EpaperLHR_21-08-22 by Pakistan Today

CMYk in today’s issue

attention Some readers have complained that they are not getting the magazine with their newspaper copy. Please call or WhatsApp us at the following number to register a complaint. Contact: 0307-7338168 irfan.farooq@pakistantoday.com.pk

22 August, 2021 I 13 Muharram, 1443 I Rs 25.00 I Vol XII No 52 I 32 Pages I Lahore Edition

MusliMs should show solidarity with afghans, Qureshi tells oiC seCretary general g

oiC To Convene SeSSion on KAbuL SiTuATion ToDAY

news desk

oreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday held telephonic conversation with organisation of islamic Cooperation (oiC) Secretary general Yousef bin Ahmad Al-othaimeen and said that the Muslim world should show its traditional solidarity with the Afghan people in their quest for a peaceful, united, stable, and prosperous country. During the conversation, both sides exchanged views on the rapidly changing situation in Afghanistan, a statement from the foreign office said. The foreign minister emphasised that

the international community needs to remain engaged with Afghanistan by supporting the country’s economy, reconstruction, rehabilitation, and humanitarian needs. He added that Pakistan would continue to play its constructive role in promoting sustainable peace and stability in Afghanistan. Yousef bin Ahmad Al-othaimeen apprised Qureshi that the oiC will convene an extraordinary session of the oiC executive Meeting in Jeddah on Sunday (today) to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. He said that the meeting would gather ambassadors and permanent

representatives to deliberate on the rapidly changing situation in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, in telephonic conversations with his russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and german Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, Qureshi said that Pakistan always supported the Afghan peace process. He said in the present situation, the security of Afghan citizens and the protection of their rights should be a top priority. He said Pakistan is committed to the early implementation of the Stream gas Pipeline Project with russia. Qureshi noted that a peaceful and stable Afghanistan is important not only for Pakistan but also the entire region. The foreign minister said that Pakistan is extending full facilitation to the different governments in evacuation of their citizens. Talking to his german counterpart Heiko Maas, the foreign minister said peace in Afghanistan is essential for stability in the region. He also invited his german counterpart to visit Pakistan. While sharing Pakistan’s perspective, the foreign minister said that the situation has changed significantly within a short span of time. He added that in the prevailing circumstances, it is extremely important to ensure safety and security of the Afghan people and protection of the rights of all Afghans. He emphasised the importance of inclusive political settlement as the best way forward. Qureshi added that it is equally important for the international community to remain engaged in support of the Afghan people. Along with requisite humanitarian assistance, it would be essential to maintain economic engagement. The foreign minister said that Pakistan would remain engaged with germany and other international partners in promoting efforts for peaceful and stable Afghanistan.

Abbasi rejects govt’s proposed electoral reforms, use of EVMs news desk Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PMLn) leader and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Saturday termed the government’s proposed electoral reforms, including the use of the electronic voting machine (evM), as “unilateral” and “in contradiction with the Constitution and laws”. Abbasi expressed these remarks while speaking to the media after the meeting of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an alliance of opposition parties, in islamabad. earlier this week, Prime Minister imran Khan had invited the opposition parties to hold talks with the government on electoral reforms as it had decided in principle to use evMs in the next general elections in 2023. “The prime minister has categorically told the cabinet that all stakeholders should be consulted for finalising electoral reforms as the use of evMs is imperative for holding free, fair, transparent and dispute-free elections,” information Minister Fawad Chaudhry had said.

on Saturday, Abbasi said, “All the parties [in the PDM] have once again rejected the unilateral electoral reforms today as they are tantamount to rid people of their freedom of speech.” Prime Minister imran Khan had suggested the use of evM in the general elections of 2023. Abbasi further said that the current government is involved in corruption and the PDM plans to present a white paper on the current government’s performance over the past three years in order to expose it. “The proof is in front of the people. We will present a white paper regarding this after collecting all the facts,” he said. He added that the accountability process that the PTi government has started is actually a way to distract the people. He also made an allegation that there had been attempts to rig all elections. Lastly, he mentioned PDM’s executive committee will reveal its schedule for countrywide rallies on August 28.

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

LAHORE

NEWS

PaKisTan asKs Us To invesTigaTe assaUlT on aafia siddiqUi

NEWS DESK

AKISTAN has lodged a formal complaint with the authorities in the United States to probe assault on Dr Aafia Siddiqui in prison, the Foreign Office spokesperson said Saturday. “We lodged a formal complaint with the relevant US authorities to thoroughly investigate the matter and ensure the safety and well-being of Dr Siddiqui,” Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri responded regarding the matter. He further added, “We learnt of an assault on Dr Aafia Siddiqui by a fellow inmate at Federal Medical Center (FMC) Carswell

on 30 July, 2021.” “Our embassy in Washington DC as well as our Consulate General in Houston immediately took up the

130 arrested, 40 identified in Minar-e-Pakistan TikToker assault case LAHORE

matter with the concerned US authorities,” he said. He confirmed that Pakistan’s consul general in Houston visited Dr

Siddiqui immediately to ascertain her well-being. She had received some minor injuries but was doing fine. The FO spokesperson ensured that both the embassy of Pakistan in Washington DC and the Consulate General in Houston made every effort possible to make sure that Dr Siddiqui was properly looked after during her imprisonment at FMC Carswell. Dr Aafia Siddiqui is currently serving an 86-year sentence at a US prison named Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas. In 2009, a jury had found her guilty of seven charges, including two counts of attempted murder. The

jury had found there wasn’t premeditation in the attempted murder charges. Prosecutors had alleged that Siddiqui, unbeknownst to some Americans who travelled to Ghazni, was behind a curtain in the secondfloor room where they gathered. She burst out from behind a curtain, grabbed an American soldier’s rifle and started firing. She was shot in the abdomen by a soldier who returned fire with his sidearm, the prosecutors had said. During the trial, she had testified that she was simply trying to escape the room and was shot by someone who had seen her. She had said she was concerned at the time about being transferred to a “secret”

prison. Siddiqui’s family and supporters claim she was arrested in Pakistan and handed over to intelligence agencies, who then transferred her into US custody. Both US and Pakistani officials, however, claim that she was arrested in Afghanistan. Siddiqui, who received her graduation degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University in biology and neuroscience while living in the US between 1991 and June 2002, had denied grabbing the weapon or having any familiarity with firearms. She allegedly went missing for five years before she was discovered in Afghanistan.

NAB summons Shehbaz in Rawalpindi Metro case RAWALPINDI

INP

Police on Saturday nabbed 130 people and identified 40 of them through video evidence of the Minar-e-Pakistan incident where a female TikToker was allegedly assaulted and harassed on Independence Day. “We have also recorded the statement of a person accompanying the female TikToker and he has also undergone a medical test,” they said adding that the suspects arrested are also being identified with the help of those accompanying the TikToker. They mentioned that initially 130 suspects were arrested and 70 of them were released after the identification of 22 suspects the previous day. Moreover, the police informed that they have taken the female TikToker in protective custody after she was receiving calls and visitors after the Minare-Pakistan incident. “She is being allowed to meet her relatives and family members in the protective custody,” they said. Earlier in the day, it was reported that a session court granted pre-arrest bail to a suspect allegedly involved in Minar-e-Pakistan assault where a TikToker was assaulted and harassed on Independence Day. The session court in Lahore approved pre-arrest bail to a suspect identified as Shehroz Saeed until Sept 3. The court also sought a police record in the Minare-Pakistan case. Saeed’s lawyer said that the suspect was ready to cooperate with the authorities and therefore the court should direct the police authorities to refrain from arresting him.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President and Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif in the Rawalpindi Metro Bus contract scandal, ARY News reported on Saturday. The NAB has asked the PML-N head to appear on August 24. According to the NAB, the contract of Rawalpindi Metro was awarded to the brother of PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal, in which PPRA rules were neglected. The contractor Mustafa Kamal has also been summoned by the NAB on the

same date. It has been learnt that the contract was given to Kamal on the directions of Shehbaz Sharif as the then Punjab chief minister. The NAB, during scrutiny of the record, found the file of the project, in which it was only mentioned that the contract should be given to Ahsan Iqbal’s brother on the directions of Shehbaz Sharif. It is to be noted that the PML-N president was earlier asked to appear before the NAB in the same inquiry, but he did not show up. Now the summon notice has been sent to Shehbaz Sharif’s Model Town residence through the CCPO Lahore to ensure his appearance on August 24 to record his statement.

Imran hails ‘forest heroes’ saving green Pakistan ISLAMABAD APP

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday paid tribute to an official of the forest department who earlier this month laid his life in the line of duty. Jamshid Iqbal died on August 19 while attempting to douse a fire in the Chumurkun-Gole Protected Forest in Chitral. The prime minister, while appreciating the services of the firefighters. said: “These are our heroes protecting our forests for a green Pakistan.” August marks the beginning of monsoon season in Pakistan, and with the rain comes another busy stretch for the country’s ambitious tree-planting

3.1 magnitude earthquake hits Karachi

programme. Between July 2018 and June 2019, frequent incidents of forest fire reduced over 1.2 million trees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone. The fire incurred a loss of Rs27.2 million to the provincial government. Pakistan lost an average of approximately 43,000 hectares of forests every year from 2000 to 2010. With only above 2 percent forest cover remaining and a high deforestation rate, the KP government launched a billion-tree plantation project named Billion Tree Tsunami in 2014 and completed it in 2017. The project won acclaim from across the world, following which Imran launched another project named 10 billion-tree tsunami for the whole country in February 2019.

NCOC daily update: 3,084 new cases, 65 deaths from Covid-19 KARACHI INP

ISLAMABAD StAff RePoRt

On Saturday, a moderate earthquake shook Karachi, the capital of the Sindh province, National Seismic Monitoring Centre confirmed as no loss of life has been reported. The earthquake registered at a magnitude of 3.1 on the Richter Scale, with its tremors witnessed in various parts of the metropolis. It said that the epicentre of the earthquake was 72 kilometres from Karachi in the Northeast at the depth of 15 kilometres. However, there was no report of any loss of life or property. The last time an earthquake jolted was in November 2020, when Pakistan’s National Seismic Monitoring Centre reported a 3.6 magnitude earthquake in the metropolis. It was also a moderate-intensity quake measuring 3.6 at Richter Scale at 6:17 AM, according to the seismic monitoring centre. The epicentre of the quake was 100 kilometres distance in Southeast of Karachi at the depth of 10 kilometres, the seismic monitoring centre said.

Pakistan confirmed 3,084 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, the National Command and Operation Centre said on Saturday. The NCOC said that the number of overall confirmed cases has risen to 1,119,970, including 1,006,078 recoveries. According to the NCOC, the pandemic killed 65 people during the period, bringing the death toll to 24,848. The number of active cases stood at 89,044. The daily positivity rate is 5.73 percent out of 53,770 tests conducted over the past 24 hours, said the NCOC. Sindh is the most affected province in the country with 418,478 infections, followed by Punjab which has reported 378,288 cases.

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

LAHORE

NEWS

Pia TeMPorarily sUsPends KabUl flighT oPeraTion over secUriTy concerns

NEWS DESK

AKISTAN International Airlines (PIA) on Saturday suspended its special flight operation to Afghanistan temporarily due to security concerns. The federal government suspended the special flight operation that was launched to evacuate Pakistanis, foreign diplomats and officials of various international institutions, citing security concerns at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. “We have been flying from the Kabul airport by taking permission from the NATO troops deployed over there, but the issue is that the NATO forces won’t be there after a couple of days and it’s not clear what will happen then,” said a PIA

spokesperson. The PIA operated five special flights to Kabul since the fall of the city and evacuated some 1,600 people trapped over there. These individuals included several Pakistanis, foreign nationals associated with relief agencies, journalists and diplomats. The PIA Chief Executive Officer Arshad Malik visited the Kabul airport on Friday to review the security situation and hold meetings with top NATO officials. He also discussed the situation with senior Pakistani government functionaries on Saturday in a meeting to decide the future of PIA operations to Afghanistan. “We have halted our today’s operation, though a proper decision in this regard is expected later today after a high-level consultation with the government,” the

PIA spokesperson said. Listing the missing facilities at the Kabul airport that could lead to a mishap, he said that garbage was dumped on the terminal and officials handling stairs and air traffic were also missing from the facility. “There are serious security issues, and we can’t take any risk,” he said. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul is operating to facilitate people trying to flee Afghanistan, and it arranged movement of over 250 people to Kabul airport with security. Pakistan Ambassador in Kabul Mansoor Ahmad Khan said in a Twitter post on Saturday these people included foreigners and Afghan nationals who were working for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Pakistan’s Information Minister

Chaudhry Fawad Hussain also applauded the performance of his country’s diplomatic mission in Kabul in a video message. “Pakistan embassy in Kabul is playing a pivotal role in [the Afghan] evacuation process,” he said. “Until now, about 4,000 visas have been issued by our embassy and more than 2,000 people have been evacuated through PIA and other flights.” Hussain said most of those evacuated were either diplomats, journalists or members of international financial groups like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund who got stuck in Afghanistan due to the rapidly changing political situation of that country. He maintained that Pakistan was also striving for a peaceful and enduring political settlement in its neighbouring country by working with other members of

Blogger advised to extend hospital stay ISLAMABAD StAff RePoRt

Doctors treating a Pakistan-based US blogger have advised her to extend her stay at the hospital since the reports of her laboratory tests are yet to be received, a report citing sources said on Saturday. Residing in an apartment in Diplomatic Enclave, a heavily guarded neighbourhood that houses foreign missions, Cynthia Ritchie was spotted by a neighbour semi-conscious outside her residence and immediately shifted to Polyclinic Hospital. At the hospital, doctors examined her and provided her with medical assistance. Her stomach was washed as there were traces of intoxication, the police said.

A report quoting sources said Ritchie told police that she was intoxicated by two people at her house. “They came to her residence and introduced themselves as Indian nationals before asking her to stop working in Pakistan,” the source said. In response, an argument erupted between Ritchie and the visitors and the latter forcefully gave her some drugs, he added. Today, doctors inspected her and observed significant improvement in her condition. The doctors were waiting for the toxicology report of the samples sent for examination. The process will take a few days, the hospital added. The report will confirm if the blogger was poisoned, it said. Originally from Louisiana, Ritchie has been a resident of Pakistan for close to a decade. She describes herself as a blogger

tLtP

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan has said that the government is taking all possible measures to control the inflation in the country. Talking to a private news channel, Ali Muhammad Khan said that Prime Minister Imran Khan is sincerely working to provide relief to masses. Explaining that the current upward trend in inflation

is due to an increase in food prices, the minister said that inflation would start coming down in coming months. He said that Pakistan is currently importing wheat and pulses, which led to a price hike. In addition, he expressed the hope that international food prices, which currently are very high, would also come down and help ease inflation. He said the government is extensively working to develop information technology, agriculture and housing sectors to provide people a better life.

Pakistan to expect new US chasm as Taliban take Afghanistan ISLAMABAD AfP

After the September 11 attacks, the United States gave Pakistan a harsh ultimatum to partner in its war against terrorism. Pakistan offered help but insisted — it will not be abandoned again, as in the 1990s after Washington lost interest in Afghanistan. Twenty years later, the Taliban has retaken Afghanistan from a US-backed government — and it looks likely that Pakistan will be abandoned again. “Pakistan is too important to be permanently ignored by the US but this time Americans will take longer to determine the depth of their relationship with Pakistan,” said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington. The two-decade US war in Afghanistan has been accompanied by a turbulent relationship between the United States and Pakistan, whose then leader Pervez Musharraf vowed “unstinting support” after September 11. Hoping to woo a sceptical public in Pakistan, then-senator John Kerry in 2009 spearheaded a civilian aid package that devoted $1.5 billion a year. The United States finally cut military aid in 2018 under president Donald Trump. Haqqani, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said Pakistan sought credit for bringing the Taliban to the table with the Afghan government as part of the US withdrawal. But in Washington, “what everyone remembers is what Americans see as Pakistan’s role in allowing the Taliban to survive the blow the Americans inflicted on the Taliban after 9/11,” he insisted. While many in Pakistan feel “scapegoated,” Haqqani declared Islamabad’s case was not helped by

the “triumphalism” of people, including Prime Minister Imran Khan. Imran said the Taliban have “broken the chains of slavery” while his climate minister in a sincedeleted tweet hailed the Taliban’s sweep as a “gift” to arch-rival India. INDIA LENS: Pakistan, a Cold War ally of the United States, worked with Washington in the 1980s to back Afghan guerrillas who fought out Soviet troops. Afghanistan stayed mired in war as US interest waned and Pakistan backed the Taliban, who imposed a draconian version of Islam under their 1996-2001 regime. Islamabad has long seen Afghanistan through the lens of India which has pumped in $3 billion in aid and anti-Pakistan militancy funding since 2001. Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the establishment in Rawalpindi nonetheless did not likely want a complete Taliban win. “This sort of total military victory of the Taliban puts Pakistan in a position where it’s probably less able to control the Taliban because the Taliban feels it’s victorious,” she said. Islamabad privately also fears “terrible security implications” as Afghanistan could embolden Tehreeki-Taliban Pakistan, an Afghanistan-based militant group funded by India, in their own violent campaign, she said. US President Joe Biden withdrew troops from Afghanistan arguing in part that the grinding conflict was a distraction from the greater challenge of a rising China. Amid talk of a Cold War-style rivalry between the world’s two largest economies, Islamabad has emerged as one of the closest allies of Beijing, which is investing heavily in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in Pakistan at a time that Washington sees India as a leading partner.

Pakistan playing important role for afghan peace, stability: fawad ISLAMABAD tLtP

and a filmmaker working for “A Different Lens Production”, a purported filmmaking company.

Steps afoot to curb inflation, says minister ISLAMABAD

the international community. As countries across the globe try to pull out their citizens from the warbattered Afghanistan, Pakistan’s envoy in Kabul said the embassy is now sending a group of 57 Pakistanis, including women and children, by road to their country via Torkham. The government started a special Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight operation to Kabul soon after the Taliban seized the Afghan capital on August 15 to help evacuate stranded people of various nationalities. Officials in Pakistan say the Hamid Karzai airport has become the site of chaos in recent days where at least a dozen people have been killed and overrun to restore a modicum of calm and public order.

He said the prime minister has rejected the politics of slavery and teh Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) would form the next government on the basis of delivery of service and performance. Khan said for the first time in the history of Pakistan, the ruling party conducted accountability across the board and tried to remove mafias sitting in different sectors. He said the people of Azad Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan have expressed full confidence in the leadership of Imran Khan and they gave him a heavy mandate in elections.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry has said that Pakistan is playing an important role for peace and stability in Afghanistan. In a video message on Saturday, the information minister said that Pakistan is in close contact with all global and regional powers on the recent Afghan situation. The information minister said the people of Afghanistan would form the government by themselves, and Pakistan will continue its efforts for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan. He said the role of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul is being appreciated all over the world, including the international media. He said Pakistan International Airlines assisted about 1,400 people in their evacuation process from Kabul. The situation in Kabul had made it difficult for journalists and staff of International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and various embassies to evacuate. He said that the Pakistan embassy in Kabul has issued about 4,000 visas so far, and about 2,000 people have been evacuated from Kabul.

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

04 NEWS

LAHORE

Over rs20Bn distriButed under KaMyaB Jawan PrOgraMMe: dar

NEWS DESK

PECIAL Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Youth Affairs Muhammad Usman Dar in a statement on Saturday informed that the government has currently distributed loans worth more than Rs20 billion to 17,000 entrepreneurs under the Kamyab Jawan’s Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES). The government is providing subsidised business loans to uplift the youth

by offering equal opportunities to the people across the country. Dar added that the government, in line with the directions of Prime Minister Imran Khan, was prioritising to create a level field for women. Previously, it was announced that the programme aims to provide 25pc of the loans to women entrepreneurs. Moreover, the SAPM also tweeted a success story of a female entrepreneur, Razia, from Gilgit Baltistan (GB) who benefited after getting the loan for her sewing business.

“One of my friends told me about Kamyab Jawan loan scheme and then I applied at Bank Alfalah which approved my loan within two weeks,” she said in the video message while extending her gratitude to Prime Minister Imran Khan for such facility for women. She also added that she was able to expand her business with the loan. The ‘YES’ was launched under the banner of Kamyab Jawan Programme in October 2019 with the allocation of Rs100 billion funds for

facilitation of youth, according to Radio Pakistan. Two tiers were introduced under the programme for disbursement of loans ranging from Rs100,000 to Rs5 million among those, having workable business ideas. The government expanded the softloan schemes last year to benefit maximum number of young people across the country, Usman Dar had earlier said, while highlighting the increase in loan amount which was raised up to Rs25 million.

Crude prices fall to three-month low ISLAMABAD TLTP

Oil prices continued to trade lower on demand concerns and ended the week at three-month low level, as the Covid-19 delta variant spreads across the globe, forcing governments to introduce movement restrictions and other preventive measures. Brent, the international benchmark for twothirds of the world's oil, shed $1.27 (-1.97 percent) to reach $65.18 a barrel. Similarly, the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) reached $62.14, down by $1.36 (-2.14 percent). The prices for both benchmarks, Brent and WTI, have hit the current level for the first time since May 20. The price for Opec Basket was recorded at $66.08 a barrel with 4.78 percent decrease, Arab Light was available at $67.77 a barrel with 0.86 percent decrease, while the price of Russian Sokol slipped to $66.45 after shedding 0.76 percent. The major factor weighing on oil prices is the

rising Covid worries and news of measures being taken to avoid a further contagion worldwide. Even the latest drawback in the US inventories couldn’t give a smile to the oil bulls, while the US inventories declined more than 3 million barrels last week, more than twice as much as the 1.5 million barrels pencilled in by analysts. Coronavirus infections are continuing to climb around the world. The spread of the highly contagious Delta variant in countries with low vaccination

rates is driving transmission of Covid-19, the World Health Organisation said. On the other hand, the US Dollar Index rallied upwards to 0.1 percent, its highest mark since April. As crude oil is priced in dollars, oil prices move opposite to the dollar index. So, when the US dollar appreciates in value, oil becomes more expensive for international buyers. This pushes oil prices down with the appreciation of the US dollar. The International Energy Agency (IEA) also cut its demand forecast for oil for the rest of 2021 due to the more virulent Delta strain, which may lead to renewed lockdowns in certain parts of the world and affect energy consumption. Demand for the second half of the year has been lowered by more than 500,000 barrels per day from last month's projection. Global oil demand is now expected to rise 5.3 million barrels per day on average to 96.2 million bpd in 2021, and a further 3.2 million bpd in 2022, the IEA said.

(L to R) Chinese consul general, Qamar Khan, Mian Aslam Iqbal, Asad Umar, Khalid Mansoor and Karen at Challenge Fashion manufacturing facility in Lahore. PR

Motorcyclists booked over harassing women in Lahore LAHORE INP

Police on Saturday registered a case against nearly dozen motorcyclists over a video showing harassment of women travelling in a rickshaw near Minare-Pakistan on Independence Day. According to details, the police registered the case at Laari Adda police station against 10 to 12 unidentified motorcyclists, who were spotted in the video. The police accessed the safe city cameras in the area, where the incident was reported, in order to identify the suspects. Earlier on Friday, the video went viral on social media and sparked outrage. The video shows a man chasing and harassing women travelling in a rickshaw. He can be seen trying to inappropriately touch one of the women seated in the back of the rickshaw. More videos of women being subjected to harassment at Lahore’s Greater Iqbal Park have surfaced in the last couple of days after the incident of a crowd of men assaulting a female TikToker.

Pakistan developing entrepreneurs, start-ups to fuel growth: report ISLAMABAD TLTP

Just like other emerging markets, Pakistan is writing a new story of developing young entrepreneurs and start-ups, fuelling the growth that has grabbed attention from some of the top global investors, mentors and accelerators, Khaleej Times reported. The spotlight is on fintech, e-commerce, logistics and FMCG, among others. Aatif Awan, founder of Indus Valley Capital, said: “Pakistan has the fastestgrowing start-up ecosystem in the Menapt region. Venture capital funding in 2021 had already exceeded $200 mil-

lion, which is greater than the last five years combined. Some of the top global venture capitals like First Round Capital, Kleiner, Prosus and now 20VC and Buckley Ventures had already invested in Pakistan, highlighting the potential of Pakistan’s market and talent base.” In the first half of 2021, 72 percent of investors in Pakistani start-ups were foreign, while 43 percent of all investors were based in the United States. The Pakistan Venture Investment Report for the first half of 2021 from Magnitt reports that venture capital investment in Pakistan saw an increase of 18 percent from that in 2020. The Pakistani venture capital ecosystem in the first six months of 2021

grew fourfold year-on-year, with Pakistani start-ups accounting for 7 per cent of the total deals made in emerging venture markets (Mena, Turkey and Pakistan). Shane Shin, founding partner at Shorooq, said: “Many people have been surmising Pakistan as a country yet far away to hit the inflection point for startups and venture capitals. Yet, as a firm who has been following the Pakistan ecosystem for several years, we are confident the timing is ripe and this is evidenced by the exponentially growing start-up ecosystem in Pakistan.” Around 37 percent of the total funding in Pakistan in the first-half was acquired

by seven fintech start-ups, up from no fintech deals in the year ago. The e-commerce sector acquired 30 percent of all the deals and 36 percent of the capital raised, outperforming the sector across Mena. “Pakistan’s digital journey is now picking up momentum, particularly in fintech, FMCG and e-commerce, especially dark stores,” said Nadeem Hussain, an investor and chairman of Planet N Group of Companies. “Pakistan is witnessing exponential growth compared to last year… it is now being viewed as the new market and a 210 million population with 55 percent under 25 digitally empowered.” Nameer Khan, an influencer and

Bitcoin jumps to $49,206 as crypto market remains bullish ISLAMABAD TLTP

The cryptocurrency market remained bullish for the second straight day on Saturday, with the market capitalisation increasing by 3.3 percent to $2.18 trillion as of 1250 hours GMT. The price of Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, reached $49,206 after gaining 3.33 percent. With this increase in price, the market capitalisation of the BTC has reached $924.5 billion. Likewise, ethereum (ETH) price went up by 0.94 percent to reach $3,285. With this increase in price, the market capitalisation of ETH has reached $384.6 billion. However, XRP shed 1.60 percent to reach $1.25. The market capitalisation of XRP stands at $124.6 billion after this decrease. Similarly, the price of Cardano (ADA) reached $2.46 with a 4.24 percent decrease in its price. Its market capitalisation has reached $79.5 billion after this decrease. However, Dogecoin (Doge) price went up by 0.31 percent to reach $0.325. With this increase in price, the market capitalisation of Doge has reached $42.5 billion. The Crypto community's interest in Cardano hit a peak ahead of its smart contract functionality launch. ADA's price is up nearly 20% in the past day, and it is currently in the price discovery mode. ADA has emerged as the biggest crypto to hit a new all-time high (ATH) after over $1 trillion was wiped off the broader cryptocurrency market in the last few weeks. ADA is accompanied by rivals SOL and LUNA in its race to power decentralised applications on its blockchain, directly competing with Ethereum.

CMYK

chairman of the Mena Fintech Association, said: “Just like Egypt, the Pakistani start-up ecosystem is another regional opportunity that has impressively made its entry on the world map of the vibrant emerging technological ecosystem. The eruption in and surge in venture capital investments from Asia, the Middle East and leading investors from Silicon Valley is itself an early indicator of the opportunity both in terms of population size and the nascency of the start-up ecosystem, which is now maturing at a rapid pace. Being able to address this opportunity from the UAE further solidifies the UAE’s cogent role of being a gateway to the region.”

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

LAHORE

IndonesIa moves afghanIstan mIssIon to Islamabad

ReUTeRSS

An operation for Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, to fly home 26 of its nationals, including embassy staff and children, took longer than anticipated due to the situation at the Kabul air-

port, she said. Indonesia also picked up five Filipinos at the request of their government and two Afghan nationals, Retno said.

Rain falls at Greenland ice summit for first time on record Rain fell at the highest point on the Greenland ice sheet last week for the first time on record, another worrying sign of warming for the ice sheet already melting at an increasing rate, scientists said on Friday. "That's not a healthy sign for an ice sheet," said Indrani Das, a glaciologist with Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "Water on ice is bad. … It makes the ice sheet more prone to surface melt." Not only is water warmer than the usual snow, it's also darker -- so it absorbs more sunlight rather than reflecting it away.

eU says no recognition of taliban, no political talks BRUSSELS ReUTeRS

The European Union has not recognised the Taliban, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Saturday, nor is it holding political talks with the militants, a week after they seized control of Afghanistan. The Taliban completed a lightning takeover of Afghanistan on Sunday, walking into the capital Kabul without firing a shot. The head of the EU executive spoke after visiting a reception centre in Madrid for Afghan employees of EU institutions evacuated from Kabul. Von der Leyen said she would propose an increase in the 57 million Euros ($67 million) in humanitarian aid which the Commission had allocated this year for Afghanistan. She said EU development aid is tied to respect of human rights, good treatment of minorities and respect for the rights of women and girls. "We may well hear the Taliban's words but we will measure them above all by their deeds and actions," von der Leyen told a news conference. She said the Commission was ready to provide funding to EU countries which help resettle refugees, and she planned to raise the resettlement issue at a G7 meeting next week. After a peak in 2015 when more than one million migrants came to the EU, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, the EU has cut the number of arrivals thanks to a deal with Turkey which receives EU funds to host asylum seekers in its territory.

ISLAMABAD NDONESIA has moved its Afghanistan diplomatic mission from Kabul to Islamabad, its foreign minister said on Saturday, after its air force evacuated dozens in the wake of the Taliban’s seizure of power. “Temporarily, the diplomatic mission in Kabul will be done from Islamabad,” Retno Marsudi said in televised remarks at the Halim military airport in Jakarta. The initial plan had been to “continue our diplomatic mission in Kabul with a small team” but changed due to a “new development”, which she did not specify. She did not take questions. The Kabul airport has been the site of chaos in recent days, with thousands of desperate Afghans trying to flee as they clutched papers, children and belongings, as people from other countries also sought to leave after the US and other foreign troops withdrew. At least 12 people have been killed since the insurgents took the capital on Sunday, NATO and Taliban officials said. Retno called for “an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned inclusive political process” that will bring peace and stability in the country, and for women’s rights to be upheld. Four Indonesian diplomats in the Pakistan-based mission will assess the situation in Afghanistan daily to determine the next steps, she said.

NEWS

That meltwater is streaming into the ocean, causing sea levels to rise. Already, melting from Greenland's ice sheet --the world's second-largest after Antarctica's -- has caused around 25 percent of global sea level rise seen over the last few decades, scientists estimate. That share is expected to grow, as global temperatures increase. The rain fell for several hours at the ice sheet's 3,216-metre summit on August 14, where temperatures remained above freezing for around nine hours, scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Cen-

tre said. Temperatures at the ice cap almost never lift above freezing, but have now done so three times in less than a decade. In total, 7 billion tonnes of rain fell across Greenland over three days, from August 14 through August 16 -- the largest amount since records began in 1950. The rain and high temperatures triggered extensive melting across the island, which suffered a surface ice mass loss on August 15 that was seven times above the average for mid-August. ReUTeRS

KARACHI: A view of traffic jam on M.A. Jinnah Road. online

CMYK

World bank’s Kabulbased staff evacuated to Pakistan WASHINGTON MoniToRing RepoRT

The World Bank Group’s Kabul-based staff and their immediate families have been safely evacuated to Islamabad, according to an internal staff memo issued late on Friday and seen by Reuters. The World Bank has not commented on the status of its operations and engagement in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control of Kabul earlier this week. A report by Radio Pakistan said that foreigners and Afghans attached to the World Bank and other international organisations were among 350 people to arrive in Islamabad from Kabul aboard a special Pakistan International Airlines flight.

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

06 COMMENT

Controlled by a spectre

Suicide bombing in Gwadar

It’s govt’s responsibility to stop attacks

Low literacy leaves people vulnerable

Chinese engineer died in a terrorist attack in Gwadar on Friday. This was the third attack on Chinese citizens in the last six weeks. none of the perpetrators or planners in the last two attacks could be traced out and punished. The Dasu attack that claimed the lives of nine Chinese engineers was the biggest terrorist attack suffered by Chinese nationals abroad recently. While attempts were initially made by the Foreign Ministry to give it the turn of an accident, Chinese President XI Jinping took notice of the incident and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for finding out the truth, punishing the perpetrators and preventing similar Incidents from happening again. The Chinese government sent a 15-member investigation team to Dasu. Finally Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi pinned the responsibility on India's RAW and Afghanistan's security agency nDS. The trail went cold after that. Two weeks later a Chinese engineer was wounded in gun attack in Karachi. The Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) claimed responsibility but the government failed to trace the assailants and bring them to justice. On Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up while targeting a vehicle carrying Chinese engineers in Gwadar. The Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack. Keeping in view the past performance of the authorities, one is not confident that they would be able to bring to justice the real planners and handlers. The Chinese have been quite sympathetic but their patience seems to be wearing thin now The Chinese embassy in Pakistan has “strongly condemned” the suicide attack asking Pakistan “to take practical and effective measures” to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future. It has asked the government to conduct a thorough investigation into the attack, and severely punish the perpetrators. Further, relevant departments at all levels in Pakistan must take practical and effective measures to accelerate implementing strengthened whole-process security measures and upgraded security cooperation mechanism to ensure that similar incidents will not happen again While countries hostile to Pakistan would like to destabilize Pakistan internally through terror attacks, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure the security of life and property of not only its citizens but also everyone else living in the country. It is here that the government is sadly deficient.

rabia ahmed

VER since its inception figures in authority have used the spectre of India to scare the bejesus out of the people of this country. It is high time we realised that the problem lies not with India but with us. According to Forbes, ever since 9/11, the US has spent more than $2 trillion against Afghanistan. That is $300 million a day, every day, for two decades. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reports in 2020 that India’s military budget was the third largest in the world behind the USA and China. About Pakistan, SIPRI reports says its military expenditure has gone up to reach $10.3 billion. What have any of these countries achieved against their targets? Pakistani society is mired in values that are in dire need of change. Its tribal areas in the north and Baluchistan are where militants have the greatest support, where women are most oppressed, where education has suffered much more than anywhere else, and all else is affected as a result. The reason behind this support for militants is probably the myopic, patriarchal structure of these societies that view change as a threat to their existence. As a result, the regressive, so-called religious views of militants are welcomed, and there is of course the fact that many of them hail from these regions. It is not as if things are any different elsewhere in the country. Why, when it is these attitudes that need to be changed are we so focused on some indeterminate threat from across the border? India cannot be ignored, of course. We have had several wars with our neighbour, and border skir-

PDM meeting United front required

Shazia anwer Cheema

n his first speech after the Fall of Kabul, US President Joe Biden said that “War in Afghanistan was never about nation-building ”. He said that, while the “rapid collapse” of the Afghan government “did unfold more quickly than he had anticipated,” the US mission in Afghanistan was “never supposed to be nation-building”. His statement is contrary to facts and the Bonn International Conference and the Bonn Agreement was all about providing a new constitution and nation-building of Afghanistan. UnSC document serial number S/2001/1154 is one of the unchangeable proof of this nation-building decision that came out of the International Bonn Conference and Bonn Agreement. Signed by the then Un Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan, the document says Afghanistan today signed in Bonn the "Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-establishment of Permanent Government Institutions". The nation-building narrative gave justification to the USA to stay in Afghanistan for 20 years till August 15, when the system formed by the Bonn Agreement collapsed in Afghanistan. All documents available in libraries about the Bonn Conference and the Bonn Agreement of December 2001 clearly say that the Bonn Agreement provided a framework for the later constitution that was established in 2004 and the presidential and parliamentary elections that followed. It emphasized the need for strong, centralized government institutions and nationbuilding. Documents also indicate the state-building roadmap that was created by the Bonn Agreement. Biden also criticized former President Ghani and said that the political leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of the people. President Biden said he had no regrets in a way the USA left Afghanistan behind and stated that the choice had to be made was either to follow through on the agreement to draw down US forces or to escalate the conflict and send thousands more American troops back into combat, and lurch into the third decade of conflict. His speech was like a list of justifications a gam-

Arif Nizami (Late) Founding Editor

Yousaf Nizami Umar Aziz

Joint Editor

Executive Editor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

Rabia Ahmed is a freelance columnist. Read more by her at http://rabia-ahmed.blogspot.com

in favour at the exact time and space. The Afghan War itself was a misperceived factor and clearly relyied on bler can provide to his family after losing his last prop- uninformed variables. The proper noun for the erty in a gamble. Yes, the USA had lost the gamble supreme vector was chosen as “War against Terror” in because the USA was playing a gambling game from 2001. The US involvement in Afghan soil looks like a “game of chance” since the very first day it the first day the USA enlanded in Afghanistan. tered the “Afghan War The US mindset is Game”. This time the linked with its long hisgame of chance was not tory of gambling and its The probability of winning the in favour of Washington fortune is also linked Afghan War was based on chances, therefore “The Gamble with “games of chance”. is Lost”. The two British-Ameribuilt on predictions of odds being I listened to his can colonies, Jamestown speech in a coffee bar in and Virginia, were Gamin favour at the exact time and Vienna where everybody bling Havens for Eurospace. The Afghan War itself was a around me who could peans by the 1860s, understand the English therefore we understand misperceived factor and clearly language was either that American prosperity laughing at President and history are strongly relyied on uninformed variables. Biden or passing remarks related with “games of The proper noun for the supreme I decided to censor. For chance’. Gambling, lotthe Fall of Kabul is teries, and the Gold vector was chosen as “War against me, not only a gambling but Rush are simple referTerror” in 2001. The US involvement also an intelligence failences to US history, US ure of understanding the fortune, and mindsets. in Afghan soil looks like a “game of skills of the enemy— the The USA had been Taliban. taking chances in chance” since the first day the USA “If you know the Afghanistan. Chances of entered the “Afghan War Game”. enemy and know yourodds in favour or against you need not fear have no logical frameThis time the game of chance was self, the result of a hundred work because they are battles. If you know not in favour of Washington based on predictions yourself but not the driven by previous expetherefore “The Gamble is Lost” enemy, for every victory riences. And the nominal gained you will also sufdata is in percentage, fer a defeat. If you know which is based on specneither the enemy nor ulation, on other hand, yourself, you will sucprobable factors can be cumb in every battle.” much more conclusive in risk analysis. The USA from ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War the very first day became a victim of slow and fast thinking, metaphorically they put the risk analysis on The writer Shazia Cheema is an analyst writing the back burner and start deciding in hurry to gain more. Apparently like gambling if chance would have for national and international media outlets. She favoured them, they could have achieved what they heads the DND Thought Center. She did her MA in expected to, but as the very name gambling represents Cognitive Semiotics from Aarhus University Denmark not putting your decisions under probability scrutiny, and is currently registered as a Ph.D. Scholar of the likelihood of odds against the desired outcome Semiotics and Philosophy of Communication at Charles University Prague. She can be reached at tends to be higher instead of being in favour. The probability of winning the Afghan War was her: Twitter @ShaziaAnwerCh Email: shaziaanbased on chances, built on predictions of odds being wer@yahoo.com

The US gamble was rooted in its history

Dedicated to the legacy of late Hameed Nizami

M. A. Niazi

Funds should go towards changing the mindset that says that population control is unGodly, that says that education is unnecessary, or only for males. A mindset that considers it acceptable to attack women physically and verbally, that considers women to be fair game, to tease, ridicule or control

Biden, Bonn and one of the Biggest Lies ever

HE Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) Rehbar Committee meeting in Islamabad on Saturday was a relatively lacklustre affair as the continued absence of the PPP,along with other parties, meant that the PDM was no longer a credible alternative to the government. It is not just the absence of the PPP, but also the PML(n),which is now the sole backbone of the PDM, that has got divergent strands within it, and is still sending mixed signals, with President Shahbaz Sharif pressing in one direction, and Vice-President Maryam nawaz in another. It might not be possible for the PDM to do more than hold a few rallies, as the Rehbar Committee has decided. Its silence shows that the PDM will not be able to bring down the government. If it cannot, then even its rallies will lose momentum. The PDM needs to realize that there are many problems facing it that will also make the government feel pressure. The economy might be a constant, but there is also the foreign policy challenge posed by the change in Afghanistan. There is also the new national education curriculum, on which the opposition has yet to fully express its views. Even the issue of electoral reform, symbolized by the introduction of electronic voting machines, has yet to receive proper opposition input, even though the government is fully invested in it, and the opposition is deeply interested in it. Another issue in which the opposition parties are deeply interested is the nAB law. The PDM parties need to realise that without the PPP, the opposition cannot expect to exert on the government the kind of weight necessary for it to pay attention on these issues. The PPP must also realise that it alone cannot bring pressure to bear and it needs the weight of the combined opposition to survive. It must realise that the challenge posed by the PTI in its interior Sindh stronghold, through Arbab Ghulam Rahim, cannot be ignored. Instead of being picked off one by one, a united approach is required at this juncture.

Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

mishes take place on a regular basis. But it must be borne in mind that the society across the border is little different to ours, it contains almost as many uneducated minds, as much poverty, just as much religious bigotry and the same degree of religious intolerance. Why, instead of following the same route do we not try to follow another that is more likely to lead us down safer paths, down avenues where our people can discover their strengths, and actually make progress? Why cannot we adopt a rational policy towards our neighbour instead of one reminiscent of the belligerent hero of a Punjabi movie? It is a crime to spend what money Pakistan possesses on beating the drums of war. That money needs to be spent on measures that will lead to greater, deeper, more long-lasting change. Measures such as education. According to statistics gathered in 2017, Pakistan’s total literacy rate was then just around 59 percent. That means that half the people of this country cannot read. They cannot read their names, their history, a summary of their goals, or tot up their financial records. That means that almost half the people of this country can be led by the nose to believe just about anything, even something that is far from reality and far from their interests. The figures also indicate that just 47 percent of the women of this country are literate. It means that more than half of those who nurture this country’s future lack what it takes to turn them into thinking, informed individuals; they are unable to impart to their children the knowledge that literacy is able to provide, because they are unable to decipher the alphabet themselves, unable to read to their children or teach them to read. The fact that only about 71 percent of men too are literate serves to underline the attitudes prevalent in society, where it is considered more important to

care for and educate one gender at the expense of the other, where one gender is more privileged than the other. The figures gathered in 2017 indicate that far from narrowing, this gap has been growing at a steady pace. It is past time we recognise the importance of social change versus war. If this country fails to recognise this, then nothing can rescue this nation from the pit into which it is sinking deeper by the day, and war – which is meant to be a last resort when all else fails, will further destroy us. Our funds must go to support education on an urgent footing, much like a war effort, only this war would be fought against ignorance. We need schools that actually exist, not just on paper, and teachers that really teach rather than simply draw a salary. They must go towards controlling a population that has already outstripped its resources, a population the size of which should be controlled before it outstrips those resources beyond redemption. Funds should go towards changing the mindset that says that population control is unGodly, that says that education is unnecessary, or only for males. A mindset that considers it acceptable to attack women physically and verbally, that considers women to be fair game, to tease, ridicule or control. They should go towards providing justice and accountability, to raising an awareness against the vulgarity, display and ostentation that plagues our society. not until these things are achieved will the people of Pakistan be able find a secure footing, both within their country and in a world where societies like that of the Scandinavian countries have progressed so much, and provided their people with what is rightfully theirs, with what is their due. Let's choose our priorities and aspirations carefully before it is too late.

Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

COMMENT 07 Editor’s mail Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan. e-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively

Bags not tools ACCORDInG to Wikipedia,“Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially or morally harmful.” Knowing the consequences of child labour, UnICEF declared 12 June as “World day against child labour” Still, in our country child labour is quite common. Children, who are the future of Pakistan, are holding tools instead of bags. According to a survey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics and the national Child Labour, approximately 19 million children below 14 years of age are working as child labourers in Pakistan due to poverty. They are deprived of their due rights along with education. If our youth is going to be uneducated and engaged in work, how will the country progress? The government must make sure that every child must be a student rather than a labour. Afroz MJ TurbAT

WHO warning

A war that turned upside down To a peaceful Afghanistan serving its people, without discrimination and differentiation

Candid Corner raoof haSan “When you move on in life, you always leave behind some things, some myths and some mysteries, that cannot be fathomed by the heart without going back to the past and visiting yourself again in that time, at that place. You can only understand such things and solve such riddles if, in your imagination, you can live the life again and be in that place again where you left a part of you.” –Q. M. Sidd

LOT has happened in the last few days, and a lot more may take shape in the coming times which may significantly alter the way people have been seeing Afghanistan and the region in the past. This may even impact their understanding of the United States, its policies and the myth of its invincibility in an unalterable manner. The speed with which the resistance to the Taliban collapsed within a matter of days makes for fictional stuff. In this instance, it was all real, unfolding moment by moment in front of all those who had an interest in our neighbour to the West. District after district surrendered together with their caches of the most sophisticated weaponry without a bullet fired. I am sure even the Taliban would have been surprised, if not shocked, at the speed with which they were able to achieve their ultimate objective of overpowering the government in Kabul. But this did not come about in a day or two. It has taken long, almost two decades of relentless fighting, of the blood of hundreds of thousands of people being spilt on both sides. Endless reams of paper will be compiled in a desperate effort to evaluate the reasons why the world’s lone superpower was not able to achieve the desired military objectives in an operation that commenced in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA. The confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act after a threeyear legal battle has much to decipher. In interviews, more than 400 insiders offered their input into what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the USA became mired in nearly two decades of frustrating warfare. According to many, lack of

understanding of the land, its people, their deeply-entrenched faith and how they worked constituted one major reason for the ultimate debacle that took shape. Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told the interviewers: “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan. We didn’t know what we were doing”. He went on to add: “Fundamentally, the war fighting strategies employed were fatally flawed”. To make matters worse, “enormous amounts of money were wasted in trying to make Afghanistan into a modern state”. There were differences regarding some fundamental issues which went unresolved: “Some US officials wanted to use the war to turn Afghanistan into a democracy, this for a country that was “accustomed to tribalism, monarchism and Islamic law”. Others wanted to transform Afghan culture and elevate women’s rights. Still others wanted to reshape the regional balance of power among Pakistan, India, Iran and Russia”. With time, and with increasing setbacks, the focus drifted away from the basic objective – that of winning the war– and incorporated ever new priorities for Afghanistan and the region. A large number of people who were interviewed described “explicit and sustained efforts by the US government to deliberately mislead the public”. They said that “it was common at military headquarters in Kabul, and at the White House, to distort statistics to make it appear that the United States was winning the war when that was not the case”. The other reason why Afghanistan could not be transformed was the endemic corruption in all echelons of the government. Christopher Kolenda, an Army colonel deployed in Afghanistan who advised three US generals in charge of the war, said that the Afghan government had “self organised into a kleptocracy”. He went on to say that “the US officials failed to recognise the lethal threat it posed to their strategy”. This was further certified by Ryan Crocker, the top US diplomat in Kabul in 2002 and again from 2011 to 2012: “Our biggest single project, sadly and inadvertently, may have been the development of mass corruption. Once it gets to the level I saw when I was there, it is somewhere between unbelievably hard and outright impossible to fix”. To compound matters further, US military trainers described the Afghan security forces as “incompetent, unmotivated and rife with deserters”. They also accused Afghan commanders of “pocketing salaries, paid by the US taxpayers, for tens and thousands of ghost soldiers”. In the same stride, a US military officer estimated that “one-third of police recruits were drug addicts or Taliban”. Another called them “stealing fools” who looted so much fuel from the US bases that they perpetually smelt of gasoline”. There was the case of touting statistics routinely to make things look good. These were grossly “distorted, spurious and downright false”. There were no answers to a number of questions asked. The willingness was absent. Various initiatives were pursued without any definitive

objective in mind. It was, as if, all these would combine in the end automatically to yield the desired results. It did not happen as it was never meant to. Investments were made in building schools, but there was no awareness where this would lead them to, and whether this would be an evidence of success, or just an effort that was made for doing a good thing. The whole war thing came across as a disjointed and loosely-knit effort whose end was never clearly delineated. Also missing was a coherent strategy and mechanism to get there. It was like a shot in the blind. If it strikes, you claim victory. If it does not, you pile up a plethora of false and fabricated reasons why it missed the target. So, all one has now after two decades of a deadly entanglement in Afghanistan are loads of excuses for not achieving success. In his piece, Steve Inskeep comes up with a damning observation: “Eventually the war with the Taliban continued so long that Afghan democracy was no longer the issue. American democracy was”. The story of Afghanistan has just begun to unfurl. There is so much more that will adorn the pages in the months and years to come. The objectives forgotten, the absence of strategy and tactics, the shifting of the poles, rampant corruption, and absence of motivation – all of these constituents will be much debated, and much contested. With the military chapter coming to an end, it is the political cost which may have to be paid that carries a real-time danger for the incumbents of the White House and the operatives at Pentagon. The focus is now going to be on Afghanistan where the Taliban are well entrenched in the saddle. They don’t come across as what they were when they last ruled more than two decades ago. Initially, they are showing a distinct willingness to compromise. They have announced a general amnesty for all their adversaries, including members of the previous government. They have also agreed to constitute an inclusive government and have promised to uphold human rights and the rights of women in the educational institutions and at work. In fact, they have requested them to continue with jobs that they were engaged in doing during the previous dispensation. These are encouraging initial signs and one hopes that these values are incorporated as abiding constituents of the system. Afghanistan is faced with daunting times. This is where Pakistan and other countries of the region and the international community come in. With the war over, there is the challenge of rebuilding the country anew when everyone will have to play a role: that of putting Afghanistan on the road to progress and inclusivity that would augur well for all its stakeholders, ethnic groups and beliefs. It should be an Afghanistan that is free of terror and that would serve its people, sans discrimination and differentiation. The writer is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute – an Islamabad-based think tank. Email: raoofhasan@hotmail.com. Twitter: @RaoofHasan

IT’S an horrifying fact that the sheesha smokers are not well perceived about the damaging effects of “sheesha” to the health.It is proved that smoking of sheesha is worse than cigrattes. In a hour long session of smoking sheesha contain 200 puffs while cigrattes contain only 20. When one smokes it, it not only effect him but also the people around him gets terribly effected without even smoking it.The world health organisation (WHO) had published a report in 2005 mentioning that smoking of sheesha is hazardous for health. Sheesha cafes must have been banned but still there’s no action took regarding this. But now one must understand that a health is above all and sheesha is a silent killer. fizA NASir TurbAT

What a day in Karachi AFTER meeting and touching situation of Karachi, A sudden accident or natural disaster wreaked havoc the whole joints of Karachi. There is a multitude of people who faced the music. Especially those penury people who unable to survive their live in this hot and heavy issue. I may say, a natural disaster is a benediction from Almught Allah, but to sort out this dilemma is responsibility of All people, whether they are in the government sector or private sector.. The whole political leaders as well as ministers of Sindh have carte blanche to overcome this hit potato which has been hocked a person of Karachi. This terrifying gloom is not only faces of middle-class neighbourhood, but also elite class. Furthermore, This monstrous world already as been faced the music DUE TO COVID-19, A DOZEn OF PEOPLE has LOST THEIR LIVES AT THE DROP OF HAT. It was a setback to this world. Most of the sudden, an incident can be occurred to you at any time. SAME AS natural disaster which is an inevitable. Recently, I have seen the whole enchidela of the of cities where Rainwater was stagnant on road of each city of Pakistan especially, Lahore and Karachi. Regarding this natural occurrence, Everyone has arisen heap of cinders regarding CM Sahab. Some of them, defamed his reputation in writing words servely. We know that, CM is final and absolute authority to wipe out all daunting tasks from the city, but It is a not only dilemma of Karachi to spick and span the water from the roads but also the others cities are still remaining. This monstrous society is plenary of pompous ass people. We always see our interests and benefits. We take up-turned and some time, we depart from our right principles. So We’re being selfish and rapacious regarding our monetary interest and other one. . A hallmark mark quoted can be stated here. this maxim can be infallible at some angles, but not completely top-notch to sigh. So to mock at others, or musterjocular expression, or your facial expression toward personality personality which feels a vestige of degrading our authority concerned who fought with this pandemic situation and tried to prevent us from this baneful disease. Who took such miraculous and effective steps to desist this disease from occurring again and again, but this society still opposed against him in lieu of extolling. In the nutshell. There is a sophist who depicts that. Same situation happens above given sweeping statement; Try to Change, TRY TO use creativity to your life, Try to be mature, do not change your paths, where you feel under the weather, try to stand at one’s feet, Try to love choose loved ones leader and proponent him inwardly and outwardly. Because of Public. They are nothing, but you must take action or protest regarding any illicit act and you do not allow to defame charming personality at any cost. NirMAl oAd ShikArpur

Punishment and discipline DISCIPLInE is the practice of training to obey rules or using punishments to correct disobedience. It is the teaching of the boundaries. The teaching of what is right and what is wrong. Discipline can be both “positive and negative” For example the positive discipline is admiring children for doing something “Good”, or stopping them for doing wrong by counseling. negatives can be like smacking and threatening them for doing something inappropriate. Some Parents and most of the Teachers in school believe that they do well by punishing them or “safe smacking”, Whereas the actual discipline is helping them to understand why certain behaviour is unacceptable. Sometimes after getting smacked children (students) get impinge and start to think that it is alright to beat others. Punishment is not the way to motivate them in order to behave more properly. Yes! Sometimes somewhere it is right to punish but many times the best way is to understand what was the reason behind the aggressive reaction, behaving in an inappropriate way or doing an offence . After this if they are wrong, the better way is admonishing them to make them stop from doing something unacceptable! not using corporal punishments. ArifA SAeed lArkANA

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

08 WORLD VIEW

US TroopS may be oUT, bUT US dollar Milley and Austin should resign coUld STIll conTrol afghanISTan NatioNal Review

CASH FROM INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS & DONORS HAS UNDERWRITTEN AFGHANISTAN’S FINANCIAL SYSTEM FOR DECADES. ANY AFGHAN GOVT WILL COME TO REALISE THAT US IS KEY TO FINANCIAL & ECONOMIC SECURITY BloomBeRg

dANieL Moss

hE Taliban may have swept Afghanistan, but they haven’t yet conquered its financial system, big parts of which rest on support from outside the country. The U.s. has a heavy hand in the multilateral organizations that dictate the flow of international aid upon which this shaky economy relies. Americans may be evacuating, but the dollar’s influence will remain. The International Monetary Fund, whose largest shareholder is the U.s., denied the Taliban access to reserve assets Wednesday, days before Afghanistan was set to receive almost $500 million. That came a day after a Biden administration official confirmed the U.s. froze nearly $9.5 billion belonging to the central bank and stopped shipments of cash to the nation. The IMF said the decision reflects the Taliban’s lack of international recognition, but it’s hard not see America’s hand behind this refusal. Afghanistan’s dire economic state thus gives the U.s. substantial leverage. At the end of 2020, a majority of bank deposits were in foreign currencies — even if those weren’t dollars, there’s a good chance any exchange would eventually require swapping into them. so while

the Taliban might not be fully responsive to traditional financial diplomacy, few sources of cash are as reliable as ones tied to the U.s. Afghans’ daily activity leans on a centuries-old, trust-based system of money transfers called hawala. Opiates accounted for as much as 11% of gross domestic product in 2018. In a review the following year, the IMF found that illegal drugs represented “a significant source of funding for insurgent forces.” Yet the price of opium tumbled in 2019, and areas under poppy cultivation fell by 38% to the lowest since 2013, the World Bank estimated in an April report. Propping the economy atop a sector as unstable as the drug trade will never be a sustainable, or particularly advisable, approach. The Taliban could also get money from China or Russia, assuming the latter would consider re-engaging after the soviet Union’s own military debacle there in the 1980s. Even Vladimir Putin acknowledges the buck is so key to global commerce that it’s tough to function without it. China, for its part, is already haunted by investment failures in Afghanistan, and is now fretting about the billions of dollars it has sunk into neighboring Pakistan. The reality is, cash from international institutions and donors has underwritten Afghanistan’s financial

system for decades. “Afghanistan’s economy is shaped by fragility and aid dependence,” the World Bank said in its April report. “Private sector development and diversification is constrained by insecurity, political instability, weak institutions, inadequate infrastructure, widespread corruption, and a difficult business environment.” Things weren’t great when the U.s. was in charge, but it’s easy to see a dramatic deterioration without at least some American muscle to shore up commerce. Let’s hope the Taliban appreciate that. The U.s. role at the IMF shouldn’t be underestimated. Over the decades, nothing of consequence has happened at the fund without nudging by the U.s. Treasury, or at the very least, the department’s signoff. Treasury’s view tends to reflect broader administration priorities and policy goals. (The IMF is still credited — or blamed — by many in Indonesia for pulling the plug on three decades of army-backed rule by suharto during the financial crisis of the 1990s.) And while the IMF’s so-called special drawing rights, or sDRs, include other major world currencies, few seem anywhere close to overtaking the dollar, which accounts for roughly 60% of global central bank reserves. Almost 90% of foreign-exchange transactions are against the

greenback. China’s stop-start efforts to create a reserve currency, meanwhile, have little to show. The euro, whose notes and coins were introduced shortly after the U.s. swept Taliban from power in 2001, once had hopes of rivaling the dollar or chipping away at its supremacy. A series of political crisis within the euro region has put paid to that grand ambition. Any Afghan government — especially return acts with an unflattering past — will come to realize that the U.s. is key to financial and economic security. Devastating tweets from the acting central banker, Ajmal Ahmady, describe the panic caused by halted dollar shipments as the Taliban’s rapid advance led to the collapse of the government. As he was en route to his own escape, Ahmady’s tweets blasted outgoing Afghan leaders for a lack of planning. The Taliban are “going to be faced with issues going forward on how to mitigate the impact” of recent moves to halt cash flow, he said in a telephone interview, Bloomberg News’s saleha Mohsin reported. The Afghan currency slid to a record low. how much any of this means to Afghanistan, or the degree of American will to test the extent of its monetary reach, remains to be seen. The broad point is that the U.s. is not without cards to play.

The ediTors

s anyone in the U.s. government accountable anymore? As the debacle in Afghanistan continues to unspool, there is no serious talk of anyone getting fired or resigning for his responsibility in a fiasco that has humiliated the United states and left our countrymen and Afghan allies stranded behind enemy lines. All of this is ultimately Joe Biden’s responsibility, even though, as he demonstrated again in his callous and confused interview with George stephanopoulos, he refuses to admit error. But we elect presidents for four-year terms. If it is Biden who made the call to pull out and to bless a shockingly inept withdrawal, that doesn’t absolve the Pentagon of responsibility for its role in planning and executing an operation worthy of Jimmy Carter’s illfated Desert One, only on a far larger scale. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley and secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin should resign immediately. Press reports say that they warned Biden against a total withdrawal. If true, good for them. But so did everyone who knows something about Afghanistan and isn’t committed to liquidating “forever wars” come what may. Once Biden made the call, it was their job to ensure it didn’t devolve into an emergency with our troops in dangerously constrained circumstances and forced to wait for Americans and Afghans to make their way to them through Taliban checkpoints. They failed — miserably. The idea that we had to send back thousands of troops to Afghanistan after pulling them out in order to mount a desperate rearguard evacuation should be indictment enough. We had to operate from

the Kabul airport because we had given up Bagram Airbase, bugging out in the middle of the night at the beginning of July. We had so many U.s. citizens still in the country because we had bizarrely withdrawn military forces first. In attempting to explain the inexplicable, General Milley has said they had no idea that the Afghan government would collapse so quickly. so no one at the Pentagon takes into account worst-case scenarios? Besides, if the leaks from intelligence agencies are to be believed, it is not true that Milley and others didn’t know. Is it really true that no one in the Pentagon has access to the same information as Bill Roggio and Thomas Joscelyn who run the Long War Journal at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and have made it clear for months how likely a rapid collapse was? Ignorance is no excuse. Milley also says, given the artificial imperative from the top to get down to 700 troops, he had to choose whether to defend Bagram or defend the U.s. embassy. If so, once these were his options, with the possibility that being forced to make such a choice would put the lives of Americans at risk if something went wrong, he should have quit then. Events in Afghanistan are devastating, and there’s no reversing them. We aren’t going to be able to make up for the losses to our security or for the great price that will be paid by our allies. But there is something to be done about the corrosive sense that when our government makes massive, avoidable errors, no one is ever held to account. It is within the power of Milley and Austin, who have embarrassingly emphasized their powerlessness the last few days, to do their part to restore some semblance of accountability by doing the right thing and resigning forthwith.

Decoding intelligence on Afghanistan How are Rajya Sabha members AN OFFICIAL INQUIRY SHOULD ANSWER MUCH WIDER QUESTIONS ABOUT THE U.S. MISSION THAN ONLY THOSE OF THE FINAL FEW WEEKS

iNteRpReteR, lowy iNstitute

BeN scoTT

ID the U.s. intelligence community fail by not accurately predicting the speed and scale of the Taliban’s victory? A familiar blame game is now underway in Washington with administration officials and intelligence sources each backgrounding the media with their respective sides of the story. An official inquiry, such as that conducted after 9/11 terrorist attacks, would be a better way to answer the question about what was or should have been foretold – as well as much larger questions about U.s. failure in Afghanistan. What can the United states expect of its intelligence services? Quite a lot. The U.s. intelligence community budget for 2020 was $85 billion. Intelligence agencies bidding for these resources haven’t hesitated to hype their capabilities. Yet there are limits to what even the best intelligence services in the world can do. They can’t predict the future. The main job of intelligence is to keep decision makers informed. “Creating decision advantage” is a common buzz phrase. Intelligence services are best at obtaining secrets and making sense of them – joining the dots and putting them

in context. It is much easier to reveal secret capabilities than to uncover intentions, especially if they are not spoken out loud. And the traditional tools of intelligence gathering and assessment are rarely useful for understanding large-scale social movements or dynamics, especially when these are accelerated by conflict. The speed of the Taliban’s success seems due less to its military prowess and more to the perceptions and decisions of various parts of the Afghan National security Forces. Those who had been willing to fight were no longer. Their choices were shaped by the decisions – or the anticipated decisions – of those around them. And when a conflict reaches a tipping point like this, other things change. Previously dependable sources of information become far less reliable. Awareness of those dynamics would have complicated any attempt at an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. Every step to smooth the way for the U.s. to leave risked sending a signal that could embolden the Taliban and weaken the morale of the Afghan National security Forces. Those opposed to the withdrawal had little incentive to help ensure that it was orderly. Any inquiry should look closely at the role intelligence played in Afghanistan decisions over the last two decades. It will likely shed more light on widely reported differences of opinion within the intelligence community. Dissent and disagreement is a good thing – these are signs of a healthy community. But claims that military assessments were skewed by their closeness to the mission will need to be closely scrutinised. Years of listening to overly optimistic military projections appear to have been a major factor in the hardening President Joe Biden’s determination to get out of Afghanistan whatever the cost, and it may have made him less open to more nuanced assessments. Ben has over twenty years’ experience in diplomacy, intelligence and international development.

punished for misconduct in the House?

iNdiaN expRess

P d T AchAry

hE Chairman of the Rajya sabha is reportedly contemplating action against MPs who, he thinks, were involved in the fracas in the house. There is speculation in the media about what kind of action will be taken against those MPs. There is also speculation about the formation of a special committee to suggest severe punishment. It appears that the Rajya sabha secretariat has prepared a report on the incident, which accuses some MPs of assaulting security personnel. The MPs, on the other hand, have alleged that strangers in blue uniform were allowed inside the house who roughed them up. house rules vest in the chairman all the powers necessary to conduct proceedings smoothly. The rules also provide for the suspension of MPs who “disregard the authority of the Chair or abuse the rules of the Council by persistently and willfully obstructing the business of the house”. however, the

power to suspend a member is vested in the house, not in the chairman. The chairman names such a member whereupon a motion is moved by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, or any other minister seeking the suspension of the member. Under the rule, the maximum period of suspension is for the remainder of the session. A suspended member cannot enter the chamber or attend any meetings of the committees. he also cannot give any notice for discussion or submission. By convention, a suspended member loses his right to get replies to his questions. Thus, suspension from the service of the house is regarded as a serious punishment. But, surprisingly, the rules do not spell out the disabilities of a suspended member. These are imposed on them as per conventions or precedent. suspension is the only serious punishment provided for in the rules. Rule 256 of the Rajya sabha’s Rules of Procedure specifies the acts of misconduct: Disregarding the authority of the chair, abusing the rules of the council by persistently and willfully obstructing the business thereof. A member can be punished for any of these acts and, usually, the punishment is immediate. Punishing members long after the occurrence of misconduct is very rare. suspension for the remainder of the session makes sense only when they are suspended immediately after the misconduct has been noticed by the chair. For the acts of misconduct by the MPs outside the house, which constitute a breach of privilege or contempt of the house, usually the privilege committee investigates the matter and recommends the course of action and the house acts on it. A special committee is appointed usually when the misconduct is so seri-

ous that the house may consider expelling the member. such occasions have been few and far between. The first case of expulsion occurred in 1951 when a special committee was appointed to investigate the conduct of h G Mudgal, an MP who accepted financial benefits from business houses to canvass support for them in the government and Parliament. The committee found him guilty of misconduct, which was derogatory to the dignity of Parliament. he was expelled. Another special committee was appointed in 2005 to inquire into the issue of MPs accepting money for raising questions in Parliament. This followed a sting operation done by a private body of investigative journalists. Ten MPs were expelled in connection with this episode. so, special ad-hoc committees are appointed only to investigate serious misconduct by MPs outside the house. No special committee is required to go into what happens before the eyes of the presiding officer inside the house. As per the rules of the house, they need to be dealt with then and there. An interesting question that arises in the Rajya sabha case is whether the house can give the MPs more severe punishment than suspension. The rules do not recognise any punishment other than suspension for a specific period. Article 20 of the Constitution prohibits a greater penalty than what the law provided at the time of committing the offence. It is a sobering thought that the rules of the house do not empower Parliament to inflict any punishment on its members other than suspension for creating disorder in the house. The writer is former secretary general, Lok Sabha

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

BUSINESS 09

LAHORE corporate corner President Alvi meets Dawlance prent company Arcelik CEO in Turkey

KP gOvT STArTS MUShrOOM CULTIvATIOn TO PrOMOTE hIgh-InCOME, LEgAL wOrK PESHAWAR AZIZ BUNERI

KARACHI: The honorable President of Islamic Republic of Pakistan – Dr Arif Alvi recently made an official visit to Turkey, where he also held a meeting with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Arçelik –Hakan Bulgurlu and several other major corporate leaders from Turkey. Arçelik, which is the 2nd largest manufacturer of home appliances and electronics in Europe, acquired Pakistan’s leading home appliance company Dawlance in 2016 and is one of the largest Turkish investment in Pakistan. During the meeting the participants discussed vast opportunities of economic cooperation between Pakistan and Turkey. The President also extended an invitation to Turkish investors and entrepreneurs to take full advantage of Pakistan’s business-friendly policies and conducive business environment being created by the government. Environmental and sustainability initiatives were also discussed and talked upon during the session as energy efficiency and environment sustainability are at the core of operations for Arçelik and is the point of focus for Pakistan. During the discussions with delegates of the Energy, Electronics, I.T., Health and other industries of Turkey, President Alvi also invited these entrepreneurs to avail the lucrative investment opportunities emerging in numerous industrial sectors of Pakistan, including; finance, mining and tourism amongst others. PRESS RELEASE

Bank Alfalah, Indus Motor Company Ltd. sign MoU to promote Toyota variants through Toyota Smart Finance (TSF)

HE government has started mushroom cultivation to generate income opportunities and discourage poppy cultivation in the remote Tirah Valley of Khyber district. In this regard, a training session on mushroom cultivation was organised in January 2021 with the technical assistance of the Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture and Biology (NIFA) under the auspices of the Orakzai Scouts 235 Wing in which 30 local farmers participated. Speaking to Profit, Tirah Mushroom Club Marketing Manager Ehsanullah said that at present, they only have oyster mushrooms available at Rs300 per 500 grams; however, other types of mushroom will be introduced soon. Agriculture is the main source of income for the majority of the population in Tirah Valley but the farmers are dependent on poppy crop and locals are now looking for low-cost, high-income, legal job opportunities. A farmer, Fazal Rabi, said that he was facing financial problems when he returned to his area a year

Pak-Iran freight train service restored after two days The freight train service between Pakistan and Iran was resumed on Saturday after repair and rehabilitation of the railway track damaged due to the derailment of a cargo train at Dalbandin a couple of days back. According to official sources, the train, which was carrying rice, was on the way to Iranian City Zahedan from Quetta when it met with an accident near Dalbandin on Thursday and its six bogies derailed, damaging 180 feet railway track. According to Pakistan Railways, the train would be allowed to proceed towards its destination after completing a

few mechanical issues. Earlier in mid-July, the Pakistan-Iran freight train service was suspended after heavy rains in Chaghi. According to the Pakistan Railways officials, the track was submerged by rainwater and the 10-kilometre long track had been badly affected. It took four days to restore the rain-affected railway track for the Pakistan-Iran rail service. Earlier on June 19, Pakistan-Iran rail service was suspended when six wagons of a Quetta-bound freight train overturned near Dalbandin tehsil of Chaghi district. The freight train was travelling

from Iran’s Zahedan city to Quetta when six of its wagons overturned, suspending the Pakistan-Iran rail service. The track was restored on an emergency basis. Officials of the Pakistan Railways had said the wagons overturned due to sand dunes covering the tracks. Balochistan’s Chaghi district, particularly Dalbandin, is sandy and dusty. Trains passing through the area often get stuck when the tracks are covered with sand due to winds. Six tankers of a water supply train also derailed in June last due to sand covering the tracks. NEWS DESK

Saudi Arabia plans FTA with Pakistan, 10 other countries RIYADH TLTP

KARACHI: Bank Alfalah has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Indus Motor Company Limited (IMC) for a joint launch of a portal Toyota Smart Finance (TSF) to promote Toyota products through the former’s auto financing services. Toyota Smart Finance has been launched to the mutual customer base of both entities. The portal is not only a one stop online financing solution for customers but also empowers dealerships to initiate credit process from the floor by electronically engaging with either Bank Alfalah Islamic or Conventional. The signing ceremony took place at House of Habib, in the presence of Bank Alfalah Islamic, Group Head - Dr Muhammad Imran, Talat Khurshid Mian – Retail Head, Syed Nabeel Ahmed Rizvi– Business Head Auto Finance, Abdul Rab - SGM Marketing & Sales, Alam Ayub - DM Marketing Planning and Sarim Jamal - AM Marketing Planning, Wajih Ur Rehman – RSM Autos CFG, Javed Amir – National Sales Manager Autos CFG and Iftikhar Javed – Head Autos Business CFG. TSF portal will also help the customers to finance the Toyota vehicles with a quick and easy process which will involve minimal documentation and application fee. Through the portal, customers can avail their desired vehicle from any dealerships across Pakistan. Applicants can apply for auto financing with 15pc security deposit and with a tenure of up to 7 years. With the Bank Alfalah Islamic Auto Finance programme, customers will be able to finance the vehicle with no upfront Takaful charges. Additionally, no rentals will be required before the delivery of the vehicle. PRESS RELEASE

after the being displaced due to militancy, adding that he found the mushroom crop as a good source of earning living in his trying times. Principal Scientist Group Leader Dr Muhammad Ibrahim, who is in charge of Food and Environmental Safety and Mushroom Programme at NIFA, has trained local farmers in Tirah with the help of security officials. He said that the valley has best climate for mushroom cultivation and although no concrete research has been done on how to increase their production to date, a few locals have found ways to do so. According to Dr Ibrahim, oysters mushroom are produced in large quantities in Pakistan. In some places, domestic mushrooms are also harvested, while some other valuable varieties are being cultivated after experiments. Thirteen Mushroom Club Project Manager Karamat Ullah Afridi said that an awareness campaign was launched in the area to attract people to cultivate mushrooms and a regular training programme was also organised. "People are taking interest in lowcost, high-income business and on the other hand as there is no source of income for them," he said. According to Dr Ibrahim, mushroom seeds are produced in NIFA’s laboratories, which are provided

Saudi Arabia is looking for more trading partners under free trade agreement (FTA) as the country aims at increasing non-oil exports share in its gross domestic product (GDP). The kingdom is resuming negotiations for free trade agreements with 11 countries, Okaz paper reported, citing a circular by the Federal of Saudi Chambers (FSC) to all chambers of commerce operating in the Kingdom, based on the directions of the General Authority for Foreign Trade (GAFT). Target countries are China, India, Pakistan,

Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the United States of America. The Kingdom aims to export services including transport, distribution, professional and financial services, communication services, postal services as well as express mail, media, hotel, construction and contracting, education and training, travel and tourism, environmental, and entertainment. The Saudi Exports Development Authority (SEDA) announced on Wednesday, it will identify over 120 international tendering opportunities in a number of target countries, mainly covering construction and industrial supplies and infrastructure projects.

Facebook starts small business loans initiative in India CALIFORNIA AGENCIES

Facebook will offer loans to small businesses in India under a new initiative with online lending platform Indifi. The California-based company in a statement said it has started its Small Business Loans Initiative in partnership with Indifi and will not receive any revenue through the partnership, it said. The loans will be offered to firms that have advertised on Facebook's family of apps, which includes Instagram and WhatsApp, for at least 180

days and will range from 500,000 Indian rupees to 5,000,000 Indian rupees. The interest rate will be 17 percent to 20 percent per annum without collateral, the company said on its website. Indifi will also provide a 0.2 percent reduction on interest for businesses that are partly or fully owned by women. “We are at the spear end of the digital transformation and we believe that the Small Business Loans Initiative can provide big impetus to early entrepreneurs to fuel their ideas and their appetite for taking risks,” said Ajit

Mohan, Facebook managing director for India. To be eligible for loans, the companies should have a presence in 82 Indian cities, it said. Facebook is boosting its presence in India. Last year, it bought a 10 per cent stake in Jio Platforms, owned by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, for $5.7 billion. There are more than 340 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of the social media platform's global audience size of 289 billion active monthly users.

to farmers at a discounted price. One kg of seed is providing at Rs1000 while the market rate is Rs1800 to 2500 per kg. Most farmers buy non-certified seeds from the market which affects production. He said that with the financial support of the Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF), the necessary secessions for awareness, training of farmers and provision of seeds will be started soon in tribal districts. Furthermore, he said that the project was aimed at promoting mushroom cultivation in tribal districts and providing employment opportunities to the people. According to the KP Agriculture Department, 32,000 acres of land is under cultivation in Tirah Valley, of which 80 per cent is under poppy cultivation, six per cent under vegetables and while the rest of land is under orchards and other crops. The Department of Agriculture had planted saffron in Tirah on an experimental basis in 2016 and 2017; however; no major success was achieved due to limited resources. The department has also planted mushroom in Buner and other districts but due to lack of awareness, local people have not yet paid much attention to this crop.

Current account posts $773m deficit in July Pakistan posted a current account deficit (CAD) of $773 million in the first month of 2021-22 against a surplus of $583m in July 2020. According to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), this deficit is in line with SBP’s expectations of a current account deficit of 2-3 per cent of GDP as economic activity continued to progress. The statement said that the country’s current account had been in deficit since December 2020. In January it was $229m, $50m in February, $47m in March and $188m in April, but in May it widened to $650m and surged to $1.6bn in June, resultantly the country ended the FY21 with CAD of $1.8bn. Rapid increase in imports was the real reason for current account deficit in July, the SBP data showed. The imports bill jumped to $5.396bn in the first month compared to $3.557bn in the same month of FY21. Exports also increased, but not very significant, to $2.257bn in July compared to $1.885bn in July 2020. “Despite the recent increase in the current account deficit, the position of SBP’s foreign reserves continued to strengthen on a monthly basis,” it added. “This is in contrast to past trends and it is supported by country’s market-based exchange rate system.” SBP Governor Dr Reza Baqir has recently said the CAD would be in the range of 2-3pc of GDP in FY22. He said this would happen due to higher imports as the economy has started performing at larger scale. MONITORING REPORT

FrieslandCampina Engro Pakistan Ltd. releases financial results for half year ended June 2021

KARACHI: Friesland Campina Engro Pakistan Limited (FCEPL) announced its financial results for the half year ended June 30, 2021. The company reported revenue of Rs24.6 billion registering 22% growth over last year, on the back of strengthened distribution and increased availability of products, in addition to ongoing investment in brands. The consecutive quarter-onquarter growth reflects a wider footprint of our portfolio of brands across Pakistan. The business climate remained challenging with record inflation leading to a steep increase in commodity prices. The company has managed to offset these spikes and improve Gross Margin by 350bps over last year through several innovation-related and saving initiatives spanning the entire value chain. The resultant profit after tax shows an improvement of 430bps versus last year, primarily due to a reduction in finance cost of 47%, as a result of reduced rates and effective management of working capital. With higher yields from farmers and increased acceleration in conversion to packaged milk, the company foresees long term and sustainable growth both in terms of capital expansion and value creation for shareholders. PRESS RELEASE

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

10 FOREIGN NEWS

LAHORE

Police arrest Hundreds of Protesters as australia rePorts record covid-19 cases MELBOURNE

REUTERS

USTRALIAN police arrested hundreds of antilockdown protesters in Melbourne and Sydney on Saturday and seven officers were hospitalised as a result of clashes, as the country saw its highest ever single-day rise in Covid-19 cases. Mounted police used pepper spray in Melbourne to break up crowds of more than 4,000 surging toward police lines, while smaller groups of protesters were prevented from congregating in Sydney by a large contingent of riot police. Victoria state police said that they arrested 218 people in the state capital Melbourne. They issued 236 fines and kept three people in custody for assaulting police. The arrested people face fines of A$5,452 ($3,900) each for breaching public health orders. Police in New South Wales, where Sydney is the capital, said they charged 47 people with breaching public health orders or resisting arrest, among other offences, and issued more than 260 fines ranging from A$50 ($35) to $3,000. The police said about 250 people made it to the city for the protest. Sydney, Australia's biggest city with more than 5 million people, has been in a strict lockdown for more than two months, failing to contain an outbreak that has spread across

internal borders and as far as neighbouring New Zealand. The vast majority of the 894 cases reported across Australia on Saturday were found in Sydney, the epicentre of the Delta variant-fuelled outbreak.

Haiti faces anger and despair a week after quake, stirring security fears MARCELINE REUTERS

Tensions in Haiti were rising on Saturday over a lack of aid to remote areas of the impoverished country hardest hit by last week’s devastating earthquake that killed over 2,000 people. Many Haitians whose homes and livelihoods were destroyed by the magnitude 7.2 quake that struck on August 14 said they were unsure how to even start rebuilding. Exasperation over the time it was taking for aid to come through began to boil over on Friday, with residents attacking aid trucks in several towns across the south of the Caribbean nation. A confrontation also erupted after former President Michel Martelly visited a local hospital in the city of Les Cayes, where one of his staff left behind an envelope of money that set of a violent scramble. "We are concerned about the deteriorating security situation that may disrupt our assistance to vulnerable Haitians. We are talking to the authorities and all actors to try and prevent this," said Pierre Honnorat, head of the United Nations' World Food Programme in Haiti. The official death toll from the earthquake stands at 2,189 people, with an estimated 332 people still missing. But residents in towns across the southern rural countryside are still digging for bodies believed to lie underneath the rubble. Tens of thousands of homes are in ruins, leaving many families with no option but to sleep outside despite torrential downpours at night. The hurricane season in the Caribbean runs until the end of November and Prime Minister Ariel Henry has warned residents to brace for more storms. "After the emergency phase, which we hope will only last a few weeks, we will need to start thinking about reconstruction," Henry told a meeting with the Organization of American States on Friday, appealing to neighbouring countries for support and aid. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Twitter that the USS Arlington naval vessel was heading to Haiti carrying helicopters, a surgical team and a landing craft to assist in the relief effort. Several countries, including the United States, have already dispatched aid and rescue teams. Reaching the areas most in need of help has been hindered by landslides and damage to the main highway, as well as gang fighting that has complicated travel between the capital Port-auPrince and southern parts of the country where crops and access to drinking water have been destroyed. Some animals kept for food were also killed. Officials and residents in small towns and rural areas continued to tally the dead and disappeared. For countless others, the earthquake has upended their lives in quieter but enduring ways.

"We are in a very serious situation here in New South Wales," said state Health Minister Brad Hazzard. "There is no time now to be selfish, it's time to think of the broader community and your families." Police patrolled Sydney's streets

and blocked private and public transport into the city centre to reduce the number of people gathering at an unauthorised protest. In Melbourne, the country's second-most populous city, a large crowd managed to march and some

clashed with police, after state Premier Daniel Andrews expanded a city lockdown to the entire state. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton had earlier warned people to stay away from the protest, adding it was "just ridicu-

China allows couples to have third child BEIJING AP

China will now allow couples to legally have a third child as it seeks to hold off a demographic crisis that could threaten its hopes of increased prosperity and global influence. The ceremonial legislature on Friday amended the Population and Family Planning Law as part of a decades-long effort by the ruling Communist Party to dictate the size of families in keeping with political directives. It comes just six years after the last change. From the 1980s, China strictly limited most couples to one child, a policy enforced with threats of fines or loss of jobs, leading to abuses including forced abortions. A preference for sons led parents to kill baby girls, leading to a massive imbalance in the sex ratio. The rules were eased for the first time in 2015 to allow two children as officials acknowledged the looming consequences of the plummeting birthrate. The overwhelming fear is

that China will grow old before it becomes wealthy. China long touted its one-child policy as a success in preventing 400 million additional births in the world’s most populous country, thus saving resources and helping drive economic growth. However, China’s birth rate, paralleling trends in South Korea, Thailand and other Asian economies, already was falling before the one-child rule. The average number of children per mother tumbled from above six in the

1960s to below three by 1980, according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, the number of working-age people in China has fallen over the past decade and the population has barely grown, adding to strains in an aging society. A once-adecade government census found the population rose to 1.411 billion people last year, up 72 million from 2010. Statistics show 12 million babies were born last year, which would be down 18 percent from 2019’s 14.6 million.

lous to think that people would be so selfish and come and do this." Several hundred people also protested peacefully in Brisbane, which is not in lockdown. Just 7 percent of Australians support the often-violent protests, according to a late-July poll by market research firm Utting Research. Compliance with public health rules has been one of the key cited reasons behind Australia's success, relative to other rich countries, in managing the pandemic. But the country has been struggling to rein in the third wave of infections that began in Sydney in mid-June. Australia has had about 43,000 Covid-19 cases and 978 deaths. But while those numbers are low, only about a third of Australians aged 16 and above have been fully vaccinated, according to federal health ministry data released on Saturday. New South Wales officials reported three deaths and 516 people in hospital on Saturday. Of the 85 people in intensive care, 76 were unvaccinated, officials said. At least 96 people were active in the community during their infectious period, and there were a number of breaches of public health orders, all slowing the efforts to curtail the outbreak. In Victoria, at least 39 people were active in the community while infectious. Eighteen people were in hospital, eight in intensive care and six on ventilators.

Chinese over 60, who number 264 million, accounted for 18.7 percent of the country’s total population in 2020, 5.44 percentage points higher than in 2010. At the same time, the working-age population fell to 63.3 percent of the total from 70.1 percent a decade ago. The shift to the two-child rule led to a temporary bump in the numbers of births but its effects soon wore off and total births continued to fall because many women continued to decide against starting families. Japan, Germany and some other wealthy countries face the same challenge of having fewer workers to support aging populations. However, they can draw on investments in factories, technology and foreign assets, while China is a middle-income country with labor-intensive farming and manufacturing. At its session Friday, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress canceled the leveling of fines for breaking the earlier restrictions and called for additional parental leave and childcare resources. New measures in finance, taxation, schooling, housing and employment should be introduced “to ease the burden on families," the amendment said.

Sri Lanka bans 'drunk driving' of elephants in new protection law COLOMBO AFP

Sri Lanka will issue captive elephants with their own biometric identity cards and ban their riders from drinking on the job under a wide-ranging new animal protection law. Many rich Sri Lankans — including Buddhist monks — keep elephants as pets to show off their wealth, but complaints of ill treatment and cruelty are widespread. The new measures are aimed at protecting the animals' welfare and include strict regulations around working elephants, as well as mandating a daily twoand-a-half-hour bath for each creature. Official records show there are about 200 domesticated elephants in the South Asian nation, with the population in the wild estimated at about 7,500. The new law will require all owners to ensure that animals under their care have new photo identity cards with a DNA stamp. It also brings in multiple regulations for working elephants.

Baby elephants can no longer be used for work — even cultural pageants — and cannot be separated from their mothers. Logging elephants cannot be worked for more than four hours a day and night work is prohibited. There are new restrictions on the tourism industry too — from now on, no more than four people can ride an elephant at once, and they must sit on a

well-padded saddle. Their use in films is banned, except for government productions under strict veterinary supervision, as is allowing their riders to drink while working. “The person who owns or has the custody of such elephants shall ensure that the mahout (rider) is not consuming any liquor or any harmful drug while employed,” Wildlife Protection minister Wimalaweera Dissanayaka said in a gazette notification dated Thursday. Owners must send their animals for a medical check up every six months. Those who violate the new law will have their elephant taken into state care and could face a three year prison sentence. Capturing wild elephants in Sri Lanka is a criminal offence punishable by death, but prosecutions are rare. Animal rights activists as well as elephant experts have alleged that over the last 15 years, more than 40 baby elephants have been stolen from national wildlife parks.

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

SPORTS 11

LAHORE

BaBar, Fawad lead Pakistan recovery in sweltering second test against west indies KINGSTON

AFP

ABAR Azam missed out on a hundred but Fawad Alam may yet have the chance to reach three figures after the pair lifted Pakistan from a horrific start to end day one of the second Test against the West Indies in relative comfort at 212 for four at Sabina Park on Friday. Babar’s composed 75 through almost five hours at the crease and Fawad’s typically pugnacious 76 before retiring hurt from severe leg cramps just after tea rescued the tourists from the depths of three for two. Kemar Roach once again led the charge with the ball for the home side, taking three for 49 off 17 overs, striking in his first two overs of the match. He then returned in the final session to claim the all-important wicket of Babar when the Pakistan captain appeared to be moving serenely towards a sixth Test century. His fourth-wicket stand with Fawad was worth 158 when the awkward-looking lefthander had to limp off the field on a sweltering afternoon in the Jamaican capital where temperatures hit 34 degrees. Those dehydrating conditions also claimed West Indies wicketkeeper Joshua da Silva who was replaced by Jahmar Hamilton for the rest of the day when the first-choice gloveman left the field just before tea. Despite Babar’s dismissal and the temporary loss of Fawad, Pakistan remain on course for a challenging first innings total

with Mohammad Rizwan and Faheem Ashraf set to resume on the second morning in a fifth-wicket partnership that has added 44 runs. That promising position was in stark contrast though to the situation Pakistan found themselves in when they were tottering at two for three just four overs into the day. ‘BUCKLED DOWN’: Their hopes for a solid start after being put in crumbled in the very first over when Abid Ali fell to a good low catch by Jermaine Blackwood at third slip off Roach. Revelling in the bowler-friendly conditions, the senior seamer then dismissed Azhar Ali without scoring, the former captain edging a delivery through to da Silva. Jayden Seales, man of the match in the first Test when he claimed eight wickets including five in the second innings, enjoyed his share of the early spoils. He drew the other opener, Imran Butt, into playing at another full-length delivery for da Silva to take his second straightforward catch in nine balls. Babar and Fawad then displayed admirable grit and discipline in defying West Indies’ all-pace attack with the elegant skipper countering with a handful of handsome boundaries. Fawad was again a model of unorthodox defiance given his much-talked about exaggerated square-on batting stance. “I thought Kemar (Roach) should have extended his opening spell for a couple more overs given that he was bowling so well and the conditions were really helpful to the

bowlers at that time,” said West Indies bowling coach Roddy Estwick. “Still, you have to give credit to the way Babar and Fawad played because they buckled down well and worked hard to get their team in a decent position.” The pair played with increasing freedom

in the post-lunch period as 83 runs were added in the two hours of play. They looked set to prosper even more in the day’s final session but Fawad fell victim to the conditions. Whether or not his departure upset his skipper’s concentration, Babar’s innings ended an hour into the post-tea period via a sharp low

Medvedev, Barty secure triumphs at Cincinnati CINCINNATI AFP

Daniil Medvedev took quick revenge on Friday for his Olympic loss to Pablo CarrenoBusta, with the top seed at the ATP and WTA Cincinnati Masters delivering a crushing 6-1, 6-1 verdict. The Russian world number two had it all his way into the semi-finals with a 56-minute rout, which ended on the Spaniard's double-fault. "I was feeling great during the match. In these conditions you try to win the match as fast as possible, especially against CarrenoBusta, who can catch fire at any moment and start getting you into long rallies," Medvedev said. "I tried to keep pushing him and I am really happy I managed to do it." Women's top seed Ashleigh Barty recovered from being down a break in the second set to sweep past fellow French Open champion BarboraKrejcikova 6-2, 6-4. The Australian handed her Czech opponent only a third loss since mid-May. Krejcikova won Roland Garros in June while Barty claimed the Paris title in 2019 and Wimbledon this season. "I feel like I did a good job looking after my own serves," Barty said. "For all but one service game, I felt like a lot

of the time I was in control. "It was just staying patient, knowing that I was doing the right things." Medvedev, last week's Toronto champion, won his eighth match in a row as he prepares for a final four contest against compatriot Andrey Rublev. Fourth seed Rublev defeated France's Benoit Paire 63, 4-6, 6-3 with the Russian advancing to his fourth Masters 1000 quarter-final in six tournaments this season. SefanosTsitsipas, the second seed, had to lift after Felix Auger-Aliassime saved two match points late in the second set. But the Greek did just that to post a 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 win for his ninth semi-final of the season.

"Things got tough in the second set and I had to find different solutions. I stepped in with aggression in the third," he said. "It took a lot of patience to find my opportunities in the third set. But I was determined and I didn't let go." Norway's Casper Ruud, a wizard on clay this summer with three titles in three weeks, was taken apart by Olympic gold medalist Alexander Zverev 6-1, 6-3 as the top four men's seeds took their places in the semis. Medvedev has won all four tour matches against Rublev, including the quarters here in 2019 when Medvedev went on to win the title. "I'm happy to play against him, because it's a nice challenge for me to see what I need to improve," Rublev said. In Saturday's women's semi-finals, Barty will face German Angelique Kerber, who advanced 6-4, 3-3 when Czech opponent Petra Kvitova retired with gastric illness. The fairytale story for wild card JilTeichmann continued with a 6-3, 6-2 defeat of Tokyo Olympic champion Belinda Bencic, a fellow Swiss. "Everything went right, I felt good from the beginning," Teichmann said. "I served well, defended well, it all worked out." The Swiss will play for the final against Karolina Pliskova, who put out Paula Badosa when the Spaniard retired trailing 7-5, 2-0 with a right shoulder injury.

catch at second slip by Jason Holder off Roach. West Indies are seeking a first Test series triumph over Pakistan for 21 years. The visitors are hoping to repeat the efforts of the 2005 and 2011 tours of the Caribbean when they lost the first encounters before rebounding to square both two-Test series.

PM decides to change PcB chairMan: rePort NEWS DESK Prime Minister Imran Khan has decided to change Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairmanby not extending Ehsan Mani’s term, according to Geo News. As per the report, Imran is considering to appoint a cricketer as PCB chairman this time as Ehsan Mani reportedly failed to live up to his expectations. Report said that the premier is of the view that an experienced cricketer can implement his vision and Ramiz Raja, who was in the national team along with Imran Khan in 1992, is aware of modern cricket. It added that the PM will take final decision in a couple of days and recommend two names to the governing board for the coveted post.

Mbappe on target as PSG win without Messi and Neymar PARIS AFP

Kylian Mbappe and Angel di Maria were both among the scorers as a Paris Saint-Germain side missing both Lionel Messi and Neymar won 4-2 away at Brest on Friday to make it three wins out of three this season in Ligue 1. Ander Herrera and IdrissaGanaGueye also found the net as PSG moved ominously on to nine points from a possible nine and clear at the top of the fledgling French table with a second consecutive 4-2 victory. The full house of 15,000 in Brittany were denied the chance to see Messi make his PSG debut after the Argentine was left out of the squad as he continues to build up his fitness. Neymar, who like Messi returned to training late after going all the way to the final of the Copa America last month, was also left out but PSG once again showed that they have little trouble finding the net and winning without the two superstars. However, once again their defending left a lot to be desired and will have given coach Mauricio Pochettino food for thought with a number of players still waiting on the sidelines. "I prefer to win, but if I could choose a result I would prefer to win without conceding a goal," Pochettino said. "We have lots of star names but we need to build a team, that is the challenge. "It won't be easy because we need to find a balance among all the talented players we have. It will take time."

Italy's Euro 2020 goalkeeping hero Gianluigi Donnarumma appeared in the squad for the first time since arriving from AC Milan but was left on the bench as KeylorNavas started in goal. Donnarumma's fellow European champion, Marco Verratti, did play for the first time this season in midfield but skipper Marquinhos was still missing. Mbappe has dominated headlines in Paris as speculation surrounds the future of the World Cup winner, who is out of contract at the end of the campaign and is wanted by Real Madrid. However he set up a total of four goals in the opening league wins against Troyes and Strasbourg, and once again Mbappe played a central role in the rudimentary surroundings of the Stade Francis-Le Ble. PSG went ahead midway through the first half when Mbappe's clipped cross was cleared out to the edge of the area where Herrera met the ball on the volley and the Spaniard's shot found the bottom corner. Mbappe made it 2-0 in the 36th minute, arriving to head in his first goal of the season after GeorginioWijnaldum's shot had been blocked. Brest got one back just before the break when Franck Honorat finished first-time after a fine back-heel lay-off by RomainFaivre. Nevertheless Gueye appeared to put the game to bed when he made it 3-1 in the 73rd minute with a piledriver from 35 metres which Brest's Dutch international goalkeeper Marco Bizot could only help on its way. Yet Brest pulled another one back five minutes from time through Steve Mounie and PSG were actually in danger of conceding an equaliser until the 90th minute

when Di Maria broke downfield and played a one-two with AchrafHakimi before scoring with a delightful lob. Di Maria had come on for Mbappe late on for his

first appearance of the campaign and his goal was reminiscent of his winner for Argentina in the Copa America final against Brazil last month.

Sunday, 22 August, 2021

prayer tImINgs

NEWS

ChinA CondEmnS GwAdAr ATTACk, ASkS PAkiSTAn To PUniSh PErPETrATorS ISLAMABAD

staff report

HE Chinese embassy “strongly condemned” the attack targeting a motorcade carrying Chinese nationals in Balochistan on Friday that killed two local children and injured one Chinese worker. The suicide blast took place at the East Bay Road in the port city of Gwadar around 7:00 pm (GMT+5). Hours after the attack, Baloch Liberation Army, an India-funded terrorist group, claimed responsibility. “BLA carried out a ‘self-sacrificing’ attack against a convoy of Chinese engineers,” it said in a statement. In a statement issued Saturday, the embassy asked Pakistan to upgrade its safety measures to ensure such incidents don’t happen again. “The Chinese Embassy in Pakistan strongly condemns this act of terrorism, extends its sincere sympathies to the injured of both countries, and expresses its deep condolences to the in-

nocent victims in Pakistan,” it said. The mission “launched the emergency plan immediately, demanding Pakistan to properly treat the wounded, conduct a thorough investigation on the attack, and severely punish the perpetrators,” the statement noted. Pakistan is already undertaking a comprehensive review of the security of Chinese nationals in the country, the

Ministry of Interior said in a statement issued after the attack. “At the same time, relevant departments at all levels in Pakistan must take practical and effective measures to accelerate to implement strengthened whole-process security measures and upgraded security cooperation mechanism to ensure that similar incidents will not happen again,” the embassy said.

“Recently, the security situation in Pakistan has been severe […] resulting in the casualties of several Chinese citizens,” the statement added. China has in recent years played a key role in developing the deep-water port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. But, there have been some attacks on Pakistani and Chinese officials working on projects related to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Last month, a bus carrying Pakistani and Chinese workers fell into a ravine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after a suicide bomber targeted the vehicle. Nine Chinese and four Pakistanis were killed in the attack. After initially suggesting that the incident was an accident, the government earlier this month said a suicide bomber had attacked the bus which was carrying Chinese workers to the under-construction Dasu dam. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said last week that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) intelligence agencies were behind the attack.

FAJR SUNRISE

ZUHR

ASR MAGHRIB ISHA

4:03

12:07

3:45

5:29

6:44

8:11

Ashraf Ghani's brother announces support for Taliban KABUL INp

Former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani’s brother, Hashmat Ghani, has announced his support for the Taliban. According to reports, Hashmat Ghani announced his support for the group in the presence of Taliban leader Khalil-urRehman and religious scholar Mufti Mahmood Zakir. Earlier, Ashraf Ghani said he hopes to return home after fleeing to the United Arab Emirates in the face of the Taliban’s rapid advance, and said he supported talks between the Taliban and top former officials. "For now, I am in the Emirates so that bloodshed and chaos is stopped," he said in a video message -- his first appearance since leaving the capital on Sunday. He noted he had "no intention" to remain in exile. "I am currently in talks to return to Afghanistan." In his message posted to Facebook, Ghani added that he supports talks between the Taliban and top former government officials after it emerged that Taliban members had met with former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the peace process. Taliban leaders have said they have "pardoned all former government officials", according to the monitoring group SITE.

UAE to temporarily host 5,000 Afghans at US request

Formation of inclusive government in Afghanistan arduous task: ambassador KABUL staff report

The process of formation of an all-inclusive government in war-torn Afghanistan was “difficult and complex” but the stakeholders were “hopeful” of achieving the goal, Pakistan said.

Speaking to a Pakistan-based news channel from Kabul, Islamabad’s ambassador in Afghanistan, Mansoor Ahmed Khan, said engagement with the Taliban under the peace process was ongoing for the last two years and the chief concern was that only an inclusive government could cure the ills plating the country and ensure lasting peace. Earlier this week, Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman and negotiator, told The Associated Press that the militants would hold talks in the coming days aimed at forming an “open, inclusive Islamic government”. But the world fears for the cause if the militant group attempts to enforce its writ by brute force, Khan said. He said since the government of former president Ashraf Ghani was removed and the group took over earlier this week, consultations are underway between the Taliban and Afghan leadership, including Ghani’s predecessor Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a senior Taliban leader, for the formation of an inclusive government. When asked if he was hopeful of the establishment of a settlement, Khan said: “I have talked to both sides and my opinion is that they are hopeful of moving closer to that goal in the next few days.” “We are also hopeful that both parties will try to achieve it, but that it will be a difficult and com-

plex process.” Sharing his assessment of the potential impediments, the ambassador said it was difficult because there were complex ethnic dimensions in Afghanistan. An while the Taliban called themselves representative of the Pashtun population, there were non-Pashtun influential groups as well, he added. “And when we talk about an inclusive government through political settlement, a major issue is what sort of constitution is acceptable [to both sides]. The stakeholders have different opinions. Human rights is also an important issue that remains to be discussed and the inclusivity element is also needed to be addressed.” Khan, who had met the Afghan leadership over the last few days, said the process was a complex one because bringing all these groups to one point was difficult. He was also asked about whether the Taliban are showing flexibility in the talks. To which he said the negotiations held with the Taliban in the last two years were very clear and the international community’s aspirations of an inclusive political setup were conveyed to them. “A setup has rule of law which also respects human rights, women’s rights and according to the wishes of the people of Afghanistan will be acceptable to the world [is sought],” he said.

DUBAI reuters

The United Arab Emirates has agreed to host 5,000 Afghan nationals to be evacuated from their country for 10 days on their way to a third country at the request of the United States, the Gulf Arab state’s foreign ministry said late Friday. “The evacuees will travel to the UAE from the Afghan capital of Kabul on US aircraft in the coming days,” the ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency WAM. The foreign ministry told Reuters they would be hosted for 10 days. The UAE has so far facilitated the evacuation of 8,500 people from Afghanistan on its aircraft and through its airports, it said. The announcement came after US officials told Reuters Washington was expected to announce that countries in Europe and the Middle East have agreed to temporarily shelter people evacuated from Kabul as its base in Qatar reached capacity. A Qatari official told Reuters the Gulf Arab state was “continuing our efforts to evacuate people from Afghanistan. Additional flights are scheduled during the upcoming days.” Bahrain will allow planes carrying evacuees to stop over in the kingdom as part of efforts to assist rescue operations in Afghanistan, the Bahraini foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.

US, Germany advise against travel to Kabul airport amid evacuation chaos KABUL reuters

The United States and Germany advised their nationals in Afghanistan to avoid travelling to Kabul airport on Saturday, citing security risks as thousands gathered trying to flee the country almost a week after Taliban took control. Crowds have grown at the airport in the heat and dust of the day over the last week, with mothers, fathers and children pushed up against concrete blast walls in the crush as they seek to get a flight out. The Taliban have urged those without travel documents to go home. At least 12 people have been killed in and around the single runway airfield since Sunday, NATO and Taliban officials said. “Because of potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport, we are advising US citizens to avoid travelling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a US government representative to do so,” a US Embassy advisory said.

The German Embassy also advised its local citizens not to go to the airport, warning in an email that the Taliban were conducting increasingly strict controls around the airport. A senior US military official said there had been short periods in the last 24 hours when the gates to Kabul airport have been closed, but no reported change in the “enemy” situation in and around the singlerunway airfield. A Taliban official, speaking to Reuters, said security risks could not be ruled out but that the group was “aiming to improve the situation and provide a smooth exit” for people trying to leave over the weekend. The Taliban are still trying to hammer out a new government and the group’s cofounder, Mullah Baradar, arrived in Kabul for talks with other leaders on Saturday. The group’s lightning advance across the country as US-led forces pulled out, coinciding with what German Chancellor Angela Merkel described on Saturday as the “breathtaking collapse” of the Afghan army, sparked fear of reprisals and a return to a harsh ver-

sion of Islamic law the Taliban exercised when they were in power two decades ago. Switzerland postponed a charter flight from Kabul because of the chaos at the airport. “The security situation around Kabul airport has worsened significantly in the last hours. A large number of people in front of the airport and sometimes violent confrontations are hindering access to the airport,” the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Saturday. The United States had evacuated 2,500 Americans from Kabul over the past week, senior US officials said here on Saturday, adding that Washington was fighting against "time and space" to evacuate people from Afghanistan. Army Major General William Taylor, with the US military’s Joint Staff, told a Pentagon briefing that 3,800 people had been evacuated on US military and chartered flights from Kabul in the past 24 hours, bringing to 17,000 the total number of people evacuated in the current mission. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he

did not have a “perfect figure” on how many Americans remain in the country. CRISIS MANAGEMENT: The Taliban official said the group planned to ready a new model for governing Afghanistan within the next few weeks, with separate teams to tackle internal security and financial issues. “Experts from the former government will be brought in for crisis management,” he told Reuters. The new government structure would not be a democracy by Western definitions, but “it will protect everyone’s rights”, the official added. Baradar will meet militant commanders, former government leaders and policy makers, as well as religious scholars among others, the official said. The delay in forming a new government or even announcing who will lead a new Taliban administration underlines how unprepared the movement was for the sudden collapse of the Western-trained forces it had been fighting for years. The Taliban, whose overall leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada has so far been

silent publicly, must also unite disparate groups within the movement whose interests may not always coincide now that victory has been achieved. The Taliban have sought to present here a more moderate face since returning to power, saying they want peace and will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law. When in power from 1996-2001, also guided by Islamic law, they stopped women from working or going out without wearing an all-enveloping burqa and stopped girls from going to school. Individual Afghans and international aid and advocacy groups have reported harsh retaliation against protests, and round-ups of those who had formerly held government positions, criticised the Taliban or worked with Americans. “We have heard of some cases of atrocities and crimes against civilians,” said the Taliban official on condition of anonymity. “If (members of the Taliban) are doing these law and order problems, they will be investigated,” he said.

Published by Arif Nizami at Qandeel Printing Press, 4 Queens Road, Lahore, for PT Print (Pvt) Limited. Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965. Email: newsroom@pakistantoday.com.pk