Video - #Cuba #RaulCastro Cuba: Raul Castro to step down as head of Communist Party

Video - President Biden Hosts H.E. Suga Yoshihide for an Expanded Bilateral Meeting

Video - Vice President Harris Hosts H.E. Suga Yoshihide, Prime Minister of Japan, for a Bilateral Meeting

Video Report - Will U.S. sanctions work against Russia? | Inside Story

Video Report - Russia-Ukraine tensions, US Afghanistan withdrawal, China & Hong Kong, Notre Dame's deadline

#Pakistan - No accountability and hungry masses

By Rehman Malik

Traditionally we do not believe in self and national accountability. We keep playing loose balls allowing our issues to deteriorate, that’s why we now have a bad economy and a price hike at the cost of the life of a common man. The common man is getting unruly and is taking the law in his own hands, whereas the ruling elite in Pakistan is paralysed since forever.

Some heads from the government must roll; who have not been able to protect the life and property of the innocent. Our system is being run by a faulty system which actually looks like ad-hoc arrangements to manage day to day affairs and there is no inbuilt system to have security for the government or it’s public.

There is no check on the role of law and the most violated legislation is the rule of law which is not followed by almost all segments of society. The sense of insecurity is one of the major reasons that we are left behind many nations.

The political system always has faced removals in the dark night. It is sad to note that in Pakistan, not a single prime minister has been able to complete his tenure since the country’s inception 70 years ago. History has been repeating itself time and again.

Here are the details of some PMs who were forced out of office.

Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan was murdered in Rawalpindi on October 16, 1951 while the second PM Khawaja Nazimuddin was sent home by Governor General Ghulam Muhammad on April 17, 1953. Nazimuddin sought justice from the Supreme Court when justice Munir came up with the doctrine of necessity to validate Ghulam Muhammad’s illegal act. Muhammad Ali Bogra too was dismissed by Ghulam Muhammad in 1954 but later was again appointed as PM. Governor General Iskender Mirza dismissed his government in 1955 as he did not enjoy a majority in the Constituent Assembly.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto rose to power as President after 13 years of martial law under a special arrangement till the 1973 Constitution was passed. He resigned as president after the constitution was passed, to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He went into elections in 1977 and became the first democratically elected PM, but he was too deposed the same year through a military coup by General Muhammad Ziaul Haq in July 1977.

Benazir Bhutto came into power as PM as a result of the 1988 general elections. President Ghulam Ishaq Khan used his presidential powers under article 58 2(b) and overthrew Bibi’s government on August 6, 1990.

Then Mian Nawaz Sharif became PM for the first time in 1990—soon his government too was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1993. But it was restored later upon his appeal to the Supreme Court. However, this brought in an open political confrontation between the President and the PM; the famous Kakar formula came into play when the then Army Chief Waheed Kakar appointed a caretaker government by intervening out of “doctrine of necessity” for the sake of national security. He forced both Mian Nawaz Sharif and Ghulam Ishaq Khan to resign on July 18, 1993.

Astronomers detect lowest frequencies from enigmatic fast radio bursts to date After winning 1993 general elections overseen by the caretaker Government, Ms Benazir Bhutto became PM of Pakistan again in 1993 but her second government also could not survive more than the last three years. Her own hand picked, ‘loyal’ president Farooq Laghari conspired against her and dismissed her government in November 1996. As a result of the February 1997 election, Mian Nawaz Sharif again became the PM of Pakistan but on October 12, 1999, General Pervez Musharraf led a military coup and imposed emergency in the country and toppled Nawaz Sharif’s government. After the unfortunate death and murder of Benazir Bhutto, PPP succeeded to secure a majority in the National Assembly during the 2008 general elections and Yusuf Raza Gilani was elected the PM. Everything was going well until he was convicted in a contempt of court case in the Supreme Court for not writing a letter against the sitting president Asif Ali Zardari to the Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases.

Mian Nawaz Sharif became the PM for the third time in 2013 but as he entered the last year of his tenure, he got engulfed in the Panama corruption scandal, hence SC dismissed his government.

This saga of the above leaders’ fall from grace shows how fragile democracy is in this country and it looks like there is some major default in our system which we have not been able to rectify. We left the system floating without fixing it properly which should manage the country fault-free, where rule of law has respect and power to sustain the internal and external pressures. We need to look into the present system critically with the view to give to the country by giving it a system which can make Pakistan a prosperous and a modern country, better than even Turkey and China. Successive interruptions and individual-based constitutional amendments have made our system fragile and weak therefore, we need to make it stronger to cater our growing constitutional, administrative and economic needs.

The nation needs to get out of adhoc-ism, ethnicity and religious extremism, otherwise we will become hostages in the hands of a few extremists. The federal government needs to wake up and use the power of state laws.

https://nation.com.pk/14-Apr-2021/no-accountability-and-hungry-masses

#Pakistan - Another ex-PPP man assigned task to fix economy

By Rizwan Shehzad

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday appointed former PPP senator Shaukat Tarin as the country’s new finance minister in yet another cabinet reshuffle during the third year of the PTI-led government.

Tarin, the second former PPP lawmaker picked as the finance minister, has replaced PTI’s recently appointed finance minister Hammad Azhar, who has now been given the portfolio of energy. Before Hammad’s short stint, PPP’s ex-financial czar Abdul Hafeez Shaikh served as the finance minister before being unceremoniously sacked in last month – that too when the prime minister had claimed the economy was on course to recovery. Though the premier has often blamed the previous governments – especially PPP and PML-N’s rule between 2008 and 2018 – for country’s economic crisis, it is surprising to see that he has chosen former lawmakers of the opposition party as rescuers. Both Tarin and Shaikh have served in the government of PPP’s ex-prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani between 2009 and 2011.

Since April 2019, when PTI stalwart Asad Umar was shown the door, frequent reshuffles have taken place against a backdrop of declining popularity of the ruling party because people have been expressing their disapproval with the government’s economic policies since it came to power in 2018.

In other major changes, the prime minister has swapped the portfolios of science and information ministries between Fawad Chaudhry and Shibli Faraz. Fawad has been appointed the government’s spokesperson for the second time. Shibli, who served as the information minister before his term as a senator ended in March, has been given the portfolio of the science and technology ministry.

In addition, PM Imran has appointed Khusro Bakhtiar the industries and production minister.His portfolio of economic affairs has been handed over to former energy minister Omar Ayub.Apart from Shibli and Hammad, all others have served in different capacities with the PPP, the PML-N and the PML-Q in the past.Though PM Imran has been envisaging a cabinet reshuffle before the Senate elections, no new faces from PTI have so far been given a chance to sit in the cabinet.Earlier, Shibli had told The Express Tribune that “three to four new people are expected to be given state-minister level portfolios”.

“Lawmakers in the National Assembly are likely to be given a chance,” he added.

Shibli and a couple of other ministers, who wished not to be named, had revealed that the premier was unhappy with the performance of several key ministers and decided that only those who could deliver would stay in the cabinet.

Party sources said that performance and delivery were the only things that the premier was interested in as he felt exhausted after hearing excuses after excuses and inordinate delays in the completion of projects for one reason or another for a long time. Among other things, the recent reshuffle is a result of growing frustration within the party circles as the premier believes that the ministers must start delivering without coming up with excuses anymore.

The premier had this realisation, the sources said, and made it clear that it was time to deliver. Party insiders have long been saying that the premier frequently chairs meetings of spokespersons and issues directions to defend government policies at all the forums.

They also acknowledged that the narrative of simply blaming the previous governments was not yielding the desired results anymore in and outside parliament and it was time to back up the claims earlier made through performance.

Since 2018 when the PTI came to power, the PM has reshuffled the cabinet on a number of occasions.

Last time, he tweaked the cabinet was in December last year when he had elevated his finance adviser Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh to the status of a full-fledged finance minister and brought high-profile political ally Sheikh Rashid Ahmed to the interior ministry’s helm.

PM Imran had picked Azam Khan Swati, who was serving as the minister of counter-narcotics, to replace Rashid as the railways minister. Rashid’s predecessor at the interior ministry, Brig (retd) Ijaz Ahmed Shah, was given the narcotics control ministry, vacated by Swati.

Earlier, PM Imran had carried out a reshuffle of ministers in cabinet positions in April 2020, appointing Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar as the economic affairs minister after taking back charge of the national food security ministry from him two days after his name emerged as a major beneficiary in an investigation report into the sugar crisis.

In the major cabinet at that time, Syed Fakhar Imam was made the national food security minister, Hammad the industries minister and Swati was handed over the portfolio of the narcotics control ministry.

The premier had accepted the resignation of MQM-P’s Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui as the information technology and telecommunication minister, replacing him with fellow party man Aminul Haq .

Among other changes, Babar Awan was appointed the PM’s adviser on parliamentary affairs.

In April 2019, PTI stalwart Umar was sacked from the post of the finance minister. Earlier, Shaikh was named the adviser on finance, state minister for interior Shehryar Afridi was made the states and frontier regions (Safron) minister and Brig (retd) Ijaz Ahmed Shah was appointed the interior minister. Ghulam Sarwar Khan, who previously was the petroleum minister, was handed over the portfolio of the aviation ministry.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2295141/another-ex-ppp-man-assigned-task-to-fix-economy

#Pakistan - Violent extremism

ByMian Rauf

Rampant religious extremism and sectarianism are wracking Pakistan today. The religiously frenzied features of Pakistani culture, politics and society are remnants of the long and dark shadow of General Ziaul Haq’s 11 years of Islamist rule that structured the entire state as a theatre of religion. Zia’s regime was a setback for a faltering democratic process and ushered in an era of religious obscurantism that affected every facet of domestic and foreign policy. He saw Islam as a part of revolutionary process to overhaul Pakistan. But in the last four decades, there has been a complete erosion of the moral values of our society.

History bears testimony to the fact that the military complex and political leadership are the factors responsible for promoting and strengthening the hegemony and influence of religious extremist bigots. The former supports so-called mullahs for a jihadist cause, strengthening the military narrative at the national level and to counter the political and nationalist narratives in the state and the latter have always exploited the religious card to legitimize authority, secure votes and counter opposition. The current imperium of Tehrik Labbaik Pakistan bigots and the tolerant behaviour of the government towards extremist clerics are the consequences of the state’s mullah-centric policies.

Extremism is the biggest enemy of the nation, which is not only weakening the already deteriorating governance system in the country but also undermining national dignity and Pakistan’s global image. Given the current religious insecurity, Pakistan has to redesign its narrative and soften its policies towards the religious bigots and extremists in order to stabilize the state. It is incumbent upon the state to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution and rule of law, which is an effective way to establish the writ of the state.

The current unrest erupted across major cities in Pakistan on Monday after TLP Chief Saad Hussain Rizvi was detained by security forces in Lahore as a “pre-emptive measure” ahead of the party’s April 20 deadline to the government, as the PTI government had promised the TLP last November that they would take up the matter of the French ambassador’s expulsion from Pakistan with Parliament in protest against the publication of blasphemous images in that country. The siege of various cities of the country by mobilized religious bigots has once again challenged the writ of the state. The entire state seems powerless against extremist mobs who have openly challenged the state’s writ. This manifestly represents the strength and influence of religious fundamentalists in Pakistan. The way the administration has collapsed in the face of mob violence is alarming and brings into question the responsibility of the forces in question. It also underscores the state’s ability to deal with rising religious extremism.

Religious organizations in Pakistan have a significant influence over particular segments of society, which they can mobilize for their objectives. They draw their strength from their connection to a sizable segment of the society through which they exert pressure on the state to adopt extremist policies. The role of religious organizations in making Pakistan an Islamic state is well known; their subsequent success in pressurizing Z.A. Bhutto to declare Ahmedis as non- Muslims and include clauses in the 1973 Constitution to enforce Sharia law is well known. Later, in 1983, General Zia accepted their demand of passing the Hudood Ordinances, which restrict women’s rights. The growing influence and importance of Islamists helped ambitious and bigoted politicians to benefit from the powerful card of religion. The result is a state divided on ethnic, cultural, linguist, sectarian and provincial lines. The state’s appeasement policy and pandering to the demands by reactionary forces has emboldened them and made them confident of their power to bring the country to a halt.

Extremism is the biggest enemy of the nation, which is not only weakening the already deteriorating governance system in the country but also undermining national dignity and Pakistan’s global image. Given the current religious insecurity, Pakistan has to redesign its narrative and soften its policies towards the religious bigots and extremists in order to stabilize the state. It is incumbent upon the state to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution and rule of law, which is an effective way to establish the writ of the state. The state institutions should not avoid going against the bigots who are able to sabotage peace and stability.

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/04/15/violent-extremism/

#Pakistan - The fault in our textbooks - Do our textbooks teach what really happened?

By Zainab Nazir

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”-George Orwell

Man is fascinated by the spirit of inquisitiveness. By connecting the past with the present, we apprehend the continuity and solidarity of the ages.

In Pakistan, history has always been a controversial subject. It has been a fascinating tale of man’s evolution, of his march on the road to civilization, the mirror of what humanity thought and did during many centuries which have rolled into oblivion. The story of mankind is thrilling and depressing, at once a tribute to the greatness of man and a sad commentary on his silly mistakes.

All the prejudices and preconceived notions that we develop, have their roots in our school education, the stories we hear at home and around. However, what we mostly believe is generally the books, they seem truly authentic. The misinformation in Pakistani textbooks are the fruit of the poisonous tree of historical revisionism. The content of Pakistan’s textbooks has often been pointed out and criticized by different sources, including many within Pakistan, for sometimes promoting religious intolerance, hatred, ethnic conflicts and a stereotypical portrayal of minorities.

Since the 1970s, our school textbooks have unintentionally taught hatred towards India and its inhabitants. The Pakistani school curriculum witnessed some major changes during General Zia-ul- haq’s Islamization.

The emphasis of the curriculum is not much about Pakistan’s cultural heritage. Instead, it aims to show that Pakistan’s cultural linkage and heritage is with the Arab world. This curriculum totally ignores the fact that Pakistan has many minorities living in the country. Hence, the students are not introduced to other cultures and there is no concept of cultural harmony, equality, tolerance and other social factors. In fact, even the Muslim history is taught from the perspective of one sectarian group. The textbooks provoke the sentiments of the students and promote extremism and fanaticism in the young and fresh minds of the Pakistani students.

The most deliberate lie in textbook accounts of Pakistan’s history is by virtue of omission, which is in effect the denial of our multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious past. Among many examples, the wars of 1965 and 1971, and the partition of 1947 are the reason for the falsehood that lies in our distorted view of nationalism.

Our textbooks should be revised to produce good pedagogy. The government should devise policies to prevent religious extremism and intolerance. This effort would help achieve a balance of power and control on the path of national progress. In our textbooks, these wars are glorified in the name of “jihad”. Unfortunately, peace initiatives are largely ignored in our textbooks. Rather than letting children learn from our past mistakes and errors, we show them a false and blurred picture. Thus, we repeat the same mistakes generation after generation. We don’t have any understanding or sense of the wrong history that is being taught to us. In the USA, a movement called “The lies my teacher told me” was started, from a 1995 book of that name, which examined US history textbooks, and found that they propagated a false, Eurocentric and mythologized view of US history. So, through the same lens we can review Pakistan’s textbooks to explore the contradiction between the actual and the taught events.

Textbooks represent the political perspectives and national ideologies of our government system. The curriculum that we are currently following in our institutions carries false references, a one-sided history and a biased approach. The curriculum and textbook politics has always remained a hurdle in the path of progress and improvement of our education sector. The problem of biased textbooks can be resolved. Many great researchers have postulated that textbooks serve as an opportunity and potential vehicle to eliminate the existing hatred and intolerance in Pakistani society.

Our textbooks are our golden doors. They define our legacy. The standard of a good book is not the morality or the life values it teaches, but the limit to which it develops the thinking power of an ordinary man, and that it induces us to be just and moral.

Our textbooks should be revised to produce good pedagogy. The government should devise policies to prevent religious extremism and intolerance. This effort would help achieve a balance of power and control on the path of national progress.

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/04/16/the-fault-in-our-textbooks/

#Pakistan - PM makes announcements but doesn't fulfill promises: Murtaza Wahab

 Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) spokesperson Murtaza Wahab Friday said Prime Minister Imran Khan only makes announcements but does not fulfill his promises as the previous projects are still pending.

The PPP spokesperson held a news conference and said Imran Khan’s interest in Sindh develops every year in Ramzan. He said the premier comes in the holy month, takes donations for Shaukat Khanum Hospital and leaves. A similar process will be repeated today, he asserted.

Murtaza Wahab also criticized the federal government for not observing the coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs). He said the incumbent regime should vaccinate the entire population if it wants to continue holding such gatherings. 

https://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/597568-PM-makes-announcements-doesnt-fulfill-promises-Murtaza-Wahab