Current Final

Category: National

  • Pakistan, Turkey planning to provide dual nationality to citizens of both countries

    Pakistan, Turkey planning to provide dual nationality to citizens of both countries

    A plan is under consideration to sign an agreement with Turkey regarding providing dual nationality to the citizens of two countries, a private media outlet has reported.

    Reports quoted a statement issued by the Interior Ministry as saying that this came during a meeting between Interior Minister Brigadier (r) Ijaz Shah and Turkish Ambassador to Islamabad Ihsan Mustafa Yurdakul on Thursday.

    According to the statement, the Turkish ambassador on behalf of his government proposed that both the countries should sign an agreement regarding providing dual nationality to the citizens.

    “In response to this, the minister said that the draft is under consideration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is on board with us, we hope to reach a mutual conclusion soon,” it added.

    Shah also welcomed the mutual training programmes and upgrading of equipment of law enforcing agencies with Turkey.

    “The interior minister welcomed the initiative of introducing a patrolling force in collaboration with Islamabad Police on the model of Dolphin Force introduced in Lahore,” the statement said.

    The ambassador and minister also mutually agreed on the continuity of the training programmes being held to improve the capacity of the workforce.

    Yurdakul also informed the minister that the Turkish president was scheduled to visit Pakistan soon.

    Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu is also expected to visit Pakistan in February and will meet Shah to discuss bilateral matters, the statement said.

    The interior minister was also informed that the Turkish consulate that is under construction in the southern city of Karachi is the largest one in the world by Turkey.

    Interior Minister Shah also extended condolences to the ambassador over the losses due to recent earthquake that killed at least 40 people and left over a thousand others injured.

  • Coronavirus: Pak-China trade suspended, Opp demands bringing students back

    Coronavirus: Pak-China trade suspended, Opp demands bringing students back

    With the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring a global emergency over the spreading coronavirus, as Chinese authorities increase the toll to 213 dead and nearly 10,000 infections, trade between Pakistan and China has been suspended while opposition demands bringing back Pakistanis stuck in China.

    According to reports, while it was also decided that all Chinese imports will be sprayed with disinfectants, Pakistan on Friday suspended flight operations — except those of Pakistan Internation Airlines (PIA) — to the neighbouring country.

    TRADE SUSPENDED:

    According to a statement, trade has been suspended between the two countries for at least a month, while the issuance of Chinese visas to traders has also been halted.

    The volume of trade between the two countries is around $15 billion — around 30 per cent of Pakistan’s total trade — and the country is now mulling to import goods from other countries instead, a report said.

    Also, the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) will quarantine the Chinese and Southeast Asian ship personnel, its chairperson, Rear Admiral Jamil Akhtar, said. He added the containers, especially those arriving from China and Southeast Asia, would be thoroughly checked, and that special care would be taken to ensure that the staff on these ships remained limited to the port only.

    NO FLIGHTS TO OR FROM CHINA:

    “We are suspending flights to China until February 2,” Aviation Additional Secretary Abdul Sattar Khokhar told Reuters, adding the situation would be reviewed after that date. He declined to comment on the reason for the closure.

    Some airlines, including British Airways, have suspended flights to China due to warnings of the coronavirus outbreak. Germany, Britain and other countries have issued warnings about travel to China.

    Russia also sealed its remote far-eastern border with China as a precaution on Thursday. Some countries have banned entry for travellers from Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus first surfaced, while reports said that PIA would continue to operate between the two countries.

    OPPOSITION WANTS STUDENTS RESCUED:

    Meanwhile, opposition leaders have demanded that the government take responsibility of the Pakistani students stuck in China, and bring them back to the country.

    Reports quoted Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) Usman Kakar as saying in the Senate that over 28,000 Pakistanis, 10,000 of which are students, were stuck in China, and the government’s decision to not bring them back was no less than “attempted murder”.

    While Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Mushahidullah said that the government should take responsibility of the students stranded in China, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Rehman Malik said that military’s C-130 aircraft should be sent to rescue them

    ‘WE’RE MONITORING SITUATION’:

    The Pakistani government is monitoring the situation in China and is in close contact with the relevant authorities in order to ensure the safety of Pakistani students in Wuhan, said the Foreign Office on the other hand. 

    “Islamabad has taken up the issue of food shortages with concerned officials and we are assured by the Chinese government of full cooperation in this regard,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Aaisha Farooqui said at a press briefing.

    In response to questions about the evacuation of Pakistani citizens from Wuhan, the spokesperson said, “Islamabad is monitoring the evolving situation and will take a decision after consultations among all the stakeholders.”

  • PM’s ‘inadequate’ salary to be increased from Rs0.2 million to Rs0.8 million?

    PM’s ‘inadequate’ salary to be increased from Rs0.2 million to Rs0.8 million?

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s salary, which he had earlier said “wasn’t enough to run his household”, is being increased from Rs0.2 million (Rs200,000) to Rs0.8 million (Rs800,000), a private media outlet has reported.

    While the report claimed that his salary was being increased by 300%, it was rejected by the PM’s Office that termed the report as “baseless” and “unfortunate”.

    “At a time when the PM was carrying out a campaign to slash the government’s expenditures which he initiated from his own, the propagation of such a baseless and concocted news report was unfortunate,” a spokesperson remarked, according to a press release.

    The spokesperson quoted PM Imran as saying that expenditures incurred on the head of the government were borne out of the people’s hard-earned money, so it was a must to keep it at the minimum level.

    During a speech earlier this month, the premier had cited his expenses as an individual and as a public servant to make a point to traders while accusing opposition leaders of minting money by cheating on taxes.

    While it is no secret that inflation has badly hit the average Pakistani citizen, PM Imran has been under fire as a nationwide shortage of wheat has led to a surge in prices of bread and roti.

    The country’s economy has seen the rupee plummeting as it battles rampant price rise of various commodities, including pulses and flour.

    Despite this, the fact that the PM tried to play a political game by trying to identify with an average citizen, didn’t make many people happy. His basic pay alone is enough to feed an average Pakistani household, leave alone the gross amount.

  • I love Pakistan but I am in exile forever: Aasia Bibi

    I love Pakistan but I am in exile forever: Aasia Bibi

    Recounting the hellish conditions of eight years spent on death row on blasphemy charges but also the pain of exile, Aasia Bibi has broken her silence to give her first personal insight into an ordeal that caused international outrage.

    The Pakistani Christian was sentenced to death on blasphemy charges by the Lahore High Court (LHC) in 2010 but she was acquitted by the Supreme Court on October 31 in 2018. She now lives in Canada at an undisclosed location.

    French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, who has co-written a book about her, was once based in the country where she led a support campaign for her.

    She is the only reporter to have met Aasia during her stay in Canada.

    In the book “Enfin libre!” (“Finally Free”) – published in French on Wednesday with an English version due out in September – Aasia recounts her arrest, the conditions of the prison, the relief of her release but also the difficulty of adjusting to a new life.

    “You already know my story through the media,” she said in the book.

    “But you are far from understanding my daily life in prison or my new life,” she said.

    “I became a prisoner of fanaticism,” she said.

    In prison, “tears were the only companions in the cell”.

    She described the horrendous conditions in squalid jails in Pakistan where she was kept chained and jeered at by other detainees.

    “My wrists are burning me, it is hard to breathe. My neck… is encased in an iron collar that the guard can tighten with a huge nut,” she wrote.

    “A long chain drags along on the filthy ground. This connects my neck to the handcuffed hand who pulls me like a dog on a lead.

    “Deep within me, a dull fear takes me towards the depths of darkness. A lacerating fear that will never leave me.”

    Many other prisoners showed her no pity. “I am startled by the cry of a woman. ‘To death!’ The other women join in. ‘Hanged!’ Hanged!’.”

    Her acquittal on the charges, which stemmed from an incident in 2009 when she argued with a Muslim co-labourer, resulted in violent protests that paralysed the country led by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi.

    Aasia, who vehemently denied the charges against her, argued in the book that the Christian minority in Pakistan still faces persecution.

    “Even with my freedom, the climate (for Christians) does not seem to have changed and Christians can expect all kinds of reprisals,” she said.

    “They live with this sword of Damocles over their head.”

    And while Canada gives her a safer and more certain future, Aasia also has to come to terms with likely never setting foot in her homeland again.

    “In this unknown country, I am ready for a new departure, perhaps for a new life. But at what price?

    “My heart broke when I had to leave without saying goodbye to my father or other members of the family.”

    “Pakistan is my country. I love my country but I am in exile forever,” she said.

  • Punjab govt gives an ultimatum to Nawaz Sharif

    Punjab govt gives an ultimatum to Nawaz Sharif

    The Punjab government on Thursday gave former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif an ultimatum to submit his medical records within three days. If Sharif doesn’t submit his records, the relevant authority would then decide if his application for an extension to stay abroad for medical treatment should be accepted or not.

    Punjab Home Department sent a letter to Sharif, dated January 28, which said: “It is, therefore, required from your side to provide requisite reports within next three days, failing thereby, the competent authority will decide the matter of your application as per the available facts brought on record.”

    On January 15, Sharif’s legal team had submitted four different reports prepared by Dr David Lawrence before the High Court. According to those reports, Nawaz Sharif’s condition has not stabilised yet. He requires surgery, which cannot be conducted until his health improves.

    The PML-N supremo is suffering from hypertension, sugar and kidney ailments. Doctors are taking steps to maintain his blood platelets count, according to the medical reports submitted earlier this month.

  • Support pours in for arrested activist after picture with son goes viral

    Support pours in for arrested activist after picture with son goes viral

    Support has started pouring in for rights activist and Awami Workers’ Party (AWP) Punjab President Ammar Rashid, who along with dozens of others, was arrested by Islamabad police for staging a protest outside the National Press Club in Islamabad against the arrest of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) leader Manzoor Pashteen.

    Lawmakers, including PTM’s Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir; AWP Vice President Ismat Raza Shahjahan, rights activists and students among 30 protesters were rounded up by the police on Tuesday. After being detained for four hours, the arrestees were finally transferred to the Kohistan Police Station, where a case was registered against them.

    With the detainees being presented before a court on Wednesday, 23 of them were sent to jail on a 14-day judicial remand, journalist Rabia Mehmood tweeted.

    It wasn’t later that support from netizens started pouring in for those “exercising their right to protest”.

    “Esa’s father is in chains for demanding his right to speak, life, fair trial and justice. State declared him a traitor, a rebel,” journalist and rights activist Shabnam Buneri wrote in a Facebook post.

    Here’s what Twitterati have to say about the arrests:

    https://twitter.com/marriyamalik1/status/1222434266228973568

    Earlier in the day, Mohsin Dawar was released by Islamabad police. The lawmaker confirmed the development on Twitter.

    “I was told by the police that they were setting me free,” he wrote on the micro-blogging website. “I told them that I will not go until all the others are set free as well. Then they came back again, telling me that they will set all free, so I decided to leave.”

    Pashteen, who is still in state custody, was arrested up from the Tahkal area of Peshawar in the early hours of Monday. According to the FIR filed against the PTM chief, he is accused of using threatening and derogatory language against the state during a gathering in Dera Ismail Khan on January 18.

    Pashteen was on Monday presented before a court that handed him over to law enforcement authorities on a 14-day judicial remand.

  • Railways CEO differs on Rasheed’s claim, says Tezgam fire broke out due to short circuit

    Railways CEO differs on Rasheed’s claim, says Tezgam fire broke out due to short circuit

    Pakistan Railways (PR) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Muhammad Leghari has differed on Federal Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad’s claim and said that the deadly Tezgam Express fire from last year broke due to a short circuit and the gas cylinder only exploded later on.

    As many as 73 passengers were killed, with 90 per cent of them burnt alive, and over 40 others injured when three coaches of the Rawalpindi-bound train caught fire near Liaquatpur in October 2019. The incident was called one of the most horrifying tragedies in PR’s history.

    According to the ministry, the fire was caused by a cylinder blast that occurred when passengers were preparing breakfast for themselves in a moving train, a claim heavily disputed by eye-witnesses. People had widely demanded Rasheed’s resignation while the minister himself had suspended a couple of officers on account of criminal negligence and letting passengers carry gas cylinders on the ill-fated train.

    With Rasheed making headlines as Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed observed that the minister should have resigned after the tragedy, and said that shutting down PR would be better than keeping it running under Rasheed, PR CEO Leghari’s claims have raised eyebrows over the government’s side of the story.

    Speaking to a private media outlet, Leghari said that the fire broke out when an electric kettle in a dining car of the train, malfunctioned. “It was an illegal power connection from another coach,” he said, adding that the fire engulfed the entire coach, which led to the cylinder explosion.

  • Here’s who paid $450,000 for PM Imran’s two-day Switzerland trip

    Here’s who paid $450,000 for PM Imran’s two-day Switzerland trip

    Terming his participation in the recently concluded World Economic Forum (WEF) as the “cheapest” official visit, Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has said that his trip was sponsored by two of his friends and renowned businessmen Ikram Sehgal and Imran Chaudhry.

    A former army officer, Sehgal is the chairperson of Pathfinder Group Pakistan that includes two of the country’s largest private security companies. Chaudhry, on the other hand, is a decades-old close friend of the premier. He is a Dubai-based businessman and philanthropist, having investments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

    According to reports, the two friends of PM Imran bore the expenses for his trip to Davos, and the same was also confirmed by the premier himself. Addressing the ‘Breakfast at Davos’, an event jointly organised by Pathfinder Group and Martin Dow Group last week, Imran said his trip cost 10 times less than those of the previous leaders.

    He recalled that his trip to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) last November, which cost $160,000, was cheaper than the visits of former president Asif Ali Zardari ($1.4 million), and former PMs Nawaz Sharif ($1.3 million) and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi ($800,000).

    Thanking Sehgal, Imran added, “He is instrumental in getting me here. Otherwise, I would not have burdened my government to pay a sum of $450,000 for two nights.”

    Reiterating that this was an “austerity programme”, he maintained the government should rely on the over nine million Pakistanis residing overseas. “The GDP of those nine million overseas Pakistanis, in my opinion, is almost 50 per cent of Pakistan’s (overall) GDP of 200 million people. So we can use this resource and they can sponsor these things,” he said.

    To be able to attend the WEF annual meeting, a person has to be invited — in which case the event is free — or has to be a member of the forum. Membership of the WEF costs about $60,000 to $600,000 plus an additional fee needed to acquire an attendance badge, which runs about $27,000 per person to get into the conference.

  • VIDEO: PM says ‘nurses appeared like hoors after injection’

    VIDEO: PM says ‘nurses appeared like hoors after injection’

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has said that nurses at Shaukat Khanum Hospital, who looked after him after he fell from the stage back in 2013, looked like hoors (companions from paradise) following painkillers.

    “I was in deep pain due to injuries after I fell from the stage. The injection by Shaukat Khanum Hospital not only removed the pain but enabled me to make a speech as well. The nurses who made my pain go away looked like hoors at that time,” he can be heard as saying in a video doing rounds over the internet.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    Imran also said he repeatedly asked the doctor to give him more of that painkiller injection but he refused. At one point the premier recalled threatening the doctor to do his bidding but he did not allow another injection.

    Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan had in May 2013 sustained serious injuries on his head and back after falling from a lifter while climbing up the stage installed for an election rally in Lahore.

    TV footage showed him tumbling down along with three or four personal bodyguards on a pickup truck. The PTI chief was seen bleeding when he was taken away by his party supporters to the city’s Liberty Hospital.

    The then 60-year-old, who had undertaken a punishing schedule of daily rallies but is known for his physical fitness, tumbled from the riser, seemingly after one of them lost their balance.

  • Fathers to get paid paternity leave

    Fathers to get paid paternity leave

    The Senate on Monday passed ‘The Maternity and Paternity Leave Bill, 2018’ that was moved on private members’ day by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Quratulain Marri.

    According to the details, while the bill was passed by the Upper House with a majority, the treasury benches opposed it. The bill will now go to the National Assembly for a vote.

    The said bill increases paid maternity leave of working mothers both in public and private sectors, and for the first time in the country, also grants paid paternity leave to fathers.

    The bill says that employees of every establishment should be provided six months paid maternity and three months paternity leave as and when applied by employees, separately from their leave account, commencing from the date as applied by the applicant in the application and supported by a medical certificate.

    It adds that the employees shall also be provided with an additional three months optional unpaid maternity and one-month paternity leave, separately from their leave account, if required by the employee.

    The Maternity and Paternity Leave Bill

    The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government opposed the bill saying that such long maternity leave was not allowed anywhere in the world. Economic Affairs Minister Hammad Azhar said mothers can get 90-day maternity leave under the already-existing law.