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Can the US Veto in UN be bypassed to end Gaza genocide? Here’s how you can help
The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution on Friday, December 8, backed by almost all other Security Council members and dozens of other nations, demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. In this emergency meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invoked Article 99, a rare move to force a vote on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, where two million people are displaced and more than 18,000 people have been killed.
Calls are growing for the UN Security Council to be reformed after the US used its veto power to block a Gaza ceasefire resolution, a move welcomed by Israeli PM Netanyahu ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/MvnplAht8z
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) December 10, 2023
The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining.
The US is facing criticism from all over the world and domestic backlash, but there is a way to sign a petition to appeal to the respective ambassador to the UN asking them to invoke article 377 A to get around the US Veto and call for a permanent ceasefire.What is Article 377 A?
The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377 A is known as the ‘Uniting for Peace Resolution’ states that in any case where the Security Council, because of a lack of unanimity among its five permanent members (P5) fails to act as required to maintain international security and peace, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue appropriate recommendations to the UN members for collective measures, including the use of armed forces when necessary, to maintain or restore international security and peace.
How is this done?
Using social media is effective but there are other concrete ways to invoke Article 377 A.EVERYONE: write to your country’s UN Ambassador and demand that they invoke UNGA resolution 377A to get around the US Veto and call for a permanent ceasefire. You can find a template letter here https://t.co/sfH8WMUjdo then post and tag your country’s ambassador online. pic.twitter.com/DX3auIZw70
— fatima bhutto (@fbhutto) December 11, 2023
This can be done by writing to the UN Ambassador to demand they invoke UNGA’s resolution 377A.
A copy of the email needs to be sent to the undesa@un.org and inquiries2@un.org
The petition has to be signed and available on the @call2actionnow page.Here’s the link to the petition for Pakistan: https://chng.it/qdb9VVqtwt
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Iran executes murderer of Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani
Iranian authorities executed a man convicted of killing a powerful cleric in April, the judiciary said Wednesday.
Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani, a member of the Assembly of Experts that selects the country’s supreme leader, was killed on April 26 in a bank in Babolsar city in the northern province of Mazandaran.
The murderer, who has not been named, was a security guard at the bank. CCTV footage published by local media showed him shooting the cleric from behind as he was sitting in a chair.
“The sentence of qesas (Islamic law of retribution) for the murderer of Martyr Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was carried out today after being approved by the country’s Supreme Court,” a local official said, according to the judiciary’s Mizan Online website.
Under Islamic law, the sentence of qesas can be dropped if the victim’s family agrees to spare the convict.
Soleimani, 75, was previously a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and led Friday prayers in the cities of Kashan and Zahedan.
The 88-strong Assembly of Experts is tasked with supervising, dismissing, and electing the supreme leader. It is headed by ultra-conservative 96-year-old cleric Ahmad Jannati.
Its members are elected for eight-year terms, but candidates are closely vetted.
In April 2022, two clerics died in a knife attack in Iran’s second city of Mashhad. A 21-year-old suspected jihadist, Abdolatif Moradi, was hanged two months later for the crime.
Rights group Amnesty International says Iran executes more people than any country except China.
It has executed more than 600 people so far this year, already the highest figure in eight years, according to a report last month by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group.
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Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi indicted in cipher case again
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) former chairman Imran Khan and the party’s vice chairman, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, were indicted again in the cipher case on Wednesday.
A special court established under the Official Secret Act 2023 indicted both PTI leaders with Judge Abdul Hasnat Zulqarnain announcing the decision.
Both leaders were found guilty of misusing a diplomatic cable issued by the Pakistan embassy in Washington DC for political purposes.
During the hearing, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Special Prosecutors Shah Khawar and Zulfiqar Abbas Naqvi appeared in court, while Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi were represented by their lawyers.
The regular trial of the cipher case against the former prime minister and ex-foreign minister will begin in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
A hearing was also held on Tuesday, where family members of PTI leaders were also present. Some journalists were also present to witness the proceedings.
Earlier, after Khan and Qureshi challenged their indictment in the case, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) declared their jail trial “null and void” while allowing intra-court appeals in the case.
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Shaheen Afridi appointed vice-captain of national Test team
Shaheen Shah Afridi has been appointed as the vice-captain of Pakistan’s Test cricket team.
The first Test match between Pakistan and Australia will start tomorrow in Perth. Shaan Masood will lead the national test team, and Shaheen Shah Afridi has been appointed as the vice-captain of the national Test team. The Pakistan Cricket Board has said that Shaheen Shah Afridi will serve as the vice-captain of the national team in the Test series against Australia.
This test series is a part of the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Test Championship.
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Shaan Masood becomes captain of Karachi Kings
Pakistan Super League (PSL) franchise Karachi Kings has appointed national test team captain Shan Masood as the captain of their franchise.
Talking during an event in Lahore on Wednesday, Karachi Kings owner Salman Iqbal said, “Shaan Masood will be the captain of the Karachi team. I think Shaan is a good leader. I request the Karachi fans to come to the stadium and support the team this year. They will try to win more matches and try to pick good players in the draft.”
#KingsSquad ka –
— Karachi Kings (@KarachiKingsARY) December 13, 2023
A new captain takes the helm, Welcoming @shani_official as crowned leader of Karachi Kings in #HBLPSL9 ❤️#YehHaiKarachi | #KarachiKings pic.twitter.com/EDkBIDOGAfKarachi Kings congratulated Shaan Masood for taking over the leadership of the team on the social media platform ‘X’.
The drafting ceremony of the players for edition 9 of the Pakistan Super League will be held today.
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Lahore High Court sets free convicts of life imprisonment in Kasur child abuse scandal
Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday acquitted three convicts serving life imprisonment in the Kasur child abuse scandal of 2015.
The scandal came to light eight years ago when a gang was arrested for involvement in making videos of the sexual abuse of at least 280 children. The criminals were accused of blackmailing the families of the kids, threatening them to leak the videos unless they paid ransom.
The acquittal of the convicts was announced by a bench of two judges, led by Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhry.
One of the counsels, Abid Hussain Khichi while speaking to Dawn, said that the court had released his clients after accepting their pleas.
According to the council, a total of six primary suspects had been implicated in the case, with three having been released earlier, while the remaining three were acquitted today.
Khichi further explained that his clients (convicts) serving in jail have not been identified in the video examination conducted by the authorities. He also contended that certain sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act applied to the accused were not truly applicable, and the medical reports did not substantiate the presented evidence.
The present order by the court substantiates the narrative of the lawyer.
The three men — Haseem Amir, Wasim Sindhi, and Aleem Asif — were handed punishments in one of the nine cases police had registered against them. ATC judge Chaudhry Muhammad Ilyas had also imposed a fine of Rs300,000 on each of the three convicts.
Ganda Singhwala police had registered a first information report against the three convicts on charges of abducting and sexually assaulting children in Kasur.
It was reported that the men had also been blackmailing the families of the boys since 2009 and even sold video clips of the assault. In 2018, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore sentenced the three men to life in prison after finding them guilty.
Kasur is a district plagued by such incidents. According to a report by Pakistan Observer Kasur stood first in child sexual abuse and pornography with 298 cases out of 2275 across the country during the year 2021. -
Nepali TikTok Influencers Upset After Unexpected Ban
Nepali influencer Anjana Aryal went from homemaker to entrepreneur by sharing recipes on TikTok, but her lucrative business collapsed last month when the Himalayan republic banned the Chinese-owned short video app.
Filming with her mobile phone in one hand and cooking with the other, Aryal rapidly became a social media star in Nepal last year, garnering millions of views from a following of nearly 600,000 people.
That all came to a sudden halt when Nepal banned TikTok to protect “social harmony”, following similar restrictions imposed in other countries on concerns over data security, obscene content and its owner’s alleged ties to the Chinese government.
“My life changed a lot because of TikTok, a lot,” Aryal, 39, told AFP from her home in Kathmandu. “So many recognise me because of TikTok wherever I go.”
She earned nearly $3,000 from endorsement deals just in October, more than double Nepal’s average yearly income.
Encouraged by her audience, Aryal also started a business selling her own brand of pickles, which saw her inbox flooded with orders.
But since the ban, Aryal and other prominent Nepali content creators have seen their revenue streams dry up, jeopardising their livelihoods.
“People were earning, running businesses or just being entertained on TikTok. Everyone has been affected now and they don’t know what to do,” she said.
Owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms on the planet with more than one billion users.
Its explosive growth has given its content creators and influencers an immense audience, and its editing features and AI-powered algorithm have proved particularly attractive.
But the algorithm is opaque and often accused of putting users into content silos, and the platform has also been blamed for spreading disinformation.
It has faced intense scrutiny in the United States and other nations over user data security and the company’s alleged ties to Beijing.
TikTok announces $1.5bn deal to restart Indonesia online shopping business
Multiple countries have sought to tighten controls on TikTok, and the platform has been banned in neighbouring India.
‘Start from zero’
Growing criticism of the app has worried influencers around the world.
Others in the United States have voiced fears to local media about losing thousands of dollars in income if bans are enforced.
Nepal’s government justified its ban on the platform by accusing it of damaging the Himalayan republic’s social fabric.
It came days before a huge rally called by a prominent businessman who was using TikTok to organise a campaign demanding the reinstatement of Nepal’s monarchy.
Dozens of content creators staged a rally in Kathmandu demanding the ban be lifted last month.
Advocate Dinesh Tripathi, who is challenging the decision in court, said the ban was an attack on people’s freedom of speech because the government was fearful of “dissenting voices”.
Manish Adhikari, who uses TikTok to discuss cars and Nepali start-ups, said he had several endorsement deals scuttled by the ban.
“Brands started to call me… and I wondered if I was getting out of business, is my work going to stop?” Adhikari said.
Adhikari has shifted to Instagram but the views and followings are a fraction of his earlier audience.
“I lost all my audience because I was not as active on any other platform,” he said. “Now I have to start from zero.”
There are around 2.2 million TikTok users among Nepal’s 30 million people, according to the Internet Service Providers Association.
But Monayac Karki, founder of Nepali influencer marketing agency Uptrendly, said TikTok’s popularity had been rising exponentially.
He added that the ban had torpedoed a market with an estimated worth in excess of $5 million each year for advertisers and content creators, and which was set to grow rapidly.
“I really hope this ban is a temporary one and it will be lifted soon,” he said. -
When will merit list of aspiring MBBS and BDS students be released?
The final list for admission to MBBS and BDS in Punjab has been released by the University of Health Sciences on its website.
A spokesperson for the UHS has stated that a merit list has been put up on the website, comprising 4485 candidates, reports Geo.
UHS released a provisional merit list on December 8, after which two days were given to candidates to register any complaint via the online portal. 1159 complaints were received in 48 hours and after reviewing all of them, a final list has been released.A total of 3389 students will be given admission to seats available all over the province. The first merit list will be released on December 15.
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No issue in delay for free and fair elections, says Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Wednesday that a delay of a few days in the general election will not make any difference. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari also made the same statement a few days earlier.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman said in an interview that there is no issue if the delay of a few days in the election can help in conducting free and fair polls.
Earlier this week, the PPP co-chairman also said that there is no issue with a delay of about 10 days.
The JUI-F head also said that he is not backing any political agenda while demanding a delay in the polls, asking that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should consider all the concerns, including the weather conditions in high-altitude regions.
Postponement of elections also occurred after the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and it’s a valid reason for people to accept a delay in polls, he added.
Maulana also warned that his party would come out on the streets and protest if the election were postponed indefinitely.