Tag: politics

  • Breakthrough expected on Kashmir during PM Khan’s Saudi visit: report

    Breakthrough expected on Kashmir during PM Khan’s Saudi visit: report

    A breakthrough on Kashmir is expected during Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Saudi Arabia.

    According to Geo News, the major development will happen during PM Khan’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.

    As per a Foreign Office schedule, PM Khan is expected to leave for Saudi Arabia on October 29 on a two-day official visit to attend Future Investment Initiative Conference on the invitation of King Salman. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also be attending the conference which will take place in Riyadh.

    PM Khan has been vocally raising the matter of Kashmir ever since the Modi-led government revoked the special status granted to Indian occupied Kashmir on August 5. He also highlighted Indian atrocities in the occupied territory while addressing the United Nations General Assembly session in September.

    Meanwhile, PM Imran is also expected to visit Iran this month to mediate between Riyadh and Tehran.

  • British journalist claims Shehbaz Sharif still hasn’t filed a lawsuit

    British journalist claims Shehbaz Sharif still hasn’t filed a lawsuit

    British journalist, David Rose of Daily Mail, has once again denied receiving any lawsuit from former Punjab chief minister and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif against his story exposing alleged theft of earthquake relief funds.

    “Hello Pakistani friends. A lot of you have been asking if Shehbaz Sharif has commenced a lawsuit against me and my newspaper yet. He hasn’t [sic],” he tweeted.

    Resharing his July 14’s story, the journalist wrote, “Sources tell me that investigation by NAB [National Accountability Bureau] and the Asset Recovery Unit into allegations against Shahbaz Sharif have continued with some vigour since my article was published. This may explain why he hasn’t filed a lawsuit: they have been keeping him busy.”

    Shehbaz had earlier claimed having served a legal notice to the newspaper on July 26, alleging it was a “politically motived” report. He had also shared a copy of the legal notice on Twitter.

    The tweets had come after a series of indirect spats between Shehbaz and Rose over Twitter following the latter’s news story according to which British authorities had decided to initiate a probe into the funds worth millions of Pounds that were sent to the Shehbaz-led Punjab government as aid for quake victims.

    The Daily Mail UK report claimed that the paper was given exclusive access to some of the results of a high-level probe ordered by the government of Pakistan and it was also able to interview key witnesses held on remand.

    One of the witnesses had claimed that he laundered millions on behalf of Shehbaz’s family from a nondescript office in Birmingham without attracting suspicion from Britain’s financial regulators.

    The paper had also alleged that Shehbaz and his family were embezzling tens of millions of pounds of public money and laundering it in Britain.

  • VIDEO: KP Info Minister belittles professional doctors

    VIDEO: KP Info Minister belittles professional doctors

    Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai came under fire for belittling doctors on Tuesday.

    Speaking at a press conference, Yousafzai said that doctors should be grateful to PTI for giving them jobs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He added that before PTI hired doctors in thousands, they were selling pakoras in Khyber Market.

    Yousafzai later apologised for hurting anyone’s feelings and said his remarks were taken out of context.

    Here is his explanation:

    However, people did not buy his apology and condemned his remarks.

  • CCTVs to be installed in police stations to curb torture cases

    CCTVs to be installed in police stations to curb torture cases

    Interior Minister Brigadier (retd) Ijaz Ahmad Shah has directed for the installation of CCTV cameras in all police stations across the country. An official order has been issued to all provincial police heads.

    As per reports, the decision has been taken to discourage the prevailing culture of torture inside police stations. The initiative is also expected to ensure transparency in investigations.

    A digital control room will also be built in every police station for effective monitoring.

    Meanwhile, during the departmental meeting to improve the policing system in the country, Brig Shah took several other decisions as well. This includes presenting a Safe City Project in Balochistan in coordination with the provincial government. Apart from that, the government is also considering reopening the Chaman border. It was decided that after taking necessary measures, the Pak-Afghan border will be opened in three months.

  • Imran draws flak for saying ‘Pakistan army, ISI trained Al Qaeda’

    Imran draws flak for saying ‘Pakistan army, ISI trained Al Qaeda’

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has landed himself in hot water as netizens train guns at him for saying that “Pakistan army and intelligence agency trained global terror outfit Al Qaeda”.

    Speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York on Monday, when asked if any investigation was conducted by Pakistan over Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden’s capture in Abbottabad by United States (US) forces, the premier said that there had been a probe.

    “I know that the Abbottabad commission sat down. I don’t know what the conclusion was. But I can tell you one thing. You see I go back again. The Pakistan army and ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] trained Al Qaeda and all these groups to fight in Afghanistan. There were always links between them. There has to be links because they trained them.”

    “Now as I said after the 9/11, when we did a 180-degree turn and went after those groups. You know not everyone agreed with it. Within the army, people did not agree with this. And so as I said there were insider attacks. There were two suicide attacks on General Musharraf.”

    “As far as I think, there was a statement by President Obama that Pakistan army, military and ISI had no idea about this because I know they were listening to the conversations the night the raid took place. And if there was any link, it was at a lower level,” he added.

    PM Imran’s statements were not very well received by Twitterati, mainly journalists, who took to the micro-blogging website to criticise him.

  • VIDEO: Indian minister credits Einstein for discovering gravity

    VIDEO: Indian minister credits Einstein for discovering gravity

    Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal made a rather outlandish comment on Wednesday. He said that “maths never helped Einstein discover gravity”.

    Mr. Goyal was rubbishing TV reports that India’s economy wasn’t doing well given the statistics about India’s economic growth.

    “Don’t go by all these calculations you see on TV, that if the country has to become a $5 trillion economy, it will have to grow at 12% but right now it is currently growing at 6-7%,” said Mr. Goyal.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    https://twitter.com/bhayankur/status/1172068601995522048?s=21

    “Don’t get into those maths; those maths never helped Einstein discover gravity,” Mr. Goyal added. “If he had only gone by structured formulae and what was past knowledge, I don’t think there would have been any innovation in this world.”

    Twitter had a field day following these remarks. Many were quick to point out that Einstein indeed didn’t discover gravity; it was Newton!

    Memes and jokes followed after that.

    https://twitter.com/roshankrrai/status/1172074577075171328?s=21

    https://twitter.com/supariman_/status/1172142047462977537?s=21

    https://twitter.com/coldmine3/status/1172099226219597824?s=21

  • Pak-India social media war ensues as India tries to ban Pakistani anchor

    Pak-India social media war ensues as India tries to ban Pakistani anchor

    There’s something fishy going on Twitter. Pakistan’s Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said that they have contacted Twitter after the social media forum blocked over 150 Pakistani accounts for raising their voice for the Kashmiri people. PTA also said that Twitter “blocked Pakistani accounts under the influence of Indian lobbies”.

    PTA’s press release via Twitter

    The PTA made clear to Twitter that 178 accounts had been blocked for “advocating Kashmiri rights and condemning Indian forces’ atrocities in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” and also said that, “It appears that the Twitter administration is under influence of Indian lobbies is depriving Pakistani users.”

    ARY’s prime time anchor, Arshad Sharif, also faced Indian social media aggression when India tried to get Twitter to ban his account.

    ARY Anchor Arshad Sharif gives details on Twitter

    The notice said that Arshad had been posting content that violates the law of India and requested him to remove the content.

    Notice from Twitter to ARY Anchor Arshad Sharif

    Arshad refused to do so and his Twitter account is banned in India.

  • Geo News fined ten lakh rupees for Shahzeb Khanzada Show

    Geo News fined ten lakh rupees for Shahzeb Khanzada Show

    The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) fined Geo News ten Lakh rupees for airing a, “highly seditious and scandalous programme against National Accountability Bureau Chairman, retired Justice Javed Iqbal and maligning state institutions.”

    PEMRA says that GEO News’ prime time anchor, Shahzeb Khanzada in his programme “Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath,” on July 18, discussed the highly controversial video which allegedly targeted the NAB chairman and did not take the point of view of the bureau as part of the program.

    NAB Chairman, Justice (Retired) Javed Iqbal was allegedly involved in a controversial video which was leaked online

    PEMRA also says that GEO News’ representative was unable to defend the program in his reply and arguments and also directed the channel to make an editorial committee to monitor their content before airing.

    A highly placed source at GEO News says that the fine is “completely unfair” and also asks how criticism of the NAB chairman is “highly seditious”?

    Judge for yourself. Watch the program here:

  • PML-N’s Miftah Ismail NAB-ed

    PML-N’s Miftah Ismail NAB-ed

    The National Accountancy Bureau (NAB) on Wednesday arrested Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former finance minister Miftah Ismail.

    Ismail, who was taken into custody from outside the courtroom after his pre-arrest bail plea was rejected, was wanted in the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) case in which ex-prime minister (PM) Shahid Khaqan was also arrested last month.

    The arrest comes a month after the PML-N leader was granted bail by the Sindh High Court (SHC). Earlier, a NAB team had also raided his residence in Karachi, but Ismail had evaded arrest and the bureau had to return empty-handed.

    After the expiration of his bail, Ismail had approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

    LNG CASE:

    The apex court in September 2018 had directed NAB to complete the inquiry against former premier Abbasi, Ismail and others for alleged corruption in the LNG contract.

    According to NAB, the contract allegedly cost billions of rupees to the national exchequer. In January 2019, NAB had interrogated Ismail in the same case.

    NAB documents show that the contract for LNG import and distribution was awarded to Elengy Terminal, a subsidiary of Engro, in 2013, in violation of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules and relevant laws.

  • PTI govt excludes ‘most corrupt govt of last 19 years’ from its investigation: report

    PTI govt excludes ‘most corrupt govt of last 19 years’ from its investigation: report

    The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has excluded from its probe the country’s “most corrupt government of the past 19 years” as it investigates foreign loans obtained by previous governments, The News reported.

    As per the details, the Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan-led government has formed a high-powered commission to probe Rs24,000 billion loans acquired during the past 10 years.

    While the PTI is only focusing on the last 10 years of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) governments, last 19 annual reports of Transparency International (TI) — a Berlin-based global watchdog — show that corruption was at its peak in Pakistan during General (r) Pervez Musharraf’s military rule.

    According to The News, TI, which publishes annual Global Corruption Barometer and Corruption Perception Index (CPI) to give a comparative listing of corruption worldwide, shows more corruption in Musharraf’s tenure as compared to the latest of the two former ruling parties.

    The least corruption in terms of the best CPI score was attained by Pakistan in 2018, the year which was shared by the rule of the outgoing PML-N, caretaker setup and the PTI.

    Although the last tenure of the PPP was generally dubbed the most corrupt in the country’s history, the TI annual reports record shows that the lowest score during the last PPP regime has been 24 out of 100 (2.4/10) in 2009 as against 21 under Musharraf.

    It means that the last PPP tenure’s lowest score is three points better than Musharraf’s lowest score.

    HIGH-POWERED COMMISSION:

    The ruling PTI recently formed a high-powered commission, headed by National Accountancy Bureau (NAB) Deputy Chairman Hussain Asghar, to probe the soaring loans piled up over the past 10 years.

    The 12-member commission includes officials from NAB, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Military Intelligence (MI), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

    According to a government notification, the federal government would hire national and international experts to conduct forensic audits of investment and expenditure of the past governments during the last 10 years.

    The commission will have to submit interim reports of progress every month and a final report within six months.

    It would also probe all development projects, kickbacks and contracts during 2008-2018. Embezzlement of government funds and alleged corruption in the development projects would also be investigated.