Tuesday, January 18, 2022
The U.S. Postal Service has begun taking orders for at-home coronavirus test kits - COVIDtests.gov
Each household order will contain four rapid tests, which the Postal Service says will be shipped for free "in late January."
Some on Twitter reported problems with orders from residents of apartment buildings with multiple units being told that someone from that household had already ordered the tests. According to the Associated Press:
The White House says it will prioritize shipments to Americans from ZIP codes that have experienced high rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths, with the first 20% of each day's orders going to those areas.
President Biden last week announced that the administration plans to buy 1 billion at-home tests for Americans and also said the White House will make high-quality masks available for free, with details coming out this week. There will also be a phone number so those without access to computers or high-speed internet can place orders.
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/18/1073817562/order-covid-tests-free-biden-white-house?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&fbclid=IwAR0J6K1eFmpz_-F5vRJi0rvGOs3c0spw6hb0_sodmLFulahiLMEUy1ekd4g
Opinion | The Al-Qaida Operative, Antisemite and Pakistani National Hero Who Inspired the Texas Synagogue Terrorist
The issue was such a national priority that, in his sole White House meeting with President Donald Trump in 2019, Khan offered a prisoner exchange, swapping Aafia Siddiqui for Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden and who is serving a 33 year jail sentence in an unknown location in Pakistan. It was an exchange initially suggested by the U.S. in 2012 but, at the time, categorically rejected by Pakistan.Of course, no one in Islamabad would want to allude to the fact that Siddiqui herself was actually arrested by Pakistani security agencies as a terrorism suspect in 2003. She remained a wanted terrorist in Pakistan between 2003 and 2008, when she was arrested by the Afghanistan police over a bombing plot in Ghazni province, before shooting at U.S. army and FBI officials during their investigation of her case. Indeed, mental gymnastics is the preferred vocation of the Pakistani leadership, and Imran Khan has now taken them to new heights by. Islamabad’s bizarre duplicity on Siddiqui is both familiar and even understated when one considers that Khan loudly called Osama Bin Laden a "martyr" in parliament, and lauded the Taliban for "breaking the shackles of slavery" while leading a country that has taken over $33 billion from the U.S. to uphold that "slavery." While domestic Islamist parties have rallied for her release over the past 14 years, Siddiqui’s name doesn’t only resonate in Pakistan. Vows to avenge Siddiqui, and offers to exchange prisoners with her, have come from major global jihadist outfits, including the Taliban, Al-Qaida, and ISIS, with attacks being orchestrated as a persuasive tactic towards this aim. Indeed, 57 people have already been killed over the years by jihadis seeking Siddiqui's release.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, known as the Pakistani Taliban, a jihadist group responsible for years of bloodshed within the country, even formed an "Aafia Siddiqui Brigade" dedicated to her release. In addition to jihadists, radical Islamist preachers, even in the West, have rallied behind Siddiqui as a symbol of the West’s alleged victimization of Muslims. Even nominally non-Islamist Muslim representative groups, like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), have designated advocacy days for Siddiqui and not for any of the many other Muslims, including women, being denied fundamental rights in American prisons.And once we start scratching the surface of why Aafia Siddiqui has attracted such vehement backers, from terrorist groups who celebrate suicide bombers to apparently mainstream advocacy groups, we’ll also find the reason as to why the Texas synagogue became the target of the jihadist maneuver designed to free her. It's been confirmed that 20 years ago Faisal Akram, the hostage-taker shot dead in Texas, was banned from a Blackburn court after telling staff he wished he'd been on one of the 9/11 planes attacking the USA. He was described as a "menace" and excluded from the magistrates court. Aafia Siddiqui’s vocal support for jihad was evident in her early years in the early 1990s as an undergraduate student at the University of Houston. Before being involved in the web of global jihad post 9/11, she had raised funds for al-Kifah, which was linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Her long-standing ideological support for jihad against infidels – and the desire to make America a ‘Muslim land’ – is well-documented and collaborated. And that’s precisely what has made her the poster girl for the Islamist cause in the West. By deeming any crackdown on jihad sympathizers or any counterterror measures in the West as ‘Islamophobic,’ no matter that they are also undertaken by Muslim states, many groups seek to shield an Islamist network that rests on jihadist ideology. In Aafia Siddiqui, they’ve found the ideal representation of their ideas and ambitions, but also an ideal poster child for what they consider systematic injustice against Muslims, someone with a sufficient buffer of ‘inconclusive evidence’ to delink her – and in turn themselves – from Islamic terrorism. And the Congregation Beth Israel terror raid, along with the reaction to it, perfectly epitomizes this. In addition to its relatively close physical proximity to the prison where Siddiqui is being held, the synagogue was chosen for the attack as hat-tip to her virulently antisemitic beliefs, which are an inevitable baggage of Islamism. In her trial, Siddiqui maintained she was actually being targeted by Israel, citing the conspiracy theories which are second nature to all jihadists, claiming the verdict came "from Israel and not from America." Seeing in reporting that Aafia Siddiqui said at her sentencing hearing that she doesn’t want violence in her name. That’s true. Also true, two minutes before that she told a federal judge “Israel masterminded 9/11”. Siddiqui wanted jury members to be "genetically tested" for signs of being "Jewish or Zionist" and if found, that they be removed. Likewise, she serially asked to fire her own lawyers because they were Jewish (despite her defense counsel being paid for to the tune of $2 million by the Pakistani government). In a letter to Barack Obama, she wrote that Jews are "cruel, ungrateful, backstabbing… [which is] why ‘holocausts’ keep happening to them repeatedly." She even cited Quranic verses asking Muslims to "not take Jews and Christians as allies," while deriding Pakistan for allying with the U.S. to capture the 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef. Almost laughably, Siddiqui’s trial lawyer claimed her client was "not antisemitic but pro-Palestinian." So how did the so-called ‘representative’ and certainly high-profile Muslim organization CAIR respond to the synagogue attack? While it condemned it, they obviously did so without calling it out as a jihadist attack. Instead, CAIR’s statement makes it appear as though a deliberate attack on a synagogue in the name of a prominent antisemitic jihad sympathizer (if not jihadist) is incomprehensible, even when synagogues, from Paris to Istanbul, Djerba to Copenhagen, have been consistent targets of Islamist terror. CAIR, hence, is also unlikely to address its own antisemitic or jihadist roots, which prompted even the UAE to list it as a terrorist group. Populist leaders in the Muslim world who push an Islamist narrative studded with antisemitic tropes, like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan’s Imran Khan (who likes to equate caricatures of Muhammad with the Holocaust) do so in the name of "protecting" Muslims. Groups like CAIR in the West are their back-up. Meanwhile, jihadist attacks on Jews will continue to be glorified as "resistance" – to Jewish plots or Zionist imperialism – across the globe. And Islamist ideologues like Aafia Siddiqui, 'living martyr,' folk hero, al-Qaida operative and prisoner number 90279-054, will continue to boost that antisemitic jihad, whether or not they are the ones actually pulling the trigger.
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-the-al-qaida-operative-antisemite-and-pakistani-national-hero-who-inspired-the-texa-1.10545760
Taliban Militants Claim Responsibility for Rare Attack in Pakistan’s Capital
https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-militants-claim-responsibility-for-rare-attack-in-pakistan-s-capital-/6401515.html
#Pakistan #PPP - Bilawal offers conditional reconciliation with PDM
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday said his party would rejoin the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) provided that the multi-party alliance dropped its proposal for en masse resignations and adopted his strategy of the no-confidence move.
The PPP chairman offered a counterproposal to PDM and once again broached the idea of bringing a no-confidence motion against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government – a bone of contention that resulted in the party’s separation from the alliance.
Bilawal’s indication towards the prospects of reconciliation constitutes his first statement since his party poured cold water on the PDM’s idea of en masse resignation, leaving the alliance struggling to salvage its plans to oust the incumbent government.
“My demand from the first day was to bring a no-confidence motion against this government,” Bilawal said during his media talk at the Parliament House on Tuesday.
“The government should be dislodged through democratic means,” the PPP chairman said, adding all parties have to play their role to oust the government.
“We have decided to March on Feb 27, and it does not matter if there is a single march or multiple ones. They will only add to the pressure on the government.”
Every democratic party will have to play its role to rid people of this government, he added.
Bilawal said that there was a high possibility of the opposition working together now that the PDM has come to the same conclusion that PPP had reached earlier.
In a PDM meeting on March 16 last year, Asif Ali Zardari had demanded that ex-PM Nawaz Sharif, who is in London for medical treatment, should return to the country, saying that the leaders should be prepared to go to jails in their struggle.
Apart from Sharif’s return, the meeting had witnessed heated exchanges on tendering resignations from assemblies and defeat of the opposition candidates in the election for Senate top slots. PPP had disagreed with the proposal of linking long march against the government with resignations from the assemblies.
During Tuesday’s talk, Bilawal said that PPP rallies will pass through the constituencies of government MNAs and allies and show them the demand of the people, which is to be liberated from the tyranny of this new Pakistan.
The chairperson said that the reservation regarding the prices of essential commodities being multiplied due to the mini-budget has been proved correct, saying Pakistan had already been facing an economic crisis before the mini-budget, which has now led to the historic price hike, unemployment and poverty.
“The people are being crushed under this burden,” he said, adding that PPP has already decided that it will take to the streets against this incapable government and will start the long march from Karachi on 27 February. “We can never resort to undemocratic practices,” he reiterated.
SBP bill
Commenting on the bill pertaining to granting autonomy to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), he regretted that opposition’s amendments were not heard regarding the bill.
“This was the biggest economic attack on the country in its history,” he lamented, adding that after the legislation, SBP is not answerable to the government, parliament, judiciary and the people. “Rather,” he said, “it will be run on the dictation of international financial institutions.”
The account of our defence budget will be in the State Bank and the government, parliament or the judiciary will have no control over it, he said, adding the defence expenditure would be for the world to see and the nuclear programme will be threatened. “This government has attacked our economic sovereignty and democratic liberties,” he said.
Presidential system
Regarding the presidential system, he said that the constitution of the Quaid-e-Awam has given a federal, democratic and parliamentary Islamic republic to the nation, adding “there is no space for a presidential system in the constitution.” Talking about the presidential system, he said that it was an effort to distract the people from the price-hike, unemployment, poverty and agricultural crisis.
PPP has always maintained the respect of the country in the international community, he said, adding that Pakistan had discontinued the NATO supply and demanded an apology from the United States during the Salalah incident. For the first time in history, he recalled, a superpower had apologized to an elected government and its people.
The people always come first for a truly elected government of the people as was the case with Quaid-e-Awam, Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari. PPP's government in the future will follow the same precedent.
LG polls
The first phase of the local body elections in K-P was the referendum against this government. All the opposition parties outperformed the PTI in those elections. Regarding extremism, Bilawal said that there is a false dichotomy in the country as Islam does not allow for women and children to be killed.
#Pakistan #PTI was funded by prohibited foreign funding accounts during general elections – Central Information Secretary of #PPPP and member of the National Assembly Shazia Atta Marri
Central Information Secretary of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians and the member of the National Assembly Shazia Atta Marri has said that the so-called transparency of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s foreign funding case has been disclosed publicly which PTI leadership tried to conceal from the Election commission of Pakistan and from the entire nation.
She said that the incumbent government of PTI was funded by prohibited foreign funding accounts during general elections and now the members of the PTI-led government are only talking lies with the nation regarding the foreign funding case. This she said in reaction to a statement of PTI’s member Farrukh Habib hereon today.
Ms. Marri alleged that Pakistan Tehreek-I- Insaf was funded by a few Indians and the cheques of funding were issued on the name of the construction of Shoukat Khanum Hospital in the USA to Imran Khan. PTI leadership committed fraud in the donation of a hospital while the money was invested during the general elections on a political party of PTI.
Ms. Marri added that Akbar S. Babar is a founding member of PTI and he knows all secrets of foreign funding accounts while Imran Khan Niazi is an expert liar and he has done specialization in concealing the facts and truths.
She said that Niazi and company are bewildered after the disclosure of facts and truth regarding the foreign funding bank accounts by the ECP while Pakistan Peoples Party and PPP-P have already provided all records and the details to the Election Commission of Pakistan. Shazia Marri said that those who voted for Imran Khan during general elections are now cursing him and now the time has come for them who made everyone cry to cry themselves.
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/26119/
سانحہ مری کی تمام تر حالات کی ذمہ داری ڈی جی ریسکیو، وزیراعلی پنجاب، سمیت لوکل ایڈمینسٹریشن پر عائد ہوتی ہے، ترجمان بلاول بھٹو زرداری، زوالفقارعلی بدر
لاہور: ترجمان بلاول بھٹو زرداری، زوالفقارعلی بدر کی لاہور میں مختلف نیوز چینلز ، اور قومی اخبارات کے بیورو چیف کے اعزاز میں ظہرانہ، کے موقع پر گفتگو میں پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کے چئیرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری کی جانب سے سی ای سی اجلاس میں ہونے والے فیصلے اور 27 فروری کے لانگ مارچ کے اعلان کے بعد تیاریوں کے سلسلہ میں پارٹی تنظیموں کی جاری ورکنگ پر تبادلہ خیال، ملک بھر میں روز بروز بڑھتی ہوئی مہنگائی لاقانونیت انتقامی کارروائیوں سے جان چھڑانے اور حقیقی جمہوریت کی بحالی جدوجہد کو مزید تیز کرنے کیلئے پارٹی تنظیموں، کارکنوں، وکلا ء تنظیموں، سول سوسائیٹی، نوجوان، طلبا، اداروں کی ٹریڈ یونینز سے وابستہ افراد، تاجر برادری کی بھر شمولیت کو یقینی بنایا جائیگا،
ایک سوال کے جواب میں زوالفقار علی بدر کا کہنا تھا کہ ملک کے اندر صدارتی نظام کی بجائے پارلیمانی نظام بہتر کیا جائے تو بہتر ہوگا، کیونکہ صدارتی نظام کا ملک متحمل نہیں ہوسکتا، اگر ایمرجنسی کی صورت میں کوئی اقدام کیا گیا تو وہ غیر آئینی ہوگا، ایمرجنسی کی آئین میں کوئی گنجائیش نہیں ہے،
ترجمان بلاول بھٹو زرداری کا مزید کہنا تھا کہ سانحہ مری کے اندر تمام تر حالات کی زمہ داری ڈی جی ریسکیو، وزیراعلی پنجاب، سمیت لوکل ایڈمینسٹریشن پر عائد ہوتی ہے جنہیں فوری طور پر استعفی دینا چاہیںے تھا۔
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/26123/