Only inmates with valid computerised national identity cards (CNICs) were allowed to vote, Dawn reported quoting jail authorities as saying…reports Asian Lite News
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf founder Imran Khan on Thursday cast his vote for the general elections by a postal ballot from Adiala Jail, local media reported.
Other incarcerated leaders who could vote included former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, former Punjab province chief minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rashid, and former information minister Fawad Chaudhry.
However, Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, could not vote as she was convicted and arrested after the completion of the postal voting process.
Only inmates with valid computerised national identity cards (CNICs) were allowed to vote, Dawn reported quoting jail authorities as saying.
In a post on X on Wednesday, PTI Central Information Secretary Raoof Hasan had said that former prime minister Khan had dedicated everything, including his life, to restore the country’s dignity, honour and sovereignty and ensure the welfare of people.
“As citizens of the country, we have a debt to pay. We must use our vote to change the face of Pakistan by dismantling a rotten system that has cast a vicious stranglehold on the country and its people,” Hasan said.
General Elections Begin Amid Tight Security
Polling for Pakistan general elections began on Thursday at 90,000 polling stations across the country amid tight security.
The polling began at 8:00 a.m. local time and will end at 5 p.m.
Minutes before polling began, mobile internet services were temporarily suspended across the country, Dawn reported.
“The step has been taken due to recent surge in terrorist activities,” the country’s interior ministry said,
Islamabad police said security is in place and polling stations are being manned since Wednesday morning.
Polling for the four provincial assemblies is being held on the same day.
Over 128 million people, or more than half of the country’s total population, are eligible to vote in the general elections.
Elections were to be held for 266 seats in the lower house, but the elections for one of the seats had been postponed due to the death of a candidate, according to the ECP.
Highlighting the need for a collective response to address external and internal health challenges, Kakar said that no state in the world could meet the health challenges alone…reports Asian Lite News
Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar has called for enhanced international cooperation to guarantee global health security.
“Our commitment towards health security should extend to establishing global frameworks that facilitate information sharing, joint research, and collaborative strategies for an effective response during emergencies,” Kakar said on Wednesday while addressing an inaugural session of the two-day Global Health Security Summit here.
The Prime Minister stressed the need to explore mechanisms for global funding that could support nations in need, ensuring that no one is left behind, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The call for a sufficiently funded, widely supported country’s medium-term roadmap … resonates globally. We must invest in open, transparent, and multi-sectoral processes to strengthen buy-in and commitment at all levels,” he added.
Highlighting the need for a collective response to address external and internal health challenges, Kakar said that no state in the world could meet the health challenges alone.
Calling for establishing a shared vision of the world where health security is not a privilege but a universal right, the Prime Minister stressed that the strength of a nation’s health system should not only be measured by its capacity to respond to crises, but also by its ability to prevent, detect and mitigate health threats.
The people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have been facing intense problems due to high inflation and exorbitant electricity bills…reports Asian Lite News
Exiled Kashmiris from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) gathered outside Pakistan’s consulate in Bradford city of United Kingdom to demonstrate against Pakistani security forces for violating human rights.
The demonstration was organized by the Jammu Kashmir National Independence Alliance (JKNIA) with an aim to raise voices against the crackdown by Pakistani security forces on protesters raising issues of high electricity bills and inflation.
Speaking at the event, Mahmood Kashmiri, the chairman of JKNIA, said, “At present, a movement is ongoing in PoK against repression by Islamabad and it is our duty to support them.”
Exiled Kashmiris from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir hold public demonstration outside Pakistani Consulate in Bradford, UK exposing atrocities and human rights violations by the Pakistan Army.
This demonstration was organised to protest against the Crackdown by Pakistani Government… pic.twitter.com/Hr0PtwjCYv
“Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir produces around 4,000 MW of electricity and our consumption is almost 400 MW and Pakistan is not ready to provide us the required electricity. We our people raise their demand then are labelled as Indian agents,” the JKNIA chairman said.
Speaking about the ongoing economic crisis in Pakistan, he said that the politicians and top military officers are begging from other countries and the money is being used for their own comfort.
“We the people of Jammu and Kashmir are not part of Pakistan. The loans Pakistan has taken from other countries are not our responsibility to repay. If Pakistan has taken loans, it is Pakistan that needs to repay it,” he said.
The people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have been facing intense problems due to high inflation and exorbitant electricity bills.
Massive anti-Pakistan protests are happening in all cities across PoK to raise the demand for freedom. (ANI)
“We will raise the issue regularly with Pakistani officials, and will continue to work together to counter mutual terrorist threats…,” the spokesman added…reports Asian Lite News
Less than a week after the US and India issued a joint statement in which the two nations vowed to stand together to counter global terrorism, the Department of State said that Washington has been consistent on the importance of Pakistan continuing to take steps to permanently disband all terrorist groups.
Department spokesman Matthew Miller made the remarks during a press conference on Monday when he was asked to comment on Pakistan dismissing the joint statement as “baseless and one-sided”.
In his reply, Miller said: “We remain committed to working with Pakistan to address the shared threat posed by terrorist groups throughout the region.
“The Pakistani people have suffered tremendously from terrorist attacks over the years. We do recognise that Pakistan has taken some important steps to counter terrorist groups in line with the completion of its Financial Action Task Force actions plans.
“Moreover, we commend both Pakistan and India for continuing to uphold the ceasefire along the Line of Control.”
He however, said that at the same time, the US has also been “consistent on the importance of Pakistan continuing to take steps to permanently disband all terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and their various front organisations”.
“We will raise the issue regularly with Pakistani officials, and will continue to work together to counter mutual terrorist threats…,” the spokesman added.
When asked about the joint statement not addressing concerns regarding human rights and religious freedom violations in India, Miller said that “we regularly raise concerns about human rights in our conversations with Indian officials”.
“And you saw President (Joe) Biden speak to this himself in the joint press conference that he held with Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi.”
Miller’s remarks came less than a week after the joint statement was issued on June 22 during Prime Minister’s state visit to the US.
The statement said that Biden and Modi reiterated a call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al Qaeda, Islamic State, LeT, JeM, and Hizb-ul-Mujhahideen.
The two leader also strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks.
UK cuts diplomatic jobs in countries like India, Pak, China: Report.
A Foreign Office spokesperson told the Guardian that these numbers do not give an “accurate picture” of Britain’s presence in the Indo-Pacific region…reports Asian Lite News
British-based diplomatic posts for key Indo-Pacific countries like India, Pakistan and China have been cut by up to 50 per cent in recent years, according to new government figures.
Despite being identified as key places to deepen ties with over the coming decade, staff members of embassies and consulates in Pakistan, China and India have all been diminishing over the last seven years, the Guardian reported.
According to the report, the number of British-based Foreign Office staff was between 110 and 119 in the Pakistan embassy and consulate.
This fell to 50-59, a cut equivalent to about 50 per cent.
Over the same timeframe, the number of British-based Foreign Office staff was cut from 70-79 to 40-49 in the past seven years in India.
The figures shared by the Guardian came from the Foreign Office minister David Rutley, in response to written parliamentary questions by the Labour frontbencher Catherine West.
The figures also showed a reduction in the number of trips by ministers to these countries.
The Foreign Office and international development department conducted 37 ministerial trips to the Indo-Pacific region in 2018, with some countries being visited more than once a year.
However, by 2022, the number of ministerial trips conducted was less than a third of that, with just 12 recorded, the Guardian reported.
A Foreign Office spokesperson told the Guardian that these numbers do not give an “accurate picture” of Britain’s presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
The reduction in headcount of UK-based staff in China and India is partly due to Covid and how the UK spends its overseas development budget, the Guardian was told.
Citing evidence of the UK’s growing influence in the region, the spokesperson told the Guardian that there was a boost of 16.4 per cent in trade with the Indo-Pacific year-on-year from autumn 2021 to 2022.
Such a drastic change in CPI was last seen in December 2008 when year-on-year inflation stood at 23.3 per cent…reports Asian Lite News
Around a hundred essential items, ranging from flour to fuel and from housing to health care, have collectively become 21.3 per cent expensive for Pakistanis in one year, according to CPI data compiled and released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows that June 2022 proved the most expensive month in the past 13 years, Samaa TV reported.
In June, inflation rose 21.32 per cent compared to June 2021 (year-on-year increase) and 6.32 per cent compared to the previous month (month-on-month increase).
Such a drastic change in CPI was last seen in December 2008 when year-on-year inflation stood at 23.3 per cent.
Items under 10 of 12 grouped registered a double-digit increase in prices with transport becoming 62 per cent expensive and food and beverages costing 25.92 per cent more, Samaa TV reported.
Items under the ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Fuels’ category have become 13.48 per cent more expensive. Furnishing and household equipment now cost 18.76 per cent more than in June 2021.
Even health care has become 11.30 per cent more expensive while the prices of clothing and footwear rose 13.72 per cent.
Education and communication costs registered a modest increase of 9.49 per cent and 1.96 per cent, respectively. These are the only two groups with single-digit inflation.
The rural population has been hit a bit more strongly compared to the urban population with CPI Rural inflation standing at 23.6 per cent and CPI Urban inflation at 19.8 per cent.
A closer examination of the CPI data reveals how life has become difficult for the common man.
The staple food items including flour and pulses have become 16 per cent to 74 per cent more expensive.
Edible oil and ghee now cost up to 80 per cent more than in June 2021. Only the sugar and moong pulse prices decreased.
Soaring temperatures in parts of Pakistan and India in recent weeks have forced schools to close, damaged crops, put pressure on energy supplies, and kept residents indoors…reports Asian Lite News
Climate change has made the odds of a record-breaking heatwave hitting northwestern India and Pakistan 100 times more likely to happen, scientists said Wednesday, as the two countries experience high temperatures that are disrupting daily life, media reports said.
In an analysis, climate scientists with the UK’s Met Office found that the natural probability of a heatwave exceeding average temperatures from 2010 would be once in 312 years, but when climate change is factored in, the chances increase to once in every 3.1 years, CNN reported.
April and May in 2010 was used as a point of comparison because those months had the highest average temperatures since 1900, it said.
Soaring temperatures in parts of Pakistan and India in recent weeks have forced schools to close, damaged crops, put pressure on energy supplies, and kept residents indoors. It even prompted experts to question whether such heat is fit for human survival, the report said.
Jacobabad, one of the hottest cities in the world, in Pakistan’s Sindh province, hit 51 degrees Celsius on Sunday, and 50 degrees the day before. In neighbouring India, temperatures in the capital region of Delhi surpassed 49 degrees on Sunday.
The analysis also made projections, showing the frequency of such heatwaves in the region would increase to increase to once every 1.15 years by the end of the century, CNN reported.
“Spells of heat have always been a feature of the region’s pre-monsoon climate during April and May. However, our study shows that climate change is driving the heat intensity of these spells making record-breaking temperatures 100 times more likely,” said the Met Office’s Nikos Christidis, who produced the analysis. “By the end of the century increasing climate change is likely to drive temperatures of these values on average every year.”
India and Pakistan are highly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, particularly in terms of extreme heat.
Key indicators break records
Four key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification, set new records in 2021, a report from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said.
According to the WMO State of the Global Climate in 2021 report on Wednesday, the past seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, with 2021 being “only” one of the seven warmest because of a La Nina event at the start and end of the year, which had a temporary cooling effect but did not reverse the overall trend of rising temperatures.
The average global temperature in 2021 was about 1.11 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level, the report added.
That’s based on the 2015 Paris Agreement in which countries set long-term goals to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to two degrees Celsius while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The WMO report said greenhouse gas concentrations reached a new global high in 2020 and continued to increase in 2021 and early 2022, as ocean heat was record high and ocean acidification intensifying, which threatens organisms and ecosystem services, and hence food security, tourism and coastal protection.
Global mean sea level also reached a new record high in 2021, at a rate of more than double that between 1993 and 2002, mainly due to the accelerated loss of ice mass from the ice sheets.
Extreme meteorological hazards such as exceptional heatwaves, flooding, drought and hurricane raged across the globe, affecting ecosystems and displaced millions of population.
The WMO also warned that the compounded effects of conflict, extreme weather events and economic shocks, further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, undermined global food security.
Of the total number of undernourished people in 2020, more than half, or 418 million, live in Asia and a third, or 282 million, in Africa.
In his video speech at the launch of the report, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed five critical actions to jump-start the renewable energy transition, including greater access to renewable energy technology and supplies, a tripling of private and public investments in renewables and an end to subsidies on fossil fuels which amount to nearly $11 million per minute.
The world must act in this decade to prevent ever-worsening climate impacts and keep temperature increase to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, he said
Jamshid, a tribal leader from Khost, also confirmed that more than 40 people had died…reports Asian Lite News
Afghanistan has reported a death toll of at least 47 after Pakistani military air strikes hit the provinces of Khost and Kunar provinces, Pajhwok News reported.
Pakistani security forces carried out airstrikes on Waziristan refugees in Sperai district of southeastern Khost province and in the Shaltan district of eastern Kunar province, inflicting casualties on people.
“Forty-one civilians, mainly women and children, were killed and 22 others were wounded in air strikes by Pakistani forces near the Durand line in Khost province,” Shabir Ahmad Osmani, director of information and culture in Khost told Pajhwok.
Twenty-four people were killed from one family itself, reports said.
Jamshid, a tribal leader from Khost, also confirmed that more than 40 people had died.
“I went yesterday with several people to donate blood for treating the wounded in the Khost strike,” Jamshid said.
Another government official in Khost on condition of anonymity said he saw “42 graves” of people killed, adding that a few people were missing.
“Faces and bodies of some were charred and beyond recognition,” Abdul Wahab, a religious scholar from Khost, who helped bury some victims, said.
Afghanistan strongly condemned the attack and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Pakistan’s ambassador to Kabul, Mansoor Ahmad Khan, in response to the attacks.
Intense fighting between the M23 and the DRC forces was reported starting Sunday…reports Arul Louis
Six Pakistani peacekeepers have been killed along with two others when their helicopter went down in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the UN.
Confirming their deaths, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday that a search and rescue mission found their bodies.
The six crew members of the helicopter were from Pakistan and the two others on the flight were military personnel from Russia and Serbia, he said.
The helicopter that was on a reconnaissance mission in the area of Tshanzu, south-east of Rutshuru in North Kivu went down on Tuesday, he said.
“There have been clashes there between the M23 armed group and Congolese forces in recent days,” he said.
The M23 is a rebel organisation that has regrouped after being routed nearly a decade ago by DRC troops and UN peacekeepers and it has launched attacks on the DRC military.
Intense fighting between the M23 and the DRC forces was reported starting Sunday.
Eight #UN peacekeepers were killed in a helicopter crash in the Democratic Republic of #Congo while undertaking a reconnaissance mission, the #Pakistani military’s media wing said. It added six Pakistani troops were among those killed. pic.twitter.com/O2LuC7Cxaf
Dujarric said that an investigation into the crash was underway.
AfricaNews, however, reported that according to the DRC armed forces, the helicopter was shot down.
It quoted a press release from the armed forces as saying, “The helicopter was one of the two MONUSCO reconnaissance helicopters with on board eight Blue helmets (peacekeepers) crew members and United Nations observers.”
MONUSCO is the French acronym for the UN peacekeeping operation in the DRC.
South Asian peacekeepers dominate the 14,000-strong military segment of the operation with 1,974 from Pakistan, 1,888 from India, 1,634 from Bangladesh and 936 from Nepal.
The peacekeeping operations in the DRC — the current MONUSCO and its previous version known as MONUC — are among the deadliest with at least 400 killed.
Thirty Indian peacekeepers have died in the operations, as have 33 from Pakistan, 31 from Bangladesh and seven from Nepal.
UN CHIEF SADDENED
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was saddened by the deaths of eight peacekeepers in a helicopter crash in the Congo.
The secretary general was deeply saddened to confirm the deaths of eight peacekeepers onboard a Puma helicopter that crashed in North Kivu province of the Congo, Stephane Dujarric, Guterres’ spokesman, said in a statement on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported.
The helicopter was on a reconnaissance mission in Tshanzu, where there have been clashes between the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group and the Congo military in recent days, it said, adding that an investigation is underway.
Guterres expressed his sincere condolences to the bereaved families and the governments of Pakistan, Russia and Serbia, the peacekeepers’ home countries.
He is deeply concerned by the resurgence of M23 activities in the Rwanda-Congo-Uganda border area and the ongoing impact of violence involving armed groups on civilians, said the statement.
The secretary-general reiterated the UN’s commitment to supporting the Congolese government and people in their effort to bring peace and stability to the eastern provinces of the country, it said.
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.
