Miracle 537-Jan 29, 2021

Volume 20 Issue 537-Jamadi ul II 16, 1442 H, January 29, 2021 $1 www.miraclenews.com BC, CANADA First Muslim

Biweekly & Bilingual

THE

5 Reality of the Fear

of Coronavirus 13 How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence 15 When is Kashmir Solidarity Day?

T

he Nishan Sahib, a triangular saffron flag, is usually hoisted outside a gurdwara, mounted on a steel pole that is also covered with a saffron-coloured cloth.

New Delhi: Farmers protesting against the three agriculture laws marched to the Red Fort Tuesday, where they climbed on to poles and waved flags from its ramparts. The farmers could also be seen hoisting the Nishan Sahib, a religious saffron flag, at the historical monument.

As part of their tractor rally planned on Republic Day, farmers entered Delhi from Singhu and Ghazipur borders amid high security. But the protesters soon deviated from the designated route and the protest turned violent, with the police lobbing tear gas shells and resorting to lathi charge.

A section of the farmers gathered outside the Delhi Police headquarters at ITO, while many others reached the Red Fort.

Source: theprint.in/india Indian farm protesters battle police to plant flags at historic Red Fort Thousands of Indian farmers protesting against agricultural reforms breached barricades on Tuesday to enter the historic Red Fort complex in the capital and hoist flags after clashing with police, who fired tear gas to scatter them.

Growers, angered by laws they say help large, private buyers at the expense of producers, have camped outside New Delhi for almost two months, posing one of the biggest challenges to Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he came

K

Kashmir Day was first proposed by Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Pakistan in 1990.In 1991, thenPrime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif called for a “Kashmir Solidarity Day Strike”. Sharif had come to power with the help of Jamaat the previous year.

The 1991 event was still a Jamaat affair.

The present Kashmir Solidarity Day was started by the Pakistan minister of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas in 2004.

FEB 2001-2021

07

6 8

10

Broadsheet probe empowered to dig deep Trump impeachment: Small procession Minister says couple who allegedly flew

All about Nishan Sahib, the saffron flag hoisted by protesting farmers at Red Fort

PM warns Canadians to expect more travel restrictions soon

T

ORONTO -Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is warning Canadians to expect more travel restrictions in the near future.

At his briefing Tuesday, Trudeau reiterated federal public health guidance to avoid all non-essential travel, both abroad and To be Continued at page 4 in between provinces.

Trudeau said in French that the constantly evolving news of COVID-19 variants from other countries has spurred the government to look at improving the measures already implemented – and that an announcement would come very soon.

The prime minister also reiterated his previous statements on upcoming travel, telling Canadians to cancel any plans they may have booked, and that while the number of cases linked to traveling

Feb 5th

20

3

or six? Pfizer’s Surrey Six case update: Guilty finding ‘We’ll come down on you like a ton

To be Continued at page 10

Kashmir Solidarity Day ashmir Solidarity Day , is a national holiday in Pakistan and also observed by Kashmiri separatists on 5 February each year.

It is in observance of Pakistan’s support of and unity with the people of Indianadministered Kashmir, the separatists’ efforts to secede from India, and to pay homage to the Kashmiris who have died in the conflict. Solidarity rallies are held in Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir and by some members of the Mirpuri diaspora.

07 Five doses per vial

abroad are low, “one case is too many.”

Trudeau said the “bad choices of a few” should not be allowed to put others at risk.

Currently, the land border between Canada and the U.S. remains closed to travellers, while international travellers flying into the country must show a negative COVID-19 test 72 hours before their departure flight.

To be Continued at page 7

Alhamdulillah, the Miracle is BC’s first Got any congratulatory message Muslim bilingual and biweekly newsor feedback for the 20th anniversary? paper, and is now is completing its 20th Then please send them as an email reply, Word year in publication. To mark the occa- Document, InPage, or JPG by Feb 15, 2021. sion, a Special edition will be published Please also send your picture (if preferred) on Friday, Feb 26, 2021 at miraclenews@telus.net.

2

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

HELP REQUIRED, THIS SATURDAY. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! FOOD HAMPER DISTRIBUTION

-

Personal and Corporate Tax Returns Bookkeeping Audits and Reviews GST, PST and Payroll

We don’t just file your taxes, we look for ways to save you money!

(604) 227-1120 info@advancedtax.ca

www.advancedtax.ca

SAT FEB 6

7:00 AM 10:00 AM

ASPIRE CASE MANAGEMENT TRAINING SAT FEB 20

SUN FEB 21

10:00 AM- 10:00 AM3:30 PM 3:30 PM

MON FEB 22 6:30PM8:00 PM

DONATION REQUIRED E-TRANSFER TO accounting@muslimfoodbank.com ONLINE AT muslimfoodbank.com/donate

104 - 12941 115th St, Surrey, BC

3

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

PAKISTAN

Broadsheet probe empowered China to ‘gift’ 0.5m doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Pakistan by Jan 31: Qureshi to dig deep into past

ISLAMABAD: The one-man commission being constituted after Tuesday’s approval by the cabinet may have a wider scope to probe not only affairs of the Broadsheet controversy, but also to ponder over why the state suffered hugely because of the halfhearted and misdirected attempts to retrieve assets parked in foreign investment havens.

An informed source privy to the development told Dawn on condition of anonymity that though the terms of reference (ToR) of the inquiry commission are yet to be determined, its scope may also encompass what has become of those individuals whose names surfaced in the UK court’s December 2018 final award on quantum in the case of asset recovery firm — Broadsheet LLC — but what transpired next is shrouded in mystery. On Tuesday, the cabinet decided to constitute a one-man commission under the Pakistan Commission of Inquiry Act, 2017.

Former Supreme Court judge Azmat Saeed Sheikh will man the inquiry commission.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Thursday announced that China has promised to provide 500,000 doses of a coronavirus vaccine to Pakistan by January 31.

In a video message after a phone call with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Qureshi said China offered Islamabad to send an airplane and airlift the vaccines.

The minister said he held a detailed conversation with the Chinese foreign minister in which he “discussed Pakistan’s requirements”, after Prime Minister Imran Khan had directed him to increase interaction with Beijing “considering the sensitivity of the situation”.“I want to give the nation the good news that China has promised to immediately provide 500,000 doses of vaccine to Pakistan by January 31,” he said.

“They (China) have said you can send your airplane and immediately airlift this drug,” he added, saying the development would “help save many lives” in Pakistan.

In a tweet, Qureshi suggested the doses to be provided to Pakistan will be of the Sinopharm vaccine, which the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) had approved for emergency use in the country earlier this week.“With encouraging results of Chinese vaccine and our historic relationship, Paki-

stan has approved emergency use authorisation of SinoPharm [vaccine]. Indeed Pakistan greatly appreciates the 500,000 doses of the vaccine gifted by China,” he wrote.

The vaccine was developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, a subsidiary of state-owned conglomerate Sinopharm.

The company announced last month that preliminary data from last-stage trials had shown it to be 79.3 per cent effective.

But Qureshi said he informed his Chinese counterpart that Pakistan’s requirement for vaccines is “more than this”, and that it will need 1.1 million doses in the near future.

“At this, [the Chinese foreign minister] said ‘we plan to fulfil this requirement of yours as well by the end of February and the 1.1m doses will be made available to you,’” he revealed in the video message................Source: dawn.com

the National Assembly speaker. However, the opposition did not stage protest in the house after the proceedings stalled due to lack of quorum. When contacted, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Syed Naveed Qamar said the opposition did not go for the talks as the PML-N was busy in its parliamentary party meeting. We cannot meet the government without PML-N,” he added.

On the other hand, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan told Dawn that PPP members came for the meeting but not the PML-N representatives.

“It was decided in our (government-opposition) Friday’s meeting that we will meet again on Monday but the opposition did not meet its commitment today,” he added.

Asked who came from the PPP for the meeting on Monday, the minister said, “only Mr Naveed Qamar”.......... Source: dawn.com

A Malaysian court on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane that was held in the Southeast Asian country nearly two weeks ago due to a British court case over the jet’s lease.

Malaysian authorities seized the Boeing 777 aircraft on Jan 15 after a court allowed an application by the plane’s lessor, Peregrine Aviation Charlie Limited, to keep it grounded pending the outcome of a $14 million lease dispute with PIA in a UK court. At the time, the national flag carrier had called the decision by the Malaysian court “one-sided” and said it had caused “inconvenience to the passengers who had already boarded the plane”.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court ordered the immediate release of the plane after both sides said they had reached an amicable settlement to the dispute, involving two planes leased to PIA, according to a lawyer representing the airline.

“Peregrine has agreed to withdraw its suit against PIAC (Pakistan International Airlines Corp) and for the injunction orders to be set aside,” said PIA counsel Kwan Will

Sen. “With this, the two Boeing aircraft operated by PIAC would be released with immediate effect.”

The two jets were leased to PIA by Dublinbased AerCap, the worlds largest aircraft lessor, in 2015.They are part of a portfolio that AerCap sold to Peregrine Aviation Co Ltd, an investment unit of NCB Capital, the brokerage arm of National Commercial Bank SJSC, in 2018. AerCap, which continued as part of the agreement to provide lease management services to Peregrine, has declined to make any comment on the case.

Lawyers representing Peregrine did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source: dawn.com

had recovered Rs487 billion.

Iqbal went on to say that the accountability watchdog was not working against the business community and rejected allegations that businessmen were forced to flee the country because of NAB. He said that businessmen who had left the country “for a better future, went [abroad] of their own accord”.

In several cases, he said, people who were nominated in corruption references had requested permission to talk directly to the complainants for settlements and NAB had never objected to it He added that NAB was not pursuing tax cases against members of the business community any more.....Source: dawn.com

PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Wednesday once again called upon retired Supreme Court judge Azmat Saeed Sheikh to recuse himself from the inquiry into the Broadsheet scandal, warning that her party would otherwise reveal details about his past affiliations. She was addressing the media after arriving at ‘Khokhar Palace’ to express solidarity with the Khokhar family following the demolition of their property. “Broadsheet is a fraudsheet,” she said, adding that the case was not a new tactic of the government to trap the PML-N but “an old net with very big holes”.

She reiterated the questions raised by her party recently about Justice Sheikh’s past affiliations with the National Accountability Bureau, Broadsheet and the PTI. On Monday, the government had confirmed Justice Saeed as the sole member of the inquiry commission tasked with probing the scandal. “Justice Azmat Saeed should excuse himself from this [investigation] and admit that he was himself involved in it (Broadsheet case),” she added.If he does not

recuse, Maryam said, the PML-N “would have to bring to light facts which we could not previously”.

She alleged that Justice Sheikh had “personally called and tried to threaten officers of the PML-N government at the time” and sent certain “messages”. “It is [therefore] better for you to excuse yourself,” Maryam told the former judge.

Demolition of Khokhar properties Speaking about the demolition of properties belonging to the family of PML-N leaders MNA Afzal Khokhar and former MPA Saiful Malook Khokhar in Lahore, Maryam alleged that Prime Minister Imran Khan had himself monitored and overseen the operation.

Source: dawn.com

Commission will have same power of contempt as enjoyed by high courts When constituted, which is likely in a couple of days, the commission will have the same power of contempt as enjoyed by the high court — punishing an individual for abusing, interfering or obstructing the process of the commission in any way or disobeying any order of the commission or scandalising it or attempts to bring the commission or its member into hatred, ridicule or contempt.

Source: dawn.com

Opposition backs out from talks with govt

ISLAMABAD: The much-anticipated government-opposition talks, scheduled for Monday, could not take place as the opposition seemed not interested in sitting with the treasury members to sort out issues.

A three-member government delegation, which had met the opposition leaders on Friday, seeking better relations at least in the parliament, were to hold another round of talks with opposition parties on Monday.

However, following the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) parliamentary party’s meeting in the Parliament House, which was also addressed by party’s vice president Maryam Nawaz, the opposition dropped the idea of holding the meeting.

Instead it was all set to stage a protest during the National Assembly session if the treasury had managed to bring in the required number of members to the house after quorum was pointed out by a PML-N member.

However, the treasury side could not meet the quorum following which proceedings of the lower house were adjourned till 4pm on Tuesday.It had been hoped that the government-opposition meeting on Monday would have lowered the political temperature, but instead the gulf between both sides widened.

The opposition members even carried placards inscribed with anti-government slogans. They also placed portraits of their jailed leaders Shahbaz Sharif, Khawaja Asif and Khursheed Shah on their tables, facing

Malaysian court releases PIA plane grounded over lease dispute

People with plazas in Dubai couldn’t ‘Broadsheet is fraudsheet’: Maryam threatens to spill the explain sources of income: NAB chief beans unless Azmat Saeed recuses himself from inquiry

National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice retired Javed Iqbal on Tuesday addressed allegations and “sinister propaganda” against the watchdog, adding that those who owned plazas in Dubai were not able to justify their sources of income.

Addressing the chamber of commerce in Islamabad, Iqbal said NAB took the first step and went after people who were untouchable until a few years ago, adding that “intimidation, threats or blackmailing” will not affect the watchdog’s work. Without naming anyone, Iqbal said: “People whom you couldn’t look in the eye, whom you couldn’t touch, whom you couldn’t summon even in your dreams — NAB summoned them,” he told the traders. “When NAB asked them that a few years ago, you used to own a Honda motorcycle and today you have plazas in Dubai [...] where did all of this come from?

They had no answer [and] they thought that it was better to leave the country.”

He said in the past three years, since he assumed charge as the NAB chairperson, the watchdog

4

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

O pinion

The end of the Muslim ban does not mean the opening of America

O

N Jan 20, 2021, an elderly man sat down at a desk in the Oval Office in Washington, D.C. With a stroke of his pen, America’s new (but old) president did away with what was effectively a ‘Muslim ban’. With the signing of the executive order titled ‘Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States’, citizens from countries like Iran and Yemen could now travel to the United States if they possessed valid visas.

The stupidity of the ban as an alleged effort to keep Muslim terrorists from showing up in the United States to harm Americans was always obvious, and now with the end of the ban it was especially so. Weeks earlier, decidedly home-grown American terrorists had stormed the United States Capitol. The era of Muslim bans thus was, once and for all, over.

The end of the Muslim ban does not mean the opening of America. Even as this ban was lifted, a new kind of ban, one that had been unthinkable a few years ago, was introduced. People from South Africa who were not US citizens were banned altogether. New restrictions (which were in place until the Trump administration suddenly removed them in its last days) on travellers from the UK, Brazil and various other countries were re-implemented.

The boundaries and limits of this new world are even more stringent than before.

The content of these restrictions all suggested the shape of immigration restrictions to come; countries with inadequate vac-

cinations or safeguards against Covid-19, and countries with virulent variants that may or may not be stopped by the current vaccines, are all likely to face bans in the future. Even as vaccines become widely available, their quality and the extent of the spread of the virus in the home country are likely to become huge hurdles to travelling in a way that they never were before.

In another early move, the Biden administration sent out a sweeping new immigration bill to Congress. The priorities in this immigration bill reveal the same hesitation against incentivising labour from abroad.

The Trump administration, for instance, did not appreciate the large number of H-1Bs that certain tech companies were importing. To counter this, the Trump administration installed various procedural obstacles, banning the issuance at one time and then reinstating it at another. The thorny question of whether workers from abroad could take jobs that middleclass Americans should have remains just as problematic as it was for the Trump administration.

Perhaps because of this, the entire focus of the Biden immigration policy seems to be focused on legalising the 11 million undocumented individuals in the US. As promised, the Biden administration will provide amnesty and a pathway to citizenship to all of them and also provide some permanent solution to those who were brought illegally into the US as children.

The restrictions that the Trump administration placed on asylum claims at the border and the detention of children sepa-

Kashmir conflict

Continued from Page 1

Kashmir conflict

T

he Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, with China playing a third-party role. The conflict started after the partition of India in 1947 as both India and Pakistan claimed the entirety of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a dispute over the region that escalated into three wars between India and Pakistan and several other armed skirmishes. India controls approximately 45% of the land area of the region that includes Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, most of Ladakh, the Siachen Glacier and 70% of its population; Pakistan controls approximately 35% of the land area that includes Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; and China controls the remaining 20% of the land area that includes the Aksai Chin

region, the mostly uninhabited Trans-Karakoram Tract, and part of the Demchok sector.After the partition of India and a rebellion in the western districts of the state, Pakistani tribal militias invaded Kashmir, leading the Hindu ruler of Jammu and Kashmir to join India. The resulting Indo-Pakistani War ended with a UN-mediated ceasefire along a line that was eventually named the Line of Control. After further fighting in the wars of 1965 and 1971, the Simla Agreement formally established the Line of Control between the two nations’ controlled territories.

In 1999, an armed conflict between India and Pakistan broke out again in Kargil with no effect on the status quo.

Since1989, Kashmiri protest movements were created to voice Kashmir’s disputes and grievances with the Indian government in the Indian-controlled Kashmir Valley,[with some Kashmiri sepa-

rated from their parents are no longer the law.

Biden’s America is not going to be one that once again throws open visas so that the world’s best and brightest can easily immigrate and eventually get citizenship. The two huge challenges facing the US currently are the pandemic and the economic downturn it has brought in its wake. The travel restrictions based on where the virus is and what it is doing are one way to thwart new pandemic challenges and retain some control over the health challenges posed by unrestricted borders.

Similarly, the jobs crisis means that it will be difficult to justify jobs and immigrant visas for foreigners. With the amnesty for the undocumented producing millions of new American citizens, the waiting time for immigrant visas will increase, likely punishing those who chose to file the legal way rather than simply get to America and then overstay their visas.

The Biden administration has rejoined the World Health Organisation and the Paris Climate Agreement. These and the moves to legalise the undocumented and to end the travel bans are all examples that aim to reintroduce the US to the liberal global order. However, a closer look at the other policies introduced by the Biden administration, from new travel bans to untouched restrictions on visas for foreign workers, all reveal an America that may never be as open to the best and the brightest from around the world than it was.

The end of the Muslim ban is undoubtedly welcome news, as is the end to the Islamophobic tenor of Donald Trump’s Amer-

ica. At the same time, Joe Biden’s America may not be as different in effect as it is in ideology. The changed circumstances of the world, notably a pandemic that has shrunk the world, means that there is no normal, no past that can be restored. The boundaries and limits of this new world are, it seems, even more stringent than they were before.

With the virtual world providing cheap and easy access to other people without provoking disease or the use of resources, it is likely that much intellectual labour will be done via this medium. This means a markedly different world with far fewer opportunities to migrate based on one’s intelligence and skills.

Pakistan needs to prepare for this world where ideas move virtually and people stay put. With Covid-based travel restrictions here to stay, even as terrorismrelated restrictions such as the Muslim ban in the US fade, the country will no longer be able to remain a remittances- based economy. To offset this change, heralded by new travel policies in the Gulf as well as the US, Pakistan needs to develop capacities or remote work such that the engineers and computer scientists that were once exported to Gulf countries and the Western world at large can work remotely without the hassle of restrictions and visas.

The world is at the cusp of transformative change, the preCovid world is forever gone and whoever adapts the fastest is likely to benefit the most from the new order that will take its place.

Courtesy By: Rafia Zakaria

THE

MIR A LE

Miracle Media Group Inc.©

Contact Info Mailing and Office Address 9160-136A Street Surrey BC. V3V 7Z8 Canada Ph: 604-690-0400 Fax: 604-582-7809

Founder : Nusrat Hussain Managing & Chief Editor: M. Naseer Pirzada Sub-Editors: Misbah & Sabeeh Advertising Ph: 604-690-0400 Emails: info@telus.net miraclenews@telus.net Editorial Board : editor@telus.net Mr.Shams Jillani, Mr Aslam Hayat, Mr. Azhar Syed, M.A.L. Naumani, Graphic Design: Design Teams Copyright ® 2001 Miracle Media Group Inc. All Rights Reserved Printed in Canada

Phone: 604-690-0400 Emails:

miraclenews@telus.net miraclenewsg@gmail.com info@miraclenews.com

Website: www.miraclenews.com

Contents

Pak. News

Edit/Opinion

Letters Faith

News N. Int

ratists in armed conflict with the Indian government based on the demand for self-determination.

The 2010s were marked by further unrest erupting within the Kashmir Valley. The 2010 Kashmir unrest began after an alleged fake encounter between local youth and security forces. Thousands of youths pelted security forces with rocks, burned government offices, and attacked railway stations and official vehicles in steadily intensifying violence. The Indian government blamed separatists and Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistanbased militant group, for stoking the 2010 protests. The 2016 Kashmir unrest erupted after killing of a Hizbul Mujahideen militant, Burhan Wani, by Indian security

forces. Further unrest in the region erupted after the 2019 Pulwama attack.

According to scholars, Indian forces have committed many human rights abuses and acts of terror against the Kashmiri civilian population, including extrajudicial killing, rape, torture, and enforced disappearances.According to Amnesty International, no member of the Indian military deployed in Jammu and Kashmir has been tried for human rights violations in a civilian court as of June 2015, although there have been military courts-martial held.[29] Amnesty International has also accused the Indian government of refusing to prosecute perpetrators of abuses in the region. Source: wikipedia.org

Local s Cand.News Middle Est Politics US Politic Women/Y Health Pak/Sports Urdu

3 4 4 5 6, 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16-24

Miracle Media is Member of : National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada important note:

Letters to the editor and Articles do not reflect the opinion of the Miracle media group. We do not publish anonymous letters or the letters of the people who do not disclose their identity to ‘The Miracle.’ A writer can use a pen name or request ‘The Miracle’ to withhold his / her identity. Please include your daytime telephone number for the confirmation of your letter.

We regret the inconvenience.

5

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

f ait h

On the authority of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said that the Messenger of Allah said: Allah (mighty and sublime be He) said: Pride is my cloak and greatness My robe, and he who competes with Me in respect of either of them I shall cast into Hell-fire. It was related by Abu Dawud (also by Ibn Majah and Ahmad) with sound chains of authority.

This Hadith also appears in Muslim in another version. Hadith 19, 40 Hadith Qudsi

Reality of the Fear of Coronavirus

BY: MUHAMMAD MUMTAZ ALI

W

e all are still suffering from COVID-19 and its new form.

It seems everyone is under the psychology of fear. Fear of death, loss of business, loss of peace. COVID-19 has affected different people in different ways, and its impact on the world’s economies and asset markets can be seen.

The impact is evident; therefore, we accept it and fear it. Fear is a part of human nature.

We have a fear of the law but still, go against the law because we do not see the immediate impact of it. Many people do not realize the fact of fear and, most of the time, become fearless. Thousands of people worldwide who are involved in financial scandals and bribery do not fear the law. The brutal rulers who brutally kill thousands of people for their political interest, do not worry.

Many people at top posts as authorities, administrators, executive officers, politicians, and anchors tell hundreds of lies repeatedly but do not fear. They do not fear what will happen to them after death. The question then is: Why the fear of Covid-19 and the fall of economies? We always remember immediate implications and overlook unknown other consequences.

Life after death is taken either as storytelling or religious myth, socially constructed irrational and unscientific dogmas. Most people do not know the truth and reality of life after death. It seems they are ignorant of it. We need to remind them about the truth and reality of life after death, the existence of reward and punishment. I don’t think we should wither away with this issue. This issue of life after death, rewards, and punishment has become prominent in the context of Covid-19. Because no one is spared from the attack of Covid-19, everyone is cautious of it and wants to protect himself/herself. Suppose this is the reality of our life for some time to come. In that case, the question arises: Should anyone powerful and authoritative who causes fatalities and destruction to the natural environment and earth should go unpunished? Our rationality and scientific consciousness demand that everyone must be subject to the rule of law, reward, and punishment, even if they hold a very pow-

erful or authoritative position. He/she must be checked and rewarded or punished according to law.

Our world is full of weapons by which hundreds and thousands of people are being killed without any legal provision. Weak people are treated badly and ruthlessly.

They need justice, and justice must be done and seen by ONE WHO is capable of doing justice. Here comes the voice of none other than the Ruler of the Day of Justice. He introduces Himself as “the Lord of the entire Universe, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate; the Master of the Day of Judgement and Recompense.”

The Lord of the entire universe did not hide anything from people. They were informed about the reality and truth of the Lord and our fate. It is made clear in the Quran that Allah alone is All-Mighty, All-Powerful, All-Wise, All-Knowing, All-Hearing, AllSeeing, All-Aware: “Judgement lies with Allah alone. He declares the Truth, and He is the best Judge [6:57]”. “Allah knows best how to judge the wrong-doers [6:58]”; “He knows all that lies beyond the reach of human perception as well as all that is visible to people. He is the All-Wise, the All-Aware [6:73]”; “It is He Who created you out of a single being and appointed for each of you a time-limit and a resting place. We have indeed spelled out Our signs for those who can understand [6:98]”; “Your Lord is not heedless of what they do [6:132]”.

Tell them, [O Prophet]: “Did you consider [what would be your end] if this Quran were indeed from Allah and yet you rejected it? …while you waxed arrogant. Verily Allah does not guide such wrongdoers to the Right Way [46: 10].

Tell them, [O Prophet]: “Did you ever consider: if this Quran is indeed from Allah

and you still deny it, who can be in more significant error than he who goes far in fiercely opposing it [41: 52].

We are informed clearly beyond any doubt using powerful rational arguments and empirical and historical evidence that soon Allah would show us His Signs on the horizons and in our beings. Soon everything would become clear to us that life after death is not storytelling or myth but an absolute Truth and Reality [41: 43]. Therefore, we are asked just to imagine what would happen to us on the Day of Judgement [in the Hereafter] when all people of the past, present, and future would be gathered to face the Judgement. Our ears, our eyes, and our skins would be asked to give witness against ourselves, stating all that whatever we had done in life [41: 19-20]. Allah says in the Quran, no doubt, in this world to most of us it may appear as illusory, but it would happen in reality, and our skins would give witness against ourselves. Then we would ask our skins: “Why did you bear witness against us?” The skins will reply: “Allah gave us speech, as He gave speech to all others” [41: 21].

The skins of our bodies would say and conform that it was Allah Who had created us and showed us the RIGHT WAY OF LIFE but we did not follow it. It is Allah Who created for the first time the entire creation and it is to Him that we would return [again He would create us in the Hereafter] [41: 21].

There in the Hereafter, we would realize that we used to conceal ourselves while committing misdeeds and sins but never thought that our ears and eyes and skins would ever bear witness against us; we rather fancied that Allah does not know a great deal of what we do [41:23]. This thought of ours about our Lord has led us to our perdi-

tion and we have become among the losers [41:24]. Allah did not hide anything. He declared everything: …To Us is their return, and then We shall inform them of all that they did. Surely Allah knows well even the secrets that are hidden in the breasts [of people] [31: 23].

We allow them to enjoy themselves a while in the world and then We shall drive them in utter helplessness to a harsh chastisement [31: 24].

The creation of all of us in the Hereafter again after death or to resurrect all of us is to Him like creating or resurrecting a single person. Verily Allah is All-Hearing, AllSeeing [31: 28]. We, therefore, must think and fear Him: O people, fear [the wrath] of your Lord, and dread the Day [Dy of resurrection] when no father will stand for his child, nor any child stand for his father. Indeed Allah’s promise is true. So, let the life of this world not beguile you, nor let the Deluder delude you about Allah [31: 33].

More serious admonition is made here again for our reflection. On the Day of Judgement, when we will see the nature of punishment, we would cry. This psychology of ours is expressed here in the Quran: If the wrongdoers possessed the treasures of the earth in their entirety and as such besides, they would gladly offer it on the Day of Resurrection to redeem themselves from the harrowing chastisement. This because there will appear to them from Allah something [exceedingly dismal which] they had never even imagined [38: 47].

The evil consequences of our deeds would become fully apparent to us, and what we had scoffed at will encompass us [38: 48].

We would not be able to run away from the consequences of our deeds. We can do whatever we like in this world but would not be able to avoid our fate.

Surely Allah alone has the knowledge of the Hour. It is He Who sends down the rain and knows what is in the wombs, although no person knows what he will earn tomorrow, nor does he know in which land he will die.

Indeed, Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware [31: 34]. Source: islamicity.org

The Concept of Moderation in Islam Prayer Schedule in Greater Vancouver Jan 29-Feb 12, 2021 Jamadi ul II 16-30,1442 H

Isl. Dt. Day Date Fajar

T

he word “Moderation” generally means “to avoid the extreme” in every matter. The action of just avoiding the excessiveness does not convey the exact implication

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thus Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thus Fri

Sunr Dhur ZawalAsar Dhuhr Asar Shafi / Hanfi

Maghrib

Isha

of this term, as it could be taken in the context of both good and bad. For example, we normally take telling lies while joking as appropriate whereas we consider. Source: quranreading.com For such Prayers are enjoined on believers at stated times: Quran ,n 4:103 Source: BCMA

6

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

N at

&

I nt

N E W S

Trump impeachment: Small procession to Senate begins a new chapter in US history

Nine members of the United States House of Representatives walked to the Senate on Monday evening and delivered a document calling for the trial of former US president Donald Trump. The Senate accepted the document, known as the article of impeachment, and set Feb 9 for beginning the trial, making Trump the second president in US history to face such a trial and the only to face it twice.

In an interview to CNN, US President Joe Biden said he was aware that the trial could have repercussions but “I think it has to happen. There would be a worse effect if it did not happen.”

But South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a strong Trump ally, said the impeachment move should have been “dismissed” because of a “constitutional lack of jurisdiction”.

Trump, who has not yet commented on the proceedings, is still assembling a legal team for the trial. A South Carolina lawyer Butch Bowers could lead the defence team.

Congressman Ted Lieu, one of the nine who brought the article to the Senate, described the procession as “historic”. All nine are now

known as House managers who will represent the House during the trial.

Congressman Jamie Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager, turned towards his colleagues as they lined up for the walk, and said, “proud of you guys.”

There were only a few Republicans in the Senate, including Senators Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney, when the procession arrived.

Democrat Patrick Leahy, the president pro tempore of the Senate, was presiding over the session. ...............................Source:dawn.com

As Republicans begin charting a turbulent future without a clear head of the party, former President Donald Trump has declared he can propel them to victory in next year’s congressional midterm elections.

“President Trump’s popularity has never been stronger than it is today, and his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time,” read a statement sent out by Trump’s Save America political action committee following a meeting Thursday with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

“President Trump has agreed to work with Leader McCarthy on helping the Republican

Party to become a majority in the House,” the statement continued.

In a separate statement, McCarthy declared the Republican Party “United and ready to win”. This will put to rest, at least in the short term, the idea of a pro-Trump third-party splinter from the Republicans (GOP). But it will, no doubt, raise tensions within the party about whether the GOP should move on from Trump and his litany of controversies or double down on continuing to court the extremely loyal – and partially extreme – base of Trump supporters.

Discord within the losing party is common During the past two decades, both parties have found themselves flailing after significant national electoral losses.

Leaderless Democrats fought about the direction of their party after losing two presidential races to George W Bush, only to unexpectedly find unity and “hope” upon Barack Obama’s election in 2008.

Source: ctvnews.ca

Indian, Chinese troops in new border brawl: reports

Indian and Chinese troops have brawled again on their contested border, leaving injuries on both sides, military sources and media reports said on Monday, barely six months after a deadly clash in the Himalayas.

The incident happened last week at the Naku La pass in Sikkim state, the sources told AFP. Media reports quoted Indian military officials as saying there were casualties on both sides. Indian and Chinese troops remain locked in a stand off at the bitterly contested border in the western Himalayas, the most serious military crisis between the nuclear-armed neighbours for decades.

Last summer, 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops were killed in a deadly combat.

Both sides have since said that they are looking to find ways to de-escalate the situation on the border, but talks have made little headway and both sides have maintained a heavy military deployment through the freezing winter months.Last month, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said there

had been “no meaningful result” from several rounds of diplomatic and military talks aimed at de-escalating the confrontation.

“If the status quo continues, it is obvious that the deployment won’t come down,” Singh had said during an interview with Reuters partner ANI. But, he said, both sides were still exchanging messages over the border situation and another round of military talks was in the offing.”

Source:dawn.com

Trump says he will stay in politics amid U.K. PM Boris Johnson faces criticism over Scotland trip in lockdown Republican discord

Liquid nitrogen leak at US Georgia poultry plant kills 6 A liquid nitrogen leak at a poultry plant in the US state of Georgia killed six people Thursday, with multiple others taken to the hospital, officials said.

Beth Downs, a spokesperson for Northeast Georgia Health System, said five people died at the Gainesville plant before they could be taken to the hospital, while one person died in the emergency room.

“Once the units arrived, they found a large contingent of employees that had evacuated, along with multiple victims that were in that crowd that were also experiencing medical emergencies around the facility,” Brackett told reporters in a televised news briefing.

Brackett said firefighters, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state fire marshal were investigating what happened.

Poultry plants rely on refrigeration systems that can include liquid nitrogen.

“It was a leak of unknown cause that has occurred in the system here,” Brackett said. “We still have a lot of information we’re trying to gather from the scene.”

Sean Couch, another spokesperson for the health system, said of the nine other injured patients, three had been admitted to the Gainesville hospital in critical condition. Five

were being treated in the emergency room and were in fair condition. One was still on the way to the emergency room when Couch spoke.

At least four firefighters were injured and take to the hospital with what Brackett described as “respiratory complaints”.

Brackett said about 130 workers were taken by bus to a nearby church where they were examined for injuries. Couch said one person was taken to the hospital from there.

Hall County school officials said students were being kept safe inside a nearby elementary school and said the leak was contained and not airborne. About 2.5km (1.5 miles) of a road that runs in front of the plant and school was closed........................ Source: ctvnews.ca

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced accusations Thursday that he is not abiding by the country’s lockdown rules as he visited Scotland to laud the rapid rollout of coronavirus vaccines across the United Kingdom.

With a raft of polling showing increased support for Scottish independence from the U.K., Johnson’s visit to promote the benefits of the union stands to be overshadowed by the lockdown dispute. Although Scotland has its own government in Edinburgh that has an array of powers from public health through to education, it remains part of the U.K. under which London still has huge influence.

The U.K. has endured Europe’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak with more than 102,000 virus-linked deaths but it has been among the world’s leaders in rolling out a virus vaccination program. During his trip, Johnson visited a laboratory at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, where coronavirus tests are processed, and met troops from the British Army who were setting up a vaccination centre in the city, bumping elbows to greet some of the soldiers.

Johnson is arguing that Scotland benefits directly from his government’s approach to get-

ting vaccine shots out quickly.

“I’m here in my capacity as prime minister of the whole country to thank hard-working officials and public servants across the whole of Britain who are doing fantastic work,” he said.

Critics say the Conservative prime minister is politicking at a time when the U.K. is in a strict lockdown as a result of a huge resurgence of the virus that Johnson has largely blamed on a new variant first identified around London and southeast England.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has described Johnson’s visit as “not essential,” in the same way that a visit by herself to another part of Scotland would not be deemed essential under current lockdown rules.

Source: ctvnews.ca

US says progress hard to see without Taliban commitments

Biden administration says unless Taliban meets its commitments under 2020 deal, hard to see a way forward. US President Joe Biden’s administration believes it is hard to see a way forward for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan without the group meeting its commitments under a deal last year, but Washington remained committed to that effort, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

“Without them meeting their commitments to renounce terrorism and to stop the violent

attacks on the Afghan National Security Forces … it’s very hard to see a specific way forward for the negotiated settlement, but we’re still committed to that,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday.

He added that no decision had been made about the future of troop levels in Afghanistan.

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday, highlighting “robust diplomatic support for the peace process ” to come to a political settlement and military ceasefire to benefit all Afghans, according to US State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

Blinken told the Ghani the United States is reviewing the agreement signed in February, 2020 between the US and the Taliban, to evaluate whether the Taliban are fulfilling commitments to “cut ties with terrorist groups, to reduce violence in Afghanistan, and to engage in meaningful negotiations with the Afghan government and other stakeholders” Price said.

Source: aljazeera.com

7

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

l oca l / c O v i d / cont

Surrey Six case update: Guilty finding upheld for 2 men convicted in B.C.’s deadliest gang shooting VANCOUVER -- The guilty verdicts have been upheld for two men serving life sentences in connection with the province’s deadliest gang shooting, a B.C. Court of Appeal judge ruled Thursday. A judgment posted online provided few details about the decision, saying that the reasons are being withheld for now because there is an order sealing the court file to protect confidential

information. However, the judges wrote, “None of the grounds of appeal that would have resulted in a new trial are upheld, and the verdicts of guilt are affirmed.” An abbreviated version of the reasons will be posted “when available.”But it appears Cody Haevischer and Matthew Johnston’s legal battle may not be over.“The appeals of the appellants are allowed to the extent of quashing

their convictions and remitting the matter to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on the applications for a stay of proceedings for abuse of process.” Haevischer and Johnston were both sentenced to life in prison in 2014, after being found guilty of six counts of firstdegree murder.They were also found guilty shootings of six people in a Surrey condo in of one count of conspiracy to commit mur- 2007. The victims have been referred to as der. The charges stem from execution-style the “Surrey Six.” Source: bc.ctvnews.ca

Continued from Page 1

arrival. Violations of any of these measures can result in charges under the Quarantine Act, with a maximum sentence of six months in jail or fines up to $75,000.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault reiterated Tuesday that he wants Ottawa to implement an outright ban on non-essential travel or to

mandate a 14-day stay in a hotel upon arrival in Canada – and as Trudeau said at his Tuesday briefing, “all options are on the table if necessary.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford also called on the federal government to implement mandatory COVID-19 testing and a temporary ban on direct flights from countries where new strains of coronavirus have been found.

Ford made the announcement while provid-

ing an update on a pilot project at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport that has so far detected 146 positive cases of COVID-19 out of 6,580 tests. Four of those positives have been screened as the potential U.K. variant and will undergo further investigation.

“This is simple folks, no politics, no nothing, you land in Toronto, or other areas, you have to be tested, simple as that. We aren’t the first country to require this and we won’t be the

TORONTO -- Pfizer expects Canada will be able to extract six doses of its COVID-19 vaccine from vials instead of five, a difference that has caused confusion among provinces and prompted speculation about Canada’s rollout timeline.

Health Canada is reviewing a formal request to change the label on the Pfizer BioNTech vaccines to reflect a sixth dose and is looking into whether Canada will be able to make the precise extractions.

The problem comes down to a limited supply of special syringes needed to more easily extract the sixth dose. Canada has only so many 1-millilitre, or 1cc, syringes, which are in high demand globally. Two million syringes of a recent order for 37.5 million are due to arrive in Canada on Feb. 4.

Health officials have repeatedly said that they believe Pfizer will meet its March deadline to deliver four million vaccines to Canada. However, on Thursday, officials acknowledged that Pfizer made those calculations

based on the assumption that each vial had six doses, not five.

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, who is overseeing Canada’s vaccine rollout, said Pfizer will increase the number of vials it sends to meet the March deadline in the event that Canada doesn’t agree to change the labels.

“They have assured us four million by the end of March,” Fortin said at a press conference on Thursday.

But a planning document sent to the provinces on Thursday morning still used the five-dose formula, which led some to believe that they could miss out on up to 500,000 doses in the coming months.

“What we have shared with provinces is a conservative figure of five doses per vial un-

TORONTO -- Frances Novack is sure she would die if she contracted COVID-19.

The 68-year-old isn’t just of an age where risk of severe infection increases exponentially. The Toronto resident has Stage 4 lung cancer. In the last three years, Novack has undergone 45 chemotherapy treatments and several rounds of stereotactic radiosurgery, a form of high-dose radiation. She’s had two brain tumours and a lobe in her lungs removed.

She receives daily care from a personal support worker, and has a nurse visit three times a week. Neither have received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine yet either. “If I got COVID, I wouldn’t survive it,” Novack told CTVNews.ca over the phone Wednesday.

“Not with the way [infection can result in] trouble breathing.”

Novack and others like her in high-risk groups feel left behind in Canada’s mass vaccination campaign. Meanwhile, healthier, lower-risk individuals, including healthcare PR executives and young hospital em-

ployees on leave, have received at least one dose of available vaccines. Instances of socalled “queue-jumping” have been making headlines all month. Last weekend, police charged a 55-year-old man and 32-yearold woman from B.C. after they chartered a plane to the Yukon to get the jab.

“When you do bad things bad things happen to you. That’s something I’ve noticed in life,” said 87-year-old Marlene Clarke of the news. According to federal guidelines developed by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, Clarke should be part of the current initial “Stage 1” rollout of vaccines, which NACI suggested should include people over 70, beginning with adults over 80 and “decreasing the age limit by 5-year increments” as vaccine supply becomes available.

“I want to be vaccinated before I die,” Clarke told CTVNews.ca Wednesday.

The 87-year-old lives alone in a condominium in Schomberg, Ont., where she goes outdoors just once a week for essential items.

She recognizes that health-care workers and residents of long-term care homes should be first to receive the shot, but hopes she can get one before she makes her biggest trip outside in months — a move to New Brunswick to be closer to family.

Each province has determined its own priority framework based on the national guidelines, though some are following the federal recommendations more closely than others.

In New Brunswick, where Clarke plans to move this year, workers are already vaccinating “older New Brunswickers” as part of Stage 1, which began in December.

In Ontario, senior citizens like Clarke, who live in the community and not in long-termcare or retirement homes, won’t start getting shots until March at the earliest. That’s when Phase 2 of the province’s vaccination campaign was planned to begin, but after shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were significantly cut this month, it’s unclear if that timeline is likely.

Bill VanGorder, chief policy officer with na-

PM warns Canadians to expect more travel restrictions soon

They then must quarantine for 14 days upon

last,” Ford said. The request for more stringent travel measures was echoed by Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister, who announced Tuesday that the province is amending its public health orders to introduce a 14-day self-isolation period for anyone travelling into Manitoba from other parts of Canada.

Source: bc.ctvnews.ca

Five doses per vial or six? Pfizer’s expectations don’t match Canada’s reality, experts say

til it changes, until authorized — if it gets authorized,” Fortin said.

Provinces expressed their frustration with the situation, with Alberta’s health minister accusing the government of “failing Canadians” and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe blaming Ottawa of not sharing “accurate information.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford also expressed his disappointment with Pfzier, but did not lay blame on the federal government.

“Pfizer has let us down tremendously. It’s, again, unacceptable,” Ford said. “I know the federal government is trying and they’re doing everything we can. We need to explore every avenue possible.”

Source: ctvnews.ca

Vulnerable and forgotten? Some seniors, high-risk people feel left out of COVID-19 vaccine rollout

tional seniors advocacy group CARP (Canadian Association for Retired Persons), said that provinces shouldn’t be permitted to stray from the federal medical advice.

“Your postal code shouldn’t determine the kind of health care you get,” he told CTVNews.ca over the phone on Wednesday.

“CARP thinks there should be a single delivery of health service across the country.”

Instead, in some provinces the vaccines are shipped to hospital networks and dispersed from there. In others, the shots are going to long-term care facilities first and dispersed elsewhere from there. Source: ctvnews.ca

Coronavirus infections over 102 million worldwide Coronavirus Cases:

Deaths:

Recovered:

73,894,541

Last updated:

January 29, 2021, 06:49 GMT www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?

102,048,696

2,201,176

Coronavirus Cases:

Deaths:

Recovered:

CANADA Last updated:

Coronavirus Cases:

Deaths:

Recovered:

BC;CANADA Last updated:

766,103 66,265

19,664 1,184

689,419 59,141

January 29, 2021, 06:49 GMT

January 28, 2021, 04 :30PM (PT)

https://experience.arcgis.com

8

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

N ationa l

&

I nt

Biden vows to work with Canada on Liberals’ two-billion-trees promise to cost ‘Buy American’ policy, but offers no guarantees $2.78 billion more than planned, PBO says

EDMONTON -- U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to work with Canada in relation to his “Buy American” policy, which would tighten existing rules on government procurement by guaranteeing contracts to U.S. companies, during his call with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week.

According to Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau, Biden acknowledged the deep supply chain connections between the Canadian and the U.S. economies, but fell short of guaranteeing that Canada wouldn’t be shut out from bidding on large U.S. projects.

“We voiced our concerns with respect to that, because we have a very good trade deal with them, very integrated supply chains, and that this could possibly have some effects on Canada,” Garneau told CTV’s Question Period Sunday. “President Biden indicated that he was very sensitive to that and that the two countries would stay in touch, so that there wouldn’t be any unintended consequences with respect to our very strong and integrated supply chains.”

Capital Dispatch: Stay up to date on the latest news from Parliament Hill Manufacturers and exporters in Canada supply a vast range of equipment to public works projects in the U.S., but Biden’s promise to prioritize U.S.-based suppliers and products made on American soil would stop Canadian companies from bidding for work.

“Our objective is to make sure that our neighbours to the south understand how tightly

integrated our economies are,” Garneau replied when asked whether Canada can expect an exemption from the plan, expected to be unveiled Monday.

“Some of the things we send to them already have American products in it, that’s how tightly integrated our supply chains are and we will convey those messages on a continuous basis. During the call, Biden’s first to a foreign leader as president, Trudeau expressed Canada’s “disappointment” with the decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline by revoking its permit.

Biden acknowledged the difficulties it has caused, a project he opposed during his campaign and his term as vice-president to president Barack Obama, who blocked the project in 2015. Biden and Trudeau have agreed to meet next month, although it’s not clear given the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic what form that meeting would take ”Source:ctvnews.ca

Minister says couple who allegedly flew to Yukon for vaccine should consider ‘reparations’

TORONTO -- Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller has a simple message for anyone thinking of following the lead of the Vancouver couple who allegedly flew to a remote community in Yukon to jump the COVID-19 vaccination queue: Don’t.

“There’s extreme scarcity of the doses and some people, for whatever reason, [are] trying to game the system,” Miller said Wednesday at a press conference.

“You shouldn’t do it. It’s dumb. It’s wrong. It’s unfair.”Rod Baker and Ekaterina Baker are each facing fines of $1,150 for allegedly failing to self-isolate and failing to behave in a manner consistent with the declarations they made upon their arrival in Yukon, according to court documents obtained by CTV News.

Rod Baker has also resigned as CEO of casino operator Great Canadian Gaming.

The allegations are tied to claims by government officials in Yukon that a couple chartered a plane to Beaver Creek, Yukon, and claimed to be local workers in the community in order to obtain vaccinations. With remote communities prioritized for early vaccination, Yukon has already started to roll out doses to anybody who wants them in places such as Beaver Creek, which is lo-

cated near the Yukon-Alaska border and had a population of 93 in the 2016 census.

Most people who enter Yukon for non-essential reasons have to provide a 14-day selfisolation plan and complete a declaration form with details about their circumstances.

Officials in Yukon have said the couple filled out declarations, but did not follow the territory’s isolation rules.

APTN reported Tuesday that the couple told staff at the vaccination clinic they were working at a local motel. After receiving their vaccinations, the couple asked for a ride to the airport, raising suspicions among Beaver Creek residents who know the airport is rarely used by locals.

Source: ctvnews.ca

OTTAWA -- A new report says Black Canadians and people from most other minority groups tend to disproportionately lose out on federal civil service jobs they apply for compared with other Canadians.

The audit report on the representation of employment equity groups in public service recruitment appears to back a push by the Trudeau government to make federal departments and agencies more diverse.

The audit results, released Thursday, show that most employment equity groups did not remain proportionately represented throughout the recruitment process compared with the rate at which they applied for government jobs.

Women were the only group to see an increase in representation from the application stage through to the hiring stage.

The representation rate of Indigenous people, members of visible minorities and peo-

OTTAWA -- The parliamentary budget office says a pledge by the Trudeau Liberals to plant two billion trees could cost almost double what the government says.

The tree-planting spree, spread over a decade, is supposed to start in the spring and cost $3.16 billion over that time, based on federal estimates.

Getting to the 2030 target means planting about 200 million trees a year more than usual. The spending watchdog’s analysis suggests getting there is also going to require more money, about $2.78 billion more, bringing the overall cost closer to $5.94 billion.

The budget officer’s report is based on a similar program the Ontario government ran, using the average per-tree cost and adjusting for inflation over the 10-year planting period. The budget office also estimates

in a separate report that a pandemic loan program for small businesses will cost the government nearly $20.3 billion, more than the $14.6 billion estimated in the fall economic statement.

Source: ctvnews.ca

Conservatives say final months of 2020 a record for fundraising

OTTAWA -- The federal Conservatives say they raised more than $7.6 million in the final three months of 2020. The figures come as all federals parties continue the work of prepping for a potential election this year.

The Conservatives say the first six months under their new leader, Erin O’Toole, netted $13.3 million for their party’s coffers.

O’Toole says the high totals mean his party’s message of a focus on getting Canadians back to work is resonating.

Financial results for the final quarter of 2020 are only just starting to roll in for the party raised just over $961,000 in that period. other parties.

Records for the Bloc Quebecois show that Source: ctvnews.ca

It’s time for a First Nations person to be governor general: Bellegarde OTTAWA -- Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations says it’s time for Canada to have a First Nations governor general now that Julie Payette has resigned from the role.The national chief of the political advocacy organization says having a First Nations person as governor general would send a strong message to young people who would see themselves reflected at the highest levels in Canada.

He also says having more First Nations people at all levels of government -- and on the Supreme Court -- would reflect the diversity of Canada and be a move toward reconciliation. Bellegarde, who is not seeking re-election as national chief next summer, says he has not been formally approached by “any person in decision-making authority” regarding the job.

Michele Audette, who was a commissioner of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, says appointing an Indigenous person as governor general would be a “historic”

move.She also says that whoever ends up being named, no matter their background, must acknowledge Canada’s colonial history.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 28, 2021.

Source: ctvnews.ca

Most minorities disproportionately dropped from civil service hiring process: audit ple with disabilities decreased at different stages of the application process.

As a sub-group, Black candidates were more likely to be dropped from the hiring process than other visible-minority groups.

The audit reviewed 15,285 applications to 181 publicly advertised jobs in 30 departments and agencies.

It looked at employment equity group representation over five stages from the initial job application to the successful hiring of applicants.

However, the audit did not specify whether job applicants lived in the National Capital Region or other locations in Canada, nor did it differentiate candidates based on their

educational background.

The Treasury Board Secretariat has begun looking at changes to the Public Service Employment Act to remove barriers to diversifying the federal workforce.

The Public Service Commission recommends departments and agencies review their own hiring process and practices, to identify and remove barriers for hiring from equity groups.

The commission also says it will review its own recruitment practices and calls on departments to require training on unconscious bias to job recruiters, Source: ctvnews.ca

9

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

M I DDL E

EAST

Turkey, Saudi Arabia eye improved ties after Gulf crisis ends

Normalisation between a Saudi-led coalition and Qatar removed the barrier to reconciliation between Ankara and Riyadh.

Ankara, Turkey – Two years ago, relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia stood at

one of the lowest points in the history of the two regional powers following the murder in Istanbul of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

His killing in October 2018 at the hands of Saudi agents in the kingdom’s consulate led to unprecedented Turkish denouncements of the Saudi government, highlighting what it said was the role of those close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto ruler, in the assassination plot.

However, ties between Ankara and Riyadh appear on the verge of a return to cordiality, thanks in part to the detente between Turkey’s ally Qatar and the four-nation Saudiled bloc that imposed an embargo on Doha in 2017.

Earlier this month, a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) saw Saudi Arabia and its allies agree to restore ties with Doha, including reopening airspace and borders.

The move was welcomed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “very beneficial”.He added: “We hope that our position in Gulf cooperation will be re-established.

This will make Gulf cooperation stronger.”

The rapprochement was followed by Qatar’s offer to mediate between Ankara and Riyadh. “If these two countries see that the state of Qatar has a role in this mediation, then it is possible to do so. It is in everyone’s interest that there be friendly relations between these countries,” Qatari special envoy

Mutlaq al-Qahtani said.

Prior to the GCC meeting, there had been signs of warming relations. At the start of a G-20 summit in November, Erdogan and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz spoke by telephone.

The leaders “agreed on keeping channels of dialogue open in order for bilateral relations to be enhanced and for issues to be settled”, the Turkish president’s office said.

The countries’ foreign ministers later met at an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation conference in Niger, after which Turkey’s Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted their partnership would “benefit not only our countries, but our entire region”.......Source: aljazeera.com

US condemns air attack on Riyadh, vows to protect stability of Kingdom

* US says ‘will help our partner Saudi Arabia and undermine all efforts to promote peace rorist organization. Yemenis on Sunday defend against attacks on its territory’

and stability,” it said. “As we work to de-es- launched a social media campaign to high-

yadh on Saturday by the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen CHICAGO: The US on Sunday condemned an attempted air attack on Riyadh at the weekend and said anyone who tried to undermine the Kingdom’s stability would be held to account.

The strike on the Saudi capital on Saturday, which was thwarted by air defenses, “appears to have been an attempt to target civilians,” the State Department said.

“Such attacks contravene international law

cipled diplomacy, including by bringing an end to the war in Yemen, we will also help our partner Saudi Arabia defend against attacks on its territory and hold those who attempt to undermine stability to account.”

Britain also condemned the attack, which “undermined regional peace.”

“We strongly condemn these attacks, and we stand by our Saudi partners,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said. The attack came days after the US designated Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen as a foreign ter-

countries to follow the US. The organizers said they wanted to “inform the world about the terrorism acts by the Houthi militia against Yemenis and to call all free countries to designate them as a terrorist organization.” Dozens of Yemeni journalists, human right activists, intellectuals and officials have condemned the group’s human right abuses, using the hashtag #HouthiTerrorismInYemen, and shared images and videos that show Houthis blowing up the houses of their opponents. ......Source:arabnews.com

AMMAN: Israeli police have stopped workers from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf from renovating the Dome of the Rock for two consecutive days, raising tensions in the old city. Azzam Khatib, director of the Jordanian Waqf department in Jerusalem, informed Jordan’s Ambassador in Tel Aviv Ghassan Majali and Minister of Waqf in Amman Mohammed Khalaileh of the news.

Israeli officials claim the decision was made after an individual tried to renovate the ceiling of the Bab Al-Rahmeh mosque, which Israel has demanded Muslims to vacate, without reason.

The Jerusalem Waqf Council is expected to issue a strong statement denouncing the Israeli action, calling it a violation of under-

standings.

Bassam Hallaq, the Waqf engineer in charge of the renovation, said that Israeli police stopped work on the gold-plated Dome of the Rock on Saturday and Sunday, and prevented urgent electric work, too.

Israel insists that any renovation or repair must be pre-approved. The renovation is not structural.

Arab News has learned that the Israeli actions on Saturday and Sunday followed the efforts of an unknown Palestinian whose face was covered, who climbed the roof of the Bab Al-Rahmeh mosque in order to apply cement to stop leaks.

Israel has forbidden any repair work on the mosque.

and Israel, which started with an agreement with the UAE in August. But he told reporters he was reviewing the commitments made in order to secure those pacts.

The Trump administration agreed the F35 sale after the UAE agreed to formalise diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. Mr Trump also recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, in contravention of diplomatic norms, after Rabat agreed to normalise ties with Israel.

Saudi Arabia had been expecting the new US administration to take a tougher stance Supply of 50 F35 fighter jets and other after Mr Biden criticised human rights abuses under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salweaponry agreed by Trump put on hold man’s watch and vowed to “review” relations By:Katrina Manson, Andrew England with the kingdom.

The White House has suspended arms sales agreed by Donald Trump to two Gulf allies, Yemen’s civil war the first significant move by President Joe Mr Trump had put arms sales to Saudi AraBiden to reset US relations with Sunni Arab bia – one of the world’s biggest weapons regimes heavily courted by his predecessor. buyers – at the core of his relationship with The temporary freeze puts a landmark deal Prince Mohammed, standing by the kingto sell 50 F35 fighter jets to the United Arab dom’s day-to-day ruler despite the brutal Emirates, as well as other arms destined for 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi

by Saudi agents. He also vetoed a bipartisan Saudi Arabia, on hold.

Antony Blinken, the new secretary of state, Bill to end US support for the Saudi-led coahas endorsed a series of Trump-brokered ac- lition fighting in Yemen’s civil war. cords to normalise ties between Arab allies In another blow to Riyadh, Mr Blinken said he would review sanctions imposed on

Iranian-aligned Yemeni rebels after warnings that the measures risked triggering the world’s worst famine in decades.

While Mr Blinken accused the group of committing atrocities, he said the US should be focused on alleviating a humanitarian catastrophe.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE intervened in the war in Yemen to fight the Iranian-backed Houthis after the rebels seized Sana’a, the capital, in 2014 and forced the Yemeni government into exile.

“We’ve seen a campaign [in Yemen], led by Saudi Arabia, that has also contributed to what by many estimates is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today, and that’s saying something,” Mr Blinken said. It was “vitally important” to get humanitarian assistance to people in desperate need, he added.

*Arab coalition thwarted an attack on Ri- calate tensions in the region through prin- light Houthi crimes and to convince other

Israeli police prevent Dome of the Rock repairs

Hallaq said that all repair work in the entire Al-Aqsa compound has also been suspended by Israel.

The mosque’s engineer insists that the Waqf has no cement materials inside the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and that Friday was a holiday when staff did not work.

Sheikh Omar Kisswani, director of Al-Aqsa Mosque, told reporters that repairs to the entire 144 dunum Haram Al-Sharif/Al-Aqsa mosque compound were the right of the Islamic Waqf and that the Israeli police have no right to interfere in their work.

A spokesman for the Israeli police told Arab News that the “subject isn’t under the responsibility of the Israeli police.”

Source:arabnews.com

Joe Biden suspends arms sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE

Stance on Houthis

While Mr Blinken said he had “real concerns” about some policies pursued by Riyadh, he also said the US “should do what we need to do to help defend Saudi Arabia against aggression directed at Saudi Arabia, including from Yemen and from the Houthis”.

The Houthis have fired scores of missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia, targeting airports and oil infrastructure.

The UAE, which had also drawn criticism in the US for its role in the Yemen war, was hoping that its decision last year to normalise relations with Israel would win goodwill with Mr Biden’s team.

Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia are critical US allies in the Middle East and supported Mr Trump’s decision to pull out of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and impose sanctions on Tehran.

In addition to US criticisms for its role in inflaming the Yemeni war, UAE has faced opprobrium for its support of Khalifa Haftar, a renegade Libyan general who has challenged the internationally recognised regime in Tripoli. – Source:irishtimes.com

10

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

in d ia / C A po l itics

All about Nishan Sahib, the saffron flag hoisted by protesting farmers at Red Fort Continued from page 1

to power in 2014.

The body of one protester draped in an Indian tricolour lay in a central Delhi street after the tractor he rode overturned in one of the clashes, said a witness, Vishu Arora.

“He died right there,” Arora added.

A Reuters witness saw at least five police and three protesters injured at the

Red Fort from whose ramparts Modi delivers an annual speech. Some of those who scaled its walls carried ceremonial swords, overwhelming police who were trying to prevent them from entering.

The government ordered internet services in some parts of the capital to be blocked, according to mobile carrier Vodafone Idea, in an attempt to prevent further unrest.

Lost control

Tens of thousands of bearded and turbanned farmers, many bundled against the winter cold, began the day in a convoy of tractors festooned with Indian and union flags along the city’s fringes.

But hundreds of protesters soon broke away from pre-approved routes, heading for the city centre where the government was holding an annual Republic Day parade of troops and military hardware on Tuesday morning.

“Modi will hear us now, he will have to hear us now,” said Sukhdev Singh, 55, a farmer from the northern state of Punjab, who was among hundreds of protesters, some on horseback, who broke away from one of the three protest routes. From the city’s north they headed towards the government buildings in the centre. They commandeered cranes and used ropes to tear down roadblocks, forcing constables in riot gear to give way, Reuters witnesses said.

A second group rode tractors to get to a key

central traffic junction, also breaching barricades after similar clashes with police.

Hundreds also fought police outside the Delhi police headquarters.

In a statement, Delhi police accused those who diverged from the agreed routes of “violence and destruction”.“They have caused great damage to public property and many police personnel have also been injured,” the statement said.

Protest organiser Samyukt Kisan Morcha said the groups deviating from set routes did not represent the majority of farmers.

“We also condemn and regret the undesirable and unacceptable events that have taken place today and dissociate ourselves from those indulging in such acts,” the group of farm unions said in a statement.

Amarinder Singh, chief minister of Punjab state where many of the protesters came from, called the clashes “shocking”.

“The violence by some elements is unacceptable,” he said in a tweet. “It’ll negate goodwill generated by peacefully protesting farmers.”

Farmer pressure

Agriculture employs about half of India’s population of 1.3 billion, and unrest among an estimated 150 million landowning farmers worries the government.

Indian policemen beat farmers driving a tractor after protesting farmers and policemen clash during India’s Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi, Jan 26. — AP Nine rounds of talks with farmers’ unions have failed to end the protests, as farm leaders rejected the government’s offer to delay the laws for 18 months, making a push for repeal instead.

The government says that the farmers have been manipulated by opposition parties which have largely backed the rural campaign.

“The farm organisations have a very strong hold,” said Ambar Kumar Ghosh, an analyst at New Delhi think tank the Observer Research Foundation.

“They have the resources to mobilise support, and to continue the protest for a long time. They have also been very successful in keeping the protest really focused.”

‘National ment’

embarrass-

All over the city, security forces fired tear gas and staged baton charges.

But the farmers also laid into police with branches and metal bars and hijacked buses that had been used to block their convoys.

The US embassy released a “security alert” warning American nationals to avoid trouble zones.

The government had opposed the rally saying it would be a “national embarrassment” on Republic Day. Police allowed the demonstration if farmers waited until after the military parade and kept to a route away from central Delhi.

But the security was breached while Modi and other dignitaries watched tanks and troops pass along the Rajpath boulevard while newly acquired Rafale fighter jets flew overhead. Modi waved to crowds and was driven back to his residence barely 30 minutes before the fleets of tractors took over the centre.

Popular support

“We are going to show the government that we mean business,” said protester Nareesh Singh as he revved up his tractor and drove into a cloud of tear gas.

Farmers’ leaders say they have enough supplies to keep their protest camps going for a year. The leaders said the police had

provoked the farmers into violence.

In a statement, police replied that they had to act after the farmers broke the conditions for the rally. “When you attack a peaceful protest, then difficulties for the government will surely increase,” union leader Kawalpreet Singh Pannu told AFP. “This won’t stop here. Our movement and message have only become stronger.”

He said a new protest would be held on February 1 outside parliament when the government announces its budget.

On one main road, people on rooftops threw petals on the tractor convoys.

Elsewhere people cheered and applauded as farmers went past waving Indian flags and blowing horns.India showcases its military hardware with a parade every year on Republic Day, which marks the adoption of its constitution in 1950.

This year’s ceremonies went ahead despite security concerns.

The parade was cut back because of the coronavirus pandemic, with the number of spectators reduced from 125,000 to 25,000.

Smaller farmer demonstrations were held in Mumbai and Bangalore and in the rural state of Haryana. Source: dawn.com

MPs unanimously agree to urge feds to designate Proud Boys a terrorist entity

Members of Canada’s parliament have agreed to call on the federal Liberal government to formally designate the Proud Boys a terrorist entity.

The motion, introduced by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh passed with unanimous consent in the House of Commons on Monday. The motion calls upon the government to “use all available tools to address the proliferation of white supremacists and hate groups starting with the immediately designating the Proud Boys as a terrorist entity.” The NDP has for weeks been calling on Trudeau and the Liberals to “immediately ban and designate the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization.”

The move comes after thousands of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump stormed

the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, leaving dozens injured and five people, including one police officer, dead.

Members of the Proud Boys were reportedly present during the riot.

The federal government said it is considering designating the group as a terrorist entity.

“As Minister Blair has said, we strongly denounce ‘ideologically motivated extremists including groups like the Proud Boys, white supremacists, anti-Semitics, Islamaphobic and misogynist groups,’” Mary-Liz Power, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair told Global News earlier this month.

“Intolerance and hate have no place in our society.”

Canada considers labelling Proud Boys as

terrorist group Canada considers labelling Proud Boys as terrorist group – Jan 14, 2021 Power said national security and law enforcement agencies are “very actively engaged in monitoring the activities of these groups, and gathering the evidence required to support a determination of listing as a Terrorist Organization.”

Now that the motion has passed, the federal government would need to formally add them to the long list of terrorist entities.

If the Proud Boys are designated as a terrorist entity, the group would be joining a long list of other organizations including the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Islamic State.

Source: globalnews.ca

VANCOUVER -- The premier of British Columbia gave a stern warning Wednesday to travellers entering the province from other parts of Canada, but said he’s still not convinced stronger quarantine rules are

necessary. Manitoba announced this week that non-essential visitors will soon have to self-isolate for 14 days upon their arrival, a measure intended to slow the spread of the concerning new COVID-19 variants that have been detected in the country.

But B.C. Premier John Horgan said his government isn’t planning to follow suit – at least not yet. ”Until such time as the public health officer advises me that there’s a benefit to going down that road, we’re going to leave it untravelled,” he said. “The public health evidence is not there at this time.”

The premier said provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has promised to keep him informed of the evidence as it emerges.

In the meantime, Horgan stressed that he expects non-essential visitors in the province to abide by local rules and restrictions.

“You better follow our public health guidelines or we’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks,” he said. Given the threat of the faster-spreading U.K. variant, which has already been detected half a dozen times in B.C., professor Fiona Brinkman from Simon Fraser University argued it could be time for a phased approach to quarantines.

Brinkman, who is part of a national project tracking the variants, called the mutations “a significant concern” on the horizon.

“I would argue it is the time to prepare for this,” she said. “We can combat these viral variants by simply following public health guidelines – however, the problem is people are tired.”

Manitoba has set a deadline of 11:59 p.m.

‘We’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks,’ B.C. premier warns visitors who disobey guidelines

Thursday for people to return to the province and avoid the new quarantine requirement. When announcing the measure, Premier Brian Pallister cited speculation that “restrictions will have to remain for significant periods beyond this year as well because of the variant dangers.”

The province’s self-isolation rule won’t apply to people entering Manitoba for essential reasons, including medical treatment.

Earlier this month, the B.C. government sought legal advice regarding a potential ban on travellers coming into the province for non-essential reasons, and determined the extreme measure was not viable.

But Horgan did indicate stronger restrictions could be imposed if those visitors are found to be “causing harm to the health and safety of British Columbians.”

Source: bc.ctvnews.ca

11

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

us po l itics

Will This Year Be Blessed By God?

lam share.

Since the new Biden cabinet will be the most racially and ethnically diverse we have ever had; there is good reason to hope that this year will be a year blessed by God above and humans here on Planet Earth.

Allen S. Maller is an ordained Reform Rabbi who retired in 2006 after 39 years as the Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Culver City, California. His web site is www.rabbimaller. com. He blogs on the Times of Israel. Rabbi Maller has published 400+ articles in some two dozen different Christian, Jewish, and Muslim magazines and web sites. He is the author of two recent books: “Judaism and Islam as Synergistic Monotheisms’ and “Which Religion Is Right For You? A 21st Century Kuzari”.

Source: islamicity.org

BY: RABBI ALLEN S. MALLER Over the last four years, more than 41,000 visa requests from Muslim countries have been denied due to Donald Trump’s travel ban. Nobody in Trump’s cabinet had a parent of a grandparent who was a refugee.

Let’s assume that all the nominees of the newly elected president Joe Biden are confirmed, including the heads of 15 executive departments and eight other key positions.

In that case, Biden’s cabinet will be the most racially and ethnically diverse ever. Among them are six African Americans, five Jews, four Hispanics, three Asian Americans, and one Native American.

Two of the five Jewish nominees are children of Holocaust survivors. Mayorkas’ mother Anita was a Romanian Holocaust survivor who fled Europe to Cuba. There she married Mayorkas’ father, a Cuban Jew. Blinken’s stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was a Polish Jew who survived four concentration camps and was liberated by the U.S. Army in Bavaria, Germany. Blinken’s paternal grandmother, Vera Blinken, fled communist Hungary as a young girl.

Muslims should expect that the five Jews in the cabinet will be strongly supportive of refugees and immigrants. The Torah uses Israel’s history of having been strangers in Egypt as a reason why Israelites must be kind to the strangers in their land.

Thus, Jews often hear these words from the Torah: [Exodus 23:9], “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt”, and Deuteronomy [10:19]:” You must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

And most impressive of all: “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” [Deuteronomy 19:19] Since the Torah is part of the Christian Bible, Christians should also be positively influenced by these commandments from the one God that Christianity, Judaism, and Is-

BY: NOAH LANARD Donald Trump began his presidency with a Muslim ban, and President Joe Biden has begun his by revoking one. On his first day in office, Biden followed through on a campaign promise by issuing an executive order that revokes the final version of the Muslim ban—which blocked people from seven, mostly Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States—along with another immigration ban that largely impacted people from four African nations.

Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s National Security Adviser, told reporters on Tuesday that the order directs the State Department to return to normal processing of applications for people who’ve been impacted by the bans. Sullivan added that Biden is asking the State Department to find ways to help people who’ve been denied entry to the United States as a result of those bans,

as well those whose applications have been stuck in administrative limbo.

The bans have led to thousands of children, spouses, and parents being separated from loved ones in the United States. Immigration lawyers say bureaucratic hurdles, Trump’s attacks on the immigration system, and the ongoing pandemic mean that it will likely take months, and potentially more than a year, before people are finally able to immigrate to the United States.

“While this is absolutely amazing news that Biden is getting rid of the Muslim and Africa travel ban,” said Mahsa Khanbabai, a Massachusetts immigration attorney, “I think, sadly, it’s really going to take time for families to be able to actually come together.” Hiba Ghalib, an attorney at the Atlanta-based immigration law firm Kuck Baxter, said that in other cases people haven’t started green card applications because of the Muslim

ban. Now, those cases will be starting from scratch.

Trump’s initial Muslim ban in January 2017 caused chaos and outrage at airports across the nation as people from mostly Muslimmajority nations were blocked from entering the United States.

The rushed executive order was quickly blocked in court, but a third version of the ban was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. The ban applied to people from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Venezuela, and allowed some people to receive waivers to come to the United States.

But in practice, the waivers often proved impossible to obtain. Last year, Trump issued another immigration ban that applied to six countries, including Nigeria and three other African nations. The Africa ban was ostensibly designed to protect national security because of vague concerns such as how much

intelligence information the targeted countries were sharing with the United States. In practice, the ban appeared to be more about demographics: It only applied to immigrants who wanted to settle in the United States, not people traveling on temporary visas.

(Source: Noah Lanard, Mother Jones, 1/20/2021 ) Source: islamicity.org

W

rent attorney in Detroit, Michigan, the US media reported on Monday.

In the United States, US attorneys are the chief federal law enforcement officers in their districts and are also involved in civil litigation where the US government is a party. The President appoints a US Attorney to each of the 94 federal districts.

Michigan’s largest newspaper, The Detroit Free Press, reported on Monday that Ms Mohsin, 52, will take charge of her office on Feb 2 after the current US attorney for the district, Matthew Schneider, stepped down on Feb 1.

Serving for three years, Mr Schneider announced his resignation on Thursday and said Ms Mohsin, currently the first assistant US attorney for eastern Michigan, will re-

place him.

Saima Mohsin will take charge of her office on Feb 2 Born in Pakistan, Mohsin has been a federal prosecutor for decades, working since 2002 in the US Attorney’s Office.

“As an immigrant of Asian descent who is Muslim, she will bring diversity to an important position that is the chief federal law enforcement officer in the eastern part of the state,” the newspaper added.

Ms Mohsin has served in the US Attorney’s Office Violent and Organised Crime Unit, the Drug Task Force and the General Crimes Unit, the US Department of Justice said in a news release.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy and civil

rights group, told the Free Press they were not aware of any US attorney or acting US attorney who has been Muslim. Mohsin is also believed to be the first US attorney who is Pakistani-American.

Michigan has a sizable number of Muslims and a Pakistani-American population with several mosques across the region.

Ms Mohsin needs to be confirmed by the US Senate to become a permanent attorney.

Ms Mohsin graduated from Rutgers University in New Jersey, earning a bachelor’s degree and law degree. She became an assistant district attorney in New York City and then worked for the state of New Jersey’s Division of Criminal Justice, serving as a deputy attorney general in organised crime and racketeering. Source: dawn.com

knew Larry King as a great broadcaster and interviewer, but to us he was ‘dad.’

“He was the man who lovingly obsessed over our daily schedules and our well-being, and who took such immense pride in our accomplishments – large, small, or imagined.

And through it all, we knew without a doubt in the world that he loved us more than life itself. He was an amazing father, and he was fiercely loyal to those lucky enough to call him a friend. We will miss him every single day of our lives.”

‘TV is less interesting without you’:Meghan McCain, Andrew Cuomo, more react to Larry King death Over the course of more than five decades in radio and TV broadcasting, half of it spent hosting CNN’s “Larry King Live,” King mingled with the famous and infamous and average people who became either. By his count, he interviewed more than 60,000 subjects, and when his run on cable

ended in 2010, he segued to the internet with “Larry King Now,” a daily talk show on Hulu from Ora TV, and became an active presence on Twitter. He vowed never to retire and to keep interviewing until he died. King was not immune to other illness: 30 years after undergoing quintuple heart bypass surgery, which prompted him to quit a three-pack-aday cigarette habit and lose weight, a checkup in 2017 revealed a cancerous lung tumor that was removed with surgery.

He revealed he had a stroke in March 2019, was in a coma for weeks and considered suicide. “I thought I was going to bite the bullet; I didn’t want to live this way,” he told an interviewer at Los Angeles station KTLA. In April that year, he had an angioplasty after complaining of chest pains. Once again, he recovered and kept working.

Near the end of 2020, King landed in CedarsSinai Medical Center with COVID-19. Hospital protocols prevented his family from visiting

him. He was moved to the intensive care unit on New Year’s Eve and was receiving oxygen but moved out of the ICU in early January and was breathing on his own, said David Theall, a spokesman for Ora Media.

The author of several books, King started his career in Miami radio before moving on to TV and newspapers. His nightly CNN program, which premiered in 1985, remained the network’s top-rated show throughout his tenure, which ended in 2010...Source: usatoday.com

Biden Ends Trump’s Muslim Ban

Pakistani-Saima Mohsin, American set to become first Muslim attorney in US

ASHINGTON: Saima Mohsin, a Pakistani-American, will become the first Muslim US attorney next week, when she replaces the cur-

‘We are heartbroken’: Larry King, CNN talk show legend, dies at 87 after being hospitalized with COVID-19

L

arry King, the Brooklyn-bred man who became cable TV’s most well-known talk show host (Larry king live from CNN 1985-2010), died on Jan 23. He was 87.

King had been hospitalized with COVID-19.

He died Saturday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Ora Media, a production company King founded with Mexican media mogul Carlos Slim. “For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry’s many thousands of interviews, awards, and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster,” the company said.

King’s three surviving children mourned him in a family statement shared Saturday night on his Twitter account.

“We are heartbroken over our father’s death,” the statement read, signed by Larry King Jr., Chance King and Cannon King. “The world

12

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

DEWAN-E-KHASS Pakistani & Indian Cuisine King of the Grill

Please follow us on Facebook Dewan-E-Khass & www.dewanekhass.com

Dewan-e-Khass specializes in exotic Pakistani, Indian Grill and Karahi dishes made by our experienced cook from Pakistan.

We invite you to come and taste one of our authentic dishes. We are sure once you taste, you will come again.

Owner: Siraj Khan 11am to 10:30 pm.

Open 7 Days a Week

604.327.4800

5750 Fraser Street, Vancouver

How do mountains stay warm ? What falls in the winter but never gets hurt ?

Snow By: Asma Shums, They put on their snowcaps.

FOLLOW US ON

WHAT WE DO PERSONAL TAX RETURNS CORPORATE TAX RETURNS REVIEW ENGAGEMENTS FINANCIAL STATEMENTS BUSINESS AND TAX PLANNING SR&ED RETURNS BOOKKEEPING (GST, PST, WCB, PAYROLL)

WHO WE HELP INDIVIDUALS CORPORATIONS SOLE-PROPRIETORSHIPS NOT-FOR-PROFIT PARTNERSHIPS

3A-709 Twelfth Street, New Westminster, BC, V3M 4J7 604-773-0910 sabeeh@naseercpa.com 604-357-5088 www.naseercpa.com

13

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

women/LIFESTYLE & CULTURE

How to make sure you have a productive day – everyday?

By: Asma Shums, 1. Create a Good Morning Routine One of the best ways to start your day is to get up early and eat a healthy breakfast.

CEOs and other successful people have similar morning routines, which include exercising and quickly scanning their inboxes to find the most urgent tasks.

You can also try writing first thing in the morning to warm up your brain 2. Prioritize Sometimes we can’t have a productive day because we just don’t know where to start. When that’s the case, the simplest solution is to list everything you need to get accomplished, then prioritize these tasks based on impor-

tance and urgency.

3. Focus on One Thing at a Time One of the biggest killers of productivity is distractions. Whether it be noise or thoughts or games, distractions are a barrier to any productive day. That’s why it’s important to know where and when you work best.

Need a little background noise to keep you on track? Try working in a coffee shop.

Can’t stand to hear even the ticking of a clock while writing? Go to a library and put in your headphones.

4. Take Breaks Focusing, however, can drain a lot of energy and too much of it at once can quickly turn your productive day unproductive.

To reduce mental fatigue while staying on task, try using the Pomodoro Technique. It requires working on a task for 25 minutes, then taking a short break before a 25 min session.

So make sure you take breaks and do not burn out.

5. Manage Your Time Effectively A learning strategies consultant once told me that there is no such thing as free time, only unstructured time.For example, reading the news while exercising or listening to meeting notes while cooking can help save you time.

Many of the mundane tasks we routinely accomplish can be paired with other tasks that lead to an overall more productive day.

6. Celebrate and Reflect No matter how you execute a productive day, make sure to take time and celebrate what you’ve accomplished. It’s important to reward yourself so that you can continue doing great work. Plus, a reward system is an incredible motivator.

Additionally, you should reflect on your day in order to find out what worked and what

didn’t. Reflection not only increases future productivity, but also gives your brain time to decompress and de-stress.

Therefore, try your best to have a productive day and then at the end of the day make sure you reflect on your day you have had. We keep moving. We push through. We don’t stop to reflect. We stay in jobs that are (literally) killing us, relationships that zap our energy, circumstances that leave us stressed, unhappy, frustrated and tired.

We keep running on the treadmill of life thinking we don’t have time to waste. So we keep moving in order to keep up. But too often, we just crash and burn. That’s because the only way to keep up with the pace of life is to STOP. To hop off the treadmill. To reflect on what’s working and what’s not. To identify what to keep and what needs to change.

Email info at: asmashums@gmail.com

reotypes distort our views of both ourselves and others—and that may be especially troubling for women, since buying into those stereotypes could be creating a bleak self-image that is setting them back professionally.

Here’s a snapshot of findings from all three research studies:

Stereotypes play on our minds so strongly that it becomes tougher to convince people of their talent in fields where they believe their gender is weak, Coffman says.

“A policy prescription to correct a confidence gap in women might be: Let’s find talented women and tell them, ‘Hey, you’re good at math.

You got a really good score on this math test,’” she says. “But our results suggest that this feedback is less effective in closing the gender gap than we might hope. It’s harder than we thought to convince women in male-typed fields that they’ve performed well in these fields.”

It’s unclear whether women would feel better about their abilities if they received repeated rounds of positive feedback, rather than one piece of good news. “I’d be interested to find out if the gender bias gets smaller over time, once a woman has heard that she’s good at math over and over again,” Coffman says. “You might have to encourage women a few times if you want to close these gaps.”

“OUR WORK SUGGESTS A NEED FOR STRUCTURING GROUP DECISIONMAKING IN A WAY THAT ASSURES THE MOST TALENTED MEMBERS BOTH VOLUNTEER AND ARE RECOGNIZED FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS, DESPITE GENDER STEREOTYPES.” It’s important to note, Coffman says, that these studies also show that men have less confidence than women in their ability to shine in fields dominated by women. “It’s not that women are simply less confident; what we find consistently is that individuals are less confident in fields that are more stereotypically outside of their gender’s domain,” Coffman says.

ators rated the contributions of each group member after reading transcripts of the conversations. Without knowing the gender of speakers, these evaluators were significantly more likely to guess that participants who came across in the transcripts as “warm,” or friendly, were female and that a negative or critical participant was male—even though researchers found no actual differences in how men and women in the group communicated.

Male raters also were significantly less likely to believe that speakers who were judged as “competent” were female. In addition, warmer participants, particularly warmer women, were less likely to be rewarded for their input in the discussions.

How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

R

by: Dina Gerdeman esearchers believe gender stereotypes hold women back in the workplace.

Katherine Coffman’s research adds a new twist: They can even cause women to question their own abilities.

Women make up more than half of the labor force in the United States and earn almost 60 percent of advanced degrees, yet they bring home less pay and fill fewer seats in the C-suite than men, particularly in male-dominated professions like finance and technology.

This gender gap is due in part to “occupational sorting,” with men choosing careers that pay higher wages than women do, labor economists say. For example, women represent only 26 percent of US workers employed in computer and math jobs, according to the Department of Labor.

New research identifies one reason women might be shying away from certain professions: They lack confidence in their ability to compete in fields that men are stereotypically believed to perform more strongly in, such as science, math, and technology.

Women are also more reluctant to share their ideas in group discussions on these subjects.

And even when they have talent—and are actually told they are high-achievers in these subjects—women are more likely than men to shrug off the praise and lowball their own abilities.

This weak self-confidence may hold some women back as they count themselves out of pursuing prestigious roles in professions they believe they won’t excel in, despite having the skills to succeed, says Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Katherine B. Coffman.

“Our beliefs about ourselves are important in shaping all kinds of important decisions, such as what colleges we apply to, which career paths we choose, and whether we are willing to contribute ideas in the workplace or try to compete for a promotion,” Coffman says. “If talented women in STEM aren’t confident, they might not even look at those fields in the first place. It’s all about how good we think we are, especially when we ask ourselves, ‘What does it make sense for me to pursue?’”

Coffman has recently co-written an article in the American Economic Review as well as two working papers, all aimed at studying men’s and women’s beliefs about their own abilities.

“WOMEN ARE MORE LIKELY THAN MEN TO SHRUG OFF THE PRAISE AND LOWBALL THEIR OWN ABILITIES.” What she found, in essence, is that gender ste-

Women are less confident than men in certain subjects, like math

In a study for the journal article Beliefs about Gender (pdf), Coffman and her colleagues asked participants to answer multiple-choice trivia questions in several categories that women are perceived to have a better handle on, like the Kardashians, Disney movies, cooking, art and literature, and verbal skills.

Then they were quizzed in categories considered favorable for men, such as business, math, videogames, cars, and sports.

Respondents were asked to estimate how many questions they answered correctly on tests, and to guess the performance of a random partner whose gender was revealed. Both men and women exaggerated the actual gender performance gaps on average, overstating the male advantage in male-typed domains as well as overstating the female advantage in female-typed questions. And in predicting their own abilities, women had much less confidence in their scores on the tests they believed men had an advantage in.

“Gender stereotypes determine people’s beliefs about themselves and others,” Coffman says.

“If I take a woman who has the exact same ability in two different categories—verbal and math—just the fact that there’s an average male advantage in math shapes her belief that her own ability in math is lower.”

Women hold back on expressing ideas

Women discount positive feedback on ‘male topics’ In a third paper, Gender Stereotypes in Deabout their abilities In an experiment for Coffman’s working paper Stereotypes and Belief Updating, participants completed a timed test of cognitive ability in five areas: general science, arithmetic reasoning, math knowledge, mechanical comprehension, and assembling objects. They were asked to guess their total number of correct answers, as well as how their performance compared to others. A woman who actually had the same score as a man estimated her score to be 0.58 points lower, a statistically significant gap.

Even more surprising, even after participants were provided with feedback about how they performed, this gender gap in how well they perceived they did continued.

In a second study participants were asked to guess how they performed on a test in a randomly assigned subject matter and to predict their own rank relative to others completing the same test. The researchers then provided participants with feedback about their performance. They found that both men and women discounted good news about their scores in subjects that their gender was perceived to have more trouble with.

liberation and Team Decisions, Coffman and colleagues studied how teams discuss, decide on, and reward ideas in a group.

The research team compared the behavior of two groups that had free-form discussions in response to questions that varied in the amount of “maleness” of the topic. In one group, the gender of each participant was known, and in the other group, the gender of speakers was not identifiable. They found that men and women had the same ability to answer the questions, yet once again, gender stereotypes warped people’s responses.

As the “maleness” of the question increased, women were significantly less likely than men to self-promote their ideas within the group when their gender was known, particularly in cases where only one woman was talking with a bunch of men. But in the groups where gender was unknown, no gender differences were found in terms of how much women and men talked up their ideas or were recognized by others for their input.

The researchers even found that stereotypes seemed to play a role in the way outside evalu-

Speak up for success

To achieve professional success, people must voice opinions and advocate for their ideas while working in decision-making teams, so it’s a problem if women are staying quiet when it comes to male-typed subjects—and if their ideas are appreciated less when they do express them, Coffman says.

“Our work suggests a need for structuring group decision-making in a way that assures the most talented members both volunteer and are recognized for their contributions, despite gender stereotypes,” the paper says.

It’s also important for managers to be aware of how confidence gaps may impact the workplace, particularly in professions long dominated by men, and to realize that women may need extra encouragement to express their ideas or to throw their hat in the ring for a promotion, Coffman says.

“I would encourage business leaders to think about how [workers’ confidence levels] impact the processes in their organizations,” Coffman says. “I would say providing extra feedback is a good start. If you as an employer see talent somewhere, reaching out to make sure the person is encouraged, recognized, and rewarded—not just once, but repeatedly—could be a helpful thing to do.”

With this new data on gender stereotyping, Coffman and her colleagues hope their work will help inform future research to piece together answers to some puzzling questions, like why men and women alike believe that men will perform better than women in some domains and what interventions can be considered to close this gender gap in self-confidence.

“Stereotypes are pervasive, widely-held views that shape beliefs about our own and others’ abilities, likely from a very young age,” Coffman says. “Until we can change these stereotypes, it’s essential to think about how we can better inoculate individuals from biases induced by stereotypes, helping people to pursue fulfilling careers in the areas where their passions and talents lie.”

Dina Gerdeman is senior editor at Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.

Source: hbswk.hbs.edu

14

Jamadi ul II 16,1442 Jan 29, 2021

H E A L T H / y o uth

Kids with autism and the struggle with mental health

‘This is a special population that requires worsen, the harder they are to be to treat . It’s special attention’: study much better to catch them early. Right now, by:Kelly Servos we don’t have a great system for doing that.” new study published in The Jour- The study collected reports from more than nal of Clinical Psychiatry has found 42,000 caregivers of children (ages three to nearly 78 per cent of children with 17) describing their child’s condition.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have a It was found that 44.8 per cent of preschool minimum of one mental health problem in children with ASD suffer with a mental the United States. More than half have more health condition. These numbers are critithan one mental health condition. cal to note because mental health treatment According to Autism Speaks Canada Au- is known to be more effective when a child tism, or autism spectrum disorder, refers is younger and mental health symptoms into a range of conditions characterized by crease with age. challenges with social skills, repetitive be- “For a long time, mental health in kids with haviours, speech and nonverbal communi- autism was neglected because the focus was cation, as well as by unique strengths and on autism,” said Kerns. “There’s much greater awareness now, but we don’t have enough differences.

Dr. Connor Kerns, an assistant professor people trained to provide mental health in UBC’s psychology department and lead treatment to kids on the autism spectrum.” author of the study said “The longer mental “We need to bridge these two systems and health conditions are allowed to exist and the different sets of providers that tend to

A

treat these children.”

The study compared children with autism with children from other groups including those with intellectual disabilities and other health concerns and found that those with autism had more mental health problems.

For example, children with autism suffered with anxiety 6.3 per cent times more than children in the other groups. Autism Speaks Canada states that at least one third of children with ASD suffer with some form of anxiety and struggle with controlling their anxiety when it is triggered.

The outcome of the research is an indicator that mental health treatments will be more accessible for children with autism.

“If we think about ways to screen and intervene against these mental health conditions before these children even get to school, then we might be way ahead of the game,” Kerns said.

It is estimated that one in 66 children from five to 17 years old suffer with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Canada, according to The 2018 Report of the National Autism Disorder (ASD) Surveillance System. The occurrence of ASD is four times more in males compared to females.

Source: healthing.ca

Almost half of adults with autism struggle with depression

T

he study also revealed that depression is more commonly diagnosed when clinicians ask the person with autism directly about their symptoms, rather than asking a caregiver The Conversation, January 9, 2020

By Chloe C. Hudson and Kate Harkness, Queen’s University, Ontario Nearly half of adults with autism will experience clinical depression in their lifetime, according to our new research published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.

Depression can have devastating consequences for individuals with autism, including a loss of previously learned skills, greater difficulty carrying out everyday tasks, and at worst, suicide. People with autism should be regularly screened for depression so that they can access appropriate treatment.

Autism is a disorder that involves difficulties with social interactions and restricted repetitive patterns of behaviours. Autism

also raises risk for severe mental illness.

Until now, researchers and clinicians did not know how many individuals with autism were affected by depression.

Our study, which involved a systematic review of nearly 8,000 research articles, now reveals clear evidence that depression is highly prevalent in both children and adults with autism. It also reveals that depression is more common in individuals with autism who have higher intelligence.

Symptoms of depression and autism Clinical depression is defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by a longstanding pattern of negative mood.

Additional symptoms include loss of interest in activities, physiological changes (e.g. sleep, appetite, or energy disturbance), cognitive changes (e.g. feelings of worthlessness, difficulties with attention) and suicidal thoughts or actions.

In the general population, clinical depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide.

Depression in autism is defined by these same criteria, but the symptoms can be challenging to detect.

Individuals with autism often have trouble identifying and communicating their feelings. Clinicians may have to rely on observed behaviour changes, or the reports of others close to the individual to make a diagnosis.

Clinicians also have to be particularly care-

ful that they do not confuse the symptoms of depression with the symptoms of autism.

For example, people with autism and people with depression have difficulties with social relationships.

The key difference between these groups is why they experience these problems. People with autism often lack the social skills necessary to engage with others. In contrast, people with depression often withdraw from others because they lose the ability to find pleasure in their social interactions.

Higher IQ, higher rates of depression We found that the highest rates of depression are seen in individuals with autism who have above average intelligence.

This finding is in contrast to the general population, where lower intelligence is associated with higher rates of depression.

While this study did not look into why higher intelligence was associated with higher depression rates in autism, we can make some guesses.

On the one hand, it could be that individuals with autism who have above average intelligence are more aware of the social difficulties associated with their autism diagnosis, and this awareness leads to higher rates of depression.

On the other hand, it could be that individuals with below average intelligence have difficulties communicating their symptoms, making it difficult to diagnose depression in this subgroup.

The impact of research methods We also learned that how studies assessed depression influenced the rates of depression. Rates were highest among studies that used standardized structured interviews to assess depression, compared to studies that used less formal assessment methods.

It is possible that structured interviews may be picking up on symptoms that other assessment methods are missing. At the same time, structured interviews may bias the prevalence of depression because these interviews were not designed for people with autism.

Depression is also more common when clinicians ask the person with autism directly about their symptoms, rather than asking a caregiver.

It is possible that individuals with autism are experiencing depressive symptoms that their caregivers are missing. It is also possible that studies used a caregiver when participants were not able to report on their own symptoms (for example because of low intelligence).

Depression is more widespread in people with autism than we previously thought.

This important research will hopefully prompt clinicians to include an assessment of depression in their routine clinical practice with people with autism. This assessment will ensure that people with autism are receiving appropriate treatment.

Source: healthing.ca

From Tween to Teen: Understanding their Social,Emotional, and Cognitive Growth

P

arenting young teens can be very challenging. The developmental changes your preteen is undergoing at this age, combined with the stress of increased schoolwork and extracurricular activities, can make you feel like you don’t know what to expect from one day to the next. Understanding the social, emotional, and cognitive changes your preteen is experiencing can help bridge the disconnect you may feel and help you through this parenting challenge.

Afraid of Being Different

Young teens often feel afraid of being different and worry that somehow there is something abnormal about the changes they are undergoing. Your child likely seeks peer support and companionship and wants to act, dress, and look like one of the group.

She may worry there is something wrong with her, and she may be hesitant to discuss her fears with you. As a parent, be ready to lend support and reassurance when she needs it, but be aware of your teen’s growing need for privacy, and give her space as well.

or desires of others. They frequently focus on their own experiences, appearance, and behavior. They feel surrounded by the everpresent “imaginary audience” and believe that those around them are passing judgment on how they look and everything they do. You can help by setting positive ground rules with your child about being kind, respectful, and compassionate, both with herself and others. Model empathy by being a good listener and trying to understand what your child is going through.

Consequences Don’t Apply

Young teens are beginning to understand abstractions, but they are unable to reflect on the impact of their own behavior. Your child may think, “No one else has ever felt like this.” This feeling of uniqueness may be expressed by risk-taking behavior, believing ordinary consequences don’t apply. Young teens are also driven to become autonomous and make their own decisions at this stage; it’s how the brain prepares them for adulthood. Help your preteen gain a sense of perFocused on Self sonal autonomy by allowing him to make his Young teens are egocentric and often say own decisions on things such as hairstyles, and do things without regard for the feelings extracurricular activities, and learning new

skills.

L earning to Adjust

Young teens develop at an uneven pace, including periods of rapid growth.

Mo r e o v e r, there is no synchronization among growth areas.

For example, a girl may be physically developed but have little growth emotionally.

Young teens undergoing bodily changes are sometimes embarrassed by them, and this can lead to feelings of low self-esteem. In addition, hormonal development means that your preteen may experience mood swings, includ-

ing bursts of boundless energy and periods of dreamy lethargy. Show compassion and empathy for the changes your child experiences, and remind your young teen that everybody develops at their own pace.

Source: safesitter.org

15

Jamadi ul II 16,1442

P a k ista n

Jan 29, 2021

Ruling alliance to dominate post-poll Senate: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday expressed confidence that the ruling alliance would have majority in the Senate after the forthcoming elections of the upper house of parliament.

“We will have a sizeable majority in the Senate in the next election,” the prime minister said during a meeting with his spokespersons.Adviser to the PM on Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan briefed the prime minister on the proposed legislation seeking holding of the Senate polls through open vote.A participant of the meeting told Dawn that the prime minister was of the view that the government wanted to close the doors of horse-trading and corruption usually committed in the past during the Senate elections.Says government wants to close doors

on horse-trading, corruption committed in past during elections He quoted clause 23 of the Charter of Democracy signed between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in 2006 which also called for elimination of horse-trading and floor crossing. “They [the opposition] had agreed to end horse-trading, but now they are opposing the government move to ensure open ballot in the Senate polls,” the prime minister was quoted as saying.

Adviser to the PM on Accountability Shahzad Akbar gave briefing on land grabbing in Punjab by PML-M leaders and financiers. On this, the prime minister said it had been unveiled that opposition parties were getting monetary benefits from Qabza ma-

fias (land grabbers) and in return the previous regimes had ignored illegal occupation of state land. “This had promoted a culture of corruption,” he added. Spokesperson Shouzab Kanwal told Dawn that the prime minister insisted that all spokespersons and PTI leaders urge people to hate corruption and those committed it. “In fact society as a whole accepted or legalised corruption that destroyed our social fabric,” PM Khan was quoted as saying.

Ms Kanwal said the prime minister directed the spokespersons “not to lose dignity” while appearing in TV talk shows and always went there after through homework and study.

Earlier, addressing the launching ceremony of a docu-drama, “Pani ke Pankh”, the prime minister said Pakistanis shouldn’t be

concerned about creating a “soft image” of their country only to win approval from the West, calling such a perception an “inferiority complex”.

Source: officeholidays.com

porters, licensed gas marketing companies and so on. The dynamics of the gas industry will change fast. The government will have to take steps now to ensure a smooth transition to a more globally influenced marketplace similar to our experiences of the oil industry.

Competition from the private sector will help the government move away from providing subsidies to the mature textile and manufacturing industries At present, Pakistan produces around four billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of indigenous natural gas and has an extensive gas network of over 12,971km transmission, 139,827km distribution and 37,058km services gas pipelines to cater to the requirement of more than 9.6 million consumers across the country.

Natural gas constitutes 43 per cent of the country’s energy needs, but shortages have become pronounced for almost a decade as domestic production has not kept pace with growing demand. This shortfall is brought about by a combination of depleting indigenous reserves and increasing demand. Due to rising demand from various sectors of the economy, particularly power, domestic, fertiliser, captive power and industry, the supplies are not sufficient enough. The demandsupply gap during 2018-19 was 1.44bcfd, which is expected to rise to 3.68bcfd by 2024-25 and 5.39bcfd by 2029-30.

With indigenous gas supply expected to reduce from 3.51bcfd in 2019 to 1.67bcfd in 2028, Pakistan will need to increasingly rely on imported LNG to meet the economy’s gas demands or enhance exploration and production activities and perhaps both.

The gas supply chain is overburdened owing to various inefficiencies that can be reduced by reforming current policies, operational practices and pricing mechanisms. With the start of the import of LNG in Pakistan in 2015, many of the previously hidden operational inefficiencies came to light as the

Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) started publishing RLNG prices. Currently, these inefficiencies can add up to 50pc in the gas price delivered to the end customer e.g.

LNG bought at $6.58/mmBtu reaches the customer at $9.91/mmBtu. The price of LNG delivered on ship (DES) is topped with a series of add-ons. These include 47.77 cents per mmBtu terminal charge for Terminal-I and 41.77 cents per mmBtu for Terminal-II, which actually go up significantly on account of terminal underutilisation.

Secondly, the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) and royalty charges for LNG cargoes are among the highest in the region. PQA charges $600,000 to one million per LNG vessel received at the port compared to much lower rates in other regional ports. For example, port charges in India stand at $122,000 per vessel, $14,000 in Kuwait, $115,000 in Qatar and $70,000 at Jabel Ali, UAE. These port charges are shared by both the supplier and procurer of LNG, but their impact is borne by the gas consumer.

Third, the unaccounted-for gas (UFG) loss.

The combination of leakage issue because of the infrastructure, measurement issue and theft-related issues is the biggest in Pakistan at 13pc and above. Developed countries have a UFG of 2-3pc, while countries like Bangladesh, Turkey and Russia have it around 5pc.

Since the co-mingling of the higher calorific value RLNG in the transmission network, the financial impact of this loss has significantly increased for gas consumers.

Fourth and fifth are the pipeline tariff and service charges of PSO, PLL, PLTL, SSGC and SNGPL. They vary throughout the year depending on the pipeline usage and O&M costs. The pricing for customers in SNGPL and SSGCL networks can range between $1.04-1.25 per mmBtu. The gas sector reforms, including pricing based on economic value, are to be fast-tracked through Third Party Access (TPA) implemen-

tation so that consumers are able to directly purchase LNG from the LNG terminal.

The implementation of TPA is perhaps one of the first steps towards market liberalisation. However, for the proper implementation of TPA, it is essential that the policy is implemented in a fair and transparent manner, pipeline operators are incentivised to bring operational efficiency and users are able to monitor and track their gas supplies in real time.

A proper gas banking system should be implemented and monopolisation and hoarding of capacity should be discouraged through regulation. The private sector will soon be formally importing and distributing LNG as the new merchant terminal operators come online. The LNG supply overhang provides a unique opportunity to secure LNG at prices below the cost of new discoveries.

Increased competition from the private sector will ensure greater efficiencies and further help the government move away from providing subsidies to the mature textile and manufacturing industries. These subsidies are better targeted towards new industries and value-added industries that fuel growth for innovation.

The biggest lesson recent LNG price volatilities and controversies brought home is the urgent creation of cost-effective gas storage options through underground gas storage (UGS) in the existing depleted reservoirs.

Storage is especially critical for Pakistan. It is the eighth largest market in terms of LNG usage. However, it’s the 18th largest in terms of storage capacity. With the two LNG terminals having only 320,000 cubic metres of storage, it is essential that Pakistan look at alternative storage mechanisms such as UGS to ensure much-needed flexibility to the Pakistani gas supply chain. Additionally, this will help Pakistan take advantage of the seasonality in LNG spot rates and improve operations of the pipeline transmission network.

Source: dawn.com

noted and they were assured that their input would be taken and used on a regular basis to further improve consular services.

The participants were informed that the idea of engaging the Pakistani diaspora through open public-cum-consultative forums once every month had full backing and blessing of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister of Pakistan who consider Pakistani diaspora as an asset for the nation and fully acknowledges and appreciates their stellar role and contribution in the national development. The launch of Roshan Digital Accounts and recent announcement for online

visa application were indication of the government’s resolve to provide easy and quick public services to the Pakistanis abroad.

The community members lauded the initiative of the High Commission for Pakistan for holding the E-Katchehry on a monthly basis and observed that a regular and broadbased consultative process between the community members and the High Commission would go a long way in strengthening the communication and understanding of community issues to lead to better consular services as desired by the community.

Pakistan has operated its gas system inefficiently and burnt its scarce molecules recklessly for decades

R

By:Khaleeq Kiani ecent debates in Pakistan over imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) have remained mostly political rather than professional. Unfortunately, energy czars like Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Nadeem Babar focused on political point-scoring instead of finding solutions.

In fact, Pakistan has operated its gas system inefficiently and burnt its scarce molecules rather recklessly for decades. Energy issues remain more basic in nature like the risk of continued shortages, lack of reliability, affordability of gas and sustainability of economic growth largely fuelled by energy. Simply put, we’ve an energy trilemma at hand: security, sustainability and affordability.

Gas has been the backbone of the energy sector. However, indigenous sources of supply have not grown proportionate to demand. The recent addition of LNG has transitioned the gas sector from an enclosed self-sufficient market to one exposed to the realities of the global market. The shift has been abrupt and will change the way we operate the gas industry for years to come.

The focus on market liberalisation is not a new one. Open access markets will be influenced by multiple stakeholders like local gas producers, gas pipeline companies, gas im-

E-Katchehry held for Pak community in Canada

T

he High Commission for Pakistan in Ottawa along with Consul Generals of Pakistan in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver held an E-Katchehry with the members of the Pakistani community in Canada today.

The High Commissioner for Pakistan in Canada, Mr. Raza Bashir Tarar made the opening and concluding remarks while Consul General of Pakistan in Toronto Mr. Abdul Hameed moderated the session.

During an extensive session, the suggestions and observations of the community members regarding consular services were

16

9

17

9

18

9

5

19

9

20

9

21

9

22

9

23

9

PICTURE PICTURE

604-690-0400 miraclenews@telus.net 604-690-0400 www.miraclenews.com

miraclenews@telus.net

www.miraclenews.com

4,10,23

5

NOTARY PUBLIC9 (604) 596 1861 # 220-13711

72 Ave. Surrey, BC (Opp. Newton Wave Pool)

Shoaib.surrey@gmail.com

Shoaib Rauf

Notary Public Immigration Consultant Mohamed Salim Contractor Unit #219-7928, 128 St.

(York Business Centre) Surrey. BC V3W 4E8 C: 604.817.3022 O: 604.503.5025 Fax: 604.503.5045

http://www.salimnotary.com/ http://cwics.ca/ www.cwics.team

Emails:salim@salimnotary.com

&:cwics.team@yahoo.ca

3

1,4,18

5

5

Coronavirus Cases:

541,031

Deaths:

11,560

NOOR JAHAN Grocery&Meat Store

5989-Fraser St.(E 44th St.) Vancouver

604-301-9090

Recovered:

496,745

Pakistan Last updated:

January 29, 2021, 06:49 GMT

20 FEB 2001-2021