Pakistan’s election regulator signals no delay to upcoming election

The country of more than 241 million people was originally due to hold elections in November. (File/AFP)

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Updated 15 January 2024

Shahjahan Khurram

January 15, 2024 15:54

Pakistan’s election regulator signals no delay to upcoming election

Country of more than 241 million is scheduled to hold its general elections on Feb. 8
Senators cited bad weather, security challenges as they call for polls’ delay in early January

Updated 15 January 2024

Shahjahan Khurram

January 15, 2024 15:54

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s election regulator has said that it is “not advisable” to delay the upcoming vote, after senators approved a controversial resolution calling for the general elections to be further postponed.

The country of more than 241 million people was originally due to hold elections in November, 90 days after the lower house of parliament was dissolved in August, but polls were delayed to February due to the fresh demarcation of constituencies under a new census.

In early January, members of Pakistan’s senate drew condemnation after they passed the non-binding resolution, citing bad weather, security challenges and a rise in COVID-19 cases as reasons to postpone the Feb. 8 vote by a few months.

The Election Commission of Pakistan, the body that conducts polls in the country, said in a letter to the senate secretariat that it has “submitted commitment” to the Supreme Court to hold the general elections on Feb. 8.

“ECP has made all necessary arrangements regarding (the) conduct of General Elections 2024 … Likewise, it would not be out of place to mention here that in the past General Elections and Local Government Elections have been held in winter season,” the letter, shared by interim Information Minister Murtaza Solangi on Monday, reads.

“Sequel to the above narrated facts, it will not (be) advisable for the Commission to postpone General Elections-2024 at this stage.”

Pakistan is currently run by a caretaker government under interim Prime Minister Anwaar ul-Haq Kakar that is meant to oversee a general election.

While caretakers are usually limited to overseeing polls, Kakar’s set-up is the most empowered in Pakistan’s history after a recent legislation allowed it to make policy decisions on economic matters.

The legislation is aimed at keeping Pakistan on track to maintain conditions for a $3 billion International Monetary Fund bailout secured in June.

Security fears ahead of the polls were ignited last week when an independent election candidate and two other people were shot dead in Pakistan’s northwestern Waziristan district. The same day, a former minister with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party was critically wounded after gunmen opened fire on his vehicle in the southwestern Turbat district.

Political analysts fear that a prolonged period without an elected government would give the military, which has ruled Pakistan inconsecutively for more than three decades since the country’s 1947 independence and wields considerable influence even if not in power, to consolidate control.

Topics: Pakistan elections 2024 Pakistan election commission

US and foreign leaders praise Jimmy Carter’s legacy

Updated 30 December 2024

AFP

December 30, 2024 23:01

US and foreign leaders praise Jimmy Carter’s legacy

Updated 30 December 2024

AFP

December 30, 2024 23:01

Joe Biden led US presidents and other world leaders in paying tribute to Jimmy Carter, who died aged 100.

“America and the world lost an extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House on Sunday.

He added later in a televised address that Carter “lived a life measured not by words, but by his deeds.” “We’d all do well to try and be a little more like Jimmy Carter.”

President-elect Donald Trump said Americans owe

Carter “a debt of gratitude.” “The challenges Jimmy faced as president came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans,” he said on social media. Among former US presidents, Bill Clinton said his predecessor had “worked tirelessly for a better, fairer world.”

George W. Bush said Carter “dignified the office. And his efforts to leave behind a better world didn’t end with the presidency.”

Barack Obama hailed Carter for teaching “all of us what it means to live a life of grace, dignity, justice and service.”

Topics: US Jimmy Carter

Researcher in Kenya boasts ‘Africa’s largest butterfly collection’

Updated 30 December 2024

AFP

December 30, 2024 22:50

Researcher in Kenya boasts ‘Africa’s largest butterfly collection’

By the age of 5, Steve Collins started building a collection that has grown to more than 4.2 million, representing hundreds of species

Updated 30 December 2024

AFP

December 30, 2024 22:50

NAIROBI: What began as a childhood hobby more than six decades ago has led to what might be Africa’s largest butterfly collection in a suburb of Kenya’s capital.

Steve Collins, 74, was born and raised in western Kenya. By the age of 5, he was fascinated by butterflies and started building a collection that has grown to more than 4.2 million, representing hundreds of species.

“My parents encouraged us to look for butterflies after visiting the Congo and were gifted a trapping net by some friends,” Collins said. “By the time I was 15 years old, I was already visiting other countries like Nigeria to study more about butterflies.”

During his 20-year career as an agronomist, Collins dedicated his free time to research. He established the African Butterfly Research Institute in 1997.

Now, running out of space and time, he hopes to hand it over to the next generation.

On his 1.5 acres of land, hundreds of indigenous trees and flowering bushes form a well-knit forest. Hundreds of butterflies dance from one flower to another, at times landing on Collins’ hand.

His collection is private, although it was initially open to the public when he ran it as an education center between 1998 and 2003.

Collins has 1.2 million butterflies from across Africa delicately pinned in frames and stored in rows of shelves, with another 3 million in envelopes.

“They need to be kept in dark spaces,” he said. “The form of storage also ensures the dried butterflies are not eaten by other insects, parasites and predators. We also ensure we apply insecticides once a year to keep them safe.”

Julian Bayliss, an ecologist specializing in Africa and a visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University, said he has collected butterflies for Collins over two decades.

“There is a large part of that collection that is completely irreplaceable because a large part of Africa’s habitat is being destroyed,” Bayliss said.

Africa is vulnerable to climate change, with periods of prolonged drought and serious flooding destroying forests and other butterfly habitats.

Bayliss suggested digitizing the collection to make it accessible worldwide.

Whoever takes it over “needs to be an institution that is well-founded, well-funded and secure,” he said.

Scott Miller, an entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution, met Collins almost 30 years ago. He said such collections provide critical information that could show environmental changes over 60 years.

“These physical specimens, you can actually keep going back to them to get new layers of information as you learn more or you get a different technology or you get different questions,” he said.

Collins is concerned that soon he will no longer be able to sustain his research. He said his most prized butterfly costs $8,000 — which he keeps from sight, concerned about possible theft — and hopes to sell the collection to an individual or research institution.

The costs of running his institute are high. An annual budget posted in 2009 on the Lepidopterists’ Society of Africa website was $200,000.

Collins estimates that the specimens and other assets are worth $8 million.

“This has been my hobby for decades, and I can’t put a price on what I have done so far. I’m currently seeking to ensure the species are in safe hands when I’m out of this world,” he said.

Topics: Kenya

India launches its first space docking mission

Updated 30 December 2024

Reuters

December 30, 2024 22:02

India launches its first space docking mission

The mission lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s PSLV rocket
The mission is seen as pivotal for future space endeavours, including satellite servicing and India’s planned space station

Updated 30 December 2024

Reuters

December 30, 2024 22:02

BENGALURU: India launched its first space docking mission on Monday, on an Indian-made rocket, in an attempt to become the fourth country to achieve the advanced technological feat.
The mission, called Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX), lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh state at 1630 GMT aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) “workhorse” PSLV rocket. After around 15 minutes, the mission director called the launch successful after the spacecraft reached an altitude of around 470 km.
The mission is seen as pivotal for future space endeavours, including satellite servicing and the operation of the country’s planned space station.
In-space docking technology is crucial when multiple rocket launches are required to achieve shared mission objectives.
The Indian mission involves deploying two small spacecraft, each weighing about 220 kilograms, into a 470-km circular orbit. It will also demonstrate the transfer of electric power between the docked spacecraft, a capability vital for applications such as in-space robotics, composite spacecraft control and payload operations following undocking.
Each satellite carries advanced payloads, including an imaging system and a radiation-monitoring device designed to measure electron and proton radiation levels in space, providing critical data for future human spaceflight missions.
ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said the actual testing of the docking technology could take place in about a week’s time and indicated a nominal date of around Jan. 7.
“The rocket has placed the satellites in the right orbit,” he said. A successful demonstration would place India alongside the United States, Russia and China as the only countries to have developed and tested this capability. In a first for India, the rocket and the satellites were integrated and tested at a private company called Ananth Technologies, rather than at a government body.
“Display of this technology is not just about being able to join a rare group of countries who own it, it also opens up the market for ISRO to be the launch partner for various global missions that need docking facilities or assembly in space,” said astrophysicist Somak Raychaudhary of Ashoka University.
The fourth stage of the PSLV, which usually turns into space debris, has been converted into an active un-crewed space laboratory. The last stage of the rocket has been repurposed to become an orbital laboratory and will be used for various experiments.
“The PSLV Orbital Experiment Module (POEM) is a practical solution deployed by ISRO that allows Indian start-ups, academic institutions, and research organizations to test their space technologies without the need to launch entire satellites. By making this platform accessible, we are reducing entry barriers and enabling a wider range of entities to contribute to the space sector,” said Pawan Goenka, chairman of India’s space regulatory body.

Topics: Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) ISRO

Signs Christmas market attack suspect mentally ill: German minister

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (C) waits for the start of a hearing at a parliamentary committee.

Updated 30 December 2024

AFP

December 30, 2024 17:40

Signs Christmas market attack suspect mentally ill: German minister

Saudi Arabia said it had repeatedly warned Germany about, and demanded the extradition of, Abdulmohsen, who came to Germany in 2006

Updated 30 December 2024

AFP

December 30, 2024 17:40

BERLIN: The German government, under fire for failing to prevent a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market, argued on Monday that the tragedy would have been hard to prevent and said that the suspect appeared to be mentally disturbed.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser along with security and intelligence chiefs faced questioning by a parliamentary committee about the attack that killed five people and wounded more than 200, and on whether there had been missed clues and security lapses.
Faeser said no motive had yet been established for the December 20 attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg, where a Saudi man was arrested, but that “there are striking signs of a pathological psyche.”
She added that lessons must be learnt on how to track potential attackers who don’t fit conventional threat categories and who “are psychologically disturbed and... driven by confused conspiracy theories.”
The minister argued that “such attackers do not fit any threat profile” — such as far-right extremist or Islamist — and warned that German security services will need “other indicators and action plans” to deal with them in future.
Police arrested Saudi psychiatrist Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen after the assault that used a motor vehicle as a weapon, a method previously used in extremist attacks including in Berlin and in the French city of Nice in 2016.
Abdulmohsen, by contrast, has in the past voiced strongly anti-Islam views and sympathies with the far right in his social media posts, as well as anger at Germany for allowing in too many Muslim war refugees and other asylum-seekers.
Faeser said there were “tens of thousands of tweets” Abdulmohsen had sent over the years that were yet to be fully examined.
“That explains why not everything is on the table yet... who knew about which clues and what was passed on when must be carefully clarified,” she said.
Abdulmohsen, 50, is the only suspect in the attack in which a rented BMW sport utility vehicle plowed through the crowd of revellers at high speed, leaving a bloody trail of carnage.
According to media reports citing unnamed German security sources, he has in the past been treated for mental illness and tested positive for drug use on the night of his arrest.
Abdulmohsen has been remanded in custody on five counts of murder and 205 counts of attempted murder, prosecutors said, but so far not on terrorism-related charges.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who faces a general election in February, vowed to news portal T-online on Friday to “examine very carefully whether there were any failings on the part of the authorities” and whether any clues were missed in the run-up to the attack.
German media investigations of Abdulmohsen’s past and his social media postings have found expressions of anger and frustration, and threats of violence against German citizens and politicians.
Saudi Arabia said it had repeatedly warned Germany about, and demanded the extradition of, Abdulmohsen, who came to Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later.
Abdulmohsen also had a history of brushes with the law and court appearances in Germany, media have reported, including for threats of violence.
German police have said they had contacted Abdulmohsen in September 2023 and October 2024, and then repeatedly tried but failed to meet him again in December.
Ahead of February’s election, the Christmas market bloodshed has reignited heated debate about immigration and security, after deadly knife attacks this year blamed on extremists.
After Monday’s hearing, lawmaker Konstantin Kuhle of the liberal Free Democrats said “the federal and state authorities knew this perpetrator.”
But Kuhle said no authority had connected all the dots and that “we do not have a complete list of all contacts with the authorities as of today.”
Faeser said that having a fuller picture of all the data would have been good, but would likely “not have prevented” the attack.
Lawmaker Gottfried Curio of the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party was most scathing in his criticism.
“Everything was foreseeable for everyone,” he charged. “We have hundreds of dangerous people in this country, we let them run around.
“What we need are deportations, instead we get naturalizations. What is needed now is a change in security policy in this country.”

Topics: Germany German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser

Five years on, WHO urges China to share Covid origins data

People walk past to the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province on December 20, 2024.

Updated 30 December 2024

AFP

December 30, 2024 17:19

Five years on, WHO urges China to share Covid origins data

“We continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of Covid-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO said

Updated 30 December 2024

AFP

December 30, 2024 17:19

GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Monday implored China to share data and access to help understand how Covid-19 began, five years on from the start of the pandemic that upended the planet.
Covid-19 killed millions of people, shredded economies and crippled health systems.
“We continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of Covid-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO said in a statement.
“Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics.”
The WHO recounted how on December 31, 2019, its country office in China picked up a media statement from the health authorities in Wuhan concerning cases of “viral pneumonia” in the city.
“In the weeks, months and years that unfolded after that, Covid-19 came to shape our lives and our world,” the UN health agency said.
“As we mark this milestone, let’s take a moment to honor the lives changed and lost, recognize those who are suffering from Covid-19 and Long Covid, express gratitude to the health workers who sacrificed so much to care for us, and commit to learning from Covid-19 to build a healthier tomorrow.”
Earlier this month, the WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus addressed the issue of whether the world was better prepared for the next pandemic than it was for Covid-19.
“The answer is yes, and no,” he told a press conference.
“If the next pandemic arrived today, the world would still face some of the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities that gave Covid-19 a foothold five years ago.
“But the world has also learnt many of the painful lessons the pandemic taught us, and has taken significant steps to strengthen its defenses against future epidemics and pandemics.”
In December 2021, spooked by the devastation caused by Covid, countries decided to start drafting an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
The WHO’s 194 member states negotiating the treaty have agreed on most of what it should include, but are stuck on the practicalities.
A key fault-line lies between Western nations with major pharmaceutical industry sectors and poorer countries wary of being sidelined when the next pandemic strikes.
While the outstanding issues are few, they include the heart of the agreement: the obligation to quickly share emerging pathogens, and then the pandemic-fighting benefits derived from them such as vaccines.
The deadline for the negotiations is May 2025.

Topics: Coronavirus China World Health Organization (WHO)

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Pakistan’s election regulator signals no delay to upcoming election

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