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Posts published in “Day: June 4, 2017

Sri Lanka for sale?: Op-ed

by Farrukh Saleem in The News, June 4, 2017 The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. On May 29, the BBC asked, “Is Sri Lanka up for sale?” According to the BBC, “Sri Lanka is allowing Chinese firms to take over key assets, as it struggles to repay loans it was given by China”. In 2007, the EXIM Bank of China began funding Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port. The port was completed at a cost…

Pak lawmakers losing interest in their job

by Javaid-ur-Rahman in The Nation, June 04, 2017 ISLAMABAD – There’s something seriously wrong with the Parliament as the disinterest of public representatives in the house proceedings is growing. As many as 69 lawmakers did not make any contribution in the work of the National Assembly in the fourth parliamentary year, bringing the average attendance per sitting of active participants down to 60 percent from last year’s 65 percent. The breakup compiled by an independent…

New JMB chief Ayub Bachchu barely escapes arrest

by Tarek Mahmud in Dhaka Tribune, June 4, 2017 Ayub Bacchu, the incumbent ameer of New JMB, escaped arrest by a hair when a police team raided his safe house. On May 27, the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crimes (CTTC) unit of police raided two houses in Genda, Savar. CTTC chief Monirul Islam said: “Ayub was living with his family at the Genda safehouse in Savar. He fled with them just before the raid.” The CTTC…

8 ‘Neo JMB’ members, 4 ‘robbers’ held in two dists

Report in The daily star, June 04, 2017 Jhenidah: Police arrested eight suspected Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) members from a house in Arpara village under Shalikha upazila of Magura on Friday. They seized jihadi books, electronics devices, some small pieces of brass and twelve bundles of counterfeit money. The arrestees are house owner and ex-ameer of upazila Jamaat-e-Islami advocate Farid Ahmed, Bachchu Mia, Obaidul Hossain, Abul Bashar, Anwar Hossain, Jahangir Alam, Ohidul Islam and Rabiul…

Govt wants Hefajat as political force, says theatre personalty

Report in The daily star, June 04, 2017 The government is trying to establish Hefajat-e-Islam as a political force, alleged eminent theatre personality Ramendu Mazumder yesterday. “If they [Hefajat] are given patronisation … if these people who are using religious cards are not resisted, we will dig our own graves,” he said, adding that cultural activists would not accept any political compromise with the fanatics. He said this at a sit-in programme at Central Shaheed…

Beijing cancels its Shangri-La Dialogue rival, the Xiangshan Forum, to soothe neighbours

by Minnie Chan in the South China Morning Post, June 03, 2017, 11:09pm Beijing’s annual high-level forum to discuss Asia-Pacific security and defence issues has been cancelled this year due to pressure at home and abroad, a military official familiar with the event told the South China Morning Post. The Xiangshan Forum, held each September or early October and dubbed Asia’s “new security architecture” by Beijing to voice China’s view on regional disputes, will not…

Govt to open up mineral-rich Balochistan to China firms

Reuters report in The Nation, June 03, 2017 QUETTA – The resource-rich Balochistan wants Chinese companies to kick-start a boom in its mining industry by including the sector into Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative, a senior provincial mining official said. Beijing has pledged $57 billion for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship “Belt and Road” project that first focused on Chinese firms building roads and power stations but is now expanding to include setting…

The New China Towns: By Shazia Hasan in Dawn Magazine, June 4, 2017

The writer is a staff writer If you pass him by in his electronic parts and components shop in the Electronics Market in Karachi’s Saddar, Mohammad Ali Arabi would look like any other normal young Pakistani businessman. There is nothing out of the ordinary about him until you hear him conversing on the phone with someone in Mandarin. “Seeing Ali Bhai speaking while making strange facial gestures by twisting his features to pronounce the words,…