Thursday, December 13, 2018
#Balochistan: #Pakistani forces abducted three from Kohlu, fresh offensive in Kech
Pakistani security forces carried out offensives in different regions of Kohlu and abducted at least three persons on Tuesday.
According to details, Pakistan FC and regular military carried out raids in Makhmad, Thal and Nissao area of district Kohlu Balochistan.
At least three people named 80-year-old Barri Shakalani Marri, Eido son of Barri 30 year of age and Jumma son of Ishaq Marri age 45 have been abducted from Makhmad that area.
The victims have been shifted to a nearby military camp and their families have not heard of them since.
http://balochwarna.com/
US Blacklists Pakistan For Religious Freedoms
The United States has placed Pakistan on its blacklist of countries that violate religious freedom, a move likely to further worsen troubled relations with Islamabad.
The State Department’s annual report on religious freedom, released December 11, removed for the first time since 2006 Uzbekistan as a “Country of Particular Concern,” something that had irked the government in Tashkent.
However, the State Department did, however, include Uzbekistan on a special Watch List. That designation included Russia, where the department said dozens of religious groups have been targeted including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, Lutherans, and others, since a 2016 law was passed criminalizing certain kinds of missionary activity.
Washington has issued an annual ranking of countries and their treatment of religious groups annually since the passage of a 1998 law on the issue. Being ranked low, or placed on a watch list, can result in economic sanctions.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he listed Pakistan among “countries of particular concern” in the congressionally mandated annual report.
The downgrade means that Islamabad could face U.S. sanctions although Pompeo waived the penalties, as has been done for other countries in the past.
In Pakistan, where the dominant religious is Sunni Islam, human rights groups have long expressed concern about the treatment of religious minorities, including Shi’ites, Ahmadis and Christians.
Others on the “Country of Particular Concern” blacklist, which singles out “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom,” included China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
Uzbekistan, meanwhile, was removed from that designation– for the first time since 2006, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told reporters.
That designation had long irked the governments in Tashkent. Under the late President Islam Karimov, independent religious expression, particularly by devout Muslims who shunned officially sanctioned mosques, was harshly repressed.
Since Karimov’s death in 2016, the Uzbek government under President Shavkhat Mirziyoev has sought to lift many of Karimov’s more repressive policies and attract investment from Western nations.
Several Islamic militant groups have also been designated as “entities of particular concern” since they do not meet the definition of countries.
They include the Al-Nusra front in Syria, Al-Qaeda, the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia’s Al-Shabab, Boko Haram in West Africa, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the Islamic State and the Taliban.
“In far too many places across the globe, individuals continue to face harassment, arrests, or even death for simply living their lives in accordance with their beliefs,” Pompeo said.
“The United States will not stand by as spectators in the face of such oppression.”
#Pakistan - Imran administration. - House of Cards
Murtaza Solangi
In this article veteran journalist Murtaza Solangi is reporting on a cabinet meeting where Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed his displeasure over Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry’s performance in no uncertain terms. Public and leaked statements by Fawad Chaudhry and Sheikh Rasheed also don’t portray a very positive picture of what’s happening inside the cabinet. Solangi also reports on the tussle going on between Finance Minister Asad Umar and the all-powerful Jehangir Tareen in the ruling party.
The leak of Sheikh Rasheed’s jibes against Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry while he was having a “picnic” in London exposed the fault lines in the rainbow coalition led by Imran Khan. This was the latest but not the first sign of cracks in the U turn party that pushed the slogan of change and got changed in the process.
Earlier, the chicken fights between Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jehangir Tareen were known to all and sundry but after the formation of the governments in mid-August, the big leak was anti-Sarwar huddle by Punjab Speaker Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, federal minister Chaudhry Tariq Bashir Cheema and Jehangir Tareen.Sheikh Rasheed tried to hush up the leak but his assertion that it was a small talk and he didn’t know about it, is something nobody is ready to buy in the national capital. Sheikh, who has been Information Minister under two administrations, can be so careless that he would be making nasty comments about a cabinet colleague with live microphones sitting in front of him, is not believable.
Fawad Chaudhry who tried to calm down the raw nerves tried to link the Sheikh Rasheed outburst with the “advertising lobby” conspiring against him. Come Monday, the “longest” cabinet meeting took place that remained in session for nine plus hours. The meeting one more time gave the look of a divided house. Earlier Imran Khan had told a select group of TV anchors that he might initiate some reshuffle in his cabinet judging them mainly on their three-month performance.
On Monday morning when the meeting started, Imran Khan who is not known for his mild manners almost threw a fit, say the insiders. Fawad Chaudhry bore the brunt of his biggest beating.
Imran Khan was livid, insist the sources. Information Ministry has failed to contradict the counter narrative was one of the gripes of the PM. The ministry also failed to positively publicize the hard work done by other ministries, was the second complaint by the angry Chief Executive. Imran Khan was more appreciative of his own ministry, the interior, held by the junior minister Shehryar Afridi who was earlier accused of using unfair means to renovate his residence in the Ministers’ Enclave.Prime Minister was also appreciative of Shireen Mazari and Omar Ayub and blasted Fawad Chaudhry that the government’s hard work was not publicized. When Fawad Chaudhry tried to give excuses that the media, especially electronic media was not projecting government narrative as unlike the previous governments, his administration had massively cut the expensive advertisements to them, it made Imran Khan even more furious, say the sources.
As we were watching this, on Tuesday, Yousuf Baig Mirza who has got thick with Imran Khan was appointed Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Media Affairs. Baig, who has worked with Nawaz Sharif, Pervez Musharraf and Yousaf Raza Gilani and served three terms as the MD PTV, is being jealously watched both by Fawad Chaudhry and Iftikhar Durrani. Both consider him a threat, say the insiders. Iftikhar Durrani, sources say, has interviewed quite a few bureaucrats for the post of the Press Secretary to the PM, a standard appointment under the rules, but is hesitating to recommend anybody for the slot, say the sources. “They already have a party with the arrival of Yousuf Baig Mirza, why would they want the crowd to get even bigger?” said a PM House source.
The matters with Asad Umar are far from settled. He remains disliked by a large group of the cabinet with Omar Ayub being tipped as the next finance minister. Jehangir Tareen, reportedly, keeps working against Asad Umar too. Recently they had a brouhaha when reportedly Asad Umar even offered to resign but was prevented at this stage.“It is not the matter of if but when Asad Umar is bumped off”, said an insider and added, “most probably after the IMF issue is out of the way”, insisted the source.The cabinet also remains divided on the issue of dealing with the opposition. While most Khyber Pakhtunkhwa legislators support reconciliation with the opposition, more brown nosers of Imran Khan are glued to the steamy rhetoric.
Many insiders suggest a shakeup in near future and this has generated more lobbying within the party. Wednesday evening, we got the news of resignation of Raja Riaz, former PPP leader from Faisalabad as the parliamentary secretary. He too is positioning himself as the federal minister.
How will this fragile coalition government survive amid the attempts for the power grab when the PM rules with just a majority of four votes with both opposition and PTI tied at 156 each is something analysts are wondering in the national capital these days. “It is because of this inbuilt weakness and lack of performance that the PTI government is using state organs to push the opposition to the wall but in the long run, it is not sustainable”, said a veteran journalist while commenting on the current situation.
#Pakistan - #PPP slams #PTI govt’s 'vicious' victimization campaign
Central leaders of Pakistan Peoples Party have termed the witch-hunt against the PPP and other Opposition leadership as a vicious victimization where National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has become a tool placed in the hands of puppet rulers.
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari chaired a meeting of Party leaders from the four provinces and Azad Jammu & Kashmir chapters at Bilawal House on Tuesday to discuss current political situation of the country and preparations about the 11th martyrdom day of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto observance programmes.
Those attending the meeting include: Nayyar Hussain Bukhari, Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Qamaruz Zaman Kaira, Makhdoom Ahmed Mahmood, Humayun Khan, Ali Maddad Jattak, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, Waqar Mehdi and others.
The PPP chairman endorsed the views of Party leaders that PTI government has unleashed a victimization campaign brazenly targeting PPP and other Opposition parties after a shameless dry-cleaning drive for inducting a puppets’ regime against the will of collective wisdom of the nation.
The meeting noted that PTI government was in fact drumming up cosmetic and hollow projects as its poor and directionless policies together with sky-rocketing inflation were leading the national economy to a disastrous nosedive.
The meeting expressed deep concern over the ruthless anti-encroachment drive by the PTI government where poor segment of the society has been specifically targeted without chalking out any compensation plan thus snatching the livelihood of hundreds of thousand Pakistanis.
“Instead of providing employment, the puppet regime was turning thousands into jobless,” the meeting observed.
Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that PPP leadership has suffered at the hands of all the dictators of past and their chosen henchmen but never compromised on its ideology and struggle meant for emancipation of the masses from perpetual exploitation at the hands of undemocratic and pseudo-democratic forces.
The meeting also discussed in details about the preparations of programmes to observe 11th martyrdom day anniversary of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto at Garhi Khuda Bux on December 27.
PPP AJK leader was among those attending the meeting.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/405051-ppp-slams-pti-govts-vicious-victimization-campaign
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