Tag: Germany

  • Pakistani passport once again least powerful

    Pakistani passport once again least powerful

    Henley & Partners‘ Passport Index has published a list portraying the world’s travel access hierarchy.

    Top on the list of countries that encourage travelling are France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and Spain, whose citizens can visit an astounding 194 destinations without requiring arduous visa procedures. This group of countries offer passport-to-plane experience, setting the bar high for unmatched worldwide mobility.

    With access to 193 locations, Finland, South Korea, and Sweden share second place. Many visa-free or visa-on-arrival options are available to their well-travelled inhabitants, providing access to a variety of cultures and environments.

    Austria, Denmark, Ireland, and the Netherlands take third place with access to 192 destinations. These nations serve as entry points to a wide range of travel opportunities.

    The long list goes on, honouring countries that place a high priority on global connection. Among the notable entries are the United States, Canada, Greece, Switzerland, and New Zealand, all of which provide their inhabitants with an abundance of travel options.

    On the other hand, the Passport Index identifies states with more limited travel options. Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan are among the least accessible, offering their passport holders entry to just 34 countries that require no visa or one upon arrival.

    The London-based company, which offers residency and citizenship consultancy services, teamed together with the International Air Transport Association to create a unique ranking that takes into account passport holders’ access to countries without a visa or with one upon arrival.

  • Germany Ready To Sell Eurofighter Jets To Saudi Arabia

    Germany Ready To Sell Eurofighter Jets To Saudi Arabia

    Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government on Monday defended plans to lift Germany’s longstanding veto on sales of Eurofighter jets to Saudi Arabia, saying Riyadh has adopted a “constructive approach” in the Israel-Hamas war.

    Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain jointly build the jet and each can veto deals.

    Berlin has blocked one deal, sought by London, since 2018.

    But German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, on a visit to Israel on Sunday, signalled that Berlin was ready to lift its blockade.

    “We do not see ourselves, as the German federal government, opposing British considerations on other Eurofighter (sales),” Baerbock told journalists, as she underlined the Saudi role in the Middle East security crisis since the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.

    Scholz “shares this assessment,” his spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said on Monday at a press conference, noting that “it is an open secret that Saudi Arabia’s airforce has used Eurofighters to shoot down rockets launched by the Huthis on the way to Israel”.

    Germany has blocked arms sales to Riyadh since the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

    That includes blocking a deal for 48 Eurofighter jets signed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in London.

    Baerbock noted that Saudi Arabia and Israel had “not renounced their policy of normalisation” since the war broke out.

    “The fact that Saudi Arabia is now intercepting missiles fired by the Huthis at Israel underlines this, and we are grateful for that,” she added.

    “The fact that the Saudi air force also uses Eurofighters in this context is an open secret,” the minister continued.

    “Saudi Arabia is a key contributor to Israel’s security, even these days, and is helping to stem the risk of a regional conflagration.”

    Germany’s previous position against deliveries to the kingdom had put itself at odds with key partners, with Airbus chief Guillaume Faury saying in November that it was “damaging to Germany’s reputation as an exporting nation”.

    “This raises the question of confidence and the credibility of Germany as a country participating in international programmes,” he added.

    Berlin’s U-turn, however, risks opening up a new political row domestically, with Baerbock’s Greens already uneasy about the move.

    Co-chair of the Greens, Ricarda Lang, on Monday insisted that “with a view on the human rights situation, including Saudi Arabia’s domestic constitution, I think as before that it is wrong to deliver Eurofighters” to the kingdom.

  • 40 countries to hold elections in 2024, including Pakistan

    40 countries to hold elections in 2024, including Pakistan

    The new year is just over one month away and it is going to be the biggest election year in history yet.

    40 countries are scheduled to vote in 2024 across the globe which, as calculated by Bloomberg Economics, represent 41% of the world’s population and 42% of its global GDP.

    The marathon will begin with Taiwan in January and end with the US in November.

    Here are some of the prominent countries lined up for elections: Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Gambia, and Libya in Africa; Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Venezuela in the Americas; Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Australia, and Pakistan in Asia and Oceania; Austria, Belarus, Belgium, the European Union, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom in Europe.

    There are, however, four elections that the world has eyes on — elections that are expected to alter geopolitics in the next decade.

    Russia will elect the new president in March who will govern until 2030, putting Russia-NATO relations at the forefront.

    In April-May, India will hold elections and as per analysts, Modi’s loss can push back investors.

    The European Union will conduct bloc-wide polls in June to appoint members of the European Parliament for the 2024-2029 which will be pertinent for the increasing friction between right-wing and left-wing policymakers on issues like immigration and Ukraine.

    The United States will hold legislative and presidential elections in November for 2025-2028, while everyone curiously waits whether Republicans will return to the White House or not.

  • Climate crises drove 27 million children into hunger in 2022

    Climate crises drove 27 million children into hunger in 2022

    Extreme weather events in countries vulnerable to climate change drove more than 27 million children into hunger last year, Save the Children said on Tuesday.

    The figure represented a sharp 135 percent increase over 2021, the UK-based charity said in an analysis ahead of the COP28 climate summit opening in Dubai on Thursday.

    It said children made up nearly half the 57 million people pushed into crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse across 12 countries because of extreme weather in 2022, according to data from the IPC hunger monitoring system.

    Out of the 12, countries in the Horn of Africa were most affected, with Ethiopia and Somalia accounting for about half of the 27 million children facing hunger, Save said.

    “As climate-related weather events become more frequent and severe, we will see more drastic consequences on children’s lives,” Save’s CEO Inger Ashing said in a statement.

    The charity called on leaders meeting at COP28 in Dubai to take action on the climate crisis by recognising children as “key agents of change” but more broadly to address other causes of food insecurity such as conflict and weak health systems.

    Save highlighted the situation in Somalia, which is considered one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, locked in a vicious cycle of drought and floods.

    It said the recent torrential rains and flooding that have engulfed many parts of the country had displaced about 650,000 people, about half of them children.

    Elsewhere, Save noted that two million children in Pakistan remained acutely malnourished after floods that swamped a third of the country last year.

    Across the planet, Save estimated that 774 million children -– or one third of the global child population — are living with the dual impacts of poverty and high climate risk.

    In a report issued last week, Save said that more than 17.6 million children will be born into hunger this year, one-fifth more than a decade ago.

  • Pakistan’s climate problems partially due to world’s richest one per cent: Report

    Pakistan’s climate problems partially due to world’s richest one per cent: Report

    Oxfam has released a new report, “Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99%”, revealing that “The richest one per cent of the world’s population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 as the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity.”

    While fighting the climate crisis is a shared challenge, not everyone is equally responsible and government policies must be tailored accordingly, Max Lawson, who co-authored the report, told AFP.

    “The richer you are, the easier it is to cut both your personal and your investment emissions,” he said. “You don’t need that third car, or that fourth holiday, or you don’t need to be invested in the cement industry.”

    Among the key findings of this study are that the richest one percent globally—77 million people—were responsible for 16 percent of global emissions related to their consumption.

    That is the same share as the bottom 66 percent of the global population by income, or 5.11 billion people.

    Pakistan

    The difference in recent floodings in Germany and Pakistan unveils how a country’s wealth can “enable or hinder its ability to respond to a climate emergency”.

    German floods affected a population of 40,000 people, resulting in damage and economic costs of 40 billion dollars. They were able to mobilise funding through federal and state government flood relief funds for reconstruction of 35 billion dollars within weeks.

    On the contrary, Pakistan floods affected a population of 33 million people, leading to damage and economic costs of 30 billion dollars. International donors pledged a funding of 8.57 billion dollars as of January 2023 for the next three years.

    While Germany could easily manage the financial and technical resources required, debt-troddened Pakistan was unable to allocate the necessary resources resulting in suffering from “the lasting impacts of the floods”.

    The report explains that this comparison between the two countries shows “a common double standard practised by many Global North countries: they rapidly find the funds needed when disasters hit within their borders, but fail to do so when they occur in the Global South”.

  • Fatima Bhutto, Kamila Shamsie, 600 authors sign open letter protesting after Frankfurt Book Fair shuts down Palestinian author

    Fatima Bhutto, Kamila Shamsie, 600 authors sign open letter protesting after Frankfurt Book Fair shuts down Palestinian author

    Pakistani writer and columnist Fatima Bhutto and Pakistani-British author Kamila Shamsie were among the 600 writers, academics and translators who signed an open letter in support of Palestinian author Adania Shibli. The ceremony was set to celebrate Shibli’s novel ‘Minor Detail’ by giving her the 2023 LiBeraturpreis, a German literature prize annually awarded to authors from Africa, Asia, Latin American or from Arabia.

    Fatima shared a screenshot of the letter on her Instagram account and urged her followers to read ‘Minor Detail’.

    This outrage arrives after Frankfurt Book Fair postponed the awards ceremony which was due to honour Shibli, providing the explanation “due to the war started by the Hamas, under which millions of people in Israel and Palestine are suffering.”

    In the original statement, LitProm said this was a joint decision made with the author. However, Shibli’s literary agency revealed to The Guardian the decision was not made with her permission, and had the awards ceremony been held she would have taken the moment to reflect on the power of literature during these cruel times.

    The open letter which includes Bhutto, British historian William Darlymple, Shamsie, Irish novelist Colm Toibin, called out the organisers behind the Frankfurt Book Fair writing it holds “a responsibility to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down.”

    The event was due to honor Adania’s 2020 novel ‘Minor Detail’ which details the true story about the rape and murder of a Palestinian Bedouin girl by Israeli soldiers. The English translation was nominated for a National Book Award in 2020 and the International Booker Prize in 2021.

    Controversy surrounding the book began this week when the German newspaper, Die Tageszeitung, accused the book for portraying “the State of Israel as a murder machine.”

  • ‘This is no boarding house’; German Ambassador fact checks Indian ad

    Dr Philipp Ackermann, German Ambassador to India and Bhutan, was forced to fact check an advertisement printed in an Indian newspaper on X (formerly Twitter).

    The ad was of a boarding school fair, complete with a picture of an impressive building. And while India does have numerous buildings built on European architecture styles, the one in the ad, however, was actually Schloss Bellevue — residence for the German Federal President’s principal official in Berlin.

    Ambassador Philipp factually corrected the advertiser as well as the newspaper with humour, directing the post to “Dear Indian parents” stating, “this building is no boarding school! It is the seat of the German President in Berlin. Our Rashtrapati Bhavan as it were.”

    Rashtrapati Bhavan is the official residence of the President of India in New Delhi.

    “There are good boarding schools also in Germany – but here, no child will be admitted”, he said, jokingly.

    Dear Indian parents – I found this in today’s newspaper. But this building is no boarding school! It is the seat of the German President in Berlin. Our Rashtrapati Bhavan as it were. There are good boarding schools also in Germany – but here, no child will be admitted

    People react:

  • Pakistani journalist goes viral explaining why we shouldn’t feel sorry for Germany’s World Cup exit

    Pakistani journalist goes viral explaining why we shouldn’t feel sorry for Germany’s World Cup exit

    Germany kicked out of the World Cup in the group stages for the second successive tournament, they’re missing a standout goalscorer and they’re very much a side in transition.

    However, according to Pakistani journalist Ahmer Naqvi, we absolutely should not be feeling sorry for them.

    After analysing Germany’s recent elimination from the competition in great detail, Naqvi gained widespread attention.

    The German team is the “angel of death” of football, according to Naqvi, as they have crushed more nation’s World Cup hopes than any other team.

    He begins by outlining all the great footballing nations that were eliminated from the World Cup after falling to Germany by saying, “I’ll take us back in history a bit, right.”

    He starts off with the great Hungary side of 1954 alongside Ferenc Puskas. They were defeated by West Germany despite being “one of the finest sides of all time.”

    The journalist then discussed Johan Cruyff’s legendary 1974 Netherlands team, which is renowned for introducing the idea of complete football. They were eliminated once more by West Germany.

    He continued by talking about France’s “golden square” team from 1982, which was defeated by Germany in the semi-final and was famed for playing with four in midfield. Germany and Austria also made sure Algeria was eliminated from the same event, ending the first-ever opportunity for an African team to go to the next round.

    He also mentioned West Germany’s victories over Diego Maradona’s Argentina in 1990, the demise of South Korea in 2002, the defeat of England’s “golden generation” in 2010, and their resounding 7-1 victory over Brazil in 2014.

    “Don’t have any sympathy for this team… If football was a video game, [Germany] would be the final boss… I will bring out the world’s smallest violin,” he adds.

    The clip went down a storm with social media users, with one commenting: “I couldn’t give a monkeys about football but this is absolute solid gold entertainment and storytelling.”

    Here are a few more reactions:

  • Is Pakistan finally able to help give Kashmir its freedom?

    The oppression in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) is no secret. India’s historically oppressive treatment of the Kashmiri Muslims and its human rights violations are well-documented. Scrapping Article 370 on August 5, 2019, meant the Indian state went ahead with colonising the region. India’s ruling BJP has long advocated the idea of Indians being allowed to buy and settle in Indian-occupied Kashmir, disguising it as the region’s economic development. Yet, these illegal actions are an attempt at changing the demographic makeup of the region. An attempt to silence the Kashmiri voice. An attempt to dilute the calls for self-determination.

    German Foreign Minister (FM) Annalena Baerbock’s latest statement on Kashmir is of utmost importance. Speaking at a joint press conference on Friday with her Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in Berlin, she said, “Germany has a role and responsibility with regard to the situation in Kashmir. Therefore, we support intensively the engagement of the United Nations (UN), to find peaceful solutions in the region.”

    Moreover, Bilawal highlighted the grave human rights violations in the IIOJK, and said that the alarming situation posed risks to regional peace and stability. Pakistan has consistently urged the international community to hold India accountable for its brazen persecution of innocent Kashmiris. The German FM’s statement as well as US Ambassador Donald Blome’s visit to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) has caused quite an uproar in India and its diplomatic circles, which shows that Pakistan’s efforts at building a case for Kashmir is having an impact after all.

    Foreign Office Spokesperson Asim Iftikhar recently said, “The Indian side needs to understand that if they are really genuine and serious in resolving this dispute, they have to proceed in accordance with this international legal framework, which is there, which has been there for seven decades, and which has the legitimacy and acceptance of the international community.”

    The present crisis is an outcome of more than seven decades of injustice imposed on Kashmiri people just because they want to decide their destiny, which is a fundamental right. Pakistan has successfully and relentlessly been building a case for the freedom of the people of Kashmir. Pakistanis will not stop raising their voice until justice is served to the people. The world has been turning a blind eye to the sufferings of the people of Indian-occupied Kashmir for over seven decades. However, Ambassador Blome’s visit and the German FM’s statement result from Pakistan’s consistent foreign policy. The world should wake up to what India has done to innocent Kashmiris over the decades. India’s impunity must end. Kashmiris in Indian-occupied territory deserve freedom.

  • ‘Germany has role and responsibility with regard to situation in Kashmir’: German Foreign Minister

    German Foreign Minister (FM), Annalena Baerbock, has said in Berlin that the country has a role and responsibility with regard to the situation in Kashmir.

    Speaking at the joint press conference on Friday with her Pakistani counterpart, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, she said, “Germany has a role and responsibility with regard to the situation in Kashmir. Therefore, we support intensively the engagement of the United Nations (UN), to find peaceful solutions in the region.”

    Talking about the tensions between India and Pakistan, the minister said, “We support all the engagement with regard to the ceasefire, however, there is a tension which minister [Bilawal] has described so we encourage both Pakistan and India to follow the track of the ceasefire, to follow the track of UN and intensify the political dialogue and also the political and practical cooperation in the region.”

    Moreover, Baerbock showed support for the county by saying that “Pakistan could rely on the support of the German people and government”.

    Bilawal, on the occasion, thanked Germany, and said that the total amount of aid from Germany had reached €60 million for that “we are incredibly grateful to the German people and the government”.

    He also highlighted grave human rights violations in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), and said that the alarming situation posed risks to regional peace and stability.

    The Pakistani foreign minister described his meeting with Baerbock as a “pleasure” and invited her to visit Pakistan.

    In a tweet, he said, “Pleasure meeting for the second time this year with Annalena Baerbock at the German foreign office. Invited her to visit Pakistan to witness firsthand devastation caused by floods in.”

    Bilawal reached Berlin on Friday on his first visit.