Deputy PM Dar to lead Pakistan delegation for Samoa Commonwealth summit from Oct. 21-26/node/2576111/pakistan
Deputy PM Dar to lead Pakistan delegation for Samoa Commonwealth summit from Oct. 21-26
Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar speaks during a ceremony at Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad on March 27, 2024. (MOFA/File)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar will lead the country’s delegation at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) being held from Oct. 21-26 in Samoa, the foreign ministry said on Monday, where he is expected to present Islamabad’s stance on key global issues.
The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 56 independent nations whose roots go back to the British Empire. However, today any country can join the modern Commonwealth, with the last two countries to join the group being Gabon and Togo in 2022.
The (CHOGM) brings together delegations from 56 nations from Africa, the Caribbean and Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. The CHOGM says on its website that it aims to reinforce multilateral cooperation, explore new opportunities, and tackle common challenges for the well-being of future generations.
“Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar will lead the Pakistan delegation to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) being held from October 21 to 26, 2024 in Samoa,” the foreign office spokesperson said in a statement.
It said that the deputy PM, who is also Pakistan’s foreign minister, will present the country’s perspectives on key global issues and challenges with a focus on climate change, economic development, and strengthening international cooperation within the Commonwealth community.
In his keynote address at the Commonwealth Business Forum titled: “Transforming our Workforce,” Dar will highlight Pakistan’s emphasis on youth empowerment, skill development and digital transformation, the statement said.
“Deputy Prime Minister Dar will also engage with the heads of delegations of other Commonwealth member states,” the foreign office said.
Pakistan and the UK, which is home to a large Pakistani diaspora, have trade, defense and education ties, among engagement in other areas.
Polio is rising in Pakistan ahead of a new vaccination campaign
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan compared to six in 2023
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on workers, police protecting them
Updated 21 October 2024
AP
ISLAMABAD : Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.
The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.
The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.
Health officials in Pakistan say they want both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Mohsin Naqvi departed for Dubai to take part in the ICC Board of Directors meeting on Monday, during which the upcoming Champions Trophy tournament to be hosted by Pakistan next year is likely to come under discussion.
Pakistan is set to host the Champions Trophy 2025 tournament from February to March 2025. The last time that Pakistan hosted an ICC tournament on its home turf was in 1996 when it co-hosted the 50-over World Cup won by Sri Lanka. However, Pakistan hosting the tournament on its home soil has generated a lot of debate as arch-rival India’s participation remains uncertain.
India have not played an international match in Pakistan since 2008. India refused to tour Pakistan last year for the Asia Cup 2023 tournament, forcing Pakistan to agree to a “hybrid” form of tournament in which India’s matches were held in Sri Lanka. Last year however, Pakistan traveled to India and participated fully in the 2023 ODI World Cup.
“Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board Mohsin Naqvi has departed for Dubai to take part in the ICC Board of Directors meeting,” the PCB said in a statement. “The ICC Board of Directors’ key meeting will take place in Dubai today.”
The PCB, meanwhile, has remained unchanged in its stance on wanting to host the tournament in its entirety in Pakistan.
The Champions Trophy was originally known as the ICC Knockout when it was staged in 1998 in Dhaka, Bangladesh and in 2000 in Nairobi, Kenya. The event was renamed the ICC Champions Trophy in 2002 and was held every two years until 2009, when it was held in South Africa after the scheduled event in 2008 in Pakistan had to be canceled.
Subsequently the event moved to a four-year cycle and features the top eight teams in the ICC one-day rankings. The first round comprises two groups of four with the top two in each group progressing to the semifinals and the winners contesting the final. The competing teams are: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa.
Pakistan won the last Champions Trophy tournament held in England in 2017, beating arch-rivals India by 180 runs in a one-sided final.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s parliament on Sunday passed a historic constitutional amendment bill that stipulates all forms of “riba” or interest must be eliminated before Jan. 1, 2028, with the move likely to promote Islamic banking in the country.
Pakistan’s Federal Shariat Court (FSC) directed the government in April 2022 to eliminate interest by 2027, maintaining that Islam prohibited it in all its forms and manifestations. The FSC determines whether Pakistani laws comply with Islamic law or not.
Pakistan’s ruling coalition government in the wee hours of Sunday passed the constitutional amendment bill by the required two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament. The amendment mostly contains reforms related to the country’s judiciary, which has stirred political debate in the country. The amendment changed the previous Article 38 (f) of Pakistan’s constitution, which called for the elimination of interest from the country “as early as possible.”
“In the Constitution, in Article 38, for paragraph (f), the following shall be substituted, namely: (f) eliminate riba completely before the first day of January, two thousand twenty-eight,” a copy of the 26th Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2024, states.
Last year, Pakistan’s central bank set a target to increase the share of Islamic banking in the country to 35 percent by 2025. At present, the share of Islamic banking in the overall commercial banking system in the country is 20 percent.
Pakistan has six full-fledged Islamic banks offering a wide range of products and the annual growth rate of Islamic banks’ assets and deposits has been 25 percent and 22 percent respectively over the last five years, according to the central bank’s data.
Islamabad: In a major victory for the ruling coalition government, Pakistan’s parliament late Sunday night passed a constitutional amendment bill that caps the tenure of the country’s top judge at three years among other key changes, with the government saying the reforms will help stop the courts from issuing rulings that interfere in the affairs of the parliament.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s administration has been attempting to introduce a set of constitutional changes in parliament since last month which the country’s opposition and legal fraternity argue are aimed at granting more power to the executive in making judicial appointments. The government denies this.
The 26th Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2024, states that a 12-member parliamentary panel will appoint the chief justice from a panel of the three most senior judges of the top court, for a period of three years. The committee, comprising eight members from the National Assembly and four from the Senate, will propose the name to the prime minister, who will then forward it to the president for final approval. The top judge will retire upon reaching the age of 65 years.
Another clause of the bill states that the Supreme Court’s judges will be appointed by a Judicial Commission of Pakistan led by the chief justice and three senior judges, which will also comprise two members each from the National Assembly and Senate, federal law minister, the attorney general of Pakistan, and a nominee of the Pakistan Bar Council having not less than 15 years of practice in the Supreme Court. The commission will also monitor judges’ performance and report any concerns to the Supreme Judicial Council.
After an intense round of consultations and discussions that took place over the past week, Pakistan’s Senate and National Assembly both managed to pass the bill with the required two-thirds majority. In the Senate, 65 members voted in favor of the constitutional amendment and four against it while in the National Assembly, 225 members supported the amendment and 12 opposed it. Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar tabled the bill in both houses of parliament.
“This is not just an amendment, it is a spectacular example of national solidarity and consensus,” Sharif said during his speech at the National Assembly session shortly after the bill had sailed through both houses of parliament. “And god willing, a new sun will rise today.”
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signs the advice for presidential assent on the 26th Constitutional Amendment Bill in Islamabad, Pakistan, on October 21, 2024. (Government of Pakistan)
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif praised the amendment earlier, saying it would empower elected representatives.
“Mr. Speaker, this amendment that we are about to conclude or pass today empowers the parliament,” Asif said. “It empowers the representatives of 240 million people and gives sanctity to the vote.”
The government secured the 225 votes of the required 224 in the National Assembly with the help of a handful of rebel lawmakers from former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, the chief rival to the ruling coalition government. The newly enacted law will now be sent to the president for his assent under Article 75 of Pakistan’s constitution, following which it will officially become law.
PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan criticized the bill, saying it will make the judiciary “subservient” for all times to come.
“Mr. Speaker, the way those who are sitting on the treasury benches today criticized our independent judges, they have never criticized India, Modi or Kulbhushan Jhadav the same way,” Khan said, referring to an Indian national undergoing incarceration in Pakistan on charges of espionage.
“These amendments are akin to suffocating a free judiciary. They do not represent the people of Pakistan,” PTI’s Omar Ayub Khan, the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, said during the session.
“A government formed through rigging cannot amend the constitution.” TENSIONS WITH THE TOP COURT
The amendment bill fixing the chief justice’s age comes days before Qazi Faez Isa, the incumbent chief justice, is due to retire. Khan’s PTI has accused the chief justice of being aligned with the government, its chief rival, an allegation the government has repeatedly rejected. Khan’s party has repeatedly said the amendments were aimed at granting an extension in tenure to Isa.
Under the previous law, Justice Isa would have been automatically replaced by the most senior judge behind him, currently Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, who has consistently issued verdicts deemed favorable to Khan and the PTI.
Sharif’s government has passed the bill, which it says ensures the parliament will not remain a rubber stamp one, in the wake of its tensions with the judiciary that have been on the rise since the February national election.
In July, Pakistan’s top court ruled that the country’s election commission was wrong to have sidelined Khan’s party in the election campaign by forcing its lawmakers to stand as independents due to a technical violation. It also awarded Khan’s party a handful of non-elected reserved parliamentary seats for women and religious minorities, which would give Khan’s party a majority in parliament, angering the government.
Khan, who was ousted from office after a parliamentary vote in April 2022, remains popular among the masses. He has since waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance against the country’s powerful military, which is thought to be aligned with the government. Khan has been languishing in prison since August 2023 after being convicted on several charges ranging from corruption to treason that he says are politically motivated.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s southern Sindh province has reported two more polio cases, authorities said late Saturday, amid a worsening outbreak of the virus in the South Asian country.
A reference laboratory at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad confirmed the wild poliovirus type-1 (WPV1) cases in a girl child in Sindh’s Sanghar district and a boy child in the Mirpur Khas district, according to the Pakistani polio program.
The fresh cases have taken the nationwide tally to 39 this year.
“These are the first polio cases from Mirpur Khas and Sanghar this year,” the program said in a statement. “Sanghar shares a border with Mirpur Khas from where several environmental samples have tested positive for WPV1 since April, indicating virus circulation in this area.”
Health officials have confirmed 20 polio cases in Balochistan, 12 in Sindh, five in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and one each in Punjab and Islamabad so far this year, according to the statement. Genetic sequencing of the cases is underway.
There is no cure for polio, and paralysis caused by an infection is irreversible.
“The intense virus transmission and increase in polio cases is indicative of the harm that children suffer when they miss opportunities for vaccination,” it read.
The Pakistan polio program said it will be launching a nationwide vaccination campaign from October 28 to vaccinate more than 45 million children under the age of five against paralytic polio.
“It is critical for parents to open their door to vaccinators during this drive and ensure that all children in their care receive two drops of the crucial oral polio vaccine to keep them protected from the devastating effects of polio,” it added.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio remains an endemic. Since late 2018, Pakistan has seen a resurgence of cases and increased spread of poliovirus, highlighting the fragility of gains achieved in the preceding three years.
