Volume 22- Issue 588 - December 30, 2022 -Jamadiul II, 20,1444 H, $1
www.miraclenews.com BC, CANADA First Muslim
Biweekly & Bilingual
THE 03 09 15
B.C. to ‘streamline’ proaccredit nurses Jamia Aulia Allah hosts 11 conference Mansoor Lilla holds 09 book launch
04 cess to
Woman in the Light of the Qur’an Control Anger Before it Controls You Causes of Hypertension
06 Warrants for PTI leaders 06 08
in contempt cases Saudi Arabia mulls increasing deposit in SBP President warns of ‘difficult’ times in Egypt
Donors pledge more than $9bn for Pakistan flood recovery Pakistan says donors at an international conference in Geneva have pledged to give more than $9bn to help it rebuild following last year’s devastating floods. Pakistan is hosting the event in Geneva on Monday with the United Nations as it seeks international assistance to cover around half of a total $16.3bn recovery bill. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres kicked off the one-day conference, attended by officials from nearly 40 other countries as well as private donors and international financial institutions. The unprecedented floods caused by melting glaciers and record monsoon rains last year affected more than 33 million Pakistanis, killing more than 1,700 people and pushing about nine million others into poverty, according to the UN.
Thousands of people are still living in open areas, tents and makeshift homes in Sindh and Balochistan, the two worst-hit provinces, with stagnant water still present in many areas. Pakistani Deputy Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said the final tally came in above a target for the international community. “Taken as a whole, these commitments total more than $9 billion and from what we know so far, these are all additional commitments from what was already given in terms of humanitarian assistance, etc., from both bilateral and multilateral partners,” she said, adding that a number of delegations had also offered up in-kind support. Earlier, Guterres praised Pakistan and its people for responding to “this epic tragedy with heroic humanity”.
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Petition seeks to recall B.C. Premier David Eby
Elections BC has approved an application for a petition to recall Premier David Eby. The provincial election agency announced Tuesday that it had received an application that met the requirements of the Recall and Initiative Act.
The petition will be issued on Jan. 17, at which time canvassers will have until March 20 to secure the signatures of 16,449 voters in Eby’s Vancouver-Point Grey electoral district who were eligible to vote in the last election on Oct. 24, 2020. If the petition receives at least that many signatures – representing 40 per cent of the electorate – Elections BC will have 42 days to determine that the signatures were valid. If enough valid signatures were secured, Eby’s seat would be vacated and a byelection would have to be held.
Canadian Nexus centres to reopen in spring along with U.S. interviews at airports
Canada and the United States said Tuesday they expect Canadian Nexus enrolment centres to reopen in the spring alongside a new program allowing U.S.led interviews to be conducted at Canadian airports. The deal, reached on the sidelines of the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City, is intended to further reduce the backlog of applicants for the
trusted-traveller program between the two countries, which has been caught up in a diplomatic dispute. Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a joint statement that interviews with U.S. border agents will soon begin taking place at Canadian airport facilities that already provide pre-clearance services for travellers heading stateside. Nexus applicants, who must be interviewed by both Canadian and U.S. authorities, would sit down with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials for that portion of the process prior to travelling to the U.S., provided they are travelling imminently and leaving from an airport where customs preclearance is
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Recall petitions are fairly common in B.C., but none of the 27 that have been attempted since the Recall and Initiative Act was adopted in 1995 have been successful. According to Elections BC, just six of the 27 were returned for verification. Five of those six did not have enough valid signatures, while the sixth was halted during the verification process because the member of the legislature the petition was targeting resigned. Two of the province’s previous recall petitions have been issued in Vancouver-Point Grey, both of them target-
ing former BC Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell, one in 1998 and one in 2003. Each time, the petition was not returned by the deadline, according to Elections BC. The proponent of the petition to recall Eby is Salvatore Vetro. In his statement explaining why the premier should be recalled, Vetro calls Eby “a dictator,” and writes that his government’s Bill 36 “breaks many existing laws including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the international Nuremberg Code.” Source: bc.ctvnews.ca
World Bank cuts Pakistan GDP growth projection to 2% SLAMABAD: The World Bank (WB) has revised Pakistan’s GDP growth projection downward from four percent to two percent for the current fiscal year, saying the country’s precarious economic situation, with low foreign exchange reserves and large fiscal and current account deficits, has further worsened by severe flooding. “Nonetheless, Pakistan faces mounting economic difficulties and Sri Lanka remains in crisis. In all regions, improvements in living standards over the half-decade to 2024 are expected to be slower than from 2010-19,” the World Bank stated in Global Economic Prospects released on Tuesday. In Pakistan, the report stated that an already precarious economic situation, with low foreign exchange reserves and large fiscal and current account deficits, was exacerbated last August by severe
flooding, which cost many lives. About one-third of the country’s land area was affected, damaging infrastructure, and directly affecting about 15 percent of the population. Pakistan, with low foreign exchange reserves and rising sovereign risk, saw its currency depreciate by 14 percent between June and December and its country risk premium rise by 15 percentage points over this same period. . Source: Dawn.com