Tag: West

  • When east meets west: Ritviz and Hasan Raheem’s ‘Mehrbaan’ blends cultures

    When east meets west: Ritviz and Hasan Raheem’s ‘Mehrbaan’ blends cultures

    This new single by Ritviz featuring Hasan Raheem is a funky, pop-retro beat that will make it to your Spotify list faster than Naseem Shah can bowl in a packed Pak-India stadium! Cross-border collaborations like this are magical, bringing together the best of both worlds in a musical celebration.

    ‘Mehrbaan’ hits the charts today with lyrics about dillagi, love, and a sweet obsession. It’s an upbeat, fun track with vocals that make you want to sway to the beat. Very Hasan Raheem, very Ritviz, this retro tune has a mood-lifting vibe perfect for a weekend party.

    Both artists announced the collab on their social media feeds a few days ago, and fans have been eagerly waiting for Friday. Well, it’s here now. “Mehrbaan is all yours on Friday,” they posted. And it sure is!

    Rizvi Posted:

    Hassan Raheem posted:

    What also stands out in “Mehrbaan” is the stunning artwork by Santanu Hazarika and the digital graphics in the YouTube video
    Pakistani and Indian fans are thrilled with ‘Mehrbaan’ by Ritviz and Hasan Raheem. This song is a labor of love, and fans are hugely thankful for this amazing collaboration.

  • Russia claims West aided Moscow attackers

    Russia claims West aided Moscow attackers

    The head of Russia’s FSB security agency claimed Tuesday that Western and Ukrainian special services had aided the attackers who stormed a Moscow concert hall last week, killing dozens.

    Russia continues to allege Ukraine was somehow involved in Friday’s massacre, even after President Vladimir Putin acknowledged “radical Islamists” had carried it out.

    “We believe the action was prepared both by the radical Islamists themselves and, of course, facilitated by Western special services, and Ukraine’s special services themselves have a direct connection to this,” FSB head Alexander Bortnikov was cited as saying by Russian news agencies.

    He also repeated the Kremlin’s claim that the attackers tried fleeing over the Ukrainian border, an assertion that Kyiv has called absurd.

    “I’ll let you in on a little secret: they were going to be greeted as heroes on the other side,” Bortnikov said.

    He added that while Russia understood who organised the attack, “the one who ordered it has not been identified yet”.

    He did not provide evidence for his assertions and Ukraine has vehemently denied any role.

    Islamic State jihadists have said several times since Friday that they were responsible, and IS-affiliated media channels have published graphic videos of the gunmen inside the venue.

  • No ‘illegal alien’ sent back on Friday thanks to verification process installed by Afghan Consulate General

    For the first time since the start of the repatriation plan of undocumented immigrants early this month, not a single ‘illegal alien’ was sent home via Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday as Afghan authorities has announced to link the acceptance of deportations with the verification of their status by the Afghan consulate-general here.

    The decision was made after multiple cases of Afghan-looking Pakistanis being deported to Afghanistan surfaced. “Multiple cases of Pakistanis being sent to Afghanistan as illegal migrants have been reported,” an official source in the Afghan Consulate told Dawn.

    Unfortunately, whenever Afghan authorities took such Pakistanis to the border, Pakistani officials refused to receive them.

    The other reason stated by Afghan consulate is the harassment Afghan deportees are facing at the hands of Pakistani authorities even though many of them are repatriating voluntarily.

    “Many illegal aliens are leaving Pakistan voluntarily but they’re stopped and taken into custody on their way before their repartition. They’re not given time to carry their belongings,” an official told Dawn.

    Afghan consulate expressed concern over the separation of families that has been observed over the month. They said in “many” cases, men from undocumented families were deported, leaving behind their female dependants.

    Pakistani authorities have said that they have not been informed about the deportation condition, claiming that all allegations leveled by Afghan consulate are “baseless”, delaying the process of deportation.

    “Only deportation is linked with the verification letter. The voluntary repatriation is still continuing without any hurdle,” Pakistan responded.

    However, around 119 illegal migrants were deported from Punjab to Afghanistan via the Torkham border crossing on Thursday, according to officials.

  • Pakistan imposes hefty exit fees on Afghan refugees

    Pakistan is being widely criticised for instituting exit fees amounting to hundreds of dollars for Afghan refugees awaiting relocation to the United Kingdom and other Western nations.

    The imposition of exit fees, totalling around $830 (PKR 236,387), for Afghan refugees seeking resettlement in Western countries has drawn strong condemnation from Western diplomats and the United Nations.

    Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, the spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry, stated that there are no current plans to modify the existing policy.

    Five senior Western diplomats in Pakistan while talking to The Guardian termed the hefty fee imposed by Pakistan as ‘unprecedented’.

    “I know it is very tough economically for Pakistan but really, to try to make money off refugees is unattractive,” said one diplomat.

    He continued by adding, “The issue has also been raised by the two UN agencies in the lead on this mess, the [UN refugee agency] UNHCR and [International Organization of Migration] IOM,” the diplomat added. “It has also been raised in capitals and headquarters. I suspect everyone has also passed the message to their [Pakistani contacts].”

    Another diplomat said that when concerns were raised regarding the imposed fee, the Pakistani officials explained that the initial proposal was to charge $10,000 per person, but it had been subsequently reduced to $830.

    A different diplomat noted that the exit permit must be paid through a credit card, which poses an added difficulty for many Afghan refugees who lack access to such payment methods. This complicates the situation further, as the fee is mandated for payment by the refugees, a considerable portion of whom do not possess credit cards.

    “I think we need a cooperative approach of working together to help the refugees and we expect Pakistan would help,” he added.

    The United States government intends to relocate nearly 25,000 Afghans within the country, while the United Kingdom has announced plans to resettle 20,000 individuals.

    Separately, the United Nations Refugee Agency has expressed apprehension regarding Pakistan’s directive for undocumented foreigners to leave, citing its adverse impact on Afghan nationals. This includes registered refugees and individuals possessing valid documents, raising concerns about the potential humanitarian consequences of the orders.

  • Washington doc leak says Pakistan doesn’t want to appease West anymore

    Washington doc leak says Pakistan doesn’t want to appease West anymore

    Several documents regarding the declining support of key allied countries to the United States (US) have been leaked, a report published by Washington Post has stated.

    According to one of the leaked documents, Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, argued in March that her country can “no longer try to maintain a middle ground between China and the United States.”

    In an internal memo she titled “Pakistan’s Difficult Choices,” Khar cautioned that Islamabad should avoid giving the appearance of appeasing the West. She said that in order to preserve Pakistan’s partnership with the United States, the country will be sacrificing the full benefits of a “real strategic” partnership with China.

    According to another leaked document, Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif’s aide ask him to remain neutral in the Ukraine conflict because it could jeopardise the country’s ties with Russia.

    India, likewise, appeared to avoid taking sides between Washington and Moscow during a conversation on February 22 between Indian national security adviser Ajit Kumar Doval and his Russian counterpart, Nikolay Patrushev, another of the leaked documents indicates.

    The leaked documents have surfaced when the US is no longer the unchallenged sole superpower in the world, as its former allies make strategic ties with China and Russia while the Middle East goes through its own course correction as former rivals reconcile with deals brokered by China.

  • ‘They don’t like being told what to do’: Imran Khan holds back from criticising Taliban ban on girls’ education

    Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan, in an interview with Matt Frei for Channel 4, talked about the rigid ban imposed by Afghanistan Taliban on girls’ education.

    When asked whether he will tell them to let the girls go to school, he responded by saying that he knows Afghan character much more than anyone else in the West. “They dont like being told what to do,” Imran Khan said.

    He then urged the world to engage with the Taliban, stressing that only then the group will listen to them.

    He said, “If the West wants to influence them, they must mainstream them. I kept telling them to engage. If you isolate them, what influence are you going to have on them.”

    “My advice is to get them involved, give them a stake in the international community so when you tell them to educate girls, they will listen to you.”

    According to him, right now they react when the world questions their policy toward women.

    We are heading toward martial law: Imran Khan

    In the interview, the deposed prime minister said that the postponement of elections by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is a violation of the constitution.

    He said that five judges of the Supreme Court categorically said that elections should be held on April 30.

    “The worry right now is that we are heading towards martial law”, said Khan.

  • US gives out $200m for gender equality, democracy in Pakistan

    US gives out $200m for gender equality, democracy in Pakistan

    Senators in the United States of America (USA) approved a sweeping annual spending package of $1.7 trillion, allocating $200 million for gender equality and strengthening democracy in Pakistan.

    Ukraine has got the lion’s share, with $45 billion approved in a aid and reforms to election law.

    It is to be noted that Pakistan’s allocation is under the US fund for gender equality, which is a 20-fold increase from the funds reserved in 2020.

    In 2020, the US congress cleared $10m for addressing gender disparity and $15m for strengthening democracy in Pakistan. In 2000, Pakistan received $25 million for the same purpose.

    The sweeping annual spending package was rubber-stamped by the House of Representatives.

    House Majority Leader Steny Hoye said: “This bill is a critically important piece of legislation not only to keep our government funded, keep our people being served but also to show that the United States of America’s government works.”

  • Pakistan wants to ensure rights to the women of Afghanistan: Bilawal Bhutto

    Pakistan wants to ensure rights to the women of Afghanistan: Bilawal Bhutto

     Foreign Minister (FM) Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said that Pakistan wants to ensure rights to the women of Afghanistan.

     The foreign minister in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour said, “I see women’s rights or women’s rights to education as rights granted to us in Islam. We’ll be emphasising that the Taliban keep their international commitments and ensure rights to the women of Afghanistan because these are rights guaranteed to women in Islam,” Bilawal said when he was asked if Islamabad had engaged with the Afghan Taliban on how Muslim countries can give rights to women.

    The minister said it wasn’t an issue of the West. He also said that the first word in Quran is ‘Iqra’, which means to read. “Nowhere is it written that only men should read. We are all meant to pursue our path to education.”

    FM Bilawal said that Islamabad is looking to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to play its role in discouraging the increase in terrorist activity on Pakistan’s side of the border.

    “We continue to not only monitor this situation but work on our side to ensure that we can try to tackle the threat of terrorism and hope that the regime in Afghanistan lives up to their international commitment to not allow their soil to be used for terrorism.”

    “We must prioritise, alleviate the humanitarian crisis, ensure there’s no economic collapse and hold the Taliban regime to the international commitments. It was not Pakistan, but the United States who had direct communication with the Taliban regime before their takeover of Kabul. Pakistan and the international community believe it will not serve any of our interests if we abandon the people of Afghanistan once again,” said Bilawal.

    “We all believe, Pakistan believes and the international community believes, they will not serve any of our interests if we abandon the people of Afghanistan, once again,” said Bilawal.

  • ‘I know probably more history of Uzbekistan than most people in Uzbekistan’: PM Khan

    ‘I know probably more history of Uzbekistan than most people in Uzbekistan’: PM Khan

    Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday, while speaking to the Pakistan-Uzbekistan Business Forum, said: ” I am a student of history. So I know probably more history of Uzbekistan than most people in Uzbekistan.”

    Twitterati reacted to PM’s comments.

    Zebunnisa Burki wrote, “Our best student of history, making us proud [Clapping emoji inserted ]”

    A Twitter user tweeted, “I know probably more history of humans than humans.”

    Another Twitter user said, “Dear PM you never disappoint us. I love this confidence. Carry on.”

    Another account shared the same video and tweeted: “[PM Khan] knows West better than [the] West. But [PM] doesn’t know about [the] Mafia people sitting in his government.

  • ‘Muslims living in the western world are the ones who suffer from Islamophobia’: PM Khan

    ‘Muslims living in the western world are the ones who suffer from Islamophobia’: PM Khan

    In an interview with CBC’s chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton, Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan said he had been trying to tell the world community that the Muslims living in the western countries are the ones who suffer from Islamophobia, and “we regularly hear about these incidents and many of them are not reported and our embassies tell us about those. So this gap needs to be closed”.

    The prime minister highlighted the grave issue of Islamophobia in the western world, which recently claimed the lives of four members of a Pakistan-origin family in Ontario last week.

    “Everyone is shocked [in Pakistan], because we saw the family picture, and so a family being targeted like that has had a deep impact in Pakistan,” PM Khan said.

    The prime minister said the use of the term “Islamic radicals” indicates there is something wrong with the religion, which radicalises people. Contrary to this, terrorism has no religion as extremists are found in every society, he added.

    Replying to a question about what should the governments do to shut down hate material, the prime minister called for strict action against online hate because such websites divide humanity by creating hatred through hate material.

    He further said that he “mostly agrees” with Trudeau and his position on extremism, but also expressed concern about some Canadian laws that he believed were contributing to Islamophobia.

    He asked as to why it became a big issue when someone wears a hijab (head scarf) or grows a beard in the west. “People objecting to hijab and a beard is quite bizarre for me. In liberal democracies, why is this an issue?”

    He described Quebec’s Bill 21 — which banned public servants, including teachers and police officers from wearing religious symbols at work — as a form of “secular extremism” that led to intolerance against Muslims.

    “I find this law secular extremism as it really is against, you see the whole idea behind secularism is liberalism, you want human beings to be basically free on how and the way they want to dress up as long as it doesn’t cause pain or hurt others. This is how I understand how liberalism is. If some cover their hair or their head, why has it become such a big issue,” he contended.