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Posts tagged as “country”

President, law minister hold talks to announce general elections in country

by Mateen Haider in The Nation, Sept 5, 2023ISLAMABAD – President Arif Alvi who was expected to announce the date for the general elections deferred the announcement on Monday after meeting with federal law minister Ahmed Irfan Aslam. During the meeting, President Arif Alvi emphasised the need for up­holding supremacy of the Constitu­tion, saying that decisions should be taken in accordance with spirit of the Constitution. Caretaker Minister for Law and Justice Ahmed Irfan Aslam…

Gallup Survey: Default seems imminent, say businesses

Report Business Recorder, Sept 5th, 2023KARACHI: Majority of Pakistan’s businesses are “not hopeful at all” about the ability of caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar to save the country from a potential default on its international financial obligations, shows a latest survey. The 72 percent of more than 500 businesses surveyed in the second quarter of 2023 by Gallup Pakistan were found concerned over the country’s potential default. The survey results come despite Islamabad’s success in…

50 editors protest open letter on Yunus

report in The Daily Star, Sept 3, 2023Fifty editors in a joint statement yesterday protested the issuance of an open letter by foreigners to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina favouring Dr Muhammad Yunus. “Some foreign noted personalities, including Nobel laureates, politicians, businessmen and civil society members, on August 28 issued an open letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, calling to stop the ongoing trial proceedings against Dr Muhammad Yunus under Bangladesh’s labour law. It is an…

Aiwan-e-Sadr ‘meeting’ fuels speculation

By Tahir Khalil in The News, Sept 03, 2023ISLAMABAD: Speculations are rife on a meeting held at the Aiwan-e-Sadr on Friday, especially in the wake of the current political situation in the country. The meeting is said to have been held on the fourth floor of Aiwan-e-Sadr (Presidency), where the president’s office is situated. During the meeting, the fourth floor of the Aiwan-e-Sadr was off-limits to anyone — the staff also restricted from entering the…

Biden pledges ongoing support for Afghanistan

report in Khaama Press online, August 31, 2023US President Joe Biden reassures continued support for the people of Afghanistan on the second anniversary of the US military withdrawal from the country. In a statement released on the White House website, President Joe Biden highlighted that the US remains Afghanistan’s largest humanitarian assistance donor. He also paid tribute to the sacrifice of American service members, noting that 2,461 died and 20,744 were wounded throughout the two-decade…

Two Years After Afghanistan Exit, Biden Resists Calls for More Taliban Contact

By Michael Crowley in The New York Times, Aug 31, 2023When the last American soldier flew out of Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, leaving the country to Taliban rule, the world braced for a human rights nightmare. In that sense, the Taliban have met expectations. The country’s extremist rulers, who seized power from an American-backed government of 20 years, have carried out revenge killings, torture and abductions, according to international observers. They have also imposed…

Network of hostile intelligence agencies’ involved in recent incidents of blasphemy: Punjab IG

report in Dawn,Aug 29, 2023Punjab Inspector General (IG) Dr Usman Anwar on Monday said the police have unearthed a “network of hostile intelligence agencies” that were allegedly involved in the recent incidents of blasphemy across the country. On August 16, a violent mob of hundreds ransacked and torched nearly two dozen churches and attacked the residences of members of the Christian community and the office of the local assistant commissioner in Jaranwala. According to estimates…

West cautions Pakistan against delaying polls

by Kamran Yousaf in The Express Tribune, Aug 28, 2023ISLAMABAD: Key Western countries have conveyed to Pakistan that any delay in the parliamentary elections beyond a certain timeframe would trigger serious consequences for the country, including the potential downgrading of ties. Diplomatic sources told The Express Tribune on Sunday that the United States and the European Union had been closely following the developments in Pakistan with regard to the elections, these countries had always advocated…

Truth & tolerance

by Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry in Dawn, August 27th, 2023The writer is a former foreign secretary of PakistanJARANWALA, a small town near Lahore, has shot into prominence, but for the wrong reasons. What happened there on Aug 16, 2023 represents another low in our history of communal intolerance, with local community leaders and law-enforcement authorities appearing totally helpless in preventing the mob from targeting dozens of Christian families, their houses and churches. For a country whose…

Bundling of many legal amendments in a single bill raises question of intent

by Binod Ghimire in The Kathmandu Post, Aug 25, 2023The government on May 9 registered a bill to amend some Nepal Acts in the House of Representatives. The bill seeks to revise 80 Acts—around a third of the country’s total. With the single bill, the government is preparing to amend the Acts related to criminal office, forest use, environment protection, university education—and what not. In case of minor revisions, there is a practice of amending…

Why China is still on the sidelines in Afghanistan, 2 years after messy US troop pull-out

by Shi Jiangtao in SCMP, Aug 20, 2023The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 continues to be seen as a “black mark” on Joe Biden’s presidency – a chaotic and deadly exit that left the war-torn country in a security vacuum as the Taliban swiftly advanced on Kabul. Two years on, Afghans are still struggling under one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with most international aid, including from the…