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Video Report - Trump and Covid: What next in U.S. presidential race?

Video Report - #NobelPrize #HepatitisC #Medicine Nobel Prize: Virologists' Hepatitis C research 'saved millions of lives'

Video Report - Kayleigh McEnany: White House press secretary tests positive for Covid-19

#TrumpCovid19 - GOP Sen. John Cornyn Criticizes Trump On COVID-19: ‘A Lesson To All Of Us’

By Josephine Harvey

In some of his harshest criticism of the president to date, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Monday said Donald Trump’s inconsistent rhetoric on the COVID-19 pandemic has stoked confusion, as the coronavirus continues its spread among high-ranking White House and GOP officials.

“I think he let his guard down,” the Republican senator told the Houston Chronicle when asked about Trump’s repeated flouting of various public health guidelines. “And I think in his desire to try to demonstrate that we are somehow coming out of this and that the danger is not still with us — I think he got out over his skis and frankly, I think it’s a lesson to all of us that we need to exercise self-discipline.”

Cornyn, the former second-ranking Senate Republican, has himself shared misinformation about COVID-19, and defended and espoused Trump’s use of racist misnomers to blame the virus on China.

On Monday, he defended Trump’s policy responses such as shutting off travel from China, which he said “demonstrated the seriousness of the virus,” but went after Trump’s messaging.

“He tries to balance that with saying, ‘Well, you know, we got this.’ And clearly we don’t have this,” Cornyn said, according to the Chronicle. “I think the biggest mistake people make in public life is not telling the truth, particularly in something with as much public interest as here because you know the real story is going to come out.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sen. John Cornyn attended Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Capitol Hill last week. Two other senators on that committee have since tested positive for the coronavirus.

His comments came as the coronavirus tears through the West Wing and Capitol, where a mounting number of top Republicans, including Trump, his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, his campaign manager Bill Stepien and Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) ― both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee ― have tested positive.

Cornyn, who also sits on that committee, may have been exposed to the virus when he attended hearings last week.

Many of the positive cases involve those who attended a Sept. 26 Rose Garden ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s Supreme Court pick to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Maskless people did not socially distance at the event.

Trump has persistently ignored mask-wearing, social distancing and other public health guidelines throughout the pandemic, which has now killed more than 200,000 people in America. He’s mocked others for wearing masks; held packed campaign rallies for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of supporters; pushed to reopen schools and businesses even when his own metrics for safely doing so had not been met; and acted as though the disease would just miraculously disappear of its own accord, even after admitting on tape in March that it’s much more deadly than he was letting on.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-cornyn-trump-coronavirus_n_5f7b93bac5b6e5aba0ce8dd3

Video Report - #NayaDaur #Economy #Politics Pakistan Headed In Wrong Direction| IPSOS Survey| Sedition Cases ag. Nawaz Sharif, Maryam & AJK PM

Pakistani women have led democracy protests. Can Maryam Nawaz do it now?

AYESHA IJAZ KHAN

@ayeshaijazkha

Imran Khan, another divisive world leader, is more interested in incarcerating political opponents than delivering for the people.

 From India to Brazil, and the United States to Europe, a drift to authoritarianism is derailing democracy. Divisive polarising figures occupy high offices, challenging the very edifice on which democracies thrive. Respecting political opponents, fair play and transparency are hallmarks of democratic tradition. But these values are increasingly disappearing.

The manhandling of Rahul Gandhi by Indian police on the orders of the UP chief minister as he attempted to reach out to a Dalit rape victim’s family has been viewed globally as an attack on India’s democracy. So has Donald Trump’s attempt to pack the US supreme court with right-wing justices not representative of changing American demographics, or his attempts at discrediting mail-in ballots, endeavouring to call into question the credibility of the November presidential election. Less talked about internationally, but equally worrying, are the efforts of the Tories in the UK to appoint an ex-tabloid editor known for his partisan views as head of the BBC.

All of this is shocking for many in established democracies but it is an unfortunate sign of our times. So many who previously thought that the US, for instance, a strong democracy with checks and balances and a clear separation of powers, could survive a Trump presidency without any damage to American democratic ideals have changed their minds. More and more Americans have begun to realise that the politics of resistance is the need of the hour.

In Pakistan, we have not historically had the robust democratic structure that countries like the US, UK and even India had, but we have had our share of democratic movements, at various junctures, to push back against dictators and undemocratic forces. Curiously, the burden to lead these movements has often fallen on female shoulders. From Fatima Jinnah fighting against Ayub Khan’s dictatorial regime, to Benazir Bhutto standing firm against Ziaul Haq, it has been Pakistani women who have been the biggest symbols of resistance to authoritarianism. Is Maryam Nawaz up to the task?

We know that Maryam often disagreed with the uncles in her party and was characterised by the establishment as a hardliner pursuing ‘the politics of confrontation’. What this really means is that she was far less willing to meet kingmakers through back-door channels, and preferred a more above-board politics. With the arrest of leader of the opposition Shahbaz Sharif, previously considered conciliator-in-chief, Maryam’s stance has been vindicated.

The question now arises — will she speak out only when the Sharif family is politically victimised or will she also raise her voice for more marginalised activists and politicians, the likes of the PTM, for instance? There was a time when the Sharif brothers were simply corrupt. Now, like PTM leaders, Nawaz Sharif has also moved into the traitor category. Will Maryam be able to reach out beyond the Punjabi heartland to make alliances in the peripheral regions of ex-Fata and Balochistan?

In the US, it took the Democratic Party far too long to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement, and include within its fold the marginalised segments of society. Four years ago, like the PTM in Pakistan, BLM was considered a radical movement from which Democrats cautiously kept their distance, but this election cycle the movement has been mainstreamed to the point of not only influencing American but also European politics.

Towards the end of Musharraf’s reign, when he failed to end corruption or dynastic politics in Pakistan, as he had promised on taking over, a minister in his cabinet confessed to me that, “When the establishment propped up Nawaz Sharif, it unwittingly provided a political voice to the Punjabi trading classes, and that base isn’t so easy to dismantle now.”

Maryam’s support in Punjab, therefore, isn’t in question. If she wants to emerge as a leader on the national stage, however, she will need to make unconventional alliances and speak out for those in the peripheries, who have borne the brunt of the establishment’s high-handedness for a lot longer than she and her family have.

It is quite clear that Imran Khan, another polarising and divisive world leader, is more interested in incarcerating political opponents than delivering for the people. But it was heartening to see that Maryam did not only call him out but also questioned the role of other key players in the hybrid regime. The most honest and relevant statement in her recent press conference was her acknowledgement that it isn’t easy to resist undemocratic forces. She spoke about journalists, judges, politicians — all being put under pressure to compromise on principled positions.

It is a cost that is difficult to bear and should not be asked of any citizen, particularly not in a state that claims to follow Madina ki riyasat. Resistance is a tall order, but resist we must.

Pakistan PM Imran Khan heads into his biggest challenge. Military is also target

Shishir Gupta

Prime Minister Imran Khan faces the immediate challenge this month when FATF takes a decision on continuing Pakistan on the ‘grey list’.

Prime Minister Imran Khan is facing the biggest challenge to his leadership from opposition parties that united over the weekend to appoint firebrand cleric Maulana Fazalur Rehman to lead the freshly-minted 11 party anti-government alliance trying to unseat him.

Rehman had last year the first round of his campaign against Imran Khan when he launched the ‘Azadi March’ from Karachi to the capital city of Islamabad against the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, or PTI government. That effort had fizzled out. This time, Khan’s orange-turbaned rival has support from other parties to keep the street protests going.

A 26-point resolution adopted by the coalition - they call it Pakistan Democratic Movement - a fortnight earlier seeks to force “the selected prime minister’s resignation and an end to the role of the establishment in politics.” It also wants to ensure the “end of establishment’s interference in politics”, a reference to the army.

The opposition’s combined attack on the powerful military is unusual in Pakistan; the army has ruled Pakistan for roughly half of its 73-year history and often had the last word in the country’s governance for the other half. Like Imran Khan’s critics say, it does now.

That it was Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa who summoned political parties to a secret meeting last month to build consensus on turning the Gilgit Baltistan in the occupied northern areas into Pakistan’s fifth province at China’s behest underlined the role that the military was playing in the country’s politics.

“It is saddening that the situation has escalated to the level where we now have a state above the state,” Nawaz Sharif said at the first opposition conference late last month, echoing their sentiment that Imran Khan was their proxy. His daughter and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz - who has been fronting the party’s battles with the government in the absence of Pakistan’s three-time prime minister - has been among the loudest to demand action against retired Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor chairman and PM Khan’s aide on corruption charges.

Imran Khan, who came to power on the back of populist assurances to root out corruption, faces allegations that his anti-corruption drive only aims at opposition leaders. In July this year, Pakistan’s top court also remarked in one case that the anti-corruption watchdog appeared “reluctant in proceeding against people on one side of the political divide”.

A Pakistan watcher in New Delhi said it is not a surprise that the National Accountability Bureau arrested Pakistan’s Leader of the Opposition and PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif soon after the first opposition conference.

“Nawaz Sharif is no hero but he represents the very essence of democratic choice,” he said, stressing that investigations directed at Nawaz Sharif and his family were important since he was the only leader to stand up to the army.

In the absence of her father who is in exile in London, Maryam Sharif has been taking a blunt aim at the military. She has called Gen Bajwa’s meeting last month on Gilgit-Baltistan as an attempt by the military to tighten its grip over the country’s politics. “These decisions should be made in parliament, not in GHQ (army headquarters),” she said.

A second Pakistan watcher in Delhi said there was an assessment that Maryam Sharif’s shrill pitch against the military did appear to expose her to “serious risk of physical harm”. She hasn’t backed down from her sharp criticism of the military and Imran Khan despite her uncle’s arrest.Street protests and mega rallies had been Imran Khan’s favourite tool to build public opinion against the Nawaz Sharif government back. Analysts say that the opposition doesn’t expect to succeed in the short term but is building the momentum to overthrow the Khan regime, quite like the 2014 Azadi march that he had led against Nawaz Sharif.

Khan faces other challenges as well, some of them much more immediate. Next month’s meeting of the Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, is one. The meeting, scheduled for 21-23 October, is to decide on Imran Khan’s request to take Pakistan off the global watchdog’s ‘grey list’.

An Indian counter-terror official said Islamabad was likely to be disappointed given its patchy record of implementing anti-terror laws. That would make it hard for Khan’s government to access international markets at a time when the country’s economy has been faltering.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/pm-imran-khan-heads-into-his-biggest-challenge-military-is-also-target/story-khmBRSwEci9qDEAJXrecJO.html

Ahmadi professor shot dead in Peshawar

 62-year-old Gulzar Ahmad was attacked at his store located in the Qissa Khawani market of Peshawar. He managed to escape with four bullet wounds to his leg and one to his hand. Ahmad was rushed to a local hospital for treatment, Police said.

Sunday’s attack is the third attack on Ahmadis in Peshawar in less than three months. On July 29th an American-Ahmadi Tahir Naseem was shot dead in a courtroom. Soon after on August 12, another Ahmadi Mairaj Ahmad was shot dead outside his pharmacy.

https://www.rabwah.net/ahmadi-man-wounded-peshawar-shooting/

Bilawal opposes ‘illegal annexation’ of Sindh’s Islands

Sindh island authorities’ new ordinance was likened to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s annexation of Kashmir by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, who added that his party will strongly oppose the “illegal annexation”.

“I ask how is this act any different to [Indian PM] Modi’s actions in Occupied Kashmir? Move will be opposed in National, Provincial Assembly and the Senate,” he tweeted on Monday, adding that the PPP will seek a presidential ordinance through the federal government.

Similarly, the ordinance was rejected by Sindh Information Minister Nasir Hussain Shah. He released a statement saying that the Islands belonged to the provincial government and Sindh’s land cannot be “occupied by any ordinance”.

“The land of these Islands belonged to the people of Sindh and it is rightfully theirs,” he said. The minister asserted that the ordinance infringed on the rights of the people, and demanded its revocation.

On September 1, President Dr Arif Alvi publicised the ordinance for establishing “Pakistan Islands Development Authority” for “development and management of islands in internal and territorial waters of Pakistan”.

“Whereas the Senate and the National Assembly are not in session and the president of Islamic Republic is satisfied that circumstances exist, which render it necessary to take immediate action,” said the ordinance which emerged on social media on Friday.

The islands being discussed by the ordinance, in particular, are Bhandar and Bundal are located near Karachi and Thatta districts bordering Korangi, Phitti and Jhari creeks. Pakistan has a coastal belt of over 1,050 kilometres and there are 300 small and big islands located in Sindh coastal belt. The federal government will take control of all these islands if the law is promulgated.

A number of rallies and protests have been threatened by different nationalist parties, writers, intellectuals and poets, who were shocked by the attempt to “encroach” on Sindh’s land. A Sindh government official said regarding the matter that federal authorities had intimated the Sindh government that mega city schemes worth $20 billion would be started on the islands.

“The Sindh government claiming ownership of the island had said the ToR [terms of reference] of the schemes would be framed by the provincial government. But now an ordinance has surfaced,” he said.

There were rumours on social media that the ordinance was issued in connivance with the PPP leadership which has in return sought relief in corruption cases filed against it.