Turkish journalist Sedef Kabas begins her second month in detention on Tuesday for “insulting the president”, an increasingly common offence that observers believe is stifling critical voices 16 months before the presidential election. The 52-year-old has already spent longer in jail than any other journalist for this alleged offence, according to the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF). During a television interview on January 14, Kabas quoted an old proverb affirming that a crowned head generally becomes wiser, and added: “but we see it is not true”. She repeated the line, deemed to be derogatory to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden have agreed to a summit — to be held only if Moscow does not invade Ukraine, France announced on Monday following a frantic new round of diplomacy to avert an all-out war. Both leaders have said yes in principle to the summit, proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron, his office said, with the White House confirming Biden’s willingness, though it was notably cautious. A senior administration official told AFP: “Timing to be determined. Format to be determined so it’s all completely notional.” The Elysee added that the summit will be expanded…
NAROWAL: The general election in the country can take place any time and the political picture will be clear in the next two to three weeks, says PML-N leader Khawaja Asif. Speaking at a workers’ convention in Sialkot on Sunday, he asserted: “According to my political experience, 2022 is the year of general election.” He said the local government elections should be postponed otherwise, general election and local polls would be held the same year. Those who had robbed the people of their votes and were elected through rigging in the 2018 elections, he said, had made people’s lives miserable.…
ISLAMABAD: A target has been set to plant 540 million trees throughout the country during spring this year, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said on Sunday. Talking to journalists, Mr Aslam said a strategy for launching a nation-wide spring tree plantation campaign had been formulated in consultation with all provincial forest departments. Prime Minister Imran Khan is expected to kickstart the spring tree plantation campaign on Feb 22. “We have set a whopping target of planting over 540 million saplings all over the country during the spring season spread over February to April…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Rawalpindi chapter on Sunday chalked out plan to welcome the long march to be led by party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Speaking at a meeting, PPP Secretary General Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari said that before the long march of the chairman to Islamabad, the “bad language brigade” will vanish. He said: “We would save parliament from those who attacked it from inside and outside through a no-confidence motion.” He said that the prime minister, who was causing trouble to the masses, will soon give relief to the elite through the expansion of the cabinet. He…
ISLAMABAD: The federal capital witnessed a drop in the daily Covid-19 positivity ratio on Sunday whereas five people succumbed to the virus in neighbouring Rawalpindi district. According to documents, available with Dawn, the daily infection rate was recorded at 1.3pc. In the second week of January, the positivity ratio was 5.3pc with 1,680 cases being reported in a week but it gradually increased and reached 14.2pc in the third week of last month with 6,473 cases recorded in a week. The last week of January was the worst as 9,037 people got infected and the positivity ratio reached 16.4pc. In the…
LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) is toeing wait-and-see policy in the current fluid political situation, wherein the opposition parties are actively working to bring a no-confidence move against Prime Minister Imran Khan, mainly eyeing defection by the ruling party allies. “The PML-Q is confident enough that any situation arising out of the opposition parties’ hyper activity against the PTI government will further strengthen the position of the allied party (Q) as its importance will increase in both the National and Punjab assemblies,” a party source told Dawn on Sunday. The source says that in case of a no-trust motion in the…
QUETTA: Hundreds of Jamaat-i-Islami workers and supporters staged a protest sit-in in front of the Quetta Press Club on Sunday against the non-implementation of an agreement signed by the government with Maulana Hidayat-Ur-Rehman and other leaders of Gwadar Ko Haq Do movement. The participants of the sit-in, carrying party flags, placards and banners inscribed with their demands, marched on various roads of the provincial capital and gathered at the Quetta Press Club, staging a sit-in there. They chanted slogans against the federal and provincial governments. Speaking to protesters, Maulana Hashmi and Maulana Hidayat-Ur-Rehman of Jamaat-i-Islami warned that if the government…
ISLAMABAD: Fixing the target for fully and partially vaccinated people till the end of March, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has decided to approach Covax to start vaccination of children aged five to 11 years (numbering 43.7 million) against Covid-19. Moreover, booster dose will be made mandatory in coming days by making it part of routine immunisation. Meanwhile, 1,644 more infections and 33 deaths were reported in past 24 hours across the country. The national positivity rate was 3.29 per cent with 1,386 patients on critical care. According to a document, Covax will be approached for timely availability…
The Sindh cabinet on Monday approved the formation of the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) — which it had agreed to do in separate deals with the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) earlier this year — announcing that the mayor, as well as representatives from townships and union councils, would be a part of the PFC. The decision was made during a meeting of the cabinet presided over by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, according to a statement issued by the Chief Minister House. Following the approval of the controversial Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2021 by the provincial assembly in…
