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  • US affirms that both Pakistan and India are “global, valuable partners”

    US affirms that both Pakistan and India are “global, valuable partners”

    The United States of America has once again reaffirmed the importance of Pakistan and India for the superpower, stating that India is a global partner while Pakistan is a valuable partner in a sensitive region.

    Principal Deputy Spokesperson of the State Department, Vedant Patel, said at a briefing, “India is an invaluable partner, not just in the region but as it relates to a lot of the United States’ shared priorities across the world.”

    Commenting on Pakistan, another US official stated: “The United States values our long-standing cooperation with Pakistan and has always viewed a prosperous and democratic Pakistan as critical to US interests.”

    In recent statements, US officials have insisted that they no longer see Pakistan from India or Afghanistan’s perspective.

    In a recent report published by the Hudson Institute, it has been noted that several aspects of the US-Pakistan relationship had changed over the last decade.

    “Most importantly, a US-India entente has emerged, and a peer rivalry between China and the US is developing,” the report stated, underlining how a US desire to contain China had strengthened its ties with India.

    It is pertinent to mention that since Biden came into power and the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, US-Pakistan relations have been standing on the edge of a precipice.

  • PAK-UNESCO Joint Centre of Excellence in Teachers Training and STEAM Learning to be established in Islamabad

    PAK-UNESCO Joint Centre of Excellence in Teachers Training and STEAM Learning to be established in Islamabad

    Pakistan and UNESCO have agreed work out the establishment of a PAK-UNESCO Joint Centre of Excellence in Teachers Training and STEAM Learning at Islamabad.

    The understanding was reached at a meeting between Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training, Rana Tanveer Hussain, and Assistant Director General for Education UNESCO, Ms Stefania Giannini. The meeting was held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
    Speaking on the occasion, Rana Tanveer Hussain said Pakistan will make all-out efforts to ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education while promoting lifelong learning opportunities.

    Along with its other partners (UNICEF, WFP, WHO, etc.), UNESCO has been doing its best to support Pakistan’s education sector in times of need, said Stefania Giannini. She was grateful for Pakistan’s effort to address the nation’s educational problems.

  • Shaheen, Hasan Ali out; PCB announces test squad for test series against England

    Shaheen, Hasan Ali out; PCB announces test squad for test series against England

    Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced an 18-player squad for December’s three ICC World Test Championship matches against England.

    There are four changes in the squad from Pakistan’s last Test assignment, which was in Sri Lanka. The four players who are not part of the side are Shaheen Shah Afridi, Hasan Ali, Fawad Alam and Yasir Shah.

    “I want to congratulate all the players who have been selected for the historic Test series against England. We have selected this 18-man squad keeping in mind the form of the players, the conditions and the opposition, ” said Chief Selector Muhammad Wasim.

    “This series has provided opportunities to Abrar Ahmed, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Wasim Jnr and Zahid Mehmood. Abrar has been on the radar since his debut first-class season in 2020-21. He is in outstanding form this season, so it makes sense to make him available for [captain] Babar Azam so he can use the confidence and talent of this youngster in the upcoming series,” he added.

    Here is the complete list of the squad:

    Babar Azam (c) (Central Punjab), Mohammad Rizwan (vc & wk) (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Abdullah Shafique (Central Punjab), Abrar Ahmed (Sindh), Azhar Ali (Central Punjab), Faheem Ashraf (Central Punjab), Haris Rauf (Northern), Imam-ul-Haq (Balochistan), Mohammad Ali (Central Punjab), Mohammad Nawaz (Northern), Mohammad Wasim Jnr (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Naseem Shah (Southern Punjab), Nauman Ali (Northern), Salman Ali Agha (Southern Punjab), Sarfaraz Ahmed (Sindh), Saud Shakeel (Sindh), Shan Masood (Balochistan) and Zahid Mehmood (Sindh).

    The three Tests are part of the ICC World Test Championship and are scheduled to be played in Rawalpindi (1-5 December), Multan (9-13 December) and Karachi (17-21 December).

  • CPEC created 190,000 jobs in less than 10 years: Chinese official

    CPEC created 190,000 jobs in less than 10 years: Chinese official

    A Chinese official said on Sunday that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a pilot project of the Belt and Road Initiatives, had generated 190,000 jobs in the previous nine years.

    According to Meng Wei, a representative of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, China and Pakistan created the Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) on the CPEC in 2013 with an emphasis on collaboration in the Gwadar Port, energy, infrastructure, and industries.

    The two parties have recently increased their areas of collaboration to include agriculture, society, people’s livelihoods, and the information technology industries.

    The Gwadar East Bay Expressway project, the Gwadar Seawater Desalination Project, the Carlot Hydropower Station, China’s assistance to Pakistan’s flood-affected areas, and more may be seen as examples of the cooperation’s success, according to the China News Service.

    The spokesman said, “The two sides will next work together to put the leaders’ agreement into action, speed up their cooperation in areas including agriculture, mining, information technology, society, and people’s livelihood, and support the CPEC’s high-quality building.”

    CPEC is kicking off a new age of collaboration and exchanges between the two nations in a variety of fields, including energy, industry, culture, and trade and business.

  • Five people killed in shooting at LGBTQ nightclub

    Five people killed in shooting at LGBTQ nightclub

    At least five people were killed and another 25 were injured in a shooting late Saturday at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.
    The suspect in the shooting at Club Q was identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, according to Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez. Aldrich used a long rifle in the shooting while another two firearms were found at the scene.

    He entered the club just before midnight on Saturday night and immediately started firing. Two people inside the club restrained him before he could cause more harm.
    Police emphasised Club Q’s connection to the LGBTQ community and stated they were looking into whether the attack was a case of hate crime.
    Joe Biden issued a statement on Sunday in which he said “we must drive out the inequities that contribute to violence against” the LGBTQ community.
    “While no motive in this attack is yet clear, we know that the [LGBTQ] community has been subjected to horrific hate violence in recent years,” Biden said. “Gun violence continues to have a devastating and particular impact on [LGBTQ] communities across our nation and threats of violence are increasing.”

    According to Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 600 cases of mass shootings in the USA in 2022 alone.

  • COP27 approves ‘loss and damage fund’ in big win for poor countries

    COP27 approves ‘loss and damage fund’ in big win for poor countries

    In a major breakthrough for developing countries, the United Nations COP27 climate summit has approved the creation of a special fund to cover the losses suffered by 134 vulnerable nations hit by the impact of global warming.

    Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif has welcomed the development and has lauded Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman, who spearheaded the breakthrough, for her efforts.

    “The establishment of a loss & damage fund at the UN climate summit is the first pivotal step towards the goal of climate justice. It is up to the transitional committee to build on the historic development. I appreciate @sherryrehman & her team for their contribution & hard work,” wrote PM while appreciating the efforts of Sherry Rehman.

    Sherry Rehman in a series of tweets while welcoming the announcement said it’s been a thirty year long journey from demand to the formation of the loss and damage fund for 134 countries.

    At the start of the UN discussions in Egypt, the “loss and damage” brought on by climatically-induced disasters was not formally on the table.
    But as discussions progressed, a concerted campaign by poor nations to make it the conference’s central issue broke down wealthier polluters’ resistance who had previously been wary of open-ended liability.

  • Punjab: a joy-less land

    Punjab: a joy-less land

    Under pressure from conservatives, the federal government banned Saim Sadiq’s Joyland a few days before its countrywide release. After severe backlash on social media and mainstream media, the federal government finally reconsidered its decision and lifted the ban on Joyland. Less than 24 hours after the federal government decided to lift the ban, the Punjab government of issued a notice to the film’s producer, Sarmad Khoosat, saying that they cannot exhibit the film in the jurisdiction of Punjab province. Joyland is the country’s official entry for the Oscars, paving the way for Pakistan to make a name at the Academy Awards, with a bright chance to bring the Oscar home.

    So how did a film promising to spread joy, receiving a 10-minute standing ovation from the august audience at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, ended up getting banned in its own country and the very province it was filmed in, Punjab. Set in the eastern city of Lahore, Joyland tackles issues of gender and sexuality – taboo topics in Pakistan – through the story of a married man who falls in love with a transgender dancer, played by transgender actress Alina Khan. From what we understand, the story is about love, acceptance and tackling issues in relevance to gender. So the problem is basically because of the love between a transgender and a man in the movie.

    Any marginalised community in a country goes through struggles and challenges of its own. From their right to live to their right to freedom, their existence revolves around many obstacles. Pakistan is no different. The transgender community in Pakistan is a marginalised community that on a daily basis is ridiculed, harassed, abused, and given life threats. And this has been a pattern for many years. So the treatment with “Joyland” has been no different.

    The question is: what are we scared of? Does the representation of a marginlised community make us weak as a nation or does it make us stronger? How is upholding the ban in the wake of no real logic correct? How is Joyland a threat to the country’s cultural and social fabric? Pakistani cinema was in need of a moment like Joyland, until the bans which took away the joy from the land where transgenders are only laughed at, mocked, abused and not to forget, killed. It is acceptable to show transgenders being made fun of, but once they are shown as normal persons, living normal lives, it somehow becomes problematic and against social values. Isn’t it hypocritical of us? Joyland was one way people could understand and learn the pain and troubles the trans community goes through. But systems in Pakistan work and behave differently for the ones who are ‘different’. So here we are banning a film on a transgender and barring them an existence in fiction. Now imagine their existence in the real world. What is peculiarly interesting about the public outcry for the ban on “Joyland” is from people who are up in arms against a movie they haven’t seen.

    We as a nation want to see the cinema and film industry thrive — but look at what we do to people who are the reason that art, film and Pakistan can flourish. We are habitual haters of a thriving society. We just hope that Punjab, which has significantly become a “joyless land” learns from the provinces next to it, remembers to laugh, be okay to experiment and above all, becomes a joyland.

  • Elon Musk restores Donald Trump’s Twitter account

    Elon Musk restores Donald Trump’s Twitter account

    Donald Trump’s Twitter account appeared to come back online after a narrow majority of votes were cast in Elon Musk’s Twitter poll in support of re-allowing the former US president, who was barred from the social media platform following the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

    In the survey, little more than 15 million ballots were cast, with 51.8 per cent in favour of restoration.

    “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted. During the poll, Musk acknowledged the vote numbers were being affected by automated “bots”, which are not people, and suggested there was a need to “clean up” Twitter polls from being influenced by “bot and trolls armies”.

    Earlier in the day, Trump didn’t seem all that eager to go back on Twitter. The former president was asked about it by a panel at the annual leadership meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, and he responded via video, “I don’t see any reason for it.”

    He declared that he would continue to use his brand-new platform Truth Social, an application created by his startup Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG).

    Following the assault on the US Capitol on January 6, Twitter made the remarkable decision to ban Trump, claiming that his postings were “very likely to incite and inspire individuals to mimic the criminal acts that took place at the US Capitol.”

    Trump announced his effort to win the presidency back in 2024 on Tuesday and hailed Musk, saying he had always admired him. Trump said that Twitter’s issues were “extraordinary” and that it was plagued by bots and false accounts.

    Musk’s self-described reputation as a “free speech absolutist” increased the potential that he might lift the restriction on users whose Twitter accounts had been permanently suspended from the network even as Musk was still finishing up his acquisition of Twitter. Experts on hate speech and disinformation have been preparing for the return of Trump, who accumulated more than 88 million followers during his first tenure on the network.

    Musk first stated in May that he intended to lift the ban on Trump, and many of Twitter’s advertisers were anxiously awaiting the timing of any comeback by the president.

    Musk hoped to convince consumers and advertisers that such a choice would be carefully considered by a content moderation committee made up of individuals with “widely different perspectives” and that no account reinstatements would take place before the panel convened.

    He said that unless there was a “clear process for doing so,” Twitter would not allow any banned users to reapply.

    And this week, Musk unexpectedly allowed comic Kathy Griffin to return after she had been suspended for violating his new policy against impersonation by changing her profile name to “Elon Musk” without making it clear that it was a parody account. Regarding the moderation council or the reinstatement procedure, nothing has changed.

  • ’85 per cent of provincial budget is spent on govt employees’ salaries’: CM Balochistan

    ’85 per cent of provincial budget is spent on govt employees’ salaries’: CM Balochistan

    Mir Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo, the Chief Minister of Balochistan, has raised alarms on the financial difficulties that the province is facing.

    He said that 85 per cent of the provincial budget is spent on the salaries of government employees, leaving the provincial government with little funds to spend on development projects.

    Speaking at an event in Quetta on Friday, he said, “We are far behind other provinces of the country as far as development projects are concerned due to lack of resources and funds to develop the province.”

    The chief minister highlighted that before 2010, Balochistan used to get very little share in the National Finance Commission Award (NFC) award on the basis of population, with the government barely able even to pay the salaries of its civil servants.

    However, he said, the situation has improved a little now, however, the budget still doesn’t fulfill the needs of the province.

    It is pertinent to mention here that Balochistan was severely affected by the recent floods. The province has lost about a half million head of livestock in the floods.