Category: National

The Current is a trusted source for national breaking news, analysis, exclusive interviews, headlines, and videos.

  • VIDEO: Imran Khan finds aloo gosht at Panahgah ‘better than PM House’

    VIDEO: Imran Khan finds aloo gosht at Panahgah ‘better than PM House’

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and Federal Minister for Planning and Special Initiatives Asad Umar have found the aloo gosht [potato-meat curry] served to them at Faisalabad Panahgah [shelter home] “even better than the one at PM House in Islamabad”.

    This was revealed by Umar, who on Friday tweeted:

    “Got a chance to dine at the shelter home in Faisalabad during our visit. Both I and the prime minister really liked aloo gosht. The premier said it was [even] better than the one he gets to have at PM House,” he wrote.

    The tweet came hours after PM Imran and a few members of his team reached Faisalabad to inaugurate the first shelter home in the city, which has been constructed over a four kanal area as part of the government’s flagship Panahgah initiative.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    Accompanied by Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Usman Buzdar, the premier toured the shelter home to review the facilities being provided by the provincial government to homeless people, and received a briefing by the administration.

    Last week, he had directed the chief ministers of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to take steps to provide temporary shelters and food to every person in their respective province in the wake of harsh cold weather.

    “Given the extremely cold weather conditions, I have asked CMs of Punjab and KP to ensure that no person is left out without a shelter; and their administrations must take immediate action to provide temporary shelters plus food for those who cannot be accommodated in existing Panah­gahs (shelter homes),” the PM had tweeted.

    Earlier on Friday, the premier also broke ground on the state-of-the-art Allama Iqbal Industrial City that has been planned over an area of 4,000 acres.

    The industrial city is a mega project of the Special Economic Zone of Faisalabad Industrial Estate Development and Management Company (FIEDMC) under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

  • Imran’s ex-aide called out for showing up at private New Year’s party uninvited

    Imran’s ex-aide called out for showing up at private New Year’s party uninvited

    Former foreign media head of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and a close aide of Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, Anila Khawaja, has been called out for showing up at a private New Year’s Eve party “without being invited to it”.

    Khawaja was called out by the host, Islamabad-based American blogger and former goodwill ambassador to Pakistan, Cynthia D Ritchie, after she trained guns at the latter for being “a foreigner who broke traditions of good grace and hospitality, and behaved rudely”.

    “When will we learn to stand together and be respected on r [sic] own soil let alone abroad,” Khawaja tweeted.

    Reacting to Khawaja’s claim, Ritchie didn’t go easy on her and pointed out how the ex-PTI foreign media head hadn’t even been invited to the party.

    “I know who you really are as a person: you’re threatening to write a tell-all about IK [Imran Khan] if certain things don’t go your way,” she said in a subsequent tweet.

    The tweet was followed by:

    While Cynthia has now also tweeted about how “fabulous” her New Year’s celebration was, Khawaja is yet to react to the developments.

    Anila Khawaja, who had been appointed as part of PTI’s decision to extend the media team of the party, started supporting Imran Khan’s politics when only a couple of people supported his political cause.

    She was educated, bred and born in West London’s Ealing area.

    Khawaja received her post graduate degree in education from Brunel University and became a British qualified teacher. She took a year out in 2005 to help out the victims in Pakistan during its worst natural disaster, leaving her family and a well-paid job behind.

    She got involved in relief work during the 2005 earthquake that hit Pakistan, causing the death of more than 70,000 people. She worked with Imran Khan Earthquake Relief Fund (IKERF) for a year when Khan’s party was turned into an NGO for a year.

    She was all set to return to London but was approached by the British High Commission to help start a British school in Islamabad.

    It was around 2008 that she formally joined the PTI. Soon after joining the party, she was given the responsibility to deal with international media – a role she successfully performed till last year when there were shuffles within the party.

  • Indo-Pak war odds-on if soldiers are attacked in Kashmir again: report

    Indo-Pak war odds-on if soldiers are attacked in Kashmir again: report

    A transnational non-profit organisation, International Crisis Group, has warned that any militant attack on Indian forces in held Kashmir could set off an escalation between Pakistan and India, saying that pro-freedom militants were lying low in the troubled vallet, but they were still active.

    “India’s heavy-handed military operations in Kashmir over the past few years have inspired a new homegrown generation, whose ranks are likely to swell further after the latest repression,” read its report titled “10 conflicts to watch in 2020”.

    Indian fighter planes had violated Pakistani airspace after a pro-freedom militant attack that killed at least 40 paramilitary soldiers in Pulwama on February 19, 2019. In retaliation, Pakistan had shot down two Indian jets over Kashmir on Feb 27, and captured an Indian pilot as well. He, however, was released by Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s government as a “gesture of peace”.

    The Crisis Group, which describes itself as “working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world” , has warned that any Pulwama-like attack on Indian forces in Kashmir would precipitate Indian action against Pakistan.

    “In a worst-case scenario, the two nuclear-armed neighbours could stumble into war,” the report said.

    The Crisis Group asked New Delhi to lift the communication blackout and release political prisoners in the occupied valley, and asked Pakistan to take action against militants allegedly operating from its soil.

    It further urged the international community to push Pakistan and India for talks “before it is too late”.

  • Billion Tree Tsunami: NAB detects Rs462 million loss to exchequer

    Billion Tree Tsunami: NAB detects Rs462 million loss to exchequer

    A loss of Rs462 million to the public exchequer has been detected by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) as it conducted its initial inquiry into the Billion Tree Tsunami Project of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), The News reported.

    NAB Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal had authorised the inquiry against the flagship project in March last year.

    “The NAB regional office has recommended to the headquarters for upgrading the inquiry along with authorisation for separate investigations and six inquiries to unearth the mega scam in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP),” the report said.

    Meanwhile, an officer was quoted as saying that NAB officials “had checked only 10 to 20 per cent of only one region out of three, which is the smallest region as compared to Hazara and Swat.

    In 2014, the then PTI-led KP government had started the Billion Tree Tsunami Project with Rs14.32 billion utilised for the project execution by the Forest Department.

    Allegations of ghost labour, misappropriation and embezzlement of daily wages, enclosures failure and payments against ghost plantations were received by the anti-graft body at its Peshawar bureau earlier.

    According to official documents, during the initial inquiry based on proceedings conducted so far, a loss of Rs462 million has been detected. The NAB reports further disclosed that due to the shortfall in the hectare-wise plantation area in Dera Ismail Khan, a loss of Rs80.044 million has been detected.

    The regional NAB office has recommended the headquarters to convert the ongoing inquiry into a proper investigation to probe the case. It further recommended four investigations against the divisional forest officer and others regarding misuse of authority, embezzlement, corruption and corrupt practices.

    Furthermore, six additional inquiries were also recommended against the officers and officials of the KP Forest Department and others regarding embezzlement, misappropriation, corruption, and corrupt practices in procurement of seeds, polythene bags, machinery, vehicles and office equipment in forest region 1, 2 and 3.

    While NAB sources were quoted as confirming that the matter is under scrutiny as per law, media has reportedly been requested to avoid speculations in this regard.

  • PTI govt approves Rs11.7 billion for special military projects

    The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has approved a supplementary budget for military allowances worth Rs11.7 billion as the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) met on Monday.

    According to The Express Tribune, the meeting headed by Adviser to the Prime Minister (PM) on Finance, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, approved the allowances under three technical supplementary grants for Special Security Division (North), Internal Security Duty Allowance and construction of bunkers.

    Of the Rs11.7 billion, Rs6.2 billion have been allocated for the recurring cost of the Special Security Division of Pakistan — for protection of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)-related projects — whereas Rs4.966 billion have been set aside for Internal Special Duty Allowance for troops deployed on the western border, a Ministry of Finance handout revealed.

    While the remaining Rs500 million has been reserved for the construction of community bunkers, the heads for the supplementary grants from where the budget will be diverted, have not yet been specified by the Finance Ministry.

    Earlier, the ECC had directed that the cost of providing protection to the CPEC and other important installations by the military should be made part of the regular defence budget instead of meeting it through supplementary grants.

    The Defence Ministry had requested a supplementary grant for paying the recurring cost of the Special Security Division and Internal Security Duty Allowance to the troops deployed on the western border.

  • ‘Gen Raheel Sharif foiled coup attempt by ISI chief in 2014’

    ‘Gen Raheel Sharif foiled coup attempt by ISI chief in 2014’

    Former United States (US) Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson has been quoted as disclosing that former army chief General (r) Raheel Sharif in 2014 foiled a coup attempt by the then director general (DG) of the country’s premium intelligence agency.

    The ex-envoy was quoted by journalist and author Shuja Nawaz in the his recently-launched book “The Battle For Pakistan, The Bitter US Friendship and a Tough Neighborhood”, chapter “Mil-to-Mil Relations: Do More” of which further read that Olson made this statement in the context of the infamous 126-day protest sit-in by then opposition member Imran Khan in Islamabad.

    “We received information that Zaheerul Islam, the DG ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence], was mobilising for a coup in September of 2014. (Army Chief) Raheel (Sharif) blocked it by, in effect, removing Zaheer, by announcing his successor… (Zaheer) was talking to the corps commanders and was talking to likeminded army officers… He was prepared to do it and had the chief been willing, even tacitly, it would have happened. But the chief was not willing, so it didn’t happen,” Olson was quoted in the book, launch events of which were cancelled across the country after its Washington-based author was allegedly told to do so.

    Nawaz has authored a 373-page book covering the US-Pakistan relationship and important political events of the last decade and a half in Pakistan. Brother of former chief of army staff (COAS) the late Gen Asif Nawaz Janjua, he is an acclaimed author and well-reputed intellectual. His book, “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within,” is considered the most authoritative history of the Pakistan Army.

    In his latest book, The News reported, Nawaz reveals that for Americans, former ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha was “straight shooting super nationalist general who had come into the world of intelligence on the insistence of Gen Kayani”.

    According to the book, Pasha became an activist and an aggressive head of the country’s premium intelligence agency, expanding its operations and remit virtually at will and demanding greater access to information on US operations and operatives inside Pakistan.

    According to Nawaz, Pasha was a prime target of American surveillance. He was being tracked during his travels abroad. The book provides details on the surveillance of Lt Gen Pasha.

    Shuja Nawaz also states that during Pasha’s tenure, three Pakistan-US joint intelligence fusion cells were shut down and Pasha was a “bête noire” for Americans.

    While quoting an unnamed US official, the author touches the subject of US intelligence surveillance inside Pakistan and says that the US had penetrated many Pakistani organisations.

    The book says that, after Pasha’s retirement, new ISI head Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam was consumed by domestic issues. Islam spent most of his time on the political turmoil following the 2013 elections, which produced public sit-ins, or “dharnas”, by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and allies against the government.

    “Both Pasha and Islam’s names were associated with the street opposition to [then] Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif; though no solid evidence came to the surface. Islam was also a former head of one of the ISI’s wings or directorates, and then had been in the hurly-burly of Karachi politics as the corps commander there,” notes the book.

    While the latest book by Shuja Nawaz is filled with firsthand accounts of Pakistani and US officials with direct purview of important political events in Pakistan and Afghanistan for a critical period of the region’s history, Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam and Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha have not given their views regarding their role in service.

  • Minister announces uniform curriculum for schools across country

    Minister announces uniform curriculum for schools across country

    Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood has said that the federal government would soon announce a uniform curriculum for the entire country to end disparity between different educational systems in the country.

    “We are in the process of making curriculum for all children across Pakistan, and kids enrolled with government-run or private schools or even madrassas will be taught only one curriculum,” the federal minister was quoted as saying by The Nation at the concluding session of the three-day celebrations in connection with Quaid Day on Wednesday.

    Addressing the event organised by Sindh Madrassatul Islam University, Mehmood said the country was riddled with different systems of education, therefore, the government wanted to introduce a uniform curriculum.

    “These different systems of education have divided the country’s philosophy, and a uniform syllabus will help put an end to this condition,” he said, adding that Tanzeemul Madaris had also accepted his ministry’s suggestion, according to which children in madrassas would be required to appear in matriculation and intermediate examinations.

    Earlier this year, the Punjab government had also promised a uniform curriculum at least for primary schools in the province from 2020.

    “A uniform curriculum for primary schools in the province will be introduced by March 2020,” Schools Education Minister Murad Raas had told the Punjab Assembly in January. Responding to a written question in the provincial house, he had said the curriculum would also include a certain portion of religious teachings and that uniform syllabus for higher levels would be introduced in due course.

    Replying to a query about existence of both English and Urdu mediums in state-run schools, he had chided former chief minister Shehbaz Sharif for it saying the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader introduced English medium without making available teachers for the purpose.

    He said English would be taught in primary schools as a language and other subjects would be taught in Urdu.

  • ‘Ahsan Iqbal should be hanged for 3 days’: Faisal Vawda

    ‘Ahsan Iqbal should be hanged for 3 days’: Faisal Vawda

    Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda had said on Monday that Ahsan Iqbal should be hanged for three days.

    In a tweet, Mr. Vawda said: “Ahsan Iqbal alias Aristotle alias hypocrite is a bigger thief than Nawaz Sharif. He should have been arrested first but he was caught so late. I will bring forward the list of his front companies and relatives. Their looting [corruption] has brought our country to the edge of destruction. Such people should be hanged for at least 3 days.”

    Read also: ‘If found dead, Musharraf’s corpse should be dragged to D-Chowk, hanged for three days’

    Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ahsan Iqbal was arrested on Monday by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in relation to the Narowal Sports City Complex case

    Ahsan Iqbal is accused of using funds of the federal government and the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) for a sports city being established in Narowal, which is a multi-billion-rupee project.

    Iqbal while speaking to the media before heading to NAB had said that when the PML-N came to power in 2013, he, as planning minister, had taken up several projects that were incomplete and sports city was one of them.

    He said that the funds spent on NSC were approved by the cabinet, parliament and the National Economic Council (NEC).

  • Japan opens doors for trained Pakistani labourers

    Japan opens doors for trained Pakistani labourers

    Islamabad and Tokyo have signed a memorandum of cooperation, under which trained Pakistani labourers would be provided with employment opportunities in Japan, Profit reported.

    The agreement was signed in the presence of Special Assistant to PM on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Zulfiqar Bukhari, Japanese Ambassador to Pakistan Kuninori Matsuda, Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood and other high-level officials.

    “The newly signed memorandum will help the trained Pakistani labourers get employment in Japan,” said a statement issued by the ministry. “This is a major milestone that will further enhance bilateral ties between both countries.”

    Addressing the ceremony, the Japanese envoy termed the agreement a “special occasion” for both nations, saying that it would play a key role in strengthening the existing ties between Pakistan and Japan.

    “Japanese language and technical expertise are essential for employment in Japan; the country needs approximately 340,000 trained labourers,” he added.

    Speaking on the occasion, Zulfiqar Bukhari highlighted that 65 per cent of the Pakistan population was below the age of 35, adding that employment opportunities were present in 14 sectors of Japan.

    He urged the youth to especially focus on the information technology sector citing future needs.

    On December 20, the Japanese ambassador had met Zulfiqar Bukhari for a pre-discussion on the agreement which is signed on Monday (today).

    According to a statement issued by the ministry, the two sides had discussed a wide range of issues related to trade, tourism and manpower.

    The envoy had informed that Japan would build a network, in collaboration with language universities in Pakistan, and carry out 3 to 6 months language proficiency course with e-learning facilities for far-flung areas so as to accommodate the maximum number of Pakistanis to work in Japan.

    Acknowledging their diligence and social conduct, the ambassador showed his highest gratitude towards 25,000 Pakistanis residing and working in Japan.

  • Unknown armed men break into residence of Musharraf’s ex-prosecutor, ‘warn him’

    Unknown armed men break into residence of Musharraf’s ex-prosecutor, ‘warn him’

    An armed robbery has been reported at the farmhouse of Akram Sheikh, who previously headed the government’s prosecution team against Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf in the high treason case against the latter, SAMAA reported.

    According to reports, the armed men remained at the lawyer’s residence for around two hours while they held his family hostage, and finally left after looting items worth millions of rupees.

    Sheikh’s farmhouse is located in Islamabad’s Chak Shehzad area, police said and added that the lawyer’s family was locked in a room after their mobile phones were taken away by the intruders. “The house was then combed and looted.”

    While a case has not yet been lodged amid Sheikh’s silence, senior journalist and analyst Hamid Mir has claimed that the lawyer was also threatened by the armed men.

    Sheikh was appointed as the prosecutor by former prime minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif to fight the Musharraf treason case on behalf of the government. He fought the case till 2018 and resigned after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was elected to power.

    The former army chief and dictator was handed death sentence by a special court earlier this week.