Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) cheif Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Monday took a jibe at Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and called him an “international puppet” for reportedly having succumbed to pressure from Saudi Arabia and cancelling his trip to Malaysia.
Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah had last week quoted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying that Pakistan had decided to stay away from the recently concluded Kuala Lumpur summit because of Saudi Arabia’s threats of economic sanctions.
The statement had come amid claims by media outlets that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had “pressurised and threatened” Pakistan to refrain from participating in the summit that was attended by hundreds of government officials, businessmen, representatives of civil societies and experts from different sectors across the Muslim world.
Besides Erdogan, Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani were among the Muslim world leaders who attended the summit hosted by Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohammad. Meanwhile, Riyadh had rejected claims that Islamabad was told not to participate.
With the PPP chief continuing to taunt the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for being “selected to power” and PM Imran for being “powerless”, he has now said that the premier “is not just a puppet of Pakistan, but also that of another country”.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, Bilawal also announced that he would not appear before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on December 24, saying the call-up notice served to him by the anti-corruption watchdog is “unconstitutional and illegal”.
NAB had summoned the PPP chairperson for a second time this month in the fake bank accounts and money laundering case on December 24.
According to Dawn, Bilawal accused the government of creating obstacles in his party’s plans to observe late former PM Benazir Bhutto’s death anniversary on December 27, and also called out the Imran administration for “preventing a son from observing the death anniversary of his mother” by not yet issuing permission to hold the death anniversary observance ceremony.
“I will become even more dangerous if I am arrested. Arrest me if you can,” the PPP chief maintained as he criticised the government for “selective accountability” and for attempting to “pressurise the opposition”.
Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Monday.
The anti-graft watchdog had earlier summoned Iqbal for recording his statement in a multi-billion-rupee case pertaining to the controversial Sports City Project in Narowal.
It was the second time in two months that NAB had summoned the PML-N leader to seek details of his income and expenditures.
According to Dawn, the opposition leader, who is accused of using funds of the federal government and the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) for the sports city, had already replied to a questionnaire given to him by the bureau in connection with the same case.
The PML-N leader had said he had submitted documents related to his income and expenditures to NAB Rawalpindi.
He claimed that he had nothing to do with the case as the project had been launched in 2009 during the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government when he was not a federal minister.
He said that before Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) came to power, the project was 90 per cent complete, but the present government had turned it into ruins.
“In fact NAB should take those people to task who are responsible for the destruction of a national asset,” he added.
The PML-N leader said that when he became a federal minister, the NSC project was in the doldrums and like many other stalled projects, the PML-N government revived it and took it to near completion.
Meanwhile, analysts have expressed concern over the arrest, saying that Iqbal was the sole PML-N leader commenting on former military ruler Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf’s death sentence in the high treason case.
19 episodes in, the memes are breaking the internet, with the “Mehwish slap” being the most recently popular ones.
It all began with ‘toxic Danish’, who loved his wife so much it seemed kind of suffocating.
And then came the ultimate ‘do takkay ki aurat’ memes.
And with the entry of Hina Mani, the memes didn’t stop.
To Rumi’s role of matchmaking.
As episode 20 teaser reveals a big twist, let’s see what the Pakistani social media world comes up with next.
A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced five people to death for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year, the public prosecutor has said.
Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the Saudi government, was killed inside the kingdom’s consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul by a team of Saudi agents.
The Saudi public prosecutor said it was the result of a “rogue operation” and put 11 unnamed individuals on trial; Saud al-Qahtani, a former high-profile Saudi royal adviser, was investigated but not charged and was released.
The murder of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, triggered Saudi Arabia’s biggest diplomatic crisis since the 9/11 attacks as world leaders and business executives sought to distance themselves from Riyadh.
The CIA concluded that the country’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered Khashoggi’s assassination. The crown prince denies involvement, but told US TV last month that he took “full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia”.
The prosecutor said three more people in the case had been sentenced to jail terms totalling 24 years.
Former Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi has urged Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan to “speak up” for Uighur Muslims in China and requested the Chinese government to give “humane” and “just” treatment to Muslims.
Shahid Afridi in a recent tweet on Monday said, “Hearing of atrocities committed against the Uighur Muslims is heartbreaking,” and reminded PM Imran that “our brothers and sisters” in China are also part of the Muslim Ummah.
He also requested the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan to address the issue.
China has been facing criticism for detaining around one million Uighurs and other Muslims in internment camps in Xinjiang.
The activists in Uighur had claimed in November that they have documented nearly 500 camps and prisons run by China to detain members of the ethnic group.
According to Samaa, a Washington-based group, East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, that seeks independence for the mostly Muslim region known to China as Xinjiang, gave the geographic coordinates of 182 suspected “concentration camps” where Uighurs are allegedly pressured to renounce their culture.
Moreover, the group after researching images from Google Earth, said it also spotted 209 suspected prisons and 74 suspected labor camps in the country.
However, China’s foreign ministry has denied these allegation, terming them “baseless.”
Three overs on the final day was all it took for Pakistan to seal a 263-run victory in the second Test against Sri Lanka in Karachi on Monday, International Cricket Council (ICC) reported.
It was Pakistan’s first Test victory on home soil in over 13 years; their last victory in Pakistan also came in Karachi, against West Indies in November 2006.
Naseem Shah, the 16-year-old, resumed the day on 3/31, and went on to dismiss Lasith Embuldeniya and Vishwa Fernando in his consecutive overs to seal the victory, with Yasir Shah claiming the big wicket of Oshada Fernando, the opener, who finished on 102.
The two wickets meant Shah ended with 5/31 – his first five-wicket haul in Test cricket – and with Shaheen Shah Afridi, the 19-year-old, claiming a five-for in the first-innings, the Test has been a good one for the young Pakistani pacemen.
Sri Lanka were in the Test for the first two days. They bundled out Pakistan for 191 in the first innings, and then posted a lead of 80. However, thereafter, it was all Pakistan.
Centuries from Shan Masood, Abid Ali, Azhar Ali and Babar Azam helped the home side post 555/3 declared in the second innings, and bogged down by the weight of runs, the Sri Lankan batsmen crumbled.
They were reduced to 212/7 by stumps on the fourth day, with Oshada’s century and Niroshan Dickwella’s half-century their only displays of resistance, and on resumption on the fifth morning, they just weren’t allowed to muster a fightback.
The series victory means Pakistan move up to No 3 on the ICC World Test Championship table, with 80 points from their four matches. Sri Lanka are level on points after four matches as well, but are fourth on the table due to their inferior runs-per-wicket ratio.
The Daft Draft on Instagram has over 7,000 followers, many of whom are influencers. The appeal: taking on societal stereotypes, illustrating them in pop culture graphics and making us all question the method of our societal madness.
We spoke with the person behind the instagram account and found that that she, (it is a woman), knew how to use photoshop but learnt how to use illustrator by watching YouTube videos.
Two years ago, “a traumatic incident regarding a family member being unwell put me through a very rough phase in my life,” she says. After the incident, she decided not to be defined by misfortune but decided to use her humour to give her the power to come back, “stronger, happier and in my case, funnier”.
She learnt how to use illustrator four months ago, “because I had all these ideas and no way of communicating them in an interesting way,” and she feels that not only does she get her message across, she is also setting, “an appropriate tone”.
“I also love knowing that I can make people laugh, it makes me feel like I’m contributing something good to society”. Her account has become very popular in a short amount of time and she now is also running a website where you can buy the designs.
For her innovative way of poking fun at society, and pushing through life’s difficult times to come out stronger, The Daft Draft, is this week’s Sunday Superstar.
India’s cybersecurity chief on Saturday stressed the need for a unified public relations command for the three wings of the armed forces to ensure an upper hand in the narrative warfare with Pakistan, which, he opined, has “got its act together” through its Director General Inter Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor.
According to a report in India Today, National Cyber Security Coordinator Lieutenant General Rajesh Pant (retd) while speaking at a seminar said the three wings of the armed forces have their own public relations officers and “they are going in different ways”.
“When are we going to have our own equivalent of the DGISPR,” he is reported to have said, adding, “The (Indian armed forces) services have their own PRs and they are going in different ways.”
Pant remarked that Pakistan has got “its act together” in narrative warfare because of DG ISPR.
Elaborating further Pant said, “When they (DGISPR) conduct narrative warfare, let’s say in the case of Kashmir, the message they send to Europe is that human rights are being infringed. When they engage with Islamic nations they tell them that Islam is under threat. And what they told Southeast Asia is that there is a regional instability.”
“So, they seem to have got their act together,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, General Asif Ghafoor also took to social media to share his reaction.