http://en.people.cn/n3/2021/0701/c90000-9867538.html
Thursday, July 1, 2021
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD: U.S. - The Supreme Court Abandons Voting Rights
The 1965 Voting Rights Act was one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history. By outlawing racial discrimination in voting and imposing federal oversight in states with histories of discriminating, it finally enforced the 15th Amendment and marked the first time the nation could call itself a truly representative democracy. Until the last decade, the law occupied a sacred spot in the American legal system. In 2006, Congress reauthorized the law nearly unanimously.
Since then, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has been dismantling it, piece by piece.
The latest blow came Thursday, when all six conservative justices voted to uphold two Arizona voting laws despite lower federal courts finding clear evidence that the laws make voting harder for voters of color — whether Black, Latino or Native American. One law requires election officials to throw out ballots that were cast in the wrong precinct; the other bars most people and groups from collecting voters’ absentee ballots and dropping them off at polling places.
Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bars any law that discriminates on the basis of race, whether intentionally or not, the Arizona laws should have been invalidated. But the conservative justices dismissed the challenge because, they said, only a small number of people were affected. “The mere fact that there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in an opinion joined by the other conservatives.
That is a dismissive wave of the hand at precisely the sort of evidence that Congress told voting-rights plaintiffs to present in court. As Justice Elena Kagan pointed out in a dissent longer than the ruling itself, small numbers can make a big difference. In 2020, for example, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in Arizona by a little over 10,000 votes — fewer than the state threw out based on the out-of-precinct policy in two of the past three presidential elections.
Since the court is talking about “mere facts,” the conservative justices might have noted the mere fact that voting fraud, which lawmakers in a number of states claim they are trying to prevent with laws like the ones in Arizona, is essentially nonexistent. As one federal judge put it several years ago, such laws are akin to using “a sledgehammer to hit either a real or imaginary fly on a glass coffee table.”
That doesn’t appear to bother the conservative justices, who have given a free pass to state legislatures to discriminate, even as they demand more and more from voters trying to show that they are hurt by that discrimination.
This subverts the whole purpose of the Voting Rights Act, which was enacted because of the persistence of discriminatory state voting laws and policies, a point Justice Kagan made throughout her dissent. “What is tragic here is that the Court has (yet again) rewritten — in order to weaken — a statute that stands as a monument to America’s greatness, and protects against its basest impulses,” she wrote.
Those impulses have been on flagrant display over the past several years, as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country have raced one another to pass laws that make voting harder — whether through stringent voter-identification requirements, limits on early and absentee voting, hurdles to registration, indiscriminate purges of voter rolls and laws like Arizona’s. Many of these laws disproportionately hurt voters of color. Already this year, 28 laws restricting voting have passed in 17 states, according to a running tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The conservatives on the court choose to be oblivious to the function of these laws, perhaps because they and their colleagues created the conditions for them to thrive in the first place. In 2013, the court gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act, Section 5, which had required states and localities with a history of discriminatory voting practices — including Arizona — to obtain approval from the federal government before changing or adopting any voting law.
Section 5 was by far the most effective way to prevent voting discrimination, but according to Chief Justice John Roberts — who has been working to hobble the Voting Rights Act since he was a junior lawyer in the Reagan administration — the list of offenders was out of date. “Things have changed dramatically,” he wrote in his 2013 majority opinion, pointing to the increase in Black voter registration and turnout in the years since the Voting Rights Act was adopted. It didn’t seem to occur to him that this increase was precisely because of the law, and not in spite of it. As if to drive home the point, Republican-led states that had been under federal oversight began imposing strict new voting laws within hours of the ruling.
After 2013, Section 2 was the only meaningful tool left in the Voting Rights Act — indeed, Chief Justice Roberts pointed out this fact as supposed consolation when the court eliminated Section 5. But its medicine was never as strong. Lawsuits alleging violations under Section 2 can only be brought after a new voting law has passed, and may have been discriminating against voters for years. The suits are expensive and time-consuming, which deters most potential plaintiffs. Even when plaintiffs show incontestable proof of discrimination, as they did in Thursday’s case, the odds are stacked against them.
This is bad news for upcoming legal challenges to Republican-enacted voter restrictions in other states. Just how bad will depend in part on the outcome of a lawsuit the Justice Department filed last week against a sweeping new voting law in Georgia. The suit contends that the Georgia Republicans who passed it, upset at Democratic victories in the state’s presidential and Senate contests, intentionally targeted Black voters, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Proving intentional discrimination is a high bar, but Georgia’s lawmakers worked hard to make the job easier, passing all kinds of restrictions that disproportionately hurt Black voters.
Congress has been debating a bill that would restore the heart of the Voting Rights Act by reimposing federal oversight of voting laws in states that have repeatedly discriminated in the last 25 years. Thanks to blanket opposition by Republicans and the existence of the filibuster, which allows a minority of senators to block a bill with majority support, the bill is a dead letter — unless Democrats decide to end the filibuster.
Even that step would not turn back the anti-democratic tide, which grew into a wave during the Trump administration. In Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere, Republican lawmakers driven by demonstrable lies about fraud in the 2020 election are changing the rules around how votes are counted and certified. They are stripping power from officials, like the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who did their jobs in 2020 and refused to succumb to pressure from Mr. Trump and his allies to “find” extra votes and overturn the results to help him win.
The strategy is so dangerous because it is so dull. It’s easy to be outraged by, say, making it a crime to give voters water while they wait in oppressively long lines to cast a ballot, as the new Georgia law does. It’s harder to get worked up about the arcane machinery of election administration. But these laws are of a piece with the voting restrictions being passed by the same lawmakers. Together, they are designed to keep Democratic-leaning voters away from the polls, and to the extent that fails, to deny victory to Democratic candidates, even when they win more votes.
The current conservative majority on the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roberts, shows no interest in thwarting this attack on democracy and protecting Americans’ fundamental constitutional right to vote. The ball is in Congress’s court, and time is fast running out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/opinion/supreme-court-voting-law.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Germany pulls last troops from Afghanistan, ending nearly 20-year mission
Germany has finished withdrawing its last contingent of around 570 soldiers from Afghanistan as the security situation deteriorates. The move marks the end of a nearly 20-year mission.
With US troops eyeing their final exit from Afghanistan in September, Germany pulled out all of its remaining troops on Tuesday. Last week, Germany's Defense Ministry said around 570 troops were still deployed.
The last of them have now been flown out of the northern city of Mazar — ending a nearly two decade-long mission. The contingent also included members of the KSK special forces, who were tasked with securing the camp during the move.
German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said the soldiers were "now on their way home."
"This marks the end of a historic chapter – an intense deployment that has challenged and shaped us," she wrote on Twitter.
She thanked the soldiers for fulfilling their duties in Afghanistan "with professionalism and conviction."
Looking back at the mission, the minister pledged to discuss "what was good, what was not good and what we've learned."
Germany's armed forces also confirmed the pullout, saying that "last soldiers have left Afghanistan."
The German military had kept the details on the pullout vague on security grounds. Speaking just hours before the move was officially confirmed, Kramp-Karrenbauer said the withdrawal was happening "in an orderly manner, but also as swiftly as possible." Germany maintained a contingent of around 1,100 troops before starting the drawdown in May.
What happens next?
The four military planes carrying the troops are expected to make a stop in Tbilisi before landing in Germany on Wednesday. Their old camp will be handed to Afghani troops as Germany ends its participation in NATO's "Resolute Support" mission.
After landing in Germany, the soldiers will enter a mandatory two-week quarantine to curb the risk of the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant. According to Der Spiegel magazine, at least one German soldier was infected with the variant earlier this month.
How long were German troops in Afghanistan?
Germany deployed its forces in the wake of the deadly 9/11 attacks on the US conducted by al-Qaida in 2001. The first troops arrived in Kabul in January 2002.
In the early stages of the mission, German soldiers were told that their deployment was aimed at stabilizing the country rather than fighting the Taliban.
Over 150,000 German soldiers have been stationed in Afghanistan over the years, many of them serving more than once.
By the end of 2020, the Bundeswehr's deployment had cost the German taxpayers around €12.5 billion ($15 billion).
The mission, which lasted for almost 20 years, cost the lives of 59 German soldiers.
It was the longest, most expensive and the bloodiest German deployment since WWII. According to UN data, the Afghanistan conflict claimed the lives of over 39,000 civilians since 2009. While most of them have been killed by the Taliban, international forces also caused civilian causalities, especially through air strikes. The US also lost 2,442 soldiers since the mission started.
What is happening in Afghanistan?
The end of the mission comes as the Taliban in Afghanistan rapidly seize new territory from the US-backed government in Kabul. Taliban forces are also positioning themselves around provincial capitals, prompting fears that they will seize full control once all foreign troops leave. The UN reported a spike in civilian casualties since last September.
The extremist Islamic militants were notably emboldened by the US pledge to finish its Afghanistan withdrawal this year. The administration of Donald Trump had pledged to complete the pullout by May this year. His successor, Joe Biden, changed the target date to September 11 this year, the 20th anniversary of the attacks which prompted the conflict.While meeting with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday, Biden promised a "sustained" partnership between the countries. However, he did not signal any changes to the timetable due to the Taliban offensive. "Afghans are going to have to decide their future," Biden told reporters. https://www.dw.com/en/germany-pulls-last-troops-from-afghanistan-ending-nearly-20-year-mission/a-58097894
How Pakistan Is Helping China Crack Down on Uyghur Muslims
By Kunwar Khuldune Shahid
Pakistan was once an escape route of choice for many Uyghurs. Today long-standing members of the country’s Uyghur community fear for their future.On May 7, in the hours after Friday prayers, textile and carpet merchant Abdul Wali was preparing to lock up his shop in Islamabad in preparation for the COVID-19 lockdown that had been imposed in the Pakistani capital. The deputy commissioner had announced that public transport would be suspended after 6 p.m., so Wali faced a race against time if he wanted to catch one of the last few buses heading north to spend Eid-ul-Fitr with his family like every year. During the rush to wrap things up, Wali received a call informing him that his eldest brother had been abducted. “My brother’s wife hadn’t heard from him for quite a few days. She was informed by a few close friends of my brother that he had been kidnapped by local authorities,” Wali told The Diplomat. Abdul Wali belongs to a Uyghur Muslim family originally hailing from Dabancheng district of Urumqi, the capital of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. His father moved to Pakistan in the 1960s amidst China’s initiation of curbs on Uyghur culture and the locals’ practice of Islam. After doing a few small-time jobs he established an export business and married a Pakistani woman, Wali’s mother, a few years after moving to the country, eventually inviting some members of the extended family to move to Pakistan as well. Wali says his brother, an Islamic cleric who travels across the region as part of missionary exercises, has been accused of being a member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an Islamist militant group outlawed as a terror outfit in both China and Pakistan.
“My brother hasn’t touched a gun in his life. He is a preacher of Islam and has been targeted because he speaks up for his fellow [Uyghur] Imams and Muslims, who are being persecuted in our home country, as the Muslim ummah [community] watches in silence,” Wali said. Wali has now moved to be with his extended family in a northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa town. Together, they await further news on his brother, who has now been missing for almost two months. Having missed his bus on the day the lockdown was imposed in the capital, Wali got a ride from a friend, Ibrahim Ahmed, who travels the route as part of his transport business.Ahmed, whose own father had moved from a village in Xinjiang’s Kashgar city to a town near Gilgit in northern Pakistan in the 1990s, reveals that the Pakistani Uyghur community has increasingly suppressed its identity in recent years amidst growing Chinese influence. “I travel the length and breadth of Pakistan for work. The Chinese have taken over the country. In Gilgit, many are asking their family members, especially men, to leave for other parts of Pakistan and even other countries. China is erasing Uyghur presence from Gilgit, where many of us have been living for decades,” Ahmed told The Diplomat. Gilgit-Baltistan, a geopolitical loophole that borders Xinjiang and is a part of the longstanding Kashmir dispute, is the gateway to the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Beijing’s biggest overseas investment and an important part of its headline Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Pakistan, which loudly proclaims CPEC to be its economic lifeline, has increasingly acquiesced to Chinese demands since the initiation of the project, which couples financial misappropriation with human rights abuses. This now includes clamping down on the Uyghurs. In recent years Pakistan’s contribution in that regard has evolved from counterterrorism measures taken against Uyghur-origin militants affiliated with South Asian jihadist outfits to lifting individuals at the behest of Chinese government. In 2018, a protest was initiated by Pakistani men whose Uyghur wives had been detained in Chinese internment camps. However, the protesters were threatened and dispersed, leaving individuals to plead their case. Among them is a Lahore-based trader Imran Malik. “It’s been three years now that I have been registering protests regarding by wife’s whereabouts. She went back to China in 2018, and I haven’t heard from her since. I don’t know where she is and how she is,” Malik told The Diplomat. Rights groups fear that Malik’s wife, along with over a million other Uyghur Muslims, is detained in Chinese “re-education camps” as part of Beijing’s erasure of Uyghur Islamic identity. These camps have been designed as part of Beijing’s bid to ensure that the Uyghur Muslims “unlearn” Islamic rituals, which the Chinese government interprets as the root of violent separatism in the country. There have been reports of local Uyghurs being forced to eat pork, which is forbidden according to Islamic theology. Thousands of mosques have been destroyed in Xinjiang. There have been bans on Islamic clothing including veils and “abnormal beards.” There has been specific targeting of Islamic imams, along with bans on fasting during Ramadan for government workers and anyone under the age of 18. The crackdown during Ramadan this year leading up to Eid-ul-Fitr resulted in mosques being empty and few locals being seen openly fasting in Xinjiang. On May 13, the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) released its “Islam Dispossessed” report, which cites the case of 1,046 Turkic origin imams being detained in Xinjiang. Among the countries that have helped China arrest imams, and carry out what UHRP says “likely amounts to genocide under international law,” is Pakistan. Many of the imams were trained in madrassas in Pakistan, which UHRP says has “capitulated quickly to Chinese demands.” “With its crackdown, Pakistan has helped mainstream the Chinese narrative on ETIM, which wasn’t heard of before 9/11,” said UHRP’s Peter Irwin, the author of “Islam Dispossessed,” while talking to The Diplomat. Irwin highlights the fact that Pakistan is completely toeing the Chinese line on the persecution of Uyghur Muslims, by denying that any action is taking place against the community. As the Chinese government limits media exposure to the camps, its narrative is facilitated by Muslim countries downplaying the crimes against the Uyghur population, according to Irwin. “It is a battle of narratives, but there is just overwhelming evidence with regards to what is being done to Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. We have testimonies from imams, we have interviews with many other locals who have escaped captivity. There is a clear picture of what these camps really are,” Irwin said. “Yes, there are cases of anti-Muslim actions being taken in the West as well – which countries like Pakistan are extremely vocal against. But when you compare the magnitude of what is going on in China, there really is no comparison,” he added. Zumretay Arkin’s family was among those that managed to escape from Xinjiang. Arkin is now the program and advocacy manager for the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). She reveals that while Pakistan was an escape route of choice for many Uyghurs, today many members of the community who have been in Pakistan for decades fear for their future. “We share a border with Pakistan, which is also an Islamic country. It was easier for us to find refuge there decades ago,” Arkin told The Diplomat. “But now Pakistan is deporting Uyghur Muslims, putting our lives at risk. Now Pakistani agencies are reporting directly to Chinese authorities in the ongoing crackdown.” Arkin is especially critical of the current Imran Khan-led government in Pakistan for “echoing Chinese propaganda.” The WUC condemned Khan’s interview with Al-Jazeera in 2019, where he said he was “not aware” of what is happening to Uyghur Muslims, despite the Pakistani premier’s vocal support for Kashmir, Palestine, and even Muslims in the West, usually centering around Islamist narratives. While Imran Khan says he is in “private communication” with the Chinese government, former Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri told The Diplomat that he had found the Chinese “pretty open” in their communication during his time in the foreign office. “Turkey should be vocal about the Uyghur issue. They are Turkic origin people. It is not in Pakistan’s interest to discuss issues related to China publicly. Because when there are public condemnations, it is not based on any moral position, but an exhibit of a whip being used to ascertain particular political goals,” Kasuri said. However, Zumretay Arkin says Imran Khan has gone beyond mere silence on the matter. On the Uyghur question, Khan regularly says that China has done a lot for Pakistan, implying that the country cannot speak up even if it wanted to owing to the economic cost. Last week, in an interview with Axios on HBO, Khan once again expressed similar subservience to China and denialism vis-à-vis Uyghur Muslims. “This is clear gaslighting. The evidence is not just provided by us, there are many reporters, still reporting on the persecution. Scholars and researchers have worked on it for decades. There have been document leaks directly from the Chinese government. Millions are speaking up on the human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims, which Pakistan is now participating in,” said Arkin. In its 2017 report “Seeking a Place to Breathe Freely,” the WUC published a list of Uyghurs that had been deported by the Pakistani government. The numbers have exponentially increased since the report was published. With mass surveillance, tracking, and other artificial intelligence software, ever-more sophisticated technology is being used by Chinese authorities, now in tandem with Pakistani authorities, to persecute Uyghur Muslims. “This is the first modern tech-assisted genocide in history,” said Peter Irwin of the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/how-pakistan-is-helping-china-crack-down-on-uyghur-muslims/
Opinion | The Taliban Will Decide if Pakistan Recognizes Israel
Kunwar Khuldune Shahid
"DIDNOT [sic] go to Israel," tweeted Zulfi Bukhari, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Special Assistant on Overseas Pakistanis, on Monday in response to a report in Israel Hayom claiming that Bukhari had visited Tel Aviv in November 2020 to pass on messages from Khan and Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa to Mossad head Yossi Cohen.In December, the same newspaper reported that a "senior adviser to the leader of a large Muslim-majority country has recently visited Israel." U.K.-based counterterror analyst Noor Dahri tweeted the same day that the November 20th visit was undertaken by an unnamed close aide of Imran Khan, setting off a storm of intrigue in the region and outrage in Pakistan. But this time around, clearly one rebuttal wasn’t enough. On Tuesday, Bukhari spiked the controversy with a chilling dose of antisemitism and flippant Holocaust exploitation. "Those calling Jews brothers are demanding answers over rumors from me today," he tweeted, sharing a video from opposition leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari from 2016, where he is saying, "I fear what happened to our Jewish brothers during World War II might happen to us Muslims today."
Bukhari’s jibe was pointed: Bilawal Monday called for an investigation into Pakistani government contact with Israel "done in the darkness of the night," and asked about persistent reports that a Pakistan army jet had flown to Amman at the time: "If an airplane did not pick up Zulfi Bukhari then whom did it pick up?"The Khan aide was clearly trying to delegitimize the controversy by accusing his critics of appeasing the enemy - groveling to the Jews. It’s a strategy that, sadly, usually works in Pakistan.Bukhari wasn’t alone in responding so quickly to close down the issue of Pakistan-Israel relations. Another aide of the Pakistani premier Dr Arslan Khalid was also quick to refute the reports as "propaganda" pushed by "Israel-India-Pak Fake news peddlars [sic]." Despite the bluff, it was and is easy to deduce that the November 2020 visitor was Bukhari. He has a British passport and, unusually, is close to both of Pakistan’s centers of power: the civilian head, Imran Khan (tasked with campaigning for critical elections in the Gilgit-Baltistan region in Pakistan-administered Kashmir) and the military leadership (nominated to coordinate with Chinese officials on the strategic China Pakistan Economic Corridor). When Bukhari was challenged back in December about visiting Israel, he was noticeably defensive, keen to narrate his record of sponsoring rallies for the Palestinian cause in the UK, and adding that he was suing the pro-Hamas Middle East Monitor for pushing the Israel visit story.
Ironically, he mocked what he called "conspirators" for, at least, “picking a date” for the visit when he wasn’t actually in the country. He claimed that he’d been addressing a live press conference from Karachi on November 20. Bukhari actually held that press conference on November 19.So what was the motivation for Pakistan to risk a trip by a senior official to Israel last year, and why is the news recirculating now? The answers lie in in a seemingly strange and contradictory geopolitical quadrangle involving Pakistan, the Taliban, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Last year’s report about the Pakistani delegation to Tel Aviv came days after reports resurfaced that Saudi Arabia was pressurizing Pakistan to formalize relations with Israel. Senior military and diplomatic officials who told me at the time that Saudi Arabia was arm-twisting Pakistan over Israel, also confirmed then that Pakistani officials had indeed visited Israel. They have further confirmed that diplomatic engagements have continued into 2021, including a meeting involving no less a personage than Pakistan’s national security advisor Moeed Yusuf, which he inevitably and categorically denied on Monday. The fact is, diplomatic and military engagements between Pakistan and Israel have been a regular occurrence, even in past decades when formalizing ties between the two countries was inconceivable.Both states being U.S. allies has historically meant intelligence cooperation, mediated or not, between Pakistan and Israel, with even the latest reports of Bukhari’s Tel Aviv visit emerging on the eve of the U.S. hosted ‘Sea Breeze 2021’ naval exercise in which both countries are participating. The two countries’ air forces have also jointly taken part in U.S.-led Red Flag training exercises. However, today Pakistan is inching towards establishing formal diplomatic relations with Israel not at the behest of the U.S., but propelled by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.Whereas the UAE formalized its own ties with Israel last year, Saudi Arabia has held back, advancing relations (a softening up of public opinion that has dismayed Palestinians) but without official recognition. Saudi Arabia is a major influencer behind the Abraham Accords, and has been actively pushing recognition of Israel beyond the Arab world, to normalize normalization for which Pakistan, the world’s second most populous Muslim state and the only officially nuclear state, has been earmarked as the ideal candidate. Given the Pakistan army’s lucrative dealings with Saudi Arabia, with former army chief Raheel Sharif leading the Saudi-based so-called Islamic Military Counter Terror Coalition, the push towards Israel has come from the all-powerful army, which pushed Imran Khan into power and continue to prop him up to be the democratic figurehead for decisions like these taken in the military headquarters. Khan, reliant on the army to maintain his position, has had to move precipitously from the once-emphatic position that he would never recognize Israel, to making recognition conditional on the establishment of a Palestinian state, to now merely holding out for a "just settlement" for Palestinians. The escalation of violence in Gaza last month underlined the precariousness of Khan’s position, as he toggled between issuing joint statements with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman condemning Israeli violence against Hamas rockets while declaring Yemen’s Houthi rebels and their missiles as "terrorists." Even so, considering that Khan’s greatest concern with regards to any move on Israel would center around the reaction from Islamists and conservatives, who form the overwhelming majority in Pakistan, the military might have thrown him a lifeline in the form of Afghanistan. After signaling triumph with the U.S.-Taliban deal last year, which institutionalized Pakistan’s long-held strategy of embedding militant Islamists as strategic assets, the Pakistani establishment is now working tirelessly toward establishing Taliban rule in Kabul as the U.S. withdrawal becomes imminent. This is reflected in the narratives being peddled in the political sphere, and the Taliban-adjacent language used by Pakistan’s leadership. Imran Khan hailed Osama bin Laden as a "martyr," no less, in parliament last year. Following in his footsteps this month the Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi - and even senior opposition leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi - refraining from calling Bin Laden a terrorist. Khan declared in an Axios interview recently that he would "absolutely not" allow the U.S. to conduct cross border counter-terrorism missions against al-Qaida, the Islamic State and the Taliban from Pakistani territory. This grand paradox of an Islamo-supremacist, rabidly antisemitic regime simultaneously working towards establishing an Islamic Emirate next door, and forming ties with the Jewish state, is all thanks to the self-serving flexibility of the military establishment in maintaining contrasting bedfellows.
Much of the street power that is likely to violently resist any move on Israel comes from Islamist parties that sympathize with the Taliban, and are major stakeholders in a Taliban government now being established in Kabul.Among those is Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) Chief Fazlur Rehman, currently heading an opposition alliance against Khan’s government, who has serially invited the Taliban to join his party and who in January spearheaded a "million man march" featuring video addresses by Hamas leaders, against any normalization with Pakistan’s "enemy," Israel.
Incentivizing these Islamist groups by cosying up to the Taliban could mean a limited pacification with the military having less to do when the inevitable demonstrations do come against ties with Israel.
While the Pakistan army is safeguarding its own financial interests, and looking to match India’s purchase and use of Israeli weaponry, the Khan government has learnt the cost of saying no to Saudi. Riyadh pushed Pakistan to immediately pay up $2 billion worth of loans ahead of schedule following a shocking snub of Riyadh from Islamabad. After seemingly falling back in line, Khan was invited to Saudi Arabia last month, where agreements were put back on the table as the Pakistani premier succumbed to Mohammed bin Salman’s long-standing demand for vocal support on Yemen.The Imran Khan government, already at the mercy of the military, now needs Saudi support (as much as it needs China) for basic sustenance. To ensure his government’s survival over the next two years till general elections, Khan would need to sell Talibanization in Afghanistan, diplomacy with Israel, and potentially a compromise on Kashmir with India, which the UAE has taken up as its pet project. India, meanwhile, appears to be working towards undoing Pakistan’s plans for the region, as it stakes its own claim to filling at least part of the vacuum left behind by the U.S. in Afghanistan, with New Delhi entering negotiations with the Taliban. India’s engagement with the Taliban is understandably riling up Pakistani officials given that Islamabad’s decades-old bid to prop up an Islamist regime in Afghanistan is to not only enhance Pakistan’s influence in the region, but also to counter "Hindu India." To have those plans derailed by a hardline Hindutva regime would be the stuff of nightmares for Islamabad. It would also unravel Pakistani military’s grand bargain with the Islamists and Khan over Israel. In the meantime, as Pakistani officials work on keeping the Taliban away from India, Khan and his advisors have to try and dodge political bullets with lousy denials of contact with Israel they are finding increasingly hard to conceal. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/the-taliban-will-decide-if-pakistan-recognizes-israel-1.9953445
UAE bans citizens from travelling to India, Pakistan and some other countries, - WAM
The United Arab Emirates announced on Thursday a travel ban on citizens to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Namibia, Zambia, Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, South Africa, and Nigeria, state news agency (WAM) reported.
The Foreign Ministry and the National Emergency, Crisis, and Disaster Management Authority stressed that, with the start of the travel season, citizens need to comply with all precautionary and preventive measures related to COVID-19, WAM added.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/uae-bans-citizens-travelling-india-pakistan-some-other-countries-wam-2021-07-01/
The PM should give an account of the past three years, not talk about what he will do next – Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari
Replying to the questions by the journalists Chairman PPP said that the PM should give account for past three years, not say what he will do next. Now the Prime Minister has no time, the people will hold him accountable. We will hold you accountable for all these wrongdoings. Instead of telling stories, the speech should tell us the solution to problems.
Chairman Bilawal said that Asad Qaiser has been the worst speaker in the country’s parliamentary history. Chairman Bilawal said that the opposition was deprived of its right by the Speaker of the National Assembly. Leader of the House means accountable to the nation and parliament. Shahbaz Sharif could not attend the session due to a death in his family but the other opposition members should have been in the house. It is hoped that JUI-F and PML-N will issue show cause notices to their members. Will send notices to members who were not in the House.
No other agency should interfere in the work of NAB. Unless the chairman and all officers bring their assets, they have no right to check the assets of others. Chairman Bilawal strongly condemned the raid on the house of Aijaz Jakhrani by the NAB and said that the raid was conducted at a time when Aijaz Jakhrani was not even at home. Aijaz Jakhrani was elected a member National Assembly but his elections were rigged. He had asked for recount but was not listened to. We demand of the Election Commission to order a recount in his constituency.
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/statement/25196/
پیٹرول کی قیمت میں اضافے پر بلاول بھٹو کی تنقید
پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے پیٹرول کی قیمت میں اضافے پر تنقید کرتے ہوئے کہا ہے کہ پیٹرول کی قیمت میں اضافے کے ساتھ
عوام دشمن بجٹ کا پہلا نتیجہ قوم کو موصول ہوگیا۔
انہوں نے کہا کہ پیٹرول کی قیمت میں اضافے نے سلیکٹڈ وزیراعظم کے عزائم بےنقاب کردیے ہیں۔ بجلی، گیس سمیت تمام اشیائے ضروریہ مزید مہنگی ہوں گی، وزیراعظم اوگرا کی آڑ میں عوام پر وار کر رہے ہیں۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے مزید کہا کہ ملک معاشی ترقی کررہا ہے تو اشیاء کی قیمتوں میں اضافہ کیوں ہورہا ہے؟۔
واضح رہے کہ وزارت خزانہ کی جانب سے آئندہ 15دن کے لئے پٹرولیم مصنوعات کی نئی قیمتوں کا نوٹیفکیشن جاری کردیا گیا ہے۔ جس کے مطابق پیٹرول 2 روپے اور ہائی اسپیڈ ڈیزل 1 روپیہ 44 پیسے فی لیٹر مہنگا کیا گیا ہے۔
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