Current Final

Category: Politics

  • White House approves ’emergency’ sale of tanks to Israel amidst war on Gaza

    White House approves ’emergency’ sale of tanks to Israel amidst war on Gaza

    The US State Department has approved the emergency sale to Israel of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition, it said Saturday.

    The department said it had notified Congress on Friday of a sale of 13,981 high-explosive 120mm tank cartridges and related equipment worth $106.5 million.

    That sale, while relatively small, comes amid heated political debate over the Gaza war, with Republicans slowing a far larger Biden administration request for new military spending for Israel and Ukraine, and Democrats divided over the use of US weaponry against Palestinian civilians.

    The State Department said the secretary of state had determined that “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel” of the weaponry, thereby waiving the normal requirement of Congressional review.

    The statement said the sale, from US Army inventory, would be used by Israel “as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense” and would “not alter the basic military balance in the region.”

    On Wednesday, Republican senators blocked a White House request for $106 billion in emergency aid primarily for Ukraine and Israel as conservatives balked at the exclusion of immigration reforms they had demanded.

    The package would include roughly $60 billion to help Ukraine in its war with Russia and $10 billion for Israel in its conflict with Hamas, as well as aid for Taiwan.

    With the death toll in Gaza steadily mounting, meantime, some Democrats have strongly urged Israel to carry out a more targeted offensive against Hamas targets and limit civilian casualties.

  • Nawaz Sharif wants those who removed him as prime minister to pay the price

    Nawaz Sharif wants those who removed him as prime minister to pay the price

    Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif repeated that he wants those who removed him as prime minister to be held accountable.

    “The country was thriving from 2013 to 2017 and the economy was better; however, good people were thrown out and Pakistan was handed to clumsy people,” said the PML-N chief while addressing the party’s parliamentary board meeting in Lahore.

    For the second consecutive day, the PML-N leader has emphasised the need for holding accountable those responsible for his removal since his return to the country in October, following a four-year self-imposed exile in London.

    The day before, when addressing PML-N ticket holders, he accused former generals and judges of filing baseless cases against him and causing harm to the country.

    Nawaz started his address today by expressing that, despite being physically distant, he remained deeply connected to the party members emotionally. He emphasised that he consistently kept his friends and companions in his thoughts.

    “During our time, the economy was better and development was at its peak. We still pray that the country is steered out of difficulties,” said the PML-N supremo.

  • Five terrorists killed in an intelligence-based operation: ISPR

    Five terrorists killed in an intelligence-based operation: ISPR

    Security forces confirmed on Friday that an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Tank district resulted in the elimination of five terrorists, as reported by the army’s media wing.

    A press release from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) stated that a military operation was carried out in the Mullazai area of Tank based on reported terrorist presence.

    During the operation, intense fire exchange took place between the troops and terrorists. As a result, five terrorists were “sent to hell”, the ISPR said.

    It stated that the terrorists who were killed continued to be actively engaged in various terrorist activities, including targeting law enforcement agencies, extortion, and the deliberate killing of innocent civilians.

    “A cache of weapons, ammunition and explosives was also recovered during the operation,” said the military’s media wing.

    The statement additionally mentioned that the sanitisation operation aims to eradicate any remaining terrorists in the area, reflecting the unwavering commitment of Pakistan’s security forces to eliminate the threat of terrorism from the country.

    A day before, General Syed Asim Munir, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), emphasised that the presence of illegal foreigners was having a significant impact on Pakistan’s security and economy.

  • Seat adjustment between PML-N and Jahangir Tareen’s party

    Seat adjustment between PML-N and Jahangir Tareen’s party

    As the political parties gear up for the upcoming elections scheduled for February 8, 2024, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) made another political alliance with the Jahangir Tareen-led Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP).

    Geo News reported that a significant political development occurred following a meeting between PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and IPP patron-in-chief Tareen on Thursday at Shehbaz Sharif’s residence in Model Town, Lahore.

    At the meeting, which was also attended by PML-N members Rana Sanaullah, Ayaz Sadiq, and IPP’s Awn Chaudhry, both parties deliberated on the current political situation in the country and explored the possibilities of collaborating on seat adjustments for the forthcoming general elections.

    Sources said that the two parties have agreed on seat adjustments for the February 8 polls.

    However, details regarding the number of seats will be finalised in meetings later, a source claimed.

    The development comes after a political agreement between the PML-N and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), when PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif visited the residence of PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in Lahore after a 15 years.

  • Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid

    Israel pressed its offensive against Hamas in Gaza on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid to call for a ceasefire in the two-month war.

    Hamas and the Palestinian Authority swiftly condemned the US veto as the Hamas-run health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,487 people, mostly women and children.

    An Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the ministry said Saturday.

    Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas over its unprecedented attack on October 7 when militants broke through Gaza’s militarised border to kill around 1,200 people and seize hostages, 138 of whom remain captive, according to Israeli figures.

    Vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to rubble and the UN says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced, with dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.

    “It’s so cold, and the tent is so small. All I have are the clothes I wear, I still don’t know what the next step will be,” said Mahmud Abu Rayan, displaced from Beit Lahia in the north.

    A UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate cease-fire was vetoed by the United States on Friday.

    US envoy Robert Wood said the resolution was “divorced from reality” and “would have not moved the needle forward on the ground.”

    Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the cease-fire “would prevent the collapse of the Hamas terrorist organization, which is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and would enable it to continue ruling the Gaza Strip.”

    Hamas slammed on Saturday the US rejection of the cease-fire bid as “a direct participation of the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing.”

    Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said it was “a disgrace and another blank cheque given to the occupying state to massacre, destroy and displace.”

    The veto was swiftly condemned by humanitarian groups, with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) saying the Security Council was “complicit in the ongoing slaughter.”

    Israel’s military said Friday it had struck 450 targets in Gaza over 24 hours, showing footage of strikes from naval vessels in the Mediterranean.

    The health ministry reported 40 dead near Gaza City in the north, and dozens more in Jabalia and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.


    Humanitarian Catastrophe

    Following two months of conflict and bombardment, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Friday “the people of Gaza are looking into the abyss.”

    “People are desperate, fearful and angry,” he said.

    “All this takes place amid a spiralling humanitarian nightmare.”

    Many of the 1.9 million Gazans who have been displaced by the war have headed south, turning Rafah near the Egyptian border into a vast camp.

    With the death toll of medical workers in the conflict mounting, more than a dozen World Health Organization member states submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarians in Gaza.

    They called for Israel to “respect and protect” medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.

    Only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity, according to United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA.

    With the civilian toll mounting, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday that Washington believes Israel needs to do more to protect civilians in the conflict.

    “We certainly all recognize more can be done to… reduce civilian casualties. And we’re going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end,” he said.

    The death toll also rose in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces shot dead six Palestinians on Friday, the territory’s health ministry said.

    Israel said Friday it has lost 91 soldiers in Gaza.

    It said two others were wounded in a failed bid to rescue hostages overnight, and that “numerous terrorists” were killed in the operation.
    Hamas claimed a hostage was killed in the operation, and released a video purporting to show the body, which could not be independently verified.

    Hamas rocket parts, launchers and other weapons as well as a one-kilometer tunnel were found at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, the army said, as it warned residents to move west.

  • Farah Gogi declared proclaimed offender in £190 million scandal case

    Farah Gogi declared proclaimed offender in £190 million scandal case

    The names of the suspects in the £190 million scandal case were published as proclaimed offenders by an Accountability Court of Islamabad on Friday, SAMMA has reported. 

    The names of individuals allegedly involved in the corruption case, including former Accountability Adviser Shahzad Akbar, ex-Special Assistant Zulfi Bukhari, Zia Al Mustafa, and Farah Gogi, were displayed on Friday outside the Judicial Complex as proclaimed offenders. Farah Gogi is currently not in Pakistan, having successfully evaded authorities till now.

    The Accountability Court asked individuals facing charges in the said case to appear before the court on January 6.

    Judge Muhammad Basheer of the Accountability Court ordered to publish the names of suspects involved in the £190 million scandal. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, are also suaoects in the same case.

    According to the order issued by Judge Muhammad Bashir, the investigation officer of the case, Mian Umar Nadeem, stressed that the arrest warrants for Shahzad Akbar, Zia-ul-Mustafi Naseem, Zulfi Bukhari, Ahmed Riaz, Farhat Shahzad, and others implicated in the reference should be strictly implemented.

  • ECP likely to announce election schedule on December 14

    ECP likely to announce election schedule on December 14

    As a result of the rise in political temperature in country, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is going to announce the schedule for upcoming general election on December 14, as per a report in The News.

    Political parties are making political alliances with multiple stakeholders to win the polls on February 8.

    ECP recently released the final list of delimitations, which was the only obstacle to the announcement of  election. Now the final step is the appointment of district returning officers, returning officers and assistant officers according to the Elections Act 2017.

    According to Sections 50 and 51 of the Elections Act, a district returning officer is appointed for each district or a specified area and a returning officer for each constituency for elections to an assembly.

    The provincial election commissioner and election commission secretariat have designed lists of government officers for election duty. Their appointment will follow the election-related training.

    Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja also confirmed that ECP is ready to provide voters with complete security, privacy, and transparency in the entire election process.

  • ‘Deliberate’ Israeli strike on journalists in Lebanon warrants ‘war crime’ investigation: watchdogs

    ‘Deliberate’ Israeli strike on journalists in Lebanon warrants ‘war crime’ investigation: watchdogs

    The Israeli strike that killed one journalist and wounded six others in Lebanon merits a “war crime” investigation, rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) told AFP on Thursday.

    Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, 37, was killed instantly in the strike on October 13 in the south of the country near the Israeli border.

    The others present — two more Reuters journalists, two from Al Jazeera, and two from AFP — were all injured.

    AFP photographer Christina Assi, 28, was seriously wounded, later had a leg amputated and is still in hospital.

    Independent investigations by both rights groups concluded, like an AFP investigation published earlier on Thursday, that the first strike that killed Abdallah and severely wounded Assi was most likely a tank round fired from Israel.

    Amnesty said the strikes “were likely a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime”.

    “Those responsible for Issam Abdallah’s unlawful killing and the injuring of six other journalists must be held accountable,” said Aya Majzoub, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

    “No journalist should ever be targeted or killed simply for carrying out their work. Israel must not be allowed to kill and attack journalists with impunity.”

    HRW said the two Israeli strikes “were apparently deliberate attacks on civilians, which is a war crime”.

    Under international humanitarian law, “it is forbidden in any circumstances to carry out direct attacks against civilians”, it said.

    The group’s investigation indicated that the journalists were “well removed from ongoing hostilities, clearly identifiable as members of the media, and had been stationary for at least 75 minutes before they were hit”.

    Amnesty said images it verified showed “the seven journalists were wearing body armour labelled ‘press’, and that the blue Reuters crew car was marked ‘TV’ with yellow tape on its hood”.

    “The evidence strongly suggests that Israeli forces knew or should have known that the group that they were attacking were journalists,” HRW’s Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss said.

    “This is an unlawful and apparently deliberate attack on a very visible group of journalists,” he said.

    ‘Justice and accountability’

    Speaking at a press conference in Beirut, Dylan Collins, the other AFP journalist wounded in the attack, said: “I know they (the investigations) won’t bring Issam back to life. I know they won’t help Christina walk again.

    “But what I do hope is that they at least will mark the start of some sort of process of justice and accountability,” he said.

    He shared a message from Assi that said: “We chose journalism with a mission to deliver the truth, and despite the inevitable costs, our commitment remains unwavering. Nothing can silence us.”

    Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a statement his government would “take all measures to include” the conclusions of the investigation “in the complaint filed before the UN Security Council”.

    Since Israel’s bombardment of Gaza started after Palestinian fighter group Hamas struck Israel in a surprise attack on October 7, 63 journalists and media workers have been killed — 56 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese, the Committee to Protect Journalists says.

    The New York-based rights group on Thursday called for “an immediate, independent, and transparent investigation that holds the perpetrators to account” for the strike on journalists in Lebanon.

  • IHC orders DG ISI to submit a report on Bushra-Khosa audio leak

    IHC orders DG ISI to submit a report on Bushra-Khosa audio leak

    The Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Nadeem Anjum has been ordered by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to submit a report on who is responsible for an alleged audio leak between the former first lady Bushra Bibi and her lawyer, Latif Khosa, Geo has reported.  

    The court also asked the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to do  forensics of the leaked audio between Bushra Bibi and Latif Khosa to know about the origin of its release.  

    Justice Babar Sattar of the IHC said during a hearing of a plea filed by Latif Khosa that a copy of the petition be sent to DG ISI, seeking a report on who is behind the audio leak.

    The court also issued notices to FIA, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), seeking their response on the matter.

    The hearing was then adjourned till December 11.

    Later, while leaving the courtroom, Justice Sattar said, “Big Boss is listening to everything, you must know this.”

    He then went on to ask who was recording the audio, in reply to which Khosa said, “Everyone knows who records.”

  • Former Army Chief willing to appear as witness in cipher case: The News

    Former Army Chief willing to appear as witness in cipher case: The News

    Former army chief General (r) Qamar Javed Bajwa can surprise founder and former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, as he is “willing to appear” as a witness in the cipher case, The News has reported.

    During the last hearing in cipher case, Imran Khan said while speaking to journalists, “I will include General Bajwa and US Embassy officials as witnesses in the case.”

    A source from The News confirmed that the former army chief also showed willingness to appear as a witness. However, he will require permission from military authorities.

    The former prime minister is currently in Adiala jail and facing charges under the Official Secrets Act, 1923. A special court is hearing the cipher case against Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

    Imran had alleged that “General Bajwa did everything on Donald Lu’s directives”. 

    This accusation does not match the statements given by witnesses, including the former secretary of foreign affairs and Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US. Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US was in contact with Donald Lu, and their communication’s result was a cable that was sent to the foreign ministry, which is a normal thing.

    Imran Khan had also claimed that the cipher was a conspiracy against him to remove him from the office.

    The National Security Committee (NSC) deliberated over the cipher twice, once when Imran Khan was the prime minister of Pakistan and later in the tenure of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif.

    The NSC found no evidence of conspiracy on both occasions against Imran Khan in the cipher.