Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee has approached the Pakistan government for immediate repair of the historical Gurdwara Nanaksar Sahib, whose building is on verge of collapse
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the Sikh community’s largest representative body, has approached the Pakistan government for immediate repair of historical Gurdwara Nanaksar Sahib.
Gurdwara Nanaksar Sahib
“The shrine is on verge of collapse, and has also offered to perform ‘sewa’ (voluntary service) if the Pakistan government is not able to reconstruct the religious place constructed in the memory of Sikh’s first master Guru Nanak Dev,” SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur told Zee News.
The SGPC leader said that she was deeply moved to see the crumbling building of Gurdwara Nanaksar Sahib.
Bibi Jagir Kaur also told the leading Indian news channel that she had written a letter to the Pakistan government to pay immediate attention and order repair of the religious site.
Situated at Chak Fateh Bhinder village in Daska tehsil of Sialkot district of Pakistan’s Punjab Gurdwara Nanaksar Sahib has constructed over a hundred years ago, said Pak historian Shahid Shabbir alias Baba Ji who had recently visited the Gurdwara Nanaksar Sahib.
Sikh’s first master Guru Nanak Dev had stayed at Chak Fateh Bhinder village after completion of his fourth ‘udasi’ (travel) said, Baba Ji. He said there was not even a single Sikh family in around twenty-five kilometres of the Gurdwara, but it was still being maintained by a local Muslim family who lived near the Gurdwara. He said only a handful of Sikhs lived in Sialkot.
While stating that Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC) didn’t take care of less frequented Gurdwara of Pakistan, an Indian historian Surinder Kochhar said that according to photographs of the Gurdwara, its building was falling apart and its roof’s had already caved in, besides, the doors had been removed, he said.
SGPC PRESIDENT BIBI JAGIR KAUR: Once the real condition of Gurdwara buildings in Pakistan is documented, I am sure Sikhs from around the world would volunteer to carry out repair and other necessary development of the area which will also not put any burden on the Pak government
“The building has borne the brunt of vagaries of bad weather but strangely PSGPC didn’t bother to even repair the Sikh holy place leave alone beginning the religious services in the Gurdwara,” said Kochhar.
Kochhar suggested that PSGPC should prepare a list of historical Gurdwara’s in Pakistan and the condition of their buildings to maintain transparency.
“Once the real condition of Gurdwara buildings in Pakistan is documented, I am sure Sikhs from around the world would volunteer to carry out repair and other necessary development of the area which will also not put any burden on the Pak government,” he told the Zee News.
Bibi Jagir Kaur said the SGPC had also offered the Pakistan government to carry out the ‘sewa’ if they had any problem in doing so.
US-based Pak-linked ‘Charity’ Organisations are collecting funds in the name of helping India during Covid Crisis. After collecting millions of dollars, some of them came together and sent peanuts in the name of help. All of them claimed the credits, so that their donors would think that money is well spent. The money collected could go from terror finance to Pak army to Hamas – apart from the pocket money to the Charities and its so called patrons. This is the story of #CovidAidScam2021. Illinois-based IMANA is at the centre of a major COVID aid scam after DisinfoLab released a report investigating its activities … writes Kaliph Anaz
When the entire world is fighting to stem the raging pandemic, some anti-social forums channel public empathy to line their pockets and fund anti-India-related activities. Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA) is under the cloud of suspicion as DisinfoLab in an investigative report revealed that their tall claims on helping India are a charade to fleece people.
#CovidAidScam202: Pak-linked US ‘Charities’ Fleece Public With ‘Help India’ Campaigns
The report identified various red flags in IMANA’s #HelpIndiaBreathe campaign on Instagram, which was started in late-April with an initial target of Rs 1.8 crore. IMANA managed to get a huge response from Instagram alone, raising Rs 8.7 crore.
The target was revised twice, once to Rs 3 crore and then again to Rs 5.62 crore as and when they were met. Using the same campaign on the crowd-funding platform Just Giving, the charity raised another Rs 2 crore and also pushed donation options on many websites and on Facebook, but it remains unclear how much was raised.
Gathering all the available information about IMANA’s fundraising on various platforms, DisinfoLab revealed the charity managed to raise anywhere from Rs 30 crore to Rs 158 crore. Up until the fund-raising, everything seemed normal, but things started to get fishy when it came to actually help the needy in India as intended. Dr Ismail Mehr, the chairman of IMANA, in a recent interview, made some extremely tall claims, ranging from providing 100K nasal cannulas, 40K non-breather masks, 450 oxygen concentrators, tying up with Air India for free logistics, having on-ground workers and even partnering with DRDO and Ministry of Agriculture for coordination.
But the ground reality turns out to be entirely different. The said medical supplies never reached Delhi, rather, over 100 oxygen concentrators sent to Gujarat was allegedly in association with another organisation, which raised its own funds for COVID relief, the Disinfolab said in the report.
#CovidAidScam202: Pak-linked US ‘Charities’ Fleece Public With ‘Help India’ Campaigns
The report highlighted similar efforts portrayed by the organisation, but never saw the light of the day. It found IMANA’s links with other charities, such as Saiyad Foundation, which also made several claims without backing of subsequent events.
According to the report, IMANA allegedly routes its funds through various organisations, only to eventually reach the terrorists, Islamists or Pakistan Army. Only a fraction of the total funds raised go anywhere close to helping people as intended, the report said.
“IMANA provides ‘help’ to Pakistan through Al-Mustafa Welfare Trust (AMT), according to IMANA Care 2020 Annual Report. The AMT is nothing but part of Pakistan’s Milbus ‘military capital’, that is used for the personal benefit of the Pak Army fraternity, especially the officer cadre, but is neither recorded nor part of the defence budget,” the report notes.
The report also established links between IMANA and Al Khidmat, which has extensive ties with Hamas. According to the report, funds worth tens of crores have been stolen and used for terror funding.
#Helpbreathindia
IMANA collected money in the name of Covid crisis in India from all over the world, including from countries where India had sent Covid vaccines, and thereby exploiting the goodwill that India and the Indians have, the Disinfolab said.
#CovidAidScam202: Pak-linked US ‘Charities’ Fleece Public With ‘Help India’ Campaigns
IMANA remained opaque about everything, from fund collection to its actual deliveries. Its Chairman nonetheless seems capable of fluent lie in fluent English, who claimed to have robust ground network of ‘Hindu and Sikh’ friends. He was also in touch with DRDO and Indian Ministry of Agriculture for distributing the help.
However, in terms of delivery, till date they could manage 100-odd concentrators (that too in association with Saiyad Foundation which itself was collecting funds for same.) And at the end, the help is sent to GSWT affiliated Shifa Hospital, whose staff was arrested for illegal activities related to essential medicines during the crisis.
The report also highlighted that the IMANA is now setting up fundraisers to help people in Palestine. This was after the COVID started to subside in India. It is now raising funds for Gaza since May 18 and it claims to have provided $2 million worth medical help in Gaza and meals to 12,000 people.
#CovidAidScam202: Pak-linked US ‘Charities’ Fleece Public With ‘Help India’ Campaigns
#CovidAidScam202: Pak-linked US ‘Charities’ Fleece Public With ‘Help India’ Campaigns
#CovidAidScam202: Pak-linked US ‘Charities’ Fleece Public With ‘Help India’ Campaigns
The Swissinfo reported that Pakistani officials misused the legitimation card, a special card that diplomats give to their employees and that is issued by the Swiss mission. The officials forced them to agree to work more than 10 hours a week without any compensation
Pakistani embassy diplomats in Geneva have been accused of not paying six Filipino workers for more than 20 years, Swissinfo reported.
These workers accuse the Pakistani mission of violating an assurance. As per the deal, they are eligible to get a proper wage, accommodation and social security.
The Swissinfo reported that Pakistani officials misused the legitimation card, a special card that diplomats give to their employees and that is issued by the Swiss mission. The officials forced them to agree to work more than 10 hours a week without any compensation.
They had to work for other people also to make enough money to survive in a city like Geneva.
A formal complaint has been filed at the Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office with the assistance from Inter-professional Trade Union.
“For decades, these domestic workers have been silenced by their fear of losing their residence status,” Mirella Falco, head of the SIT workers union, told Swissinfo. “If they are dismissed, they have two months to find another diplomatic employer. If not, they have no choice but to leave or go underground.”
Employees have petitioned Switzerland’s Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter and Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis through SIT. In their letter, they expressed their displeasure with the atrocities they had endured and requested the support from Switzerland.
The union is encouraging the government to take steps to put a halt to these abuses, including tightening the regulations governing working conditions and residence permits in the diplomatic community.
The G7 leaders are expected to agree to the ‘Carbis Bay Declaration’, in which they commit to a 100 day response window to develop vaccines, treatments and diagnostics and how governments can quickly respond to any future outbreaks, reports Asian Lite Newsdesk
Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) will commit to using all their resources in an effort to ensure the devastation caused by a pandemic like Covid-19 is never repeated.
On the second day of their summit in Cornwall, they are expected to agree the ‘Carbis Bay Declaration’, an historic statement setting out a series of concrete commitments to prevent any repeat of the human and economic devastation wreaked by coronavirus.
The G7 opened a three-day summit in an English seaside village on Friday, focused on pandemic recovery, including plans for equitable access to vaccines and financial support to build vaccine production sites around the world.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs the G7 Leaders Summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall. (Picture Andrew Parsons No 10 Downing Street)
The much-anticipated Summit marks the first in-person meeting of the member heads of state since the Covid-19 outbreak last year.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie welcomed the G7 leaders at the beach of Carbis Bay in Cornwall, where the group posed for the traditional “family photo” as talks kicked off.
In his opening remarks, Johnson said the leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies would learn from the lessons of the “wretched pandemic,” Britain’s Press Association (PA) reported.
“We need to make sure that we learn the lessons from the pandemic, we need to make sure that we don’t repeat some of the errors that we doubtless made in the course of the last 18 months or so,” Johnson said.
Queen Elizabeth II, sits for a group photograph with all the G7 leaders at the Eden Project. (Andrew Parsons No 10 Downing Street)
He also said that the G7 wanted to be sure that “we are building back better together and building back greener and building back fairer and building back more equal.”
US President Joe Biden, who is on his first trip abroad since taking office, jokingly said at one point while on the beach: “Everybody in the water.”
“I’m looking forward to reinforcing our commitment to multilateralism and working with our allies and partners to build a more fair and inclusive global economy,” he said, according to PA.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also stressed the importance for multilateralism.
She said especially Biden “presents and represents the commitment to multilateralism, which after all we have lacked in recent years,” referencing Biden’s predecessor, former US president Donald Trump.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie Johnson speak with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Eden Project during the G7 leaders Summit. Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
On Thursday, the G7 pledged to donate 1 billion vaccine doses to poorer nations, by sharing jabs directly and through financial aid, the British government announced.
Leaders are also to come up with a plan to extend vaccine manufacturing.
Ahead of the summit, Biden said the US would donate another 500 million vaccine doses to 92 poorer countries and the African Union by June next year.
Johnson, who is hosting the summit, announced that his country would provide 100 million surplus doses, most of them to be distributed through the COVAX vaccine-sharing programme.
COVAX co-chair Jane Halton told Times Radio she was “delighted and excited” about Johnson’s announcement.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street.
“We’ve been calling to target the vulnerable around the world. So let’s assume we get to 1 billion by the end, that will be extraordinarily welcome.”
However, about 11 to 12 billion vaccine doses were necessary to immunize the entire global population, Halton warned, adding that so far only about 2.2 billion doses had been administered, about 77 per cent of which had gone to just 10 countries.
The G7 group remains divided over the issue of lifting patent protection for coronavirus vaccines, as proposed by the US and several other nations.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that France and South Africa would present a proposal during the summit on an exemption for a limited period of time and applying to particular places.
The group is also looking to discuss plans to better prepare the world for future outbreaks. “Global solutions are needed,” according to a draft of a “Carbis Bay Health Declaration” seen by dpa.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson poses for a family photograph with US President Joe Biden, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel during the G7 Leaders summit in Carbis Bay. Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
In the evening, the leaders are scheduled to attend a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth II and her son, Prince Charles, during which environmental protection and fighting climate change are on the agenda.
In the afternoon, hundreds of Extinction Rebellion environmental activists staged a protest march targeting the G7 summit, PA reported.
Extinction Rebellion says the protests are in response to G7 nations’ “failure to respect the global climate commitments they made in Paris in 2015” and “to urge the leaders meeting at Carbis Bay in Cornwall to act immediately to address the climate and ecological emergency.”
A group of 457 global investors published a letter on Friday, calling on leaders worldwide to ramp up national plans to combat climate change to meet the goals set in the Paris climate agreement.
The nine-member Uyghur Tribunal chaired by prominent British lawyer Geoffrey Nice conducted the first set of hearings at the headquarters of the Church of England. Over 30 victims, witnesses and experts revealed their plight at the session. A second round of hearings will be held on Sept. 10-13. The panel report will be released in December … reports Asian Lite News
China and its communist leadership are in the dock as Uyghur Tribunal collected testimony from victims, witnesses from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) on enforced disappearances, detentions, and executions. More than 30 witnesses and experts testified during the four-day session in London.
SIR GEOFFREY NICE QC, Chair of the Tribunal
The victims testified about enforced disappearances, the compulsory sterilization of women and forced contraception, organ harvesting, and torture by Chinese authorities at the tribunal. The panel is investigating whether China’s treatment of its ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims constitutes genocide.
The nine-member tribunal chaired by prominent British lawyer Geoffrey Nice conducted the first set of hearings known as the “Uyghur Tribunal” at the headquarters of the Church of England. A second round of hearings will be held on Sept. 10-13. The panel report will be released in December.
Wang Leizhang, a Chinese police officer who served in the XUAR in 2018, told the panel that he came to realise that he was serving the interests not of the people but of Beijing in the XUAR, the Radio Free Asia reported. In his written testimony, Wang said his job duties focused on maintaining social order and national security by investigating anti-separatist movements in the XUAR, where he learned from other police officers about the existence of a committee organized by local authorities that decided who would be sent to the “re-education camps.” The committee also was responsible for the surveillance and monitoring of citizens as well as arrests and detentions of individuals.
“Gradually though my experience, I realized seeing through how the system worked that I wasn’t serving the people,” he said through a translator via videoconference on Monday as he wore his former policeman’s uniform. “I was actually serving the emperor and protecting their power.”
“Therefore, I can say that I’m a patriot to my people, not to the regime — the fascist regime — and how they were ruling the country in a most cruel way,” he added.
Wang left China in 2020 and was granted asylum in Germany, where he now lives.
China has held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention camps since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers or re-education centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has subjected Muslims living in the XUAR to severe rights abuses.
The Uyghurs are a predominantly Muslim group estimated at more than 12 million people in the XUAR. Smaller numbers of Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, fellow Turkic speaking people, have also been incarcerated in the camp system.
Rushan Abbas of Campaign for Uighyurs says this genocide is happening because Uyghurs are a threat to the Chinese regime.
“The CCP demands to establish itself as the only authority in the lives of the people, so that the CCP can rob and expand their brutal colonialism across the world,” she added. “The oppression and genocidal policies used against the Uyghurs will only expand. Look at Tibet. Look at Southern Mongolia. Look at Hong Kong, at Chinese Christians and dissidents. Look at how the Belt and Road Initiative is being used to manipulate the countries of the world as the CCP fights to control the narrative globally with their blood money.
“The independent Uyghur Tribunal gives Uyghurs an opportunity to testify about the Chinese regime’s genocidal policies in order to gain their rightful day at court. Uyghurs voices must be heard. We encourage everyone to follow the proceedings, to listen to the witnesses, and to take action. The future of the entire world is at stake, and we are here today to testify not only for ourselves, but for you, and for the future of humanity!”
Nurisman Abdureshid, a 33-year-old Uyghur who has lived in Turkey since 2015 when she went there to study, told the panel that she had normal contact with her family until June 2017, and later found out that her family members had been disappeared or detained.
Rushan Abbas, Campaign for Uyghyurs
Authorities handed down long prison sentences to her mother, father, and young brother for “preparatory terrorist offences” and her mother underwent forced sterilization, she said.
Nurisman went on to say that authorities forced all Uyghur women in her village in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) to undergo pregnancy tests and intrauterine device (IUD) checks, and that her sister-in-law aborted twins out of fear of repercussion from authorities for violating the birth policy.
Mehmut Tevekkül, a 51-year-old Uyghur from the XUAR who fled illegally to Turkey where he now lives, recounted how he had been detained twice in 2009 and 2010 because close relatives had been “detained in 1996 for being religious.”
“I was put on the tiger chair and they whipped my feet with iron wire,” he said in written testimony, describing how he was tortured while in detention. “There [was] a bolt directly above the tiger chair, and the heat from that bolt [was] unbearable” Tiger chairs are metal chairs that immobilize suspects during interrogations.
Mehmut told how a Chinese official had confiscated farmland from 70-80 Uyghur families in his town in Kargilik (Yecheng) county in Kashgar prefecture for not following orders, and had given the land to Chinese migrants.
The official, Zhu Hailun, “murdered so many people in our county, he took around 50 to 60, and in some villages 70 Uyghurs,” he said. “Very few were released. A large number of them were returned dead.”
In September 2008, a neighbor and his uncle’s eldest son were taken away in a group of 11 Uyghurs, and both later turned up dead, Mehmut said.
Ethan Gutmann of the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China, discussed findings from his December 2020 report alleging that China has forced organ harvesting in the XUAR from political and religious prisoners beginning with the Uyghurs in the 1990s and satellite images of crematoriums built close to “re-education camps” where bodies could be burned after operations to remove organs.
Uyghur
He testified that about 20 witnesses all from different camps in the XUAR told him that Uyghurs from whom organs were harvested were all approximately 28 years old, and that the financial return on a body with usable organs totaled U.S. $500,000-750,000.
Adrian Zenz, an independent researcher with the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, testified Monday about China’s policy to reduce the natural population growth in southern XUAR.
His report indicates that Chinese policies could result in a large drop in births among Uyghurs of 2.6 million to 4.5 million by 2040, based on population projections by Chinese researchers.
The analysis by the German researcher, who has published a number of reports on forced labor and abortion in the XUAR, may meet the test for genocide by presenting empirical evidence that the Uyghurs are being destroyed as a people.
It is unlikely that the Chinese will eliminate all the Uyghurs through birth prevention policies, though, Zenz told the panel.
“The goal is to cut them drastically, substantially, especially in order to manage their identity and who they are for assimilation,” he said
The tribunal has no state backing or powers of sanction or enforcement. Any judgments issued are nonbinding on any government. Meanwhile, Beijing has denounced the tribunal and smeared its participants, saying it is being “funded by the World Uyghur Congress, an organization dedicated to separating Xinjiang from China.”
The WUC is an international organization based in Munich, Germany, that represents the collective interests of Uyghurs in the XUAR and abroad.
The U.S. State Department — as well as parliaments in Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, and Lithuania — have described China’s actions in the region as “genocide,” while the New York-based group Human Rights Watch says they constitute crimes against humanity. The Italian parliament voted unanimously last week to condemn Chinese atrocities against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.
The Uyghur Tribunal is expected to issue a final verdict in December on whether China is committing genocide or crimes against humanity in the XUAR. The Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, is considering allegations that the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is perpetrating serious international crimes against the Uyghurs including torture, rape and other sexual violence, enslavement, forced separation of children from their parents, forced sterilisation, forcible transfer or deportation, apartheid and forced organ harvesting. If proved, these allegations could lead to the conclusion that these crimes constitute Crimes Against Humanity and/or Genocide.
SIR GEOFFREY NICE QC, Chair of the Tribunal; has been a barrister since 1971, and served as a part time judge in England between 1984 and 2018. Between 1998 and 2006 he led the prosecution of Slobodan Milošević, former President of Serbia, at the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He was Gresham College Professor of law from 2012-16 and was Chair of the China Tribunal.
NICK VETCH, Vice Chair of the Tribunal; is a London based businessman. He is engaged in a range of NGOs particularly in the field of Human Rights and was a member of the China Tribunal.
DAME PARVEEN KUMAR, Dame Parveen is Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Education, at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London. She worked as a consultant physician and gastroenterologist for the NHS for over 40 years. She founded and co-edited the textbook “Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine”, which is used worldwide. Parveen was a founding Non-Executive Director of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence and Chairman of the Medicines Commission UK. Currently she is the non-executive director of St George’s University Hospital Trust, chairs the BMA Board of Science and is ambassador for the UK Heath Alliance for Climate Change.
AMBREENA MANJI, Ambreena is Professor of Land Law and Development at Cardiff University. Between 2010 and 2014 she was seconded to Nairobi as the Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. She has served as the President of the African Studies Association UK. Her book, The Struggle for Land and Justice in Kenya, was published 2020.
TIM CLARK, Tim’s first career was as a mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance lawyer at a leading international law firm where he served his last seven years as senior partner. Since leaving the law he has held board or senior positions at a number of leading corporates, charities and think tanks.
RAMINDER KAUR, Raminder is Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex. She served on the Mayor’s Commission for Asian and African Heritage and is Chair of the World Council of Anthropological Associations Ethics Taskforce. She has been widely published. Her latest book, Kudankulam, tells the stories of the people who have lived in proximity to a nuclear power plant in India. She is also a Trustee for Museums, Libraries and Archives, London.
DAVID LINCH, David is Professor of Haematology at University College London. He has served as Head of Haematology and Director of Cancer Medicine and is currently the Director of the UCL and UCL Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre cancer programme. He was the Goulstonian Lecturer of the Royal College of Physicians and the recipient of the British Society of Haematology Gold Medal in 2006. He has been Chair of the NCRI Lymphoma Clinical Studies Group, President of the British Society of Haematology and President of the Lymphoma Association.
AUDREY OSLER, Audrey is Professor of Education at the University of South-Eastern Norway and Professor Emerita of Human Rights Education and Citizenship at the University of Leeds. She has held academic posts at the Universities of Leicester and Birmingham in addition to visiting professorships across the world. She has published extensively on social, ethical, political and policy matters in education and her work has been translated into many languages, including Japanese and Chinese. She has served as an expert to various international bodies including the Council of Europe, the European Commission, and UNESCO.
CATHERINE ROE, Catherine has over 25 years’ experience of creating, developing, leading and advising foundations and other not-for-profits in fields as diverse as education, child development, arts and culture, social cohesion, disability and refugees. Catherine began her career as a British diplomat, specialising in multilateral negotiation following a posting to Tanzania. She has a deep interest in the Middle East, modern trends in Islam and Muslims in Britain. She serves on the boards of a number of foundations and other not-for-profit organisations.
The two candidates were essentially tied, with polls giving Fujimori the narrowest of leads with 50.3 per cent to Castillo’s 49.7 per cent…reports Asian Lite News
Marxist village schoolteacher Pedro Castillo and right-wing populist Keiko Fujimori were neck-and-neck in second round of Peru’s presidential election, according to exit polls.
The two candidates were essentially tied, with polls giving Fujimori the narrowest of leads with 50.3 per cent to Castillo’s 49.7 per cent, the newspaper El Comercio reported, highlighting that the exit polls by Ipsos had a 3 per-cent margin of error.
After casting her vote on Sunday , Fujimori tweeted that she had “a lot of hope and belief that we can make it”, reports dpa news agency
More than 25 million Peruvians were called on to vote in the election.
Castillo wants to build a socialist state, tighten control of the media and abolish the constitutional court if he wins.
Fujimori, who in case of victory plans to pardon her father, former authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori, stands for a neo-liberal economic policy and a hard-line security strategy.
In recent years, she has been remanded in custody several times and could face a long prison sentence in an ongoing corruption trial.
Alberto Fujimori is serving a 25-year prison sentence for serious human rights violations.
During his 10 years in office, he had security forces take rigorous action against leftist and allegedly subversive forces, and Parliament was stripped of its power.
Tens of thousands of indigenous women were also forcibly sterilised.
Although Castillo and Fujimori represent opposite extremes on the political scale, they are not far apart in their socio-political views.
Both represent a conservative image of the family and are against same-sex marriage and abortion, as well as focus on the exploitation of natural resources and do not attach great importance to the protection of the environment and human rights.
Whoever wins will face enormous challenges.
Peru is suffering particularly badly from the coronavirus pandemic. It is one of the countries with the highest mortality rate in the world, and its economy also collapsed by 12.9 per cent last year.
In addition, splinter groups of the guerrilla organization Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) are still active in the country’s interior.
Two weeks ago, rebels killed 16 people and called for a boycott of the election. However, according to the electoral office, things initially remained quiet on Sunday.
Political turmoil has also marked the past year, as the Congress was locked in a bitter conflict with the government.
Parliamentarians first forced president Martin Vizcarra out of office, and then his successor, Manuel Merino, threw in the towel after fierce protests.
Interim President Francisco Sagasti has been in charge meanwhile.
Kremlin Palace (L) and the Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, capital of Russia
The Russian Foreign Ministry asked a Ukrainian diplomat to leave the country after he was caught red-handed receiving classified information from a citizen of Russia.
In a statement on Saturday, the Ministry said it had summoned Ukraine’s Charge d’Affaires Vasily Pokotilo after the Federal Security Service intelligence agency briefly detained Ukrainian consul Aleksandr Sosonyuk in St. Petersburg on Friday for obtaining classified information about Russian law enforcement agencies, reports Xinhua news agency.
Ukrainian border patrol troops guard the country’s border to Hungary on Wednesday. Russia is warning countries not to supply weapons to Kiev, amid an escalation in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Photo: -/Ukrinform/dpa/IANS
The Russian side pointed out the inadmissibility of Sosonyuk’s activity, which was incompatible with the status of a consular officer and detrimental to Moscow’s security interests, the statement said.
The Ministry said that his stay on Russian territory is undesirable and that it is “recommended” that he leave the country within 72 hours starting April 19.
Russian Defence Ministry declared that certain sea areas in Crimea would be closed off for months because of the manoeuvres, reports Asian Lite News
Amid renewed tension in eastern Ukraine, Russia has sent 15 warships to the Black Sea for a manoeuvre, which passed through the Kerch Strait on the Crimean Peninsula on Saturday, the Navy said.
It was not initially said how long the exercises would last, dpa news agency reported.
The US had previously cancelled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea following complaints from Russia.
On Friday, the Russian Defence Ministry declared that certain sea areas in Crimea would be closed off for months because of the manoeuvres.
However, shipping in the strait was not affected, it said.
The European Union, NATO and Ukraine criticised Russia’s actions.
In response, a senior EU official said it was an “extremely worrying development”.
Ukrainian border patrol troops guard the country’s border to Hungary. Moscow is warning countries not to supply weapons to Kiev, amid an escalation in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. (Photo: -/Ukrinform/dpa/IANS)
International concern is growing about an escalation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine because of Russian troop deployments not far from the Ukrainian border.
Meanwhile, the head of Ukraine’s military operation, Sergei Nayev, indicated that he does not expect a new war.
“We don’t see any attack preparations there,” he told Ukrainian television on Friday night.
“In fact, field hospitals have been set up.” All units are in camps, on firing ranges, he said.
The European Commission announced that it would borrow 800 billion euros from the capital market in current prices until 2026 to fund the European Union’s (EU) massive plan to bail out its Covid-stricken economy.
A diversified funding strategy was created to ensure that the ember states of the bloc would receive loans under the package known as the NextGenerationEU at an advantageous rate, reports Xinhua news agency.
The EU has set December 2058 as a deadline for itself to fulfil all the repayment, and plans to generate new own resources to strengthen the repayment capability.
Making the announcement at a press conference on Wednesday, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration Johannes Hahn also urged EU member states which have not ratified the Own Resources Decision to do so as soon as possible.
File photo shows the European Union flag and the Union Jack flag outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain. (Xinhua/Han Yan/ians)
“The message is clear: as soon as the Commission has been legally enabled to borrow, we are ready to get going,” said Hahn.
So far, Germany, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Finland, Romania, the Netherlands, Ireland and Lithuania have not ratified the Decision.
All other 17 have ratified it, according to Hahn.
The EU has decided to release a historic stimulus package worth 1.8 trillion euros in 2018 prices, or over two trillion euros in current prices, to help the bloc tackle the economic fallout of the pandemic and achieve a greener and more digital recovery.
Leaders of advocacy groups and Congress members have urged minority communities in the US to unite in the fight against racism, xenophobia and other social injustices.
All civil rights organisations have to join together to stamp out constantly and be vigilant against racism, discrimination and scapegoating, because it is a disease that, if allowed to spread, affects everybody, Gary Locke, chairman-elect of the Committee of 100 (C100), a non-profit organisation of prominent Chinese Americans, said.
Speaking at a special virtual town hall organised by the Committee of 100, Locke said, “That’s what we really need to focus on,” Xinhua news agency reported.
When it comes to addressing white supremacy dogma behaviours, “we recognised no matter what our backgrounds are, what country of origin is, what region of this country we come from, we must unite and not accept the concept of the caste system”, said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
A protester holds a placard during a protest against Asian hate in San Jose, California, the United States, on March 21, 2021. (Photo by Dong Xudong/Xinhua)
Johnson said the “caste system that we have in this country is going to destroy us if we don’t destroy it”.
He stressed the importance of “being a friend before you need a friend” which values solidarity among minority groups.
“We must stand united across our communities to ensure the atmosphere for white supremacy extremist activity is no longer accepted, and we stand united to fight against it,” said Johnson.
“The Jews in America are only safe when all minorities are safe, and only when everyone has justice do we as a Jewish people have justice… An attack on a Chinese American is an attack on me as a Jewish American, we are all in this together,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, the world’s leading anti-hate organisation.
Democratic Congresswoman Grace Meng also highlighted the importance of allyship and solidarity in fighting injustice against minorities.
When hate incidents happen, it is important to encourage people to report them to authorities as best as it could be, according to Democratic senator Alex Padilla from California.
“It’s frankly a collective of standing up and speaking out that gives people the license to be able to come forward.”
Both individuals and the media have a responsibility to tell hate stories responsibly by contextualising the incidents appropriately, according to Greenblatt.
“The best antidote to intolerance is education” on policymakers and children, he added.
