Video - #TrevorNoah​​ #BritishTookOverIndia​​ #India "How The British Took Over India" - TREVOR NOAH

Video Report - President Biden Delivers Remarks to Workers

Video Report - Dr. Fauci on US case count: This is what history tells us

Video Report - Germany tightens Covid controls at French border over variants

Opinion: The Era of Vaccine Diplomacy Is Here

The coronavirus threat is global. So is the remedy.

It is only natural that the American government and the American people have focused on getting coronavirus vaccines to as many of its people as possible, with the most vulnerable first in line. But as the pace of domestic vaccination accelerates, two facts are worth bearing in mind.

One is that the pandemic will not be vanquished anywhere until it is vanquished everywhere. Several known coronavirus variants are making their way around the world, and epidemiologists know more will evolve so long as the virus continues to spread, potentially challenging the efficacy of existing vaccines. South Africa, for example, halted use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine when it showed “disappointing” results against a new, more contagious variant of the virus that has made landfall in the United States.

The second fact is that while more than 45 million Americans, nearly 14 percent of the U.S. population, have received at least one dose of vaccine, and most high-income countries have launched their own vaccination programs, the Think Global Health project of the Council on Foreign Relations estimates that only 7 percent of low-income countries had vaccinated anyone at all as of Feb. 18.

That is a yawning gap. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, has correctly described it as “another brick in the wall of inequality between the world’s haves and have-nots.”

The good news is that the gap is finally being addressed. Last week, a cargo plane landed in Ghana with 600,000 doses of vaccine developed in Britain and manufactured in India, the start of a program to deliver at least 1.3 billion shots to 92 low- and middle-income countries this year through Covax, an international effort backed by the World Health Organization.

The effort has had a rocky start. Under the Trump administration, the United States pulled out of the W.H.O. altogether, and along with other wealthy nations it grabbed what vaccine it could for itself. But the Biden administration has moved quickly to rejoin the W.H.O. and has pledged $4 billion to the global vaccination drive. President Emmanuel Macron of France has further suggested that instead of money, wealthy countries should donate vaccine doses to African governments, sparing Covax the need to compete for existing supplies.

All this is just a start. The 600,000 doses that arrived in Ghana are barely enough to inoculate 1 percent of its population, and Covax will need a lot more money and help. While conquering the virus is the obvious and primary reason for the United States to pitch in, there is also this: It is very much in America’s national interest not to cede a critical “soft power” advantage to autocratic rivals like Russia or China.

Poor countries will remember who came to their assistance, and when. Moscow and Beijing saw an opportunity early on, sending masks and protective gear to hard-hit countries last spring. Now, with low- and middle-income countries clamoring for vaccines, countries from Serbia and Algeria to Brazil and Egypt are getting doses from China and Russia. Serbia, in fact, is ahead of most countries in the European Union in the percentage of its population that has been vaccinated, in part because it’s one of the few countries where both Russian and Chinese vaccines are already available.

China has made sharing its homegrown vaccines a centerpiece of its “Belt and Road Initiative,” a global strategy to invest in more than 70 countries and international organizations. Beijing’s vaccine diplomacy has had its glitches, most notably the lack of verified information about the efficacy of its vaccines, but for many poor countries, China’s vaccines are far better than nothing. Recently, for example, China announced it would donate 300,000 doses to Egypt. Russia claims it has orders for its Sputnik V vaccine from about 20 countries — including America’s southern neighbor, Mexico, which has contracted to receive 7.4 million doses between February and April. After a bout of Covid-19 in late January, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico reported that he had received a warm phone call from President Vladimir Putin of Russia and that he had invited Mr. Putin to visit Mexico. At about the same time, the president and vice president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, both received their first jabs of Sputnik V.

India, among the world’s largest producers of generic medicines, has also moved to develop its own vaccines and to ship them abroad, in part as a counter to China’s outreach. Though India has a population of more than 1.3 billion, it has already sent 3.2 million free doses to neighboring countries and has contracted with a host of governments around the world to supply vaccines. One reason India can do this is that it’s producing more vaccines than it can currently distribute domestically. The U.A.E., which is vaccinating its residents faster than any country except Israel, has also begun donating Chinese-made Sinopharm to countries where it has strategic or commercial interests.

Vaccine diplomacy has drawbacks. Dr. Ghebreyesus of the W.H.O. has complained that too many countries and vaccine manufacturers are focused on making bilateral or selective deals, which pushes the poorest countries to the side. That is the advantage of the W.H.O.’s Covax initiative, and the Biden administration has made a good start in supporting it.

President Biden has assured Americans that most will be vaccinated by the end of summer. He should also assure them that it is very much in their interest, for reasons of morality, common sense and national interest, to be at the forefront of the global war against that vicious little spiked blob.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/28/opinion/covid-vaccine-global.html

Video - Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari addresses media at the residence of Moulana Fazalur Rahman

#senatevote​ سینٹ ووٹ فیصلہ، کیا ہو گا اور کیا ہو سکتا ہے؟

Analysis: #Pakistan - By-election surprises

Shehryar Warraich

ECP annuls Daska by-election, orders re-polling on March 18.

Citing reports of polling-day violence and massive rigging in the NA-75, Daska, by-election, the Election Commission of Pakistan has ordered re-polling in the constituency.

By-elections for three National Assembly and four Provincial Assembly seats were held in the country on February19.

The elections and their results highlight the reality that local politics have overwhelmed the narratives supported by the government and opposition parties.The by-elections have sprung two upsets. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazl (JUIF) both lost seats, in Nowshera and Kurram, respectively, that they had won in 2018.However, the violence-riddled NA-75 election remained the talk of the town. The media reported that five polling stations situated in Daska city remained closed for at least five hours; another five were operational for only 30 minutes. Video clips aired by Geo News and other channels clearly showed people involved in firing and physical clashes. The police were unable to stop them and maintain order.

“In our country, the history of by-elections shows that local administrations have always facilitated pro-government candidates, allowing them to commit some illegal acts,” political analyst Suhail Warraich says.

The disappearance of the presiding officers of the 23 polling stations and their apparent involvement in rigging, as a press release of the ECP states, has added another disappointing episode to the litany.All these 23 polling stations are situated in the constituency of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) MPA Baoo Muhammad Rizwan. The PML-Q is a coalition partner of the PTI in the Punjab and at the Centre.

In Daska city, the PML-N has maintained a strong hold. This claim is backed by the results of the last three general elections. “The firing in the air and scuffles in several parts of the city appeared to be a part of a plan to sabotage the peaceful atmosphere and deter voters,” Sialkot-based journalist Umer tells The News on Sunday.

“The presiding officers stopped the polling as soon as they heard the shots being fired outside. On every occasion, the shooting went on for a couple of hours. As a result, voters in Daska city, a PML-N stronghold, were unable to cast their votes. In every Provincial Assembly or National Assembly election held in the area since 2008, PML-N candidates have received a majority of votes,” Umer adds. PTI’s NA-75 candidate Ali Asjad Malhi had won the general election in 2002. “Malhi looked desperate to make an impression on his party leadership by winning the election…by any means,” Warraich says. Prime Minister Imran Khan has been stressing that most of the opposition parties and their leaders are out-and-out corrupt. Talking about the electoral process, he and his party have always pleaded for free and fair elections. However, Warraich believes that the incidents occurring during NA-75 polls and afterwards have “damaged PTI’s political image”.

“The NA-75 by-election has put a huge question mark on the capacity of civil administration to hold upcoming local government elections as well as general elections in a peaceful way. Therefore, the strong yet due role of the ECP in identifying those involved in illegal practices in this by-election can only help address these apprehensions,” he adds.

For its part, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has won two Provincial Assembly and one National Assembly seats in Sindh. PML-N has secured a Provincial Assembly seat each in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Punjab. The JUI-F has retained its Provincial Assembly seat in Pishin, Balochistan, but lost its National Assembly seat in Kurram to the PTI. The by-election results show an increase in PPP’s votes on all seats in Sindh and a considerable decrease in the votes polled by the PTI and its allies. However, the PTI has secured more votes in Kurram, Daska and Wazirabad than in the previous election. However, it has lost a seat in Nowshera that it had won in 2018. Both PML-N and JUI-F have secured more votes than in the general elections. Despite being in the government, the PTI and its allies have won only one of the seven seats. This does not support Prime Minister Imran Khan’s suggestion from his days in opposition that sitting provincial governments tend to win by-elections. The current trend, especially in the KP, Balochistan and the Punjab is different.

“The NA-75 by-election has put a huge question mark on the capacity of civil administration to hold upcoming local government elections as well as general elections in a peaceful way. Therefore, only the strong role of the ECP in identifying all elements involved in illegal practices in this by-election can help put these apprehensions aside,” says analyst Suhail Warraich. The 11-party Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) is claiming that voters have rejected the PTI-led coalition and vindicated their narrative against the government.

Nevertheless, in PK-63 Nowshera, some other factors too have played a role in bringing about the defeat of the PTI candidate. “The rift between former KP irrigation minister Liaqat Khattak and his brother Minister for Defence Pervez Khattak; PDM parties’ support to the PML-N candidate, inflation and unemployment,” Nowshera-based journalist Mushtaq Paracha says. According to media reports, Liaqat Khattak wanted the party ticket for his son, Ahad Khattak. When his request was rejected, he set up the Nowshera Kalan Tehreek that supported the PML-N candidate, Ikhtiar Wali, in the by-election against his own party.

This defeat has soured the PTI’s celebrations to mark the winning of the National Assembly seat from Kurram. It also led to the expulsion of Liaqat Khattak from the provincial cabinet.

In NA-221 Tharparkar, the candidate supported by the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), the PTI and Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s Ghousia Jamait was unable to give a tough time to the PPP candidate. Qureshi had lost twice in this constituency, in 2013 and 2018 general elections, against the PPP candidate.

Journalist Farooq Soomro believes that three factors have played a role in the comfortable PPP win. “Rift between former Sindh CM Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim and PTI leadership in Tharparkar; the anti-PTI sentiment; and the development projects launched by the Sindh government that have provided jobs to locals; 172 reverse osmosis plants that supply drinking water to most of the Tharparkar district; health projects that have brought down the infant mortality rate by 40 percent, and the Mithi airport are the major elements. In addition, Bilawal Bhutto has announced plans for a university for Thar,” he says. Traditionally in Sanghar, the political tussle is between the Pakistan Muslim League Functional (PML-F) and the PPP. “However, this time the PTI fielded its candidate for PS 43 by-election. The PML-F nominally supported the PTI candidate but its local leaders Jam Maddad Ali and Imam Din Shaukeen joined the PPP prior to election,” Soomro says.

In Kurram, the PTI managed to win the seat because of its candidate. Historically, personalities with greater tribal connections have played an important role in winning any election in the area. Political researcher Majid Nizami thinks that the selection of Malik Fakhar Zaman Khan Bangash as the PTI candidate from the area won the party one more National Assembly seat.

“In Daska, the turnout surprisingly increased. This shows that the on-going political debate in the country has brought more voters to the polling stations. Moreover, the one-on-one competition between the PML-N and the PTI candidates in Daska and Wazirabad resulted in more votes being cast for both parties,” Nizami says.

Political analysts say that local electoral alliances, political groups, baradaris, tribes, and polling management have always played an important role in by-elections. The current elections should be viewed accordingly. An important aspect of this election is that all major political parties have attracted a significant number of voters. It appears that narratives of the government against the opposition and vice versa have had little impact.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/796037-by-election-surprises

Pakistan expert: Religiosity aiding spike in militancy

 

By KATHY GANNON

Militant attacks are on the rise in Pakistan amid a growing religiosity that has brought greater intolerance, prompting one expert to voice concern the country could be overwhelmed by religious extremism.

Pakistani authorities are embracing strengthening religious belief among the population to bring the country closer together. But it’s doing just the opposite, creating intolerance and opening up space for a creeping resurgence in militancy, said Mohammad Amir Rana, executive director of the independent Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies.

“Unfortunately, instead of helping to inculcate better ethics and integrity, this phenomenon is encouraging a tunnel vision” that encourages violence, intolerance and hate, he wrote recently in a local newspaper. “Religiosity has begun to define the Pakistani citizenry.”

Militant violence in Pakistan has spiked: In the past week alone, four vocational school instructors who advocated for women’s rights were traveling together when they were gunned down in a Pakistan border region. A Twitter death threat against Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai attracted an avalanche of trolls. They heaped abuse on the young champion of girls education, who survived a Pakistani Taliban bullet to the head. A couple of men on a motorcycle opened fire on a police check-post not far from the Afghan border killing a young police constable.

In recent weeks, at least a dozen military and paramilitary men have been killed in ambushes, attacks and operations against militant hideouts, mostly in the western border regions.

A military spokesman this week said the rising violence is a response to an aggressive military assault on militant hideouts in regions bordering Afghanistan and the reunification of splintered and deeply violent anti-Pakistan terrorist groups, led by the Tehreek-e-Taliban. The group is driven by a radical religious ideology that espouses violence to enforce its extreme views.

Gen. Babar Ifitkar said the reunified Pakistani Taliban have found a headquarters in eastern Afghanistan. He also accused hostile neighbor India of financing and outfitting a reunified Taliban, providing them with equipment like night vision goggles, improvised explosive devises and small weapons.

India and Pakistan routinely trade allegations that the other is using militants to undermine stability and security at home. Security analyst and fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Asfandyar Mir, said the reunification of a splintered militancy is dangerous news for Pakistan.

“The reunification of various splinters into the (Tehreek-e-Taliban) central organization is a major development, which makes the group very dangerous,” said Mir.The TTP claimed responsibility for the 2012 shooting of Yousafzai. Its former spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, who mysteriously escaped Pakistan military custody to flee to the country, tweeted a promise that the Taliban would kill her if she returned home.Iftikar, in a briefing of foreign journalists this week, said Pakistani military personnel aided Ehsan’s escape, without elaborating. He said the soldiers involved had been punished and efforts were being made to return Ehsan to custody.

The government reached out to Twitter to shut down Ehsan’s account after he threatened Yousafzai, although the military and government at first suggested it was a fake account.

But Rana, the commentator, said the official silence that greeted the threatening tweet encouraged religious intolerance to echo in Pakistani society unchecked.“The problem is religiosity has very negative expression in Pakistan,” he said in an interview late Friday. “It hasn’t been utilized to promote the positive, inclusive tolerant religion.”Instead, successive Pakistani governments as well as its security establishments have exploited extreme religious ideologies to garner votes, appease political religious groups, or target enemies, he said. The 2018 general elections that brought cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan to power was mired in allegations of support from the powerful military for hard-line religious groups.

Those groups include the Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, whose single-point agenda is maintaining and propagating the country’s deeply controversial blasphemy law. That law calls for the death penalty for anyone insulting Islam and is most often used to settle disputes. It often targets minorities, mostly Shiite Muslims, who makeup up about 15% of mostly Sunni Pakistan’s 220 million people.

Mir, the analyst, said the rise in militancy has benefited from state policies that have been either supportive or ambivalent toward militancy as well as from sustained exposure of the region to violence. Most notable are the protracted war in neighboring Afghanistan and the simmering tensions between hostile neighbors India and Pakistan, two countries that possess a nuclear weapons’ arsenal.

“More than extreme religious thought, the sustained exposure of the region to political violence, the power of militant organizations in the region, state policy which is either supportive or ambivalent towards various forms of militancy ... and the influence of the politics of Afghanistan incubate militancy in the region,” he said.

Mir and Rana both pointed to the Pakistani government’s failure to draw radical thinkers away from militant organizations, as groups that seemed at least briefly to eschew a violent path have returned to violence and rejoined the TTP.

Iftikar said the military has stepped up assaults on the reunited Pakistani Taliban, pushing the militants to respond, but only targets they can manage, which are soft targets.

But Mir said the reunited militants pose a greater threat.

“With the addition of these powerful units, the TTP has major strength for operations across the former tribal areas, Swat, Baluchistan, and some in Punjab,” he said. “Taken together, they improve TTP’s ability to mount insurgent and mass-casualty attacks.”

https://apnews.com/article/world-news-pakistan-taliban-6267ae43371163a2ef19863db3077796

Pakistan is isolated and talking peace. But India knows this game too well by now

By SESHADRI CHARI

As things stand now, the US, China and Saudi Arabia are pulling in different directions with Pakistan caught in the crossfire.

This is not the first time that Pakistan is proposing a peace plan. The more than 70 years of joint history is replete with instances of doublespeak and treachery by Pakistan — peace proposals followed by ceasefires and then their subsequent violation.

But this time it was the turn of Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to sermonise on peace, saying, “Pakistan is committed to the idea of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence….”. Ironically, two days after this homily, the army and the rest of the establishment in Islamabad held the ritual of observing ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’ by organising anti-India protests.

Bajwa’s short-lived peace offer should also be seen in the background of changing geopolitical realities in the region. While Pakistan was considered part of the larger Islamic coalition but a poorer cousin, recent events have resulted in a drift between Saudi Arabia and Islamabad. The relationship took a hit when in 2015, Pakistan disallowed its military from participating in the Yemen conflict much to Riyadh’s displeasure. Islamabad once again stepped on Saudi toes when Prime Minister Imran Khan walked away disrespectfully and in breach of protocol after meeting the Saudi King during the OIC summit in 2019, without waiting for the translator to interpret the words he had exchanged. In November 2020, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) issued a statement that did not mention Kashmir in spite of Pakistan’s efforts to get the OIC to condemn India’s abrogation of Article 370. In August that same year, Imran Khan ‘accused’ the Saudi-led OIC of inaction over the Kashmir issue and plotted to convene an OIC meeting with the help of Malaysia and Saudi’s bête noire Turkey, bypassing Saudi objection. Saudi Arabia promptly asked Pakistan to repay the $1 billion loan immediately. China came to Pakistan’s rescue.

But China will prefer to wait and watch before advising Pakistan on further moves in the region. It is possible that it was under Chinese prodding that Imran Khan undertook his maiden visit to Iran to play matchmaker between Riyadh and Tehran. The Middle East conflicts are too serious a subject for Pakistan to resolve. The only reason Beijing would have prodded Islamabad is to play a greater role in Afghanistan and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Meanwhile, the White House under President Joe Biden might not appreciate Islamabad rushing in where angels fear to tread. It is clear that Washington wants Iran to “obey and not negotiate”. As it stands now, the US, China and Saudi Arabia are pulling in different directions with Pakistan caught in the crossfire. None of these countries can afford to lose the commercial part of the relationship with India. As for China, it would not want any escalation of the conflict between India and Pakistan that could endanger its assets and strategic calculations in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects.

With none of these countries wanting to get into the India-Pakistan conflict, it is clear that an isolated Pakistan has no choice but to return to the table for talks, at least for the time being.

Dissent in PoK, and China holding back

It is becoming an uphill task for the Pakistan Army to meet the demands of the Chinese (army and civilian alike) engaged in CPEC projects and the increasing protests in Rawalakot in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) against rising inflation. Earlier in 2019, there were protests against the Pakistan Army and local police at several areas of PoK like Muzaffarabad, Tatto Pani, Rawalakot, Poonch, Hajira, and Tatrinote, with people accusing Islamabad of illegally taking over land for CPEC projects. In September 2018, political activists from PoK held a massive protest in front of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) office to protest gross human rights violations and exploitation of water resources by Pakistan as part of the CPEC projects.

China seems to be in a tearing hurry to complete the highway project between Chitral and Chakdara, which would be connected to the existing motorway that reaches Rashakai, the nerve centre of the proposed lucrative CPEC Special Economic Zone. More importantly, these projects are linked to the westbound highway linking the Karakoram Highway from Gilgit Baltistan to Chitral district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that straddles the Wakhan Corridor, which borders Afghanistan, China, and Tajikistan. About 12 km from the corridor, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has reportedly stationed troops at a dedicated military base in Tajikistan and has been conducting regular joint patrols and counterterrorism operations with Afghan security forces to prevent infiltration by militant Uygur groups.

All this irritates the local population and has strong repercussions on political parties that have to tackle people’s ire.

Little wonder then that, every time an election approaches, the political class sets about to make two promises. First is the resolve to send the army back to the barracks. Although this has never happened, the army top brass seems to allow the political parties to have temporary hallucinations about such a possibility. The second promise they make is to undertake efforts to mend fences with India and begin a long life of peace and tranquility. During the 2018 parliamentary election, all the prospective prime ministerial candidates — Imran Khan, Bilawal Bhutto and Shahbaz Sharif — declared their pious intentions to improve relations with India if elected. Ostensibly, such promises must be finding resonance with the masses encouraging them to vote for the right candidate who can engage with New Delhi for peace efforts.

Terms like ‘composite dialogue’, ‘comprehensive dialogue’ and ‘discussing all issues including Kashmir’ have been mentioned at every possible instance on international platforms. While Pakistan unfailingly raises the issue of Kashmir in every peace talk, India repeats the mantra of ‘talks and terror cannot go together’.

India’s brush with various ‘peace’ plans

Successive prime ministers of India have come across peace proposals from Pakistan and also witnessed the brutal terror attacks unleashed by the so-called non-State actors there.

The current phase of composite dialogue between Pakistan and India, which evolved into what is generally referred to as the peace process, began in January 2004 after the summit meeting between then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf. The meeting was touted as one that helped thaw the post-Kargil bitter relations between the two countries. But Islamabad did very little to reign in its non-State actors or prevent use of territory under its control to be used as terror launch pads.

In 2006, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said, “We can make borders irrelevant.” But soon after that, another series of terror attacks took place. Again, after Narendra Modi became the prime minister in 2014, the peace process received a new lease of life, only to disappear in the aftermaths of Uri (2016) and Pulwama (2019).

It is unfortunate that peace proposals from the political institutions in Islamabad have never met with success because they do not have the support of the army establishment, which has assumed a significant role in the country’s political ecosystem. Even more unfortunate is the reality that every serious peace proposal has been followed up by some terror attack or aggression by the army and the so-called non-State actors, most of them patronised by the country’s intelligence wing, ISI. It is doubtful if the all-powerful Pakistan military would really appreciate the two countries deciding to live in peace and bury the hatchet. Pakistan has three power centres; the army, the clergy, and the political establishment, which can be said to be the weakest of the three. The people and the civil society seemingly play little to no role in the decision-making process or overall functioning of the country. One can come across a number of anecdotal evidence highlighting the aspirations and hopes of peace nurtured by the people of Pakistan since the tragic Partition.

Pakistan is a perennial concern for India and one of the biggest impediments to peace and progress in the region. New Delhi must keep all the options for peace talks open but never lower its guard lest it is caught unawares again with yet another terror attack.

https://theprint.in/opinion/pakistan-is-isolated-and-talking-peace-but-india-knows-this-game-too-well-by-now/607747/