoward would happen to Mr Sharif till Tuesday. The Deputy Attorney General straightaway denied any role of the federal government in the case. Despite giving the Additional Advocate General several opportunities to contact Punjab CM to learn whether he supported or opposed the bail, he said the government was not willing to take any responsibility and the court should decide the case on merit.

The IhC court finally granted former PM Sharif interim bail on humanitarian grounds till Tuesday, when another IhC bench that is already dealing with the case will continue the hearing. Former President Asif Zardari too is suffering from several ailments. It is time his case was also considered by the indecisive government before the issue reaches the court.

Inaction along LoC Who will provide the necessary protection?

A

S tensions with India remain high, unprovoked crossborder firing along the LoC continues unabated despite there being a ceasefire in place. The most recent event claimed the lives of six civilians and a solider. These deaths and the subsequent reply in which 9 Indian soldiers were killed were widely reported, making headlines. however, as bodies continue to fall in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) there has been a drop-in attention towards these incidents as they are either being under-reported or simply ignored. This was the contention of the AJK Prime Minister who did not mince his words over the insufficient protection being provided to civilians living in the areas closest to the LoC, most vulnerable to India’s “naked aggression”. he expressed his frustration, stating that only the day before a man and his 12-yearold son had been martyred, yet there was no coverage of the incident in the news. It is quite ironic and unfortunate that Prime Minister Imran Khan had recently been highly critical of the Western media for their lack of attention towards the Kashmir cause, rather preferring to cover protests in hong Kong, yet at home his own media has lost the momentum it had a few months back when the Kashmir crisis began.

It is the duty of the government and the forces deployed across the LoC to provide enough protection, so that there aren’t any deaths to report in the first place.

There has been enough escalation in violent attacks through shelling that a temporary evacuation from the area is now merited. Why such measures are not being taken raises questions. Is there a lack of resources to be able to successfully carry out such a mass movement of people? This would be a lame excuse as money and people can often be found if one looks hard enough for it. Mere sloganeering and weekly Friday human chains do very little to protect the citizens of AJK. The government needs to do more.

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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aRif Nizami

T

hAT the prime minister has finally relented on permitting Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s ‘Azadi march’ to take place ‘within the ambit of law and constitution’, is good news. But the venue still remains a sticking point. hopefully the cleric along with his allies will be allowed to hold a rally in the federal capital as long as they remain peaceful.

What the inscrutable Maulana is going to achieve from his putsch towards Islamabad is yet not fully clear. Unsurprisingly, Imran Khan has ruled out acceding to the opposition’s main demand to resign and hold fresh elections.

It is difficult to agree with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairperson Bilawal Bhutto’s assertion that the days of the PTI government are numbered. Perhaps it falls more in the realm of a forlorn wish rather than a prediction.

The opposition’s campaign seemingly is meant as a wake-up call for Khan’s ostensible backers. But the deep state is not in any mood to abandon him yet.

While the prime minister has reaffirmed that the Army fully stands behind him, the leader of the opposition Shehbaz Sharif in a rare fit of candour has acknowledged ground realities complaining that the establishment is backing the PTI government to the hilt.

According to him “despite this 100 per cent support Khan has failed to deliver”, loudly complaining that the PML-N government did not have even 10 per cent support of the powers that be.

The other day the younger Sharif boasted that if he were in charge, he would fix everything within six months. The former chief minister of Punjab, who was running the province for a decade, takes pride in the efficient manner in which he governed.

But Sharifs and the Bhuttos are no longer on the radar screen as a possible replacement to Khan. Shehbaz Sharif makes no secret of his proestablishment stance in sharp contrast to the hawkish attitude of his elder brother as well as his niece Maryam Nawaz.

The establishment in the past has been flirting with the idea of him being a possible alternative choice from the PML-N. But unfortunately, the younger Sharif is not per-

ceived as quite autonomous of and independent of his brother’s rejectionist politics.

So much has been invested in the PTI project that unless Khan becomes a total liability he will not easily be abandoned. And that too at the hands of ‘the corrupt’ he replaced and was originally tasked to politically eliminate.

In the process Khan is seen more as a quisling in an unequal partnership rather than an independent player. Most critics contend that running the security, foreign policy and even the economy has been outsourced by him to his handlers while he is content on making fiery speeches lambasting the opposition while operating in the little space left for him.

In this hybrid model of governance the civilian government gets most of the flak for its malfeasance and its policies, perceived as vindictive towards the opposition. The prime minister claims ad nauseam, that he will not rest until he recovers stolen wealth of the nation from the corrupt politicians.

The corruption watchdog, NAB (National Accountability Bureau) chairman hectors in his not too infrequent pressers that he will not rest until he makes Pakistan corruption free. But this quixotic goal has not been achieved even in most transparent of societies.

The fact the butt of NAB’s cleanliness drive is only the opposition leadership is conveniently overlooked. It is not merely a coincidence that brazen cases of corruption against prominent members of the PTI cabinet have been simply swept under the carpet.

As contended by some in a lighter vein, those who join the government are automatically dry-cleaned. So far, the goal to fill national coffers with ‘looti hui daulat’ (looted money) has remained an elusive dream.

In this atmosphere of vindictiveness terming political opponents as thugs and crooks has become the norm. hence it was not at all surprising when the federal cabinet decided to enact an ordinance amending the NAB law by virtue of which anyone charged with corruption over 50 million rupees will be given C-class in jail.

Naturally the opposition perceives the proposed law as Sharif and Zardari specific. In such a pervasive atmosphere of an inquisition rather an investigation, red lines are often crossed.

This is exactly what happened with ailing Nawaz Sharif who was ‘rearrested’ by NAB in a rehashed case in the wake of Maulana’s proposed Azadi march. Protestations by the family and his personal doctor that the three times prime minister was gravely ill were simply brushed aside.

The government appointed doctors warned

that Sharif was suffering from acute immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) and his blood platelets level was dangerously low. Resultantly the prime minister relented to move him to Lahore’s premier government hospital.

Despite given infusions his blood platelet levels continue to drop. In addition to this his heart problems have also started acting up with a suspected heart attack that was later clarified to be angina.

Sensing the gravity of the situation the prime minister publicly offered best treatment to Sharif from any medical facility in the country. even Sharif’s daughter, who was refused permission to meet her ailing father on Wednesday, was later in the evening moved to the hospital to tend to her father.

Clearly the government does not want to create a political martyr on its watch in the form of Sharif (God forbid) succumbing to his illness.

The Lahore high court has already granted him bail on health grounds and judging from the present conciliatory mood of the government it will not oppose the former prime minister’s bail application from Islamabad high court either.

Unfortunately, heartlessness towards its opponents permeating from the very top has become the very ethos of the ruling party. While in the opposition it had alleged that Sharif faked a heart by-pass surgery. Later it was wrongly claimed that his wife was fine and not terminally ill. Not much later she passed away.

A culture sans empathy is fast becoming part of the political discourse. Quite unsurprisingly special assistant to the prime minister on information Firdous Ashiq Awan on the day Sharif was moved to the hospital callously declared that he was ‘hashassh bashash’ (fighting fit) dismissing claims about his fast deteriorating health was just a ‘drama’.

Obviously after getting a dressing down from the prime minister the other day for not being able to properly project government’s policies, she was simply doing her best to please her masters.

In this atmosphere of recriminations and extreme polarisation the media is feeling the heat as never before. Blatant pre-censorship, armtwisting and brow beating of media houses and journalists have become the new normal.

Australian newspapers last Monday made a strong statement against censorship and intimidation of media by publishing identical redacted front pages. They asked a very relevant question: “when the government keeps the truth from you, what are they covering (up)?”

Perhaps this is the question that needs to be put across more poignantly and forcefully by media organisations, practitioners and owners to the powers that be.

Arif Nizami is Editor, Pakistan Today. He can be contacted at arifn51@hotmail.com

Hiding behind the past Plays dealing with present issues are needed

Rabia ahmed

T

he Turkish television serial Ertugrul: Resurrection has a large viewership, it is immensely popular in several countries. The series has english subtitles so it can be understood by non-Turkish speakers. Unlike the show itself, the subtitles are poor: tough warriors are regularly called ‘niece’ by their uncles, and felicity termed as velocity, and many other errors. But oh well. The superb production and acting, excellent choreography, meticulous sets, and a gripping story more than make up for it, and– a huge relief– it is full of confident women who work alongside with men, women who are not weepy, clingy, shrieky or die-away. ertugrul, a real person in the 13th century and a hero in the annals of Turkish/Islamic history, was the son of Suleyman Shah, the leader of the Kayi tribe of Orghuz Turks. Along with his tribe he came up against the Templars.

Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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Our Prime Minister Imran Khan has said he would like to have the play dubbed into Urdu so that non-english speaking people in this country can watch it too and exult in the glories of their past as Muslims.

Muslims did have a glorious past, in a few places not as glorious as we would like to believe, in others even quite inglorious. But it is easy to gild what no longer exists and use it to divert people’s attention from the present. Politicians are therefore consistently keen to refer to said glorious past, towards events unconnected with current issues, so that the woefully little– or even the wrong that is being done in the here and now can pass unnoticed in the hankering for a resurrection.

Pakistan’s PM should, instead of glorifying the past yet again– and good as this series is, look to stress the value of plays that focus on the present and its issues, something other than marriage and nasty in-laws, something more constructive, from which people can learn, a kind of a show and tell.

For example, there could be plays with themes such as what comprises justice. The story could demonstrate just why certain laws such as the blasphemy law are a travesty of justice, and that justice

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

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delayed is justice denied, as in the case of the young man Junaid hafeez. he has been accused of blasphemy, but his case is not being addressed after Rashid Rahman of the hRCP, the one person who dared to fight on his behalf, was gunned down. Junaid has been in solitary confinement since 2014.

There could be plays about the real meaning of honour, about how honour most emphatically does not mean killing people for marrying partners of their own choice, such as the couple hanged in Kalat recently for that very reason. earlier this year a man was shot in Baluchistan in the name of ‘honour,’ and several people also this year in Karachi.

There could be a movie about power and what it means; with a mocking reference to the use of power to oppress as in the case of Dr hisham, the provincial health minister in KP, whose guards beat up a surgeon at the Khyber Teaching hospital. Doctors in that province are on strike to protest against the event, and because the police will not register an FIR against the minister.

There could be plays too about what happens in the event of a war, and a nuclear war in particular, to make it clear to a chestthumping public on either side that

Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

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chucking nukes at each other is no way to settle disputes, it is no trivial matter and will solve nothing, only because no one will survive a nuclear war. No one on either side.

We need plays with strong women as central characters, as role models to this downtrodden segment of society which supports their own suppression by perpetuating the myth that to be weak and languishing is to be feminine.

We need plays that speak of government and its institutions, and how different branches of government work best when they stick to their own sphere, instead of interfering in what does not lie within their remit. Inspiration can be drawn from army chiefs who deal with the country’s economy or confer with leaders of the business community.

Definitely, we need a play that would talk about the thing called a constitution and why ruling by means of arbitrary means such as ordinances and decrees is a slap on the face of democracy. That play could be called ‘Taaleem-e-Balighan’.

And we need plays that speak to us about the ubiquitous misuse of the religious card, that sickening use to which Islam is put in this country, a tactic that benefits no one.

Rabia Ahmed is a freelance columnist. Read more by her at http://rabia-ahmed.blogspot.com/

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Sunday, 27 October, 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

Kashmir: A simmering cauldron

Politics and its poisonous fallout Loyalty to self-undermining the interest of the state

Candid Corner Raoof hasaN “There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system.

The innovator has the enmity of all who profit by the preservation of the old system and only lukewarm defence by those who would gain by the new system.”

– Machiavelli

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AKISTAN seems to be caught up in the tentacles of a transition. It is showing unmistakable signs of being more comfortable with what it has endured through decades than what it is on course to experiencing in the future.

Using politics as a business tool, the manipulators in politics have learnt the art of wrapping everything up in the colours of what may have an appeal. There is no instrument which could measure the extent to which this commodity has infected every debate, every decision that is critical to facilitating the transition. Instead of looking at things in their objective context for evaluation and appraisal, these are being viewed within the divisive parameters of partisanship along pre-determined lines and motives.

In the process, even an abominable act like corruption attracts a trail of supporters who are seen justifying it on numerous counts, each more reprehensible than the other. In the process, they blame the executive for its vengeful conduct, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for being the product of a dictator, the judiciary for its dubious role and the military for being the power behind the alleged shenanigans.

In blaming the executive, they are gravely influenced by what has been traditionally practised by rulers in this country. They have been accustomed to contriving governments that worked by oaths of allegiance administered to individuals rather than the rule of law

and justice. The strategy worked by sharing the spoils among those who contributed in varying measures to augmenting the stranglehold of authority as also its cruelty and venom. Along the way, it also impacted the working of the institutions which became subservient to the diktat of the ruling oligarchy rather than the writ of the state. Thus, the demands of justice were compromised as also the need for allowing the benefits of democracy to filter down to the grassroots. Instead, the ones who already enjoyed a surplus of benefits accumulated some more. having been exposed to such practices for decades, with some of them having received their due share of spoils also, they refuse to believe that this government would not work by the long-established and conventional yardsticks. It simply does not penetrate these minds that leaders could think and act differently and that they may actually believe in the supremacy of the state over interests of individuals, irrespective of their avowed power and influence base and pretensions of allegiance.

The next target is NAB for being a dictator’s creation. There are even arguments that national progress and NAB cannot survive together, and that the institution should be abolished.

If that were to be, why is it that both the PPP and the PML-N did not do so during their respective tenures lasting five years each?

They did not because, during those times, they were both using it as a political tool against their opponents to extract support and cooperation.

They are demanding its abolition now because it is finally undertaking accountability of those who have looted and plundered this country. It is no longer being used as window dressing. It is actually doing the job it was originally set up to do. This is unacceptable to the deeply dug-in mafias of the country who are not used to being held accountable for their conduct, no matter how grave, no matter how reprehensible.

In the process, they forget that accountability is an inherent component of democracy.

While there can be arguments for empowering NAB further and improving its capacity, functioning, even-handedness, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness, there would hardly be a person committed to the norms of democracy who would call for NAB’s dissolution Another favourite target is the judiciary.

There is concerted propaganda emanating from multiple quarters for bringing disrepute to the institution. While much can be said about the unworthy role that the judiciary has played in the past, there is a great need for this institution to gain further power and relevance as it is the key to dispensing justice to the people. extensive reform is needed to make it the nerve centre of the society, as it should be, helping people gain faith in its impartiality and adjudications. We are a fair distance from

that goal, but the effort must continue uninterrupted and unhindered.

But it is the military which is a favourite target of belittling scorn, cynicism and caustic criticism. It is construed as the bastion of all evil that has spread far and wide which none of the former ruling mafias is willing to take responsibility for.

While the military has not been devoid of its share of mistakes, it alone cannot be held responsible for all the ills that the society is afflicted with. What I cannot forgive it for, though, is to have given this country the gifts of Bhutto/Zardaris and Sharifs who, individually and jointly, have pushed it into pitiable depths of corruption, loot, plunder and exploitation. These clans are responsible for hoisting a system that works to the advantage of the beneficiary elite alone, simultaneously skinning the poor of even their right to live.

That’s where we stood at the culmination of 10 years of uninterrupted rule by these two oligarchies. Now that they see the gradual institutionalisation of governance and the sword of perpetual accountability hanging over their heads, they are crying foul, holding one or the other institution or individual responsible for the fate that looms.

What we are reaping today is the fallout of excessive politicisation. even health and human emotions are politicised. The sickness of people is blamed on the executive while a contrived tear trickling down is the judiciary’s doing. hidden beneath cloaks of hubris, they refuse to understand that they are being held accountable for their financial and criminal misdemeanours. What they want is a bail-out so that they could escape the dragnet of justice and enjoy the benefits of their illicit billions.

Change takes a long time in coming, and even longer sinking in. The issue is not a vengeful executive, a dictator’s NAB, a malfunctioning judiciary or a sinister military. It is their own unwillingness to concede that they have indulged in crimes whose seriousness is beyond the pale of words. They virtually took this country for their personal property and denuded it of its riches, its power, its legitimacy and its relevance. To get it all back is a herculean task. We have only just begun. It is a long trail which has to be traversed with caution, consistency, conviction and commitment.

There is a need for rubbishing the talk of a deal with the convicts and criminals. A compromise at this stage would doom the state of all hope that may have been generated in the last 15 months of love and labour. In the event of that happening, there would be but a downward plunge taking us to the very bottom of the abyss.

Raoof Hasan is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute – an Islamabad-based think tank. He can be reached at: raoofhasan@hotmail.com; Twitter: @RaoofHasan

RSS-BJP and their offshoots dish out stark lies as historical facts. Gandhi did not care a fig for RSS leaders in his life-time.

So was the case with Ambedkar also. Tragically, the BJP-RSS combine is now trying to co-opt Gandhi and pitch him against the Congress. What a wonder it is hard to find RSSs’ founding father, hedgewar’s mention in the 21 volumes of the writings and speeches of Ambedkar.

Both Gandhi and Ambedkar envisioned India as a modern country with due place for minorities. But, hedgewar thought of hindu raj, _ Rule by hindu Rashtra. Chiplunkar, Tilak and their disciple hedgewar abhorred Gandhi ‘a Bania leading the freedom movement’. After Tilak’s death, hedgewar left the Congress-led freedom struggle and began struggle to regain past glory of Aryawarta. Ambedkar explicitly rejected idea of the hindu Rashtra. he stressed, ‘No matter what the hindus say, hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and fraternity.

On that account it is incompatible with democracy. hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost.’ V D Savarkar’s essay ‘Hindutva’ published in 1925 is RSS’s bible, is... he called Muslims’ hissing Yavana snakes’. But, current RSS’s chief Bhagwat disowned Savarkar to avert ire of foreign journalists he addressed en camera.

An immutable lesson of history is that Kashmiris never reconciled with foreign rule. If they could no longer fight an invader with arms, they pelted stones on invaders (Mughal).

The stone throwers were called dilawars, and the Mughal, were addressed as shikas mogle. This Kashmiri-language expression, akin to French C’est dommage (it’s too bad), is spoken when something is lost. The Mughal were Muslim. Yet, the Kashmiri hated them. Shikas mogle affords a peek into the Kashmiri heart and mind. They cursed foreigners, be they be Muslim.

Kashmiris hate cheating and consider Akbar ‘the Great’ an epitome of treachery. Akbar invited Kashmir ruler Yusuf Chak (1579 – 1586) for talks. But, treacherously imprisoned and killed him in Bihar state. Be it noted that Akbar had failed to subjugate Kashmir in his earlier two expeditions. After take-over, the Mughal lived in a walled nagri (city), later called Sri nagar. The helpless Kashmir used to throw stones at walled city to express their anguish. The general feeling of hatred, kashmiriat, was akin to what Ibn-e-Khuldoon calls asabiya (national cohesion).

It ran across all sects (shia-sunni), religions, castes and creed.

India cheated Sheikh Abdullah and his posterity. Indian forces fire pellets (called ‘birdshots’) with pump-action shotguns against unarmed protesters or stone throwers, even women, and children five to eight years’ old. A New York Time report portrays a gruesome picture (“An Epidemic of ‘Dead Eyes’ in Kashmir as India Uses Pellet Guns on Protesters”, New York Times, Aug 28, 2016’) it says the patients have mutilated retinas, severed optic nerves, irises seeping out like puddles of ink’. Doctors call them ‘dead eyes’. A similar report in Washington Post (December 12, 2017) is no less poignant.

Let India realise it can’t stifle Kashmiris’ dissent. To stifle the Kashmiri’s fighting spirit, the Dogra (1846-1947) punished even Kashmiri children who played with fork-slings (ghulail in Urdu) and stones (Muhammad Yousaf Saraf, Kashmiris Fight for Freedom, vol 1, p 50). Struggle for freedom goes on despite Indian forces’ reign of terror (abductions, custodial deaths, rapes, arson, and pellet shelling). ‘The Security Council should make clear that it opposes Mr Modi’s brutal tightening of India’s control on Kashmir. While Mr Modi may think he can control this volatile conflict on his own, he almost certainly cannot’ (The UN Can’t Ignore Kashmir Anymore, New York Times, Oct 2, 2019), AMJED JAAvED Rawalpindi

Campaign against democracy TheRe is a systematic campaign in electronic media by few anchors and selected analysts who blame democracy for ills that afflict this country, thereby negating Quaid’s vision.

Pakistan was created through democratic constitutional struggle waged by politicians with calibre of Quaid-e-Azam and many others who rose up through political process and were not implanted by British Raj. It were men like Sikandar hayat, a bureaucrat on payroll of hM Government, serving as Member Reserve Bank of India, who was implanted by Raj to take over Unionist Party in Punjab after untimely death of Sir Fazal-i-hussain, a politician in his own right, on 29 June 1936. The British Raj excelled in “Divide and Rule” through intrigues using paid civil and uniformed bureaucracy as tools. They controlled both hindus and Muslim, through civil bureaucracy run by DC and Commissioners (There is no post of DC etc in UK), a uniformed security service to quell local population through intrigues and use of brute force such as Jallianwala brutality. It is unfortunate that MAJ vision of a modern democratic welfare was deliberately derailed, the Constitution delayed and country became hostage to vested interests.

Quaid succeeded in the words of Wolpert - modify the map of world- creating a nation-state; but within a year of his death his vision was derailed. If Quaid’s democratic Pakistan was allowed to function, Kashmir would have been liberated in 1948 or latest by 1962, there would have been no military action in east Pakistan and this country would not have been engaged in proxy war under Zia. Pakistan would have emerged as an economically powerful state, with its people enjoying fruits of development instead of miseries that they face today.

MALIK TARIq ALI Lahore

sunday, 27 october, 2019

10 foreign news

oveR a MIllIon pRoteSteRS deMand chIle pReSIdent'S ReSIgnatIon SANTIAGO

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AGENCIES

ORE than one million people took to the streets in Chile Friday for the largest protests in a week of deadly demonstrations demanding economic reforms and the resignation of President Sebastian Pinera.

The leader told the thronging masses that he had “heard the message” in a post on Twitter, characterising the protests in a positive light and as a means towards change.

Demonstrators carrying indigenous and national flags sang popular resistance songs from the 1973-90 Augusto Pinochet dictatorship era as the country, usually seen as one of the most stable in Latin America, grapples with its worst violence in decades.

Santiago’s governor Karla Rubilar described it as “a historic day” on Twitter, praising “a peaceful march… representing the dream of a new Chile.”

Rubilar said more than a million were demonstrating around the country, while Santiago’s town hall put the number of people marching in the capital at 820,000, citing police figures.

For the past week, Chileans’ pentup anger has spilled over in the form of protests against a socio-economic structure that many feel has left them by the wayside, with low wages and pensions, costly health care and education, and a big gap between rich and poor.

Pinera, a conservative billionaire, wrote on Twitter that “the massive, happy and peaceful march today, where Chileans demanded a more just and supportive Chile, opens great paths for the future and hope.”

“We have all heard the message. We

have all changed. With unity and help from God, we will travel the road towards a Chile that is better for all,” he said.

Pinera apologized earlier in the week for failing to anticipate the outbreak of social unrest and announced a raft of measures designed to placate people, such as increases in minimum pensions and wages.

He also announced a plan to end a deeply unpopular state of emergency and to lift a nighttime curfew, although both of those are now into their seventh day.

On Friday he called on legislators to “urgently approve these projects rather than arguing and debating so much.”

Francisco Anguitar, a 38-year-old artificial intelligence developer attending the demonstrations, told AFP the protests would probably “be the biggest ever. We’re asking for justice, honesty, ethical government.”

“It’s not that we want socialism or communism: We want fewer private enterprises, more state,” he said.

In an initial burst of violence, metro

Barclay family puts telegraph newspapers up for sale: the times

stations were destroyed, supermarkets torched and looted, traffic lights and bus shelters smashed, and countless street barricades erected and set alight.

Authorities deployed some 20,000 police and soldiers in Santiago, using tear gas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators.

Security forces have been blamed for five of the 19 protest-related deaths.

Social media has lit up with accusations of torture and abuse.

The United Nations said on Thursday it was sending a team to investigate the allegations.

Serious incidents and arrests have decreased in recent days compared with the beginning of the movement.

But the violence has still been the worst since Chile returned to democracy after Pinochet’s right-wing dictatorship. And the protests show no sign of abating.

As demonstrators passed by the presidential palace in central Santiago, they hurled insults at Pinera and the

military.

While the mass street movement may appeared organized, it still lacks recognizable leaders and was mostly roused through social media.

Regular media has also found itself a target of protesters’ ire with the distribution of leaflets calling for people not to turn on their televisions.

Earlier on Friday, cars and trucks took part in a protest against highway tolls, moving at snail’s pace as they clogged autoroutes and formed long caravans on roads leading out of the capital city.

Luis Leiton, a participating taxi driver, said the toll system was expensive and abusive.

“If this is not resolved with concrete measures, this nation that has risen up is going to keep protesting,” Leiton told AFP. The latest demonstrations came after a two-day strike on Wednesday and Thursday arranged by Chile’s largest and most powerful trade union, although in Santiago business continued as usual for the most part.

The national human rights institute — INDH — said 584 people have been injured, 245 by firearms, and 2,410 detained during the protests.

Soldiers have been guarding Santiago’s metro stations as three of the seven lines — which usually carry three million people per day — have reopened.

The government said on Thursday that next month’s APEC trade summit in Santiago would go ahead despite the protests.

US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are among those expected to attend the November 16-17 meeting to discuss ending their trade war.

Ten killed as storms ravage eastern Japan: NHK TOKYO AGENCIES

LONDON: The Barclay family has put the Daily and Sunday Telegraph newspapers up for sale as it assesses its multibillion-pound business investments in the United Kingdom, The Times reported late on Friday.

Daily Mail and General Trust and the owner of the Evening Standard and The Independent newspapers are among potential buyers, the report said. The Spectator magazine, also owned by the Barclays, is not part of the review. The review by Aidan and Howard Barclay, sons of David Barclay, surfaced after the realization that the family is no longer as united as it once was, amid what an insider called a generational shift. “The family has got a lot bigger over the last three decades. Interests are no longer aligned in the way they once were,” The Times reported, citing a senior executive close to the Barclays. The Telegraph did not immediately respond to a request for comment after market hours on Friday, while representatives for the Barclay family could not be reached. Insiders told the Times that slimming down the portfolio of investments will generate capital to allow the “buyout” of some family members. AGENCIES

The death toll from torrential rains that caused flooding and mudslides in Japan climbed to 10 on Saturday, with three others missing, public broadcaster NHK reported, just two weeks after the region was hit by a powerful typhoon.

Landslides ripped through waterlogged areas in Chiba and Fukushima prefectures, in eastern and northeastern Japan, on Friday. In some places, a month’s worth of rain fell in just half a day.

Evacuation orders and advisories were issued along much of the northern corridor already hit by two typhoons since last month. The city of Ushiku in Chiba received 283.5 mm (11 inches) of rain over 12 hours.

Although the storm had moved away from Japan by Saturday, hundreds of residents were still in evacuation centres and some rail and bus services remained suspended.

Some roads were closed and about 4,700 households were still without water in the city of Kamogawa, Chiba, the public broadcaster said.

Smartphone screen maker Japan Display Inc

said it had suspended production at its Mobara factory in Chiba on Saturday, due to a partial blackout.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a disaster task force meeting on Saturday.

Authorities warned of the chance of further landslides and floods, especially in areas where levees remained broken after Typhoon Hagibis.

That typhoon killed at least 88 people, with seven others still missing and more than 300 injured, according to NHK.

4th suspect arrested as UK truck deaths case probe deepens LONDON AGENCIES

A fourth person was arrested in connection with the deaths of 39 people found in the back of a container truck in southeastern England, British police said Friday as the investigation into one of the country’s worst human smuggling cases geared up. Police said a 48-year-old man from Northern Ireland was arrested Friday at England’s Stansted Airport on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people. The arrest came after police arrested a man and a woman, both 38 and from northwestern England, earlier Friday on the same charges. The 25-year-old driver of the truck remains in custody on suspicion of murder. Essex Police said 31 men and eight women were found dead in the truck early Wednesday at an industrial park in Grays, a town 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of London.

Although U.K. police said they believed the dead were Chinese citizens, they acknowledged Friday this was a “developing picture.” China said it could not yet confirm the victims’ nationalities or identities. The Vietnamese Embassy in London said Friday that it contacted police about a missing woman feared to be one of the dead. An embassy spokesman said it was contacted by a family in Vietnam who says their daughter had been missing since the truck was found. The BBC reported it had been in contact with six Vietnamese families who feared their relatives are among the victims. Relatives of 26-year-old Pham Tra My told the broadcaster they had been unable to contact her since receiving a text Tuesday night saying she was suffocating. “I’m so sorry mom and dad… .My journey abroad doesn’t succeed,” she wrote. “Mom, I love you and dad very much. I’m dying because I can’t breathe …. Mom, I’m so sorry.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China was working in cooperation with local authorities. “No matter where these victims come from, this is a great tragedy which drew the attention of the international community to the issue of illegal immigration,” she said. “The international community should further strengthen cooperation in this area, strengthen sharing of information and intelligence … to prevent such tragedies from happening again.” Hua said Chinese authorities were also seeking information from police in Belgium, since the shipping container in which the bodies were found was sent to England from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. Human smuggling from China is believed to have fallen drastically in recent years amid the country’s rapidly growing domestic economy. However, some Chinese, particularly those with lesser education, continue to be drawn to Europe and North America by the promise of much higher wages than they can earn at home, despite the considerable risks involved. Parts of China, especially the southeastern province of Fujian, have long histories of sending migrants abroad.

Millions in California facing more blackouts and fire danger SAN FRANCISCO AGENCIES

Millions of Californians were preparing to live in the dark again as the state’s largest utility warned it may cut power for the third time in as many weeks because of looming strong winds and high fire danger.

Pacific Gas & Electric will decide Saturday whether to blackout 850,000 homes and businesses in 36 counties for 48 hours or longer throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, wine country and Sierra foothills.

The two previous shutdowns were done amid concern that gusty winds could foul or knock down power lines and spark devastating wildfires.

Weather forecasts called for record strong winds to lash much of the region over the weekend, with some gusts hitting 85 mph.

PG&E’s warning came as firefighters battled flames in Northern and Southern California.

A blaze on Thursday destroyed at least six homes in the Santa Clarita area near Los Angeles and prompted evacuation orders for up to 50,000 residents, although some were allowed back home Fri-

day night after Santa Ana winds began to ease.

To the north, firefighters raced to make progress against a blaze near Geyserville in Sonoma County before ferocious “diablo winds” returned. The fire had burned 49 buildings, including 21 homes, and swept through 37 square miles (96 square kilometers) of the wine-growing region.

Several thousand people living in small communities in neighbouring Lake County were warned Friday night to be ready to evacuate if an order is given. The area was the scene of a 2015 wildfire that killed four people and burned nearly 2,000 homes and other buildings.

High winds this weekend could ground waterdropping aircraft, disperse fire retardant and drive hot embers far ahead of the flames to set new blazes, Cal Fire Division Chief Jonathan Cox said.

“You can’t fight a fire that’s spotting ahead of itself a quarter of a mile, half a mile, in some cases a mile ahead of itself,” he said.

No cause has been determined for any of the current fires, but PG&E said a 230,000-volt transmission line near Geyserville had malfunctioned minutes

before that fire erupted Wednesday night.

The utility acknowledged that the discovery of the tower malfunction had prompted a change in its strategy.

“We have revisited and adjusted some of our standards and protocols in determining when we will de-energize high-voltage transmission lines,” Andrew Vesey, CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., said at a briefing Friday.

The weekend forecasts detail what could be the strongest winds of the year coupled with bone-dry humidity. It might be a record wind event, the National Weather Service warned.

“These places we all love have effectively become tinderboxes,” Vesey said. “Any spark, from any source, can lead to catastrophic results. We do not want to become one of those sources.”

The possible link between the wine country fire and a PG&E transmission line contained grim parallels to a catastrophic fire last year that tore through the town of Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying thousands of homes in the deadliest U.S. fire in a century.

CMYK

State officials concluded that fire was sparked by a PG&E transmission line.

Asherah Davidown, 17, of Magalia and her family lost their house, two dogs and a car in the Paradise fire. She said her family was preparing for another power outage by filling the gas tank of their car and buying non-perishable foods and batteries for their flashlights.

The outages reminded her of her family’s vulnerable position as they struggle to get back on their feet.

“My house doesn’t have a generator so that means another weekend of sitting in the dark with no wifi, no food in the fridge and shopping in increments since we don’t know how long the power may be out,” Davidown said.

The continuing round of power outages made her feel somewhat vulnerable as her family tries to get back on its feet, she said.

“For the most part a lot of people feel really helpless. Their livelihoods are at the fingertips of a corporation,” she said. “There’s still a lot of hurt and emotional recovery. Having our basic needs repeatedly taken away is really unfortunate.”

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

BUSINESS 11

PM calls for facilitation of sMall businesses, construction activities

CORPORATE CORNER

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LAHORE: realme has fortified its leadership in the market by launching Pakistan’s first 64MP ultra righ reolution quad camera smartphone – realme XT. PR

BUSINESS DESK

riMe Minister imran Khan on Saturday chaired a meeting to review the current state of national economy as well as the overall performance of financial institutions.

The meeting was attended by federal ministers Khusro Bakhtiar, Ali Zaidi, Omar Ayub Khan, Hammad Azhar, advisers Hafeez Shaikh, Abdul razak Dawood, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Federal Board of revenue (FBr) Chairman Shabbar Zaidi and Board of investment (Boi) Chairman Zubair Gilani.

The premier expressed contentment over Pakistan’s improvement in the World Bank’s ease of Doing

Business index. He congratulated his economic team and termed the development as a “major achievement”.

The PM said that the indicators were improving owing to regular

Business community lauds improvement ‘us, china close in Pakistan’s EODB ranking to finalising parts of trade deal’ LAHORE

QUETTA: Foodpanda has added the city of Sajji lovers, Quetta, as the latest city to offer its app-ordering food services in the already growing market in Pakistan.

Balochistan Population Welfare & Food Minister Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran, Quetta Commissioner Usman Ali were among the top dignitaries of the event. PR

Mobile phone imports surge 35 per cent

ISLAMABAD: The import of mobile phones and dry fruits witnessed a surge of 35pc and 12.66pc during the first quarter of the current fiscal year. However, the import of tea decreased by 31pc while that of pulses dropped 22.37pc. According to the Ministry of Commerce statistics, mobile phones worth $260.90 million were imported in the first three months (July to September) of FY20, as compared to the imports of $190.92 million during the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, tea imports reduced by 31pc, standing at $100.22 million during the period review.

Furthermore, the import of cream and infant milk reduced by 14.88pc, palm oil by 25.38pc, sugar by 18.16pc while a significant 60.68pc reduction was witnessed in the import of construction and mining machinery. APP

consultations on economic issues.

“The value of rupee has stabilised and the stock market indicators are also going up,” he noted.

PM Khan directed his eco-

nomic team to prioritise the facilitation of small businesses as well as to expedite constructions activities in the country. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) officials on the occasion briefed PM Khan regarding the pending 46,940 cases in banking courts. They said that reforms were needed in some regulations in order to resolve the cases.

The participants of the meeting also held consultations over the promotion of small and medium-level industries. The premier was briefed that a board of governors was being established while the chief executive officer for the Small and Medium enterprise Development Authority (SMeDA) would be appointed by December this year.

The PM was further informed that a three-year strategy plan would be approved by the authorities for the promotion of industries.

The premier asked his economic team to formulate plans to ensure the provision of facilities to the local investors. The PM also directed authorities to envisage rules to simplify remittance procedures for overseas Pakistanis. He asserted that the provincial governments must ensure the provision of lowcost roti and flour to the people.

INP

All Pakistan Business Forum President Syed Maaz Mahmood has welcomed Pakistan’s upward shift in the World Bank ease of Doing Business index, stating the APBF is ready to work closely with the government to resolve all industrial issues.

He said that Pakistan’s landing in the club of world’s top 10 business climate improvers would improve the country’s image in terms of investments. However, he warned that the country’s export potential is not being realised to the maximum.

The APBF president urged the government to formulate new policies that could offer long-term predictable incentives to the investors.

He urged the government to take serious measures to implement the european Union’s recommendations regarding 27 iLO conventions required under the GSPPlus scheme.

Pakistan has been availing tariff concession through GSP-Plus status offered by the european Union on the export of its products. This requires Pakistan to implement 27 international conventions pertaining to human rights, labour rights, environment and good governance.

“The government should realise the fact that we are not compliant with most of the international conventions and that this extension of GSP-Plus facility has provided us with an opportunity to improve our human rights and labour rights situation,” he added.

Mahmood called for close liaison between public and private sectors so that the

country’s ‘doing business ranking’ and ‘global competitiveness index’ could be improved further, while necessary steps to improve the country’s fiscal and monetary performance could be taken.

The APBF president stressed the need for promotion of skills development according to the private sector demand, saying the skilled youth can fulfil the industrial human resource needs, besides uplifting the national economy.

Lamenting the grave situation of employment due to lack of skilled workforce, Mahmood said that the employability rate of graduates from the formal TVeT system is very low, as about 3 million youth enter the labour market while formal TVeT system can only accommodate just 0.5 million trainees annually.

He said the gap between demand and supply of skilled workforce is due to limited cooperation between the public and the private sector in TVeT planning and its implementation, which needs to be gapped.

He said Pakistan has other opportunities for improvement in the areas measured by the World Bank index. The APBF president observed that Pakistan is a resourcerich country and does not need any external financial help, adding that market and products diversification is the best method to boost exports. He urged the government to task Pakistani missions abroad with finding new destinations.

Mahmood said that government should also facilitate export-oriented industries by resolving their genuine issues like delay in refunds. He also stressed on taking advantage of the beautiful landscapes in the country to enhance the tourism industry.

WASHINGTON: Washington and Beijing are making “headway” on key issues in their ongoing trade dispute and discussions will continue, the US Trade representative’s office said following a phone call between senior officials. President Donald Trump heralded a major win in his offensive against China two weeks ago, saying the economic powers were close to concluding a “substantial phase one deal.” However the details were, and remain, scarce and the two sides have not announced rollbacks of existing tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in trade. US Trade representative robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke with China’s Vice Premier Liu He Friday on “Phase One of the US-China trade agreement,” USTr announced. “They made headway on specific issues and the two sides are close to finalising some sections of the agreement,” the statement said. While the statement did not provide any specifics, it said, discussions “will go on continuously at the deputy level and the principals will have another call in the near future.” Trump said China committed to a surge in purchases of American farm products and the deal also covers intellectual property, financial services and currencies. The White House held off on a massive tariff increase planned for October 15 on $250bn in Chinese goods but new 15pc tariffs on another $150bn in goods are still scheduled for December. Trump said he expected to sign an agreement with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APeC summit in Santiago, Chile in mid-November. “We’re doing very well with China,” Trump told reporters on Friday.

“China wants a deal. They’d like to see some reductions in tariffs.” With hundreds of billions of dollars in two-way trade now subject to steep tariffs, there are mounting signs the trade war — now in its second year — has damaged the world economy, adding to pressure on both sides to strike a deal. AGENCIES

No ‘CokeFest’ this year as Coca-Cola pulls out amid market slowdown OWNERS OF THE EVENT SAY THAT THE EVENT WILL STILL BE HELD, UNDER THE NAME ‘SOUL FOOD FESTIVAL LAHORE ABDULLAH NIAZI

Coca-Cola export Corporation (Pakistan) has pulled out as the title sponsor from CokeFest, the country’s premiere food festival, amid a market slowdown and a change in management on both the local and regional level.

The annual food festival has been held by Active Media, an event management company that has had the sponsorship and blessing of Coca-Cola since it first started the event back in 2016. The food festival was the brainchild of Asad Sheikh, the ‘food guru’ behind the near 50,000 strong ‘Foodies r Us’ facebook phenomenon. The event is owned and managed by Active Media, with Coca-

Cola only being a cost input sponsor.

Active media confirmed to this scribe that Coca-Cola had withdrawn their sponsorship from the event, but said that the event would still be held, only rebranded.

The event will now take place under the name ‘Soul food festival.’

“The festival is still very much alive.

Coca-Cola has pulled out from the event for its own reasons, but all the other sponsors are still on board,” said Saad M Khan, CeO of Active Media.

However, Pakistan Today has learned that Coca-Cola has pulled out after new management questioned the return on investment that the company was getting for the amount of money it was spending on sponsoring the festival. According to a senior Coca-Cola executive, the com-

pany had just undergone management changes on both a local and regional level. According to the official, the recent recession in the economy has also hit the beverage giant in Pakistan, and that their sales had gone down in recent months.

“There were also security concerns.

The event is not owned by Coca-Cola, and we make no profits from it, but it has our name plastered all over it. if anything goes wrong, it is our head on the chopping block” they ended.

However, the sudden dropping out of Coca-Cola from what had been a flagship event for the past few years still comes as a surprise, especially since the multi-national enjoyed a fruitful relationship with Activemedia. Upon further questioning regarding the issues leading up to its pulling out of the CokeFest sponsorship, Coca-Cola once again remained mum, only saying that whatever had to be said presently has been said and if there was a need in the future to elaborate any further,

it will do so through an official statement.

However, Profit has learned through insider sources that the break between Coca-Cola and Active Media came after some discrepancies surfaced in the operations of the festival. When contacted, Coca-Cola’s communication boss, Fahad Qadir, said that “After many successful editions, The Coca-Cola export Corporation, Pakistan Branch, has decided to not sponsor FoodFest for 2019-20, in line with our evolving business strategy. All of our focus is currently on Coke Studio.”

While the event will still be held, the question still remains of how big Active Media’s ‘Soul Food Festival’ will be without a powerful name such as CocaCola backing it. Over the years, the event has easily become the largest food festival in the country and a lucrative business in its own right. The last edition took place in five cities across the country including Lahore, Karachi and islamabad, and pulled crowds of up to 100,000 peo-

ple being served by hundreds of food stalls being entertained by top line performers. Whether it will be able to pull such numbers without the backing of Coca-Cola, and whether stalls will be willing to pay as much is yet to be seen.

With Coca-Cola seemingly out of the picture, other competitors in the food festival market will be looking to expand their footprint and make food festivals their own. Pepsi Cola could be a natural competitor, especially since they have already been conducting their own festival under the branding of 7UP for the past couple of years. However, what could be even more interesting is if Coca-Cola decides to launch their own festival, instead of sponsoring one – an idea not denied by them.

“However, there are all kinds of possibilities to enter into the food side. And while we have pulled out of CokeFest thanks to the recent recession, we are constantly working on new ideas on how to expand” said the Coca-Cola official.

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

12 BUSINESS

PHMa deMands clearance of containers carrying Hefty exPort orders ‘GOVT HAS CONFISCATED CONTAINERS AND HEAVY VEHICLES FOR POLITICAL REASONS, BUT DEMURRAGE AND RENT COST WILL BE SUSTAINED BY BUSINESSMEN’ LAHORE

P

INP

AKiSTAN Hosiery Manufacturers and exporters Association (PHMA) has condemned the illegal detention of containers loaded with exports’ goods by the law agencies in various cities of Punjab.

in a letter written simultaneously to the prime minister’s commerce advisor, Punjab chief minister and Punjab chief secretary, PHMA Vice-Chairman Shafique Butt observed that the detention of containers by the police have put millions of dollars-worth export orders at risk.

“The supply of imported raw material is not reaching the manufacturing units as the government has laid siege to the main

iMf review mission to arrive in islamabad today ISLAMABAD: An international Monetary Fund (iMF) review mission will arrive in islamabad today (Sunday) to inspect Pakistan’s economic plans made under the $6-billion extended loan programme. Finance ministry sources confirmed on Saturday that the iMF mission would begin its visit from October 28, adding that the mission would be headed by iMF’s Pakistan, Middle east and Central Asia Mission Chief ernesto ramirez rigo. The iMF’s review mission would hold technical and policy levels talks from October 28 to November 11, 2019, after which the mission will prepare its report to present before the iMF’s executive Board for release of the second tranche of the loan. The delegation would meet Advisor to PM on Commerce Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Federal Board of revenue (FBr) Chairman Shabbar Zaidi, besides holding talks over fixed tax scheme for traders. earlier on October 21, iMF and the World Bank had assured continued support to Pakistan’s economy. The assurances were given by the managing directors of iMF and WB during separate meetings with Abdul Hafeez Sheikh in Washington. During the meeting with iMF Managing Director Krsitalina Georgieva, the finance adviser gave an overview of the implementation of the iMF programme in Pakistan. “The first-quarter results indicate that Pakistan’s economy is on its path to stabilization. The reforms initiated under the iMF programme are resulting in positive outcomes,” he had said. Georgieva had stated that the iMF recognised the tough decisions being made to stabilise Pakistan’s economy. She had also appreciated the commitment of the government and assured continued iMF support to the reform process. INP

cities,” he remarked. Blaming both the government and the opposition for the prevalent state of economy, he said that all governments of the past remained indifferent towards the country’s export crisis.

“The confiscation of containers and heavy vehicles was causing trouble to the importers, exporters as well as transporters, halting trade and industrial activities across the country,” he maintained.

The vice-chairman said the business community was impartial and it should not be dragged into political affairs, adding that the containers were held by the police for political reasons while the “demurrage and rent cost would be sustained by the businessmen for nothing”.

Butt said owing to the seizure of containers, the LCs (Letters of Credit) of traders would expire and their export orders could be cancelled. He alleged that the Punjab Police had also snatched trucks, loaded with textile products worth millions of dollars, to use as barriers against the agitators. The PHMA vice-chairman further stated that a large number of hosiery exporters were worried because they had no information about their export cargoes. “There is no clue about the whereabouts of several shipments on way to the harbour, and the exporters have no idea where their containers are.”

He criticised the government’s antiprotest strategy that was “causing a big fi-

nancial loss to the exporters”, saying the exporters were uncertain that whether they would be able to ship their consignments to the world markets as per schedule. He said the country’s exports had already been flat and the unresolved issues might further worsen the situation.

“There are a large number of exporters whose cargoes are not insured and they may face a financial loss of millions of dollars if the consignments are lost or damaged. The hijacking of export cargoes just to stop protests is nonsensical,” he added. The vice-chairman further observed that the global customers were also annoyed with the ongoing delay in shipments from Pakistan.

SECP reiterates commitment to improving Pakistan’s business climate ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

The Securities and exchange Commission of Pakistan (SeCP) has undertaken some tough but vital reforms that ensured improvement in the Pakistan’s overall ease of doing business ranking, said a statement issued on Saturday.

Out of the total 10 areas covered in the WB report, the success of reforms drive by the SeCP for ease of doing business is reflected in three indicators, i.e. starting a business, protecting minority investors and resolving insolvency, where Pakistan ranked

Group that benchmarks business regulation in 190 countries.

Out of six reform areas acknowledged in 2020 report, the biggest jump of 58 points was recorded in ‘Starting a Business’, from 130 to 72. expansion of online one-stop-shop facility through SeCP’s eServices to different federal and provincial agencies has reduced the number of procedures required to set up a business from 10 to 5. Now, an entrepreneur can get registration with six agencies i.e. SeCP, NTN from FBr and registration with eOBi, PeSSi/SeSSi and labour department and excise and tax-

72, 28 and 58, respectively. in World Bank’s latest rankings on ease of doing business for 2020, Pakistan has improved its position by 28 points from 136 to 108. The improvement is unprecedented in the history of Pakistan. With reforms acknowledged in six areas i.e. starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, paying taxes and trading across borders, Pakistan is ranked a number one reformer in South Asia and scored 6th position among top ten reformers globally. The Doing Business report is a publication of the World Bank

ation department of Punjab and Sindh, by submitting a single online application through SeCP eServices. SeCP Corporatization and Compliance Department Commissioner Shaukat Hussain said that the commission remains committed to pursuing its agenda for ease of doing business. He further said that finalisation of subordinate legislation under corporate rehabilitation and corporate restructuring laws, operationalization of secured transaction registry and extension of the one-stop-shop facility to KP and Balochistan are among the top priority areas for the next year.

Envoy stresses private sector engagements between China, Pakistan

tevta, aPtMa join hands to uplift textile sector LAHORE: The Technical and Vocational Training Authority (TeVTA) and the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) have agreed to form a ‘Textile Sector Council’ to ensure better coordination. An understanding in this regard was reached during a meeting between TeVTA Chairman Ali Salman Siddique and APTMA Chairman Adil Bashir on Saturday. This agreement will facilitate both organisations to meet the opportunities that would arise in the textile sector during the next five years, according to a statement issued after the meeting. Addressing the occasion, the TeVTA chairman said that the authority, under its new vision, was committed to introducing courses that were tailored for the industrial needs. “We will ensure that our products are readily accepted by the concerned industry, and that the TeVTA trainees are available for employment as they soon they complete their courses.” Ali said that the formation of the textile sector council, comprising representatives of APTMA and TeVTA, would help the latter formulate recommendations for the course modules and training schedules as per the requirement of the textile industry for the next five years, while APTMA would ensure job placements of TeVTA trained workforce modelled as per its demand and requirements. earlier, APTMA Chairman Adil Bashir lauded the authority for ascertaining the requirements of the textile industry and offering to train workforce as per industries requirements. He said that according to an estimate, the textile sector would require close to 1.5 billion trained workforce during the next five years. APP

ISLAMABAD APP

Ambassador of China to Pakistan Jao Jing said on Saturday that through private sector engagements, the volume of trade between Pakistan and China could be enhanced manifold.

Talking to islamabad Chamber of Commerce and industry (iCCi) President Ahmed Waheed at the Chinese embassy, the envoy said that Pakistan should focus on manufacturing and value addition of products in order to enhance its exports. “Chinese companies are keen to invest in Pakistan but supportive policies are required for joint ventures,” he added.Ambassador Jing said that Pakistan could enhance its share of exports by ensuring quality and competitive prices. “China international import export expo 2019 offers tremendous opportunities to exporters to enter in the Chinese market and Pakistani companies should take part in such exhibitions.”

He said that China would encourage Pakistani business delegations to explore new areas of cooperation, adding that a Chinese agricultural delegation would visit Pakistan by the end of the ongoing month. “The Chinese commercial section will also hold cultural events, besides arranging training and capacity building programmes,” he stated.

Speaking on the occasion, iCCi President Muhammad Ahmed Waheed urged the Chinese investors to help Pakistan in technology transfer through JVs, particularly in the special economic zones. He said that iT and services’ sectors were other potential areas of cooperation between the two countries. The iCCi president said that the visit of Pakistani investors to high-tech companies in China should be arranged so that new avenues of mutual cooperation could be explored. He thanked the ambassador for giving assurance of his cooperation in the development of the private sectors of both countries.

Microsoft beats Amazon for Pentagon’s $10bn cloud computing contract WASHINGTON AGENCIES

Microsoft Corp has won the Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud computing contract, the Defence Department said, beating out favourite Amazon.com inc.

The contracting process had long been mired in conflict of interest allegations, even drawing the attention of President Donald Trump, who has publicly taken swipes at Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos. Trump in August said his administration was reviewing Amazon’s bid after complaints from other companies.

The Joint enterprise Defence

infrastructure Cloud (JeDi) contract is part of a broader digital modernization of the Pentagon meant to make it more technologically agile. Specifically, a goal of JeDi is to give the military better access to data and the cloud from battlefields and other remote locations. Oracle Corp had expressed concerns about the award process for the contract, including the role of a former Amazon employee who worked on the project at the Defense Department but recused himself, then later left the Defense Department and returned to Amazon Web Services. in a statement, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) spokesman

said the company was “surprised about this conclusion.”

The company said that a “detailed assessment purely on the comparative offerings” would “clearly lead to a different conclusion,” according to the statement.

AWS is considering options for protesting the award, a person familiar with the matter told reuters. Although the Pentagon boasts the world’s most potent fighting force, its information technology remains woefully inadequate, according to many officials.

Officials have complained of having outdated computer systems and being unable to access files or share information as

quickly as they might be able to in the private sector. “if i am a warfighter, i want as much data as you could possibly give me,” Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, the director of the Joint Artificial intelligence Center, told reporters in August describing the importance of the contract.

Some companies were concerned that a single award would give the winner an unfair advantage in follow-on work. The Pentagon has said it planned to award future cloud deals to multiple contractors. This week, US Defence Secretary Mark esper removed himself from reviewing the deal due to his adult son’s employment

with one of the original contract applicants, iBM Corp. iBM had previously bid for the contract but had already been eliminated from the competition. Microsoft said it was working on a comment. iBM and Oracle did not immediately return requests for comment. in a book slated for publication Oct 29, retired Navy commander Guy Snodgrass, who served as a speech writer to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, said Trump called Mattis and directed him to “screw Amazon” by preventing it from bidding on the JeDi contract, according to an excerpt of the book seen by reuters ahead of its release.

“We’re not going to do that,” Mattis later told other Pentagon officials, according to the excerpt.

“This will be done by the book, both legally and ethically.” Snodgrass declined to comment pending the release of his book. in a statement announcing Microsoft as the winner, the Pentagon underscored its view that the competition was conducted fairly and legally. “All (offers) were treated fairly and evaluated consistently with the solicitation’s stated evaluation criteria. Prior to the award, the department conferred with the DOD inspector General, which informed the decision to proceed,” it said.

CMYK

13

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

The ersatz ‘street’ and life imitating art

I

THE TubE

T’S a common put down in hiphop/rap culture in America. That an artist doesn’t come from “the streets” and has had a nice little middle-class existence, only pretending to be some sort of rough and tough inner-city dweller. To be a dentist’s son and yet to belt out lines like “Pop! Pop! Pop the police competition in Compton!” Compton being the crime-riddled, working class, Latino and black-dominated neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

But these artists do try to create a feel. You can’t hear their privileged upbringing in their songs or lyrics.

The exposés come later, in the form of snooping music journalists attempting to bring down the image that record companies would have tried so hard to construct for such an artist.

Things are different when the lyrics and accents of the songs give away the fact that the artist isn’t “street” from the first uttered word sung. This is perhaps the case with a Pashto language rap band called Fortitude Pakhtuncore. These boys are a bit burger (an aside: Pashtun, Baloch and, to some extent Sindhi, burgers still speak their mother tongues, clunky as they may be, in contrast with their Punjabi counterparts.)

The lyrics to Pakhtuncore’s most famous song (‘da pekhawar sarrkuno ke za lway shwam; pa de nwar au zulmuno ke za sher shwam’) don’t do their anglicised accents any justice. Grew up on the streets of Peshawar; under the sun

and these injustices I matured as a lion.

Yes, the mean streets of upscale Hayatabad (maybe even Islamabad) would have been quite traumatic.

But an interesting phenomenon is playing out on the ‘twitter of the streets’: TikTok. Many of the Pashtun users of the popular social media site are enacting their videos on this song. A lot of them are fellow ‘burgers’ but an increasing number of salt-of-the-earth types are lip-syncing to the song as well.

Some of them, the marginalised, internally displaced youngsters from the erstwhile Fata districts. The beats of the song have reeled them in, and they seem to identify with it.

Reminds me of a life-imitating art scenario in the case of the Mario Puzo bestseller The Godfather. Consider this fascinating account from the Lake Shore Game night blog.

Mario Puzo never knew any gangsters, at least that is what he claims.

“The Godfather” wasn’t based on any local wiseguys, and the only reason he wrote the book was to get out of debt.

Many of the mannerism, traditions and the lingo of the mobsters were

created by Puzo and based on how he thought mafia types talked. His research for the book came mostly from reading court documents, and a knowledge of high profile crime cases.

When he approached his publisher, he received little encouragement, but what else was there to do.

The advance that he received was $5,000, which was almost as much as he made on his last two novels.

He went ahead anyways, “The Godfather” would go on to be a huge literary success, and would ultimately become a permanent part of the zeitgeist due to the popularity of the movie.

“The Godfather” has been embraced by crime culture. Like I said, the movie made it cool to be a bad guy.

Oxford sociologist Diego Gambetta’s book “Codes of The Underworld” talks about this exact phenomenon.

The lingo and the style of the gangsters in the movie served as an inspiration for real life criminals. But it isn’t just the look and the language that was only borrowed from “The Godfather,” but also how these guys do business.

Sending a gift wrapped trout isn’t a mystery to anyone, and there has been more than one severed horse head sent to the homes of a mob bosses enemy. John Gotti lieutenant Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano freely admitted he drew inspiration

from the book and the movie.

Interestingly enough, after the release of “The Godfather”, police detectives in the 1970s began to find copies of the books in the homes of the criminals they arrested. It appears life imitates art. g

Maulvis at the mic

E

ven if the readers have missed watching it on live television, they would have seen it on their Facebook or twitter timelines and newsfeeds. And it would be nearly impossible for them not to have received it from someone on WhatsApp. Different videos of the JUI-F’s Mufti Kifayatullah taking on retired military men on talk shows. I won’t even speak to them, says the Mufti.

Don’t invite me when you have them on, he says to the anchor while the retired servicemen shift about in their seats uncomfortably. The likes of retired general Amjad Shoaib do try to argue back, but to no avail.

Whereas one does find Kifayatullah’s irreverence refreshing, it is problematic to say, as he does, that retired military folks don’t have the right to come on such shows to discuss politics, specially since they draw pensions from the said institution. First of all, there is no law anywhere in the world that bars retired military or civil officers from speaking on talk shows or expressing their opinions on talk shows. In fact, after a stipulated period of time (two years, in Pakistan’s case) they can even participate in electoral politics.

Drawing a pension isn’t seen as an association with the former institution anywhere in the world,

whether it is India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, US, UK or anywhere across the spectrum of democracies, old or nascent, weak or strong.

As a principal, barring people from speaking, or asking for them to be barred, is bad form. As we know by now, retired military types aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.

The likes of Mufti Kifayatullah (the man has quite a gift of the gab) can run circles around them while doing tricep dips on their chairs.

In fact, I even find fault with the distinction Kifayatullah makes about ‘siyasi tajzia’ and ‘difaee tajzia’.

Just the way political analysis should be open to former military men, defence analysis should also be

open to civilians. The notion that it is the sole domain of military men is one of the factors that have gotten us in the rut we are in today, causing the likes of the FATF situation and PTM resentments to take place.

Former servicemen should be encouraged to come to the talk shows.

And tarred and feathered on the set. * * * * * * * * * *

H

oW bizarre, the cancellation of the CnIC of the JUI-F’s Hafiz Hamdullah! The man has literally been made stateless, since the Afghan government, presumably,

doesn’t have any records of the fellow. The timing can’t be a coincidence. one wonders whose smart idea this was.

The PeMRA directive, however, was even more ridiculous.

They asked the television channels not to feature the fellow since he wasn’t a Pakistani. That didn’t make any sense. As Samaa’s Amber Shamsi noted on twitter, there was no bar on Afghan nationals (if we were to accept he is one) to appear on Tv channels.

The readers would be able to recall a certain Tahir-ul-Qadri, a Canadian national, being given wall-to-wall coverage during the 2014 dharna. g

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

14 SPORTS

LeiceSter make hiStory with ninegoaL deStruction of SouthamPton SoUtHAMpton

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APP

EICESTER City went into the Premier League record books on Friday with a 9-0 hammering of Southampton that equalled the biggest ever win in the history of the division.

Ayoze Perez and Jamie Vardy both hit hattricks as Brendan Rodgers' side moved second with a huge win that continued their superb start to the season.

The rout equalled Manchester United's 9-0 demolition of Ipswich at Old Trafford in March 1995.

Leicester are just five points behind league leaders Liverpool, who host Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, after a historic display that sank the Saints, who drop into the relegation zone on goal difference, at a soaking wet St Mary's Stadium.

However, despite the massive margin of victory they can still be caught by reigning champions Manchester City, who will retake second spot should they win as expected against Aston Villa on Saturday.

"We said at half time, keep your speed in the game and we have to punish them," said Rodgers.

"This is part of our education. We have to come out of the boy zone and play like men and respect the game. They are very talented and learning to be ruthless."

Ben Chilwell began the destruction in the 10th minute when he tapped in on the rebound, and Ryan Bertrand's red card -- awarded via VAR for a late tackle on Ayoze Perez in the build-up to the opener -- helped the away side open the floodgates.

Quickfire strikes from Youri Tielemans and Perez put Leicester three goals to the good with

Pressure builds on Solskjaer to provide creative solutions LonDon Agencies

less than 20 minutes gone amid a downpour on the south coast.

Perez struck again seven minutes before the break from a Chilwell cross to make it four before Vardy scored his first of the evening as Leicester racked up five goals in the first half of a league match for the first time since 1984.

It was also the first time that a side had crashed home that many goals in the opening period of a Premier League game since Manchester City beat Burnley 6-1 in April 2010.

That didn't stop Leicester from raining down goals on Southampton however, with two coming within a minute just before the hour mark.

First Perez completed his treble after collect-

ing Hervey Barnes' superb lofted through ball in the 57th minute, and Vardy headed home from another precise Chilwell cross seconds later.

James Maddison made it a record-breaking away scoreline with five minutes remaining when he swung home a perfect free-kick that zipped past the desperate Angus Gunn.

And Vardy sealed Leicester's place in the record books with his ninth of the season deep into stoppage, firing home a penalty that also took him top of the Premier League scoring charts with nine goals after he was brought down by Jan Bednarek.

"It was an embarrassing performance, the stuff of nightmare and especially playing at home," Saints' Nathan Redmond told Sky Sports.

Pakistan Women beat Bangladesh in T20I opener SportS DeSk Aliya Riaz's superb death bowling meant that middle-order batter Rumana Ahmed's blistering half century went in vain as Pakistan Women defeated their Bangladeshi counterparts by 14 runs in the 1st T20I at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Saturday.

Chasing a 127-run target, Bangladesh were dealt two early setbacks and kept on losing more wickets at regular intervals against a balanced Pakistani bowling attack.

With wickets tumbling around her, Rumana stepped up and turned into a one-woman wrecking ball, smashing six 4s and two 6s on her way to a 30-ball 50.

She got very little support from the other end, which in the end left

her with a mountain to climb in the

final over.

With Bangladesh needing 18 to win off just six balls, Aliya Riaz (412-1) bowled a superb over at the death as she claimed not only the prized wicket of the dangerous Rumana but also gave away a mere three runs to help her side take the match as well as a 1-0 lead in the series.

Earlier, Pakistan Women had finished with a score of 126-7 thanks to a 60-run stand for the third wicket between captain Bismah Maroof (29-ball 34) and Umaima Sohail (33 off 36 balls).

Cameos by Iram Javed (21) and wicketkeeper Sidra Nawaz (unbeaten 16 off just five balls) also came in handy.

For Bangladesh, Jahanara Alam was the pick of the bowlers as she claimed four wickets for just 17 runs in her allotted four overs.

Manchester United travel to Norwich on Sunday hoping the promising performance to hold Premier League leaders Liverpool last weekend proves to be a turning point in their season rather than another false dawn. A 1-1 draw against the European champions still left United just two points above the relegation zone in 14th place after their worst start to a league season in 33 years. Back then Ron Atkinson was sacked to pave the way for Alex Ferguson's arrival at Old Trafford, but United's executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward has been emphatic in his belief that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the man to turn things around. Solskjaer managed to avoid matching another unwanted club record of 12 away games without a win with a 1-0 victory at Partizan Belgrade in the Europa League on Thursday, his first on the road since being appointed on a permanent basis in March. The Norwegian was credited for his tactical shift to a 3-5-2 that restricted Liverpool to precious few chances. But ahead of a trip to Carrow Road, the pressure is on Solskjaer to show he has the creative solutions to break down the sides United are expected to beat in the lower reaches of the table. United are unbeaten in their four Premier League games against those in the top five so far this season.

Chelsea were thrashed 4-0 on the opening weekend of the campaign, Leicester beaten 1-0 and Arsenal held 11 at Old Trafford. But Solskjaer's men have looked toothless in defeats to Crystal Palace, West Ham and Newcastle, as well as draws at Southampton and Wolves. Even in Belgrade in midweek, the visitors needed a penalty to find the net as Anthony Martial scored from the spot on his first start since August. The win over Chelsea in Frank Lampard's first game in charge is the only time in the last 19 fixtures that United have managed to score more than a solitary goal. The decision to allow Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez to leave for Inter Milan without replacements being drafted in has already backfired. However, Solskjaer is placing his faith in Martial's return to remedy his side's lack of goals. "We've not created as many as we'd have liked and not scored as many as we'd have liked," he said. "Now Anthony is back, he got a goal, and I'm sure we'll see us improve as a team with Anthony in the side. He does gives us something different." Martial, though, is the only senior player Solskjaer will have back for this weekend with Paul Pogba, Nemanja Matic and Luke Shaw all still missing. "We're working very hard to get them fit and, hopefully, we can get them back soon," said Solskjaer.

"I'm not going to put a deadline on it but it won’t be long, hopefully."

Judo ban a wake-up call for Iran ahead of Olympics teHrAn Agencies

For years, its athletes have managed to avoid Israeli opponents, but Iran's suspension from international judo competition is a wake-up call for the Islamic republic ahead of the 2020 Olympics.

The International Judo Federation (IJF) this week announced its decision to confirm a provisional ban on Iran over its refusal to allow its fighters to face Israeli judokas.

The verdict came after an investigation was launched into an incident during the 2019 World Championships in Tokyo at the end of August.

Iran's Saeid Mollaei, defending his title in the -81kg class, was defeated in the semi-final and also went on to lose his third-place bout.

At the end of the tournament, the 27year-old -- who has not returned to Iran - said he had been ordered to throw the semi-final rather than risk facing an Israeli in the final.

The Israeli, Sagi Muki, went on to win gold.

The IJF, which has backed Mollaei, demanded the Iranian judo federation "give strong guarantees and prove that

they will respect the IJF statutes and accept that their athletes fight against Israeli athletes".

The head of the Iranian federation, Arash Miresmaeili, denounced the ban as a "cruel and a blatant betrayal" based on "false claims", according to state news agency IRNA. But just as world football's governing body FIFA is less willing to see women banned from Iranian stadiums, so too is the IJF less inclined to tolerate Iranian judokas refusing to take on Israelis.

Judo is one of Iran's sporting strengths and the ban comes as a blow just nine months ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

According to a source close to the case, the issue of boycotts of Israel was on the agenda of an International Olympic Committee meeting in Lausanne earlier this month.

"We have been aware (of the problem) from the first moment and, within the athletes commission, we will be discussing it very shortly to make sure we are supporting whatever we can support," Danka Bartekova, a Slovak member of the IOC, told AFP late last month.

Iran does not recognise Israel and support for the Palestinian cause has been

a constant feature of its foreign policy since the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Rather than openly refusing to face Israeli athletes or teams -- which would go against rules -- Iranian athletes have managed to lose, get disqualified or provide medical certificates saying they are unable to compete.

Those who risk competing against Israelis are punished.

This is what happened in 2017 to Masoud Shojaei, the then captain of Iran's national football team.

Shojaei was banned for life for playing for his then Greek club against Maccabi Tel-Aviv, before being allowed back into the squad ahead of the 2018 World Cup. But the Iranian athletes who do manage to avoid Israeli opponents are feted as "heroes" at home for the "sacrifice" they have made.

The issue is divisive in Iran, especially with Israelis increasingly winning places on the podium in judo and taekwondo, another discipline in which Iran is a traditional force.

In early 2018, Iran's wrestling federation chief Rasoul Khadem resigned after criticising the suspension of fighter Alireza Karimi Mashianai and his coach who ordered him to lose to avoid an Is-

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raeli in the next round.

At the time, Khadem called on Iran's political authorities to "propose solutions" because "if we must continue the policy of not meeting athletes of the Zionist regime, the responsibility should not fall on the shoulders of the coach and the athlete".

Following the judo federation's suspension, supporters and detractors of the official line crossed swords on Twitter.

"I hope the (strategy of losing to avoid Israelis) is finally stopped in other disciplines so the efforts of athletes are not flouted" by officials, wrote Sepehr Khorami, a journalist at pro-reform daily Shargh. Ultra-conservative MP Alireza Zakani said "the suspension of the dear Iranian judokas will be in vain" and that "in the near future, the free peoples of the planet will bow as a sign of respect".

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

SPORTS 15

wiLL try to emuLate wiLLiamSon, kohLi aS caPtain: BaBar azam LAHore

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Agencies

EWLY appointed Pakistan T20 captain Babar Azam dismissed concerns that captaincy would add unwelcome pressure on his young shoulders, and said he was confident of being able to handle the challenge. On the eve of the team's departure for Australia in what will be the first tour after the Sarfaraz Ahmed era, Babar said Pakistan wouldn't play the kind of cricket they had in Lahore against Sri Lanka. The focus, he promised, would be on aggressive, positive cricket, which the 24-year old believed was his side's best chance to overcome Australia.

"People judged in three matches [against Sri Lanka] that my performance suffered because I was vice-captain," Babar said. "That's not how it works. In the game of cricket, you have ups and downs, and that was a poor series for us, no question. I give 120% for the team in every single match, and I don't see why there would be any added pressure on me just because I'm captain. I'll continue to play as I always have, and I'm sure the performances will come.

"Moreover, I'm not just thinking I'll be happy to play regardless of the results. I'm looking to get a performance out of my team, as well as my individual performances. I look at current captains like Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli, and how well they manage their own form along with bringing results to the team. I'll try to emulate them."

Babar also confirmed he would continue to open the batting in the T20Is, also adding that he wished to see a policy that allowed out-of-form players to get extended runs so as not to have the spectre of demotion hanging above their heads. It was a vote of confidence for Fakhar Zaman, who has had a difficult time of late, especially in the T20I format, where he last scored over 25 in an innings in July 2018.

"There are players in our team who have con-

BcB to sue captain Shakib DHAkA Agencies

tinued to perform. I don't think they should be kicked out of the side just because they haven't been able to hit those heights for four or five games. We should back them. If you look at Fakhar Zaman's innings in the T20 Cup against my side [he scored an unbeaten 82 off 54 to help KP beat Central Punjab by 7 wickets], you can see he's beginning to return to form. You could see the improvement in Shadab [Khan]'s bowling, too.

"These guys know better than anyone they haven't been able to deliver at the level that's expected of them, but you can see they are returning to form. Fakhar and I will open, and Imam-ul-Haq will be the back-up opener, and I'm sure he'll be ready to take over when necessary."

On the day, however, Babar was more willing to strike an emotive tone rather than a pragmatic

one. He began the press conference with a statement about how he first came to the Gaddafi Stadium 12 years ago as a ball-boy during South Africa's tour of Pakistan in 2007, and how grateful he was to be sat there leading the side out to Australia as captain. Babar admitted there had been tears on the journey. "There have been many difficult times that reduced me to tears. My late coach - may god bless him - always used to say cricket is a game that makes you cry much more often than it lets you smile. A lot has happened in these 12 years, and I have learned many things along the way. But I've never given up, never lost hope or the belief my hard work would pay off."

Babar may well feel he's entitled to a smile now.

If recent history is any guide, opportunities to do so in Australia have been at a premium for Pakistan.

PM Imran 'concerned' with IPC ministry's conduct over sports reforms SportS DeSk Prime Minister Imran Khan has expressed concerns at Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination's continued disregard for the recommendations made by a task force on sports, and given it a week's deadline to implement the recommended reforms, Daily Jang reported on Saturday.

In a written statement issued from the PM's office, the premier showed his reservations against the conduct of the ministry at the unnecessary delays in implementation of the reforms.

Subsequently, Federal Minister for Inter Provincial Coordination, Dr

Fahmida Mirza has been issued special instructions to compile a report

and inform the prime minister within a week.

It is pertinent to mention here that PM Khan, himself a renowned former athlete, soon after taking the office, had expressed his displeasure at the performance of various sporting bodies at national level and set up a task force to revamp them.

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ehsan Mani was appointed the head of the task force.

While the PCB has restructured its own domestic system the past few months, same cannot be said regarding the rest of the national sports governing bodies.

Meanwhile, informed sources told the Urdu daily that the privatisation of the Pakistan Sports Board is also under consideration.

Bangladesh cricket authorities said on Saturday they would take legal action against star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan for allegedly breaching his contract to sign a sponsorship deal with a top mobile phone operator.

Shakib on Tuesday inked the agreement with former national team sponsor Grameenphone for an undisclosed sum at a time when he was also leading a players´ strike for better pay and benefits. "We believe there was a contractual and procedural breach in his contract. Of course, we will take action against it," Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) chief executive officer Nizamuddin Chowdhury told AFP. BCB president Nazmul Hassan said they will seek compensation from both Shakib and the phone company. "We are going to take legal action. There is no scope to spare anyone. We will seek compensation from both the company and the player," Hassan said in an interview with Bengali newspaper Kalerkantho on Saturday. "We thought it's a kind of 'I don't give a damn to the rules of Board' attitude. If that is the case, of course, we will take tough action," he said.

Grameenphone -- which is majority owned by Norway's Telenor -- was the sponsor of Bangladesh Cricket Board during the period of 2009-2011. Hassan said the Board incurred huge losses after the company signed players individually instead of bidding to become the team sponsor in 2015 when a rival operator won the deal. "This is why we barred the players to sign any agreement with telcos... yet, he (Shakib) did this. And you see the timing? Agreement after stopping play. These are audacious behaviour," he said. The BCB president also criticized Shakib for his on-field performance. "We defeated England and Australia in our own ground. Now we lost to Afghanistan. If I was responsible I would not show my face let alone stage a protest," he added, referring to Bangladesh´s 224-run loss in one-off Test against Afghanistan in early September when Shakib was captain. Shakib led a players' strike on Monday which follows increasing criticism from players that the Bangladesh Cricket Board was not sharing its wealth.

The players called off the strike late on Wednesday and started training on Friday for next month's India tour as the BCB accepted most of their demands.

Malinga's return a rejuvenation for upbeat Sri Lanka CoLoMbo Agencies

A coach not quite sacked, a raft of player withdrawals, a typically chaotic nexus between cricket administration and government: all scenarios not uncommon when it comes to the endlessly fascinating story of Sri Lankan cricket. And yet amid all these 2019 misadventures there have been remarkable, even transcendent moments: A Test series win in South Africa, a stunning World Cup match win over England at Headingley, and then an even more stupefying Twenty20 clean sweep of Pakistan in Pakistan even after the aforementioned pull out of senior players.

Now, with their resilience so vividly demonstrated, the Sri Lankans have arrived in Australia and linked back with their captain. Lasith Malinga added his own personal contribution to a year of memorable moments by not only defending a mere eight runs in the IPL final, but going on to take four wickets in four balls as against New Zealand in Kandy, the second such achievement of his dizzying international career.

Malinga's experience, drawn from well over a decade in the game, will be a more than useful addition to the group, alongside the strong credentials of Kusal Mendis,

Kusal Perera and Niroshan Dickwella, to name three. "It's a good opportunity for me to share my knowledge and experience with the young players," Malinga said.

"I can't play much more cricket, the next few months and maybe in the World Cup. I want to give my best for the young players because they don't have much experience like me, playing franchise cricket, IPL, Big Bash, everything else.

Sri Lanka also are regenerating our cricket team, the young players need experience, they need guidance so that's why it is important to play this tournament.

Recalling his successful shut out of Chennai Super Kings for Mumbai Indians in the IPL final, Malinga said a sequence of five balls slung down at better than 140kph, followed by a closing slower ball to nail an lbw and seal a one-run win, was a good example of the sorts of stratagems he can either deliver himself or advise his team about.

"Any bowler who has played 10-15 years they have experience," he said. "According to that we can use our variation and tactical part, that's more important than the power. These days I try to use my tactical and variations according to the game situation. In pressure situations we have to get the correct decision and decide what we want to do. That's the thing with

gaining experience over my career."

Asked about Steve Smith and David Warner, returning to international cricket on home soil for the first time since their Newlands bans, Malinga suggested contrasting approaches - patience against Smith, but a more aggressive search for Warner's wicket. "No particular plan but we know how good he is. I've played with him in the IPL and against him," Malinga said of Smith. "We want to stick with our basics, not think much about the opposition, stick to our basic cricket and that's

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very important I feel in the T20 game.

"In the IPL, [Warner] was the highest run-getter in thus tournament. We know how good the T20 format is for him and we know in the last couple of months he didn't get much runs, but still we know he can damage the opposition in any situation. That's why we are looking forward to him - if we can bowl one good ball for him, that's the challenge for all our bowlers to get him."

Having been on the losing end of a Sri Lankan steal of a T20I against Aus-

tralia at Geelong in 2017, Australia's captain Aaron Finch was wary. "They've got some seriously dangerous players. I think when you look at Kusal Perera, Dickwella, these guys, they hit all around the ground and they're aggressive, they take the game on, so you have to be at your best," he said. "When you set out you have your really clear plans, but that can change so quick.

"Because they're so inventive, they move around the crease a lot, you have to really think on your feet as a bowler and as a captain. That's going to be really important in this series to hopefully get some wickets in the Power Play and try to put some pressure on the middle order that probably isn't as experienced as their top couple. they're a very dangerous side and they've shown they can beat anyone in any conditions when they get it right.

"They're a world class side, and led

by Malinga as well, who's played so much T20 cricket. He's really structured in the way he wants his bowlers to bowl and brings all his experience and all his guidance to their young tearaway quick attack as well. So it's going to be an exciting series. Their spinners posed problems to us in the past, particularly in the subcontinent, so hopefully we can start the series off really well."

Sunday, 27 October, 2019

NEWS PEMRA imposes ban on JUI-F leader Hamdullah’s TV appearances ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PeMRA) on Saturday directed all TV channels to not invite Hafiz Hamdullah of the Jamiat Ulema-eIslam-Fazl (JUI-F) on their programmes, saying he is not a Pakistani citizen. In a communiqué sent to all satellite TV channels, the media watchdog said the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) had in a letter dated October 11 conveyed that “Senator Hafiz Hamdullah Saboor is ‘confirmed Alien’ as he is not a citizen of Pakistan.” It further said NADRA has “cancelled and digitally impounded the CNIC (computerised national identity card) issued” to Hamdullah. “Since it is established that the said person is an ‘alien’, therefore, all the TV channels (News and Current Affairs) are directed to refrain from inviting and projecting Mr Hafiz Hamdullah Saboor in their programmes/talk shows, news etc.,” the authority said in its letter. Hafiz Hamdullah, who remained a senator from Balochistan between March 2012 and March 2018, frequently makes appearances in evening political talk shows on various news channels.

The directive banning his TV appearances comes days before the JUI-F is scheduled to lead an anti-government ‘Azaadi’ protest march of opposition parties. On Friday, the first talks between a government negotiating committee and the joint opposition’s Rehbar Committee ended without a breakthrough. JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman had announced his party’s decision in June about the October march in a bid to topple the government that he said had come to power through “fake” elections.

According to him, the long march will start from Sindh on Oct 27 and reach Islamabad on Oct 31. The march is being staged as the opposition believed that Prime Minister Imran Khan had failed to run the government that had caused an unprecedented price hike and economic crisis and that the PTI government had come to power through “rigging”. STAFF REPORT

Twitter bows down to Indian requests of gagging occupied Kashmir WASHINGTON: Social networking website Twitter was on Friday accused of not doing enough to protect freedom of speech in Indian-occupied Kashmir by blindly bowing down to the demands of Indian censorship. According to the findings published by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Twitter shockingly agreed to block more accounts in South Asia, mostly from Pakistan and occupied Kashmir, than in every other country in the world. Data gathered by the journalistic body revealed that nearly one million tweets related to occupied Kashmir were removed from Twitter and at least 100 accounts made inaccessible to the people. New Delhi recently celebrated the holding of ‘sham’ elections in the occupied valley, as the draconian military curfew and communications lockdown in the area neared almost three months. According to reports, roughly 4,000 people were detained by mid-September following the move, with journalists, activists and politicians among them. Former chief ministers and mayors were also detained. The results of the CPJ research, however, indicate that the crackdown on voices critical of Indian actions in occupied Kashmir started almost two years ago before Indian PM Modi illegally annexed the occupied valley. Data released by Twitter to Harvard University, which was then published publicly and analyzed by the CPJ, showed that legal notices to the company directing them to take down tweets or accounts started to spike in August of 2017. “It totally makes sense the Indian government would go after Twitter and Twitter users because Twitter as a platform is a really significant source of information sharing in Kashmir,” said David Kaye, a UN representative. AGENCIES

CHInA To HosT TAlKs bETwEEn AFgHAn goVT And TAlIbAn AFGHAN GOVT CONFIRMS TALKS; TALIBAN CLAIM GOVT OFFICIALS PARTICIPATING AS ‘PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS’ BEIJING

T

MIAN ABRAR

He delegations representing the Afghanistan government and Taliban have arrived in Beijing to take part in a dialogue hosted by the Chinese government to facilitate the peace process.

This will be a maiden direct contact between the militant outfit and the Afghan government, led by Mullah Baradar and a minister, respectively. A high-ranking official of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Pakistan Today that Beijing had invited both delegations from Afghanistan to break the ice between the two factions.

The official said the intraAfghan dialogue is aimed at taking the Afghan peace process forward and the dialogue process has full support from Pakistan and other stakeholders. The official said that the reconciliation process between the two sides would largely help break the impasse in the peace dialogue between the Taliban and the United States (US).

It would be the first dialogue between the two sides as the Afghan Taliban have been refusing to sit down with the Afghan government for peace talks, terming the regime in Kabul as ‘puppets’ of the US. “The intra-Afghan dialogue is a part of efforts by Pakistan and China to help pave the way for bringing peace and normalcy in war-torn Afghanistan. Since China is a key stakeholder in regional peace efforts being neighbor to Afghanistan, we have been trying to encourage peace efforts and last month a Taliban delegation visited Beijing for talks with government officials,” the official said. The source said that Pakistan was fully helping the peace talks between the two sides as it wanted to see stability in Afghanistan,” the official added. Last month, US President Donald Trump halted the talks after the militants carried out a bomb attack in Kabul that killed 12 people, including a US soldier.

Afghan Taliban has already indicated at the meeting scheduled to resume on Monday. “China has invited a delegation … to participate in the intra-Afghan dialogue,” Suhail

Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman, said in a post on Twitter late on Tuesday.

The Taliban have refused to talk to the government, denouncing it a US puppet, but government officials have taken part in the intraAfghan dialogue as private citizens.

Shaheen said the talks in China would be held on that basis.

“All participants will be attending the meeting in their personal capacity and they will share their personal opinions for solving the Afghan issue,” Shaheen said, adding that the talks in China would be held on the basis that Afghan government

officials would be attending the talks as ‘private citizens’. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying also has hinted at the dialogue, saying China supported the Afghan peace process and it was willing to provide what help it could.

Avoiding to comment directly on the meeting, Hua said if the Chinese government had anything to announce it would do so in a “timely manner”. “We welcome all efforts that help the Afghan peace process,” said Najia Anwari, a spokesperson for the Ministry of State for Peace Affairs.

Pakistan Army says has killed over 60 Indian troops since Feb 27

RAWALPINDI STAFF REPORT

Chief military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor on Saturday said the Pakistan Army has killed more than 60 Indian soldiers during firing at the Line of Control (LoC) since February 27.

On February 27, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had shot down two Indian aircraft which had violated Pakistani airspace. An Indian pilot was also arrested but he was later released by

Pakistan as a goodwill gesture.

Tweeting from his personal account, InterServices Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Ghafoor said many Indian troops were also injured and their bunkers destroyed by Pakistani forces since the February tit-for-tat airstrikes.

“Artillery gun positions also damaged [and troops] forced to relocate,” he wrote.

The head of the army’s media wing noted that since February the PAF had downed two Indian Air Force jets, two Indian helicopters had

“met fratricide under fear” and the Indian navy was “under deterrence”. Ghafoor’s tweeted was accompanied by the hashtag #CostForCDS. On Friday, the ISPR had said that Indian army chief Bipin Rawat with “irresponsible statements” and “blood of innocents on his hand” seeks to become India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).

CDS is a proposed position for the combined head of the Indian army, Indian air force and Indian navy. The creation of the post was announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his independence day speech in August.

‘ROGUE FORCE’: The ISPR had accused Gen Rawat of converting the Indian army into a “rogue force” and wasting lives of his men because of his reckless command and for the attainment of personal ambitions.

The tweets came in response to Gen Rawat’s latest comments at a lecture in which he alleged that Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan were controlled by “terrorists”.

The Indian army chief’s statement came days after Pakistan exposed his claims of having neutralised three “terror launch pads” in Azad Kashmir in heavy artillery strikes in the early hours of Sunday. The Foreign Office and Army later took a group of 23 foreign diplomats and media to the areas hit by Indian shelling to show that India had actually targeted civilian population instead of the claimed “terror launch pads”.

House Democrats get a legal victory in impeachment inquiry WASHINGTON AGENCIES

A judge has ordered the Justice Department to give the House secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, handing a victory to Democrats as they gather evidence for the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

In a Friday ruling that also affirmed the legality of the impeachment inquiry itself, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ordered the department to turn over the materials by Oct. 30. A Justice Department spokeswoman said it was reviewing the decision. The administration can appeal.

The ruling in favor of the House Judiciary Committee comes as Democrats gather closed-door testimony from current and former government officials about the Trump administration’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden. The Mueller materials could reveal previously hidden details to lawmakers about Trump’s actions during the 2016

election and become part of the impeachment push. The material covered by Howell’s order consists of redacted grand jury testimony mentioned in Mueller’s report.

The Justice Department says that information is the only piece of the document that key lawmakers have not had access to.

Democrats believe the still-redacted information could shed new light on key episodes of the investigation, including discussions Trump is reported to have had with associates about the release of stolen emails during the campaign and conversations about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting at which Trump’s eldest son expected to receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The judge said the materials could help lawmakers as they decide which witnesses to call for an impeachment inquiry and what additional lines of investigation should be pursued.

In a 75-page ruling accompanying the order, Howell slashed through many of the administration’s arguments for withholding materials from Congress, including the need for continued secrecy. “The reality is

that DOJ and the White House have been openly stonewalling the House’s efforts to get information by subpoena and by agreement, and the White House has flatly stated that the Administration will not cooperate with congressional requests for information,” Howell wrote.

While the Justice Department said it could not provide grand jury material under existing law, “DOJ is wrong,” she wrote. And though the White House and its Republican allies argued impeachment is illegitimate without a formal vote, the judge said: “A House resolution has never, in fact, been required.” The judge also rejected the Justice Department’s argument that impeachment does not qualify as a “judicial proceeding.” That distinction matters because, though grand jury testimony is ordinarily secret, one exemption that allows it to be legally disclosed is in connection with a judicial proceeding.

“To the extent the House’s role in the impeachment context is to investigate misconduct by the President and ascertain whether that conduct amounts to an im-

peachable offense warranting removal from office, the House performs a function somewhat akin to a grand jury,” the judge wrote. Rep Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he was pleased by the ruling.

“The court’s thoughtful ruling recognizes that our impeachment inquiry fully comports with the Constitution and thoroughly rejects the spurious White House claims to the contrary,” Nadler said in a statement. “This grand jury information that the Administration has tried to block the House from seeing will be critical to our work.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the ruling was “another blow to President Trump’s attempt to put himself above the law.”

“This critical court ruling affirms Congress’s authority to expose the truth for the American people. Most importantly, the Court recognized the House’s right to obtain grand jury information pursuant to its impeachment inquiry,” Pelosi said.

Justice Department lawyers argued against providing the materials at a hearing earlier this month. They pointed out that

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

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House Democrats already had significant evidence from Mueller’s investigation, including copies of summaries of FBI witness interviews. But the judge said that information is no substitute for the actual grand jury testimony. “To insure most effectively against being misled, HJC must have access to all essential pieces of testimony by witnesses, including testimony given under oath to the grand jury,” Howell said, referring to the House Judiciary Committee. “Additionally, for purposes of assessing and following up on the Mueller Report’s conclusions, the full Report is needed: the grand jury material may offer unique insights, insights not contained in the rest of the Report, congressional testimony” or FBI reports, she added.

The Mueller report found insufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. It also examined multiple episodes in which Trump sought to thwart the investigation and pointedly determined that he could not be exonerated on obstruction of justice allegations.

CMYK Sunday, 27 October, 2019

ISLAMABAD EDITION

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CMYK Sunday, 27 October, 2019

ISLAMABAD EDITION

OctOber 27 – the black Day fOr kashmiris

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cTOBER 27 is the darkest day in the history of Jammu and Kashmir and the Kashmiris living on both sides of the Line of control and across the world observe it as Black Day. This is the day, when, in 1947, India sent its armed forces to Jammu and Kashmir and occupied it in total violation of the Indian Independence Act and Partition Plan and against the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

According to the Partition Plan of June 3, 1947, passed by the British parliament on July 18, the same year, the Indian British colony was to be divided into two sovereign states.

The Hindu-majority areas were to constitute India while the Muslim-majority areas of Western provinces and east Bengal were to be included in Pakistan. At the end of British suzerainty over Indian sub-continent in 1947, more than 550 Princely States had become independent but with a choice to accede either to Pakistan or India. However, India illegally occupied Hyderabad, Junagarh and Kashmir by military invasions. Being a Muslimmajority state, with 87% Muslim population, Jammu and Kashmir had a natural tendency to accede to Pakistan, but the evil designs of its Hindu ruler and the leaders of Indian National congress and Britain paved way to destroy the future of the people of the territory.

India claims that it signed ‘Instrument of Accession’, which was drafted in Delhi and presented to the then ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, on October 26.

However, a prominent British historian, Alistair Lamb, challenging the Indian invasion in Kashmir, in his book “The Birth of Tragedy” wrote that the successive events after the partition of the united India strongly suggested that Indian troops had invaded Kashmir prior to the signing of the Instrument of Accession. He argued that due to this reason the Indian government never made the so-called document public at any international forum.

It is also a historical fact that the so-called Boundary commission, headed by British Barrister, cyril Radcliff, that demarcated partition line, played main role in the creation of the Kashmir dispute. Had the commission done the demarcation of the partition line on the principles of justice and in accordance with the set procedure then India had no land

Qamishli Agencies

When my son was born, we named him Avan. It means prosperous and thriving and I hoped the name would reflect the path his life would take.

Now it’s a year later and I think — how could you have given him a name like that? How can anyone have any hope amid all the devastation and destruction in my sad country?

“People had dared dream to that their lands would remain peaceful” I am a Kurd from northern Syria and I have been photographing this country’s war for years. I have seen death, destruction, despair, suffering.

But then I would always come back to the safety of home. The Kurds had self-rule and since they, together with American forces, defeated the Islamic State group’s “caliphate” in the region, people here had dared to dream that their lands would remain peaceful. That’s no small feat for a landless people who have been caught up in power battles between the giants of their region for centuries.

“The past few weeks have turned our world upside down” There was even a time when I actually thought there was a bit of

route to enter into Jammu and Kashmir. But unfortunately, the commission under a conspiracy split Gurdaspur, a Muslim majority area, and handed it over to India, providing it terrestrial access to the territory. This area otherwise had to be part of Pakistan.

Genocide of MusliMs in JaMMu The Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir particularly those living in Jammu region in 1947 had to pay a heavy price for their aspirations to join Pakistan. Indian troops, the forces of Dogra Maharaja, and Hindu extremists massacred over 300,000 Kashmiri Muslims within a period of two months in Jammu region. The bloodbath was intended to change the demographic composition of the territory to turn the results in favour of India in any referendum in the future. Historians consider this massacre as the worst example of genocide in Jammu and Kashmir.

KashMir in the united nations The Indian occupation faced stiff resistance from the people of Kashmir who launched a mass struggle against it. The resolute movement of the Kashmiris forced India to knock the doors of the UN Security council on 1st January 1948, seeking help of the World Body to settle the dispute. The UNSc through its successive resolutions nullified the Indian invasion and called for settlement of the dispute by giving the Kashmiri people the right to selfdetermination. It approved an impartial plebiscite to be conducted in Jammu and Kashmir under the supervision of the World Body. Despite the promises made before the world community by the Indian leaders of giving the Kashmiris an opportunity to decide their fate by themselves, the plebiscite has not been held so far.

KashMiris’ revolt aGainst indian rule Disappointed at the failure of all the efforts aimed at resolving the Kashmir dispute through peaceful means since 1947, the people of occupied Kashmir intensified their freedom struggle in 1989 to secure their right to selfdetermination. This movement pushed the Indian authorities to the wall, forcing them to sit around the negotiation table with Pakistan.

The dialogues between the two countries started in 1999 after the then Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, came to

Pakistan and met the Pakistani leadership.

Both the countries agreed to resolve the Kashmir dispute through peaceful means of talks. The talks process continued till it was hampered after Mumbai attacks on November 26, 2008 when India without any substantive evidence laid the responsibility of these attacks on Pakistan and its intelligence agencies. An officer of Indian home ministry later revealed that India itself had orchestrated the Mumbai attacks to strengthen its antiterror laws.

The dialogue process resumed in July 2009 and continued with hiccups and was once again suspended after Narendra Modi-led Indian government called off the Foreign Secretary-level negotiations scheduled in Islamabad on August 25 in 2014, on the pretext of meetings between the then Pakistani High commissioner, Abdul Basit, and Kashmiri Hurriyet leaders in New Delhi, a few days before the scheduled talks. Since then the relations between the two nuclear neighbors have been tense and Indian troops are continuously engaged in ceasefire violations on the Line of control and Working Boundary. India committed over 600 such violations since January this year. On the other hand, the ground situation in occupied Kashmir remains unchanged, as the confidence building measures and the dialogue process could not provide the Kashmiri people respite from the Indian state terrorism.

On May 11, 1998, India conducted nuclear explosions and started threatening Pakistan.

This left Pakistan with no option but to respond by showing its nuclear capabilities on May 28 to strike balance of power in the region. The development turned Kashmir as a flashpoint as underlined by several world leaders.

Mass uprisinGs The Kashmiris’ struggle to get rid of Indian bondage took a new turn in 2008. They started hitting the streets in large numbers and expressing their anti-India and pro-liberation sentiments in a peaceful manner. This mass uprising continued for three consecutive years and at times the number of peaceful protesters thronging the streets of Srinagar crossed onemillion mark. But most of the time, Indian forces’ personnel responded these peaceful

demonstrators with excessive use of brute force, killing more than 200 people during this period.

The extrajudicial murder of a young liberation leader, Burhan Muzaffar Wani, on July 8, last year, by Indian troops gave an impetus to the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle.

People in large numbers hit the streets in every nook and corner of the occupied territory on daily basis, demanding their right to self-determination. However, Indian police and troops continue to use every brutal tactic against the protesters. So far, 168 civilians have been killed and 20,170 injured in the firing of pellets, bullets and teargas shells on the demonstrators. More than 270 youth have lost their one or both the eyes due to the pellet injuries while around 1000 are at the verge of losing their eyesight. Hundreds of people including Hurriyet leaders have been put behind the bars. However, all these brutalities have failed to suppress the Kashmiris’ resolve who are committed to carry forward their ongoing liberation movement. state terrorisM and new indian tactics New Delhi has exhausted all its resources during the past seven decades but has not been able to intimidate the people of Jammu and Kashmir into submission. The continued Indian state terrorism, particularly since 1989 has made the life of Kashmiri people miserable. The occupation forces enjoying unbridled powers under the protection of draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Disturbed Areas Act in the occupied territory have broken all records of human rights violations. During the last 28 years, the trigger-happy forces have martyred over ninety-four thousand Kashmiris, widowed nearly twenty-three thousand women, orphaned not less than one hundred thousand children and molested or gang-raped more than eleven thousand Kashmiri women.

Thousands of innocent youth have been subjected to disappearance in custody and their whereabouts remain untraced. The shocking discovery of thousands of mass graves across the occupied territory has raised concerns about the safety of the disappeared persons.

New Delhi is hell bent upon changing the Muslim majority of occupied Kashmir into

Absurd and meaningless justice in this world. It was whenever I would photograph women fighting the Islamic State jihadists. Some of these women had been IS slaves and now they were facing and defeating them on the battlefield. It seemed just.

But I was wrong and hasty. The past few weeks have turned our world upside down. I no longer feel there is justice in anything. Everything has become absurd and meaningless. The recent days have taught me the truth of this universe — that it revolves in an indifferent hell.

Many Kurds have been in a state of shock ever since US President Donald Trump ordered American troops to withdraw from our area.

These troops had not only been the Kurds’ partners in defeating the Islamic State group, they were considered a deterrent for Turkey, which has been fighting a Kurdish rebellion for years and which wanted to send in troops to northern Syria to establish an area free of Kurdish fighters.

Following Trump’s decision,

Turkey sent in troops and since then, the Kurds don’t have much time to think about anything but defending their areas so their cities will not fall easily. We saw that America did not keep its promise when it evacuated US troops. Kurdish fighters feel they should fight until the bitter end, so they would not live to see the fate that awaits them if they lose the battle against Turkey. They no longer trust anyone but themselves.

The Kurds gave thousands of our sons to eliminate terrorism. Many Kurds feel Donal Trump betrayed them as has happened throughout their history.

I used to photograph battles happening elsewhere and then return home to rest. But now I come from witnessing battles and bombardments to my home, where I find the same fate, the same fatigue, the same absence of security and safety. Fear accompanies us even in bed.

The other day I returned home after covering the fierce battles in Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain). I opened the door

and my son was crying because he heard our city being shelled. It was the first time he heard such things since he was born. It terrified him. He could only fall asleep while lying on my chest, as his tears dried on his cheeks. I kept looking at him during the night. He woke up crying, then went back to sleep, terrified.

I wish him happiness. Perhaps fate will be kinder to him than to us and he will know how difficult it was to live through the Turkish attack, which destroyed our dreams of living on our land, freely singing the sad epic songs of our fate.

I never imagined I would be covering battles like I did, from Kobane to Raqa. And now war has reached my front door, which may be destroyed in the coming days by air strikes or artillery.

“It is difficult to take photos of people dying, their hearts broken because they die knowing their country will be occupied and their headstones will be destroyed” I honestly never thought I’d feel

CMYK

minority. It is using its investigating agencies like National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Enforcement Directorate to implicate Hurriyat leaders, activists and pro-freedom people in false cases to force the Kashmiri people into submission. Indian designs to change the demography of Jammu and Kashmir are intended to influence in its favour the results of a referendum whenever it is held in the territory. As such, the move is against the very purpose of the relevant UN resolutions. paKistan’s support to KashMir cause It is an undeniable fact that Pakistani leadership has always supported the Kashmiris’ just struggle and never betrayed the trust reposed in it by them. The father of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, had termed Jammu and Kashmir as the jugular vein of Pakistan. The incumbent government is projecting the sufferings of the Kashmiri people and the gross human rights violations by Indian troops in occupied Kashmir forcefully at all international forums.

Prime Minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, in his recent address to the UN General Assembly and meetings with the world leaders drew attention of the international community towards the Indian atrocities on the people of occupied Kashmir. He also called for settlement of the Kashmir dispute by implementing the relevant UN resolutions that guaranteed the Kashmiris’ right to selfdetermination. The chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, in his speech at the Defence Day, reaffirmed Pakistan’s continued political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris in their struggle for securing their right to self- determination. conclusion In the backdrop of above facts, the people of Kashmir observe October 27 as Black Day all across the world. The objective of the observance of the Black Day is to make it clear to New Delhi that the Kashmiris reject its illegal occupation of their soil and that they will continue their struggle till it grants them their inalienable right to self-determination. It is also aimed at reminding the world of its obligations of resolving the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the relevant UN resolutions.

the world would turn a blind eye to the Kurds in Syria. It is difficult to take photos of people dying, their hearts broken because they die thinking their country will be occupied and their headstones will be destroyed, like it happened to the Kurdish graves in Afrin, a Kurdishmajority area further west in northern Syria that Turkey seized early last year. There won’t even be headstones to bear witness to the Kurdish presence on this land.

Kurds believe they are living in disappointment as they walk to their fate.

I feel history will never forget what happened to us because it keeps repeating itself. It is filled with defeats and disappointments and it feels like winds that carry heavy dust and make it difficult to breathe.

Every time I go somewhere, I tell my wife to take care of herself and our son because I may not come back.

She always says, “why are you speaking of death” and starts crying.

These painful memories will remain forever.

There are always scenes that stand out in your mind when you cover war.

And so it is this time around. A woman dancing at the funeral of her brother. She danced and tears

streamed down her cheeks. A girl crying over the grave of her beloved.

A father and mother burying their son, covering him with dust, knowing that it is the last farewell.

The other day, I saw a mother searching for her son’s body among the wounded and the dead who arrived at the hospital. She was looking at all the faces of the dead, hoping to find her son. Eventually, she just collapsed. She was panting and calling his name. Afterward people told her that her son was dead and that they were unable to find his body, that it had shattered into bits following an air strike on the border town of Ras al-Ain. Often as I take photos, my eyes fill with tears. Perhaps because I share the same fate with the people in the viewfinder.

I had a lot of wishes and dreams that I hoped to fulfill. But now everything around me speaks of disaster. Wishes and dreams have dissipated with the winds of dawn.

“Wishes and dreams have dissipated with the winds of dawn.”

I write these words as a cold breeze wraps itself around my fingers and an unknown fate awaits this land where I wanted to live all my life with my family.