China’s latest “airpocalypse”, in which severe smog is affecting half a billion people, could move from an environmental concern to a public policy crisis if Beijing fails to clean up its air, analysts warn. The Chinese government,which has failed on promises to clear the air while accusing the US Embassy of focusing on the capital city’s pollution, is seeing its credibility dirtied as smog covered one-seventh of the country’s territory this week, including Beijing. Hundreds…
Posts published in “Day: December 26, 2016”
The writer is a long-time specialist on Chinese law, is Distinguished Lecturer in Residence (ret.) at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. The Chinese government is taking the first steps in an evolving plan to employ big data to establish a nationwide system of mass surveillance of the entire population. This “social-credit system” would mobilize technology to collect information on all citizens and use that information to rate their behavior, including financial creditworthiness…
Mongolia’s government pledged to extend no more invitations to the Dalai Lama after China signalled that a trip last month by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader could derail ties. “The Dalai Lama’s visit by the invitation of Gandan Monastery negatively affected two countries and these two countries have a misunderstanding,” Mongolian Foreign Minister Munkh-Orgil Tsend told the Onoodor newspaper on Wednesday. “The government feels sorry for this,” he said, adding that the Dalai Lama “probably…
China has rolled out a revised regulation to streamline auditing practices in the military and tighten disciplinary supervision. All economic activity of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the armed police is subject to auditing, and officials with economic duties must also be placed under scrutiny, says the regulation which was signed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). Officials with a lot of financial and…
Islamabad: Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz on Wednesday said that there are 364 Pakistani imprisoned in Saudi jails. Replying to a question in Senate, he said these jails include Riyadh, Jubail, Buridah, Dammam, Khober and Oniza. Aziz also said the embassy of Pakistan is extending all possible assistance to Pakistani prisoners present in jails and deportation centres in the Kingdom. “Embassy has sought consular access for the detainees, to inquire about their welfare and…
KARACHI: The Commander of Southern Command, Lieutenant General Aamir Riaz, inaugurated the Pakistan Gate at Taftan, Pak-Iran border, on Wednesday. The spokesman for the Southern Command said the inauguration marks the completion of the first phase of construction of the border terminal at Taftan, which commenced on 16 July, 2016. The construction comprises two gates out of which the first gate was constructed right on the zero line while the other is a monumental gate,…
THE government has been going around in circles where madressah reform is concerned. Its weak attempt at getting these religious schools to agree to uniform control by the state bore little fruit, and the emphasis is now on another old favourite of the authorities: curriculum reform. On Friday, the federal minister for religious affairs stressed the necessity of educational standards at seminaries matching mainstream trends, but there has been little discussion on how to implement…
ISLAMABAD: After failing to implement madressah reforms the government has chosen to focus solely on upgrading the curriculum offered by religious seminaries, but the authorities seem to lack direction in this regard as well. While chairing a meeting on Friday to review the National Action Plan (NAP), Religious Affairs Minister Sardar Mohammad Yousaf emphasised budget allocations to mainstream and upgrade seminaries. He said seminaries’ standards should match the latest educational trends, but no proposal to…
KARACHI: Out of more than 10,000 madressahs functioning across the province, the Sindh government has sealed 2,309 seminaries which were unregistered or being run ‘illegally’, while all the remaining 7,724 seminaries have been geo-tagged, it emerged on Friday. Close to a million students, including 818 foreigners, are enrolled with the seminaries in Sindh, according to officials. A Sindh home ministry report shows that Special Branch had completed the much-awaited geo-tagging of some 7,724 madressahs. “We…
On October 6, 2016, the Supreme Court of Pakistan constituted an inquiry commission on the Aug 8, 2016 incidents that killed Advocate Bilal Kasi and at least 70 people at the Sandeman Civil Hospital, Quetta. The single member commission, led by Justice Qazi Faez Isa, was designed to “look into from all the relevant aspects of this multi-dimensional tragedy.” The inquiry commission worked from October 17 to December 14, 2016, and produced a comprehensive inquiry…
The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist specialising in diplomatic and security issue The meeting of Pakistan, China and Russia over the growing threat of militancy in Afghanistan could prove highly effective if a strategy for convincing regional and international players for changing and amending their policies is chalked out. The third trilateral gathering would be held on December 27 in Moscow at a time when controversies among regional countries, as well as international players are…