Saturday, July 31, 2021
There is not one but two #Pakistans
“If coronavirus spreads in the province or in Karachi like [it did] in India then Khan sahab and his ministers will be responsible,” he said while addressing a press conference in Islamabad. The PPP chairman said that the current back and forth is sending a message of “not one but two Pakistans” and pointed out the lockdowns placed by the PTI government on various cities in Punjab in the wake of rising cases.”They are undermining our efforts when in Karachi, the biggest economic capital of the country, the positivity rate is more than 30 per cent,” he said. Bilawal said the Delta variant was “100pc more infectious” compared to the original virus, adding that it was the federal government’s responsibility to take care of every citizen. “Instead of taking care of us […] we are being called jahil (illiterate).” Bilawal hit back at the government for its cavalier attitude, adding that this demonstrated that the government wanted to politicise all issues, including people’s health and lives. “They are not ready to do anything themselves and don’t let anyone else do anything.” Bilawal said if government ministers were not satisfied with the policies adopted by the province then they should’ve “stayed quiet” and tried to help. “Instead they are sabotaging the Sindh government’s steps to protect the people.” He said the federal government had access to and looked at the same data available with the Sindh government including the extent of the disease spread in Karachi.”They knew that the Sindh government would have to adopt such strictness. [Despite] this, people’s health and lives are being played with due to political reasons,” he said.
https://dailytimes.com.pk/799789/there-is-not-one-but-two-pakistans/
Brutal killing spotlights violence against women in Pakistan
By KATHY GANNON
Noor Mukadam’s last hours were terror-filled. Beaten repeatedly, the 27-year-old jumped from a window but was dragged back, beaten again and finally beheaded. A childhood friend has been charged with her killing.
The gruesome death last week in an upscale neighborhood of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, is the latest in a series of attacks on women in Pakistan, where rights activists say such gender-based assaults are on the rise as the country barrels toward greater religious extremism.Mukadam was the daughter of a diplomat, and her status as a member of the country’s elite has shone a spotlight on the relentless and growing violence against women in Pakistan, said prominent rights activist Tahira Abdullah. But the majority of women who are victims of such violence are among the country’s poor and middle classes, and their deaths are often not reported or, when they are, often ignored.
“I could give you a list longer than my arm, only in one week” of attacks against women, said Abdullah. “The epidemic of sexual crimes and violence against women in Pakistan is a silent epidemic. No one sees it. No one is talking about it.”
Still, Pakistan’s Parliament this month failed to pass a bill that seeks to protect women from violence in the home, including attacks by a husband. Instead, it asked an Islamic ideology council to weigh in on the measure — the same council that previously said it was OK for a husband to beat his wife.
Data collected from domestic violence hotlines across the country showed a 200% increase in domestic violence between January and March last year, according to a Human Rights Watch report released earlier this year. The numbers were even worse after March, when COVID-19 lockdowns began, according to the report.
In 2020, Pakistan was near the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s global gender index, coming in at 153 of 156 countries, ahead of only Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan, which held the last spot despite billions of dollars spent and 20 years of international attention on gender issues there.
Many of the attacks in Pakistan are so-called honor killings, where the perpetrator is a brother, father or other male relative. Each year, more than 1,000 women are killed in this way, many of them unreported, say human rights workers.
“The authorities have failed to establish adequate protection or accountability for abuses against women and girls, including so-called ‘honor killings’ and forced marriage,” according to the HRW report.
Rights groups have been sharply critical of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government, saying he panders to the religious right and excuses the perpetrators of attacks on women.
A former cricket star who has married three times, Khan once had a reputation as a womanizer but has now embraced a conservative Islam. He keeps close ties with a religious ceric who blamed COVID-19 on “the wrongdoing of women.” He once appeared to blame women for attacks by men saying, “if you raise temptation in society ... all these young guys have nowhere to go, it has consequences in the society.”
His information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, says Khan’s statements have been taken out of context and denied violence against women is on the rise, without offering evidence. He said his government encourages women in politics and sports and in provinces where Khan’s party dominates human rights legislation has been strengthened.
“I think this perception is not really close to reality, that in Pakistan women are not safe or maybe that there’s a misogyny in practice in Pakistan,” Chaudhry said in an interview.
Yet last week, one of Khan’s Cabinet ministers, Ali Amin Gandapur, told a rally of thousands of mostly male supporters, that he would “slap and slap” a female opposition political leader.
Last September, a senior police officer blamed a woman who was ambushed and gang raped in front of her two children, saying she should not have been travelling at night and without a man.
Such remarks reflect an increase in ultraconservative and even extremist religious values in Pakistan, said Amir Rana of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies.
The country has seen an explosion of religious organizations and religious political parties, many with extreme beliefs, said Rana, whose organization tracks and documents extremism in Pakistan.
These organizations have tremendous reach in most cities and towns, where they provide services from education to health care, and thus have extensive ability to influence social values, said Rana.
The history of religious extremism in Pakistan is complicated, and Chaudhry, the information minister, argued that America shares responsibility for the role it played in the region in the 1980s. At that time, Pakistan’s military dictator aided by the U.S. used religious fervor to inspire Afghans to fight an invading Soviet Union. Many of those Afghans ended up in Pakistan as refugees.
“And very conveniently now, the U.S. media and U.S. authorities ... blame everything on Pakistan and have left the region,” he said.
But Abdullah, the rights activist, said Pakistan cannot shirk its own responsibility, noting that same dictator, Gen. Mohammad Zia-ul Haq, introduced Islamic laws that, among other things, reduced women’s rights to inheritance, limited the value of their testimony in court and made reporting a rape almost impossible by requiring four male witnesses.
In Mukadam’s assault, police have charged Zahir Jaffar, the son of a wealthy industrialist, with murder. Initial reports say she was killed after spurning his marriage proposal. It’s not clear whether Jaffar has a lawyer.
The brutality of the assault — the attacker used so-called brass knuckles — and the fear that his high social status means he could be freed, galvanized many in Pakistan to speak out. They have held protests and a candlelight vigil and launched a social media campaign #justicefornoor to preempt attempts to use influence and money to whisk the accused out of the country.
In one petition circulating online, the author demanded the country’s judicial system “hold perpetrators of violence responsible. We demand justice. We demand it swiftly. We demand it for Noor. We demand it for all women.”
Zarqa Khan, a student who attended a candlelight vigil for Mukadam, bemoaned how religion now pervades so much of life in Pakistan and how today she fears walking alone on the streets.
“I just didn’t feel safe outside anymore,” said Khan. “And that shouldn’t be the scenario.”
https://apnews.com/article/health-pakistan-coronavirus-pandemic-fea3f1c2bc170756443a6a578cd365f3
Experts say ‘redeployment’ of Pakistan terror groups in Afghanistan serious threat to India
As the Taliban tightens its grip over Afghanistan, the redeployment would undermine the aspirations of the Kashmiri population for peace, said regional expert Olivier Guillard.
With the deadline of US troop’s withdrawal barely a month away and the increasing grip of the Taliban over Afghanistan, experts anticipate the “redeployment” of Pakistani terrorist groups like Lashkar- e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) that have historically targeted India. Writing for Asialyst, regional expert Olivier Guillard said that the redeployment would seriously undermine the aspirations of the Kashmiri population for peace and the desire of the Indian government to work for the sustainable development of the region. This security concern comes amid the second anniversary of the revocation of article 370. Around two years are about to pass since the historic decision took place and everyday life today has witnessed a return to normalcy. “It should be noted in this regard that Jammu and Kashmir organized two local elections, in the fall of 2019 and the end of 2020, without these electoral political meetings being hampered by a crippling level of violence or minimal popular participation,” the writer added. He further noted that initiatives taken by the Central government were not limited to the administrative and electoral fields alone. “The launch and implementation of various infrastructure projects accompanied the will of the central power to influence more favorably the very sensitive link between Srinagar and New Delhi.”Guillard also pointed out that since August 2019, the level of violence has decreased significantly in the Kashmir Valley. “Although efforts are being made on several fronts for the benefit of the sought-after political stability and economic development in J-K, there remain a number of challenges that the Indian government will need to address in the coming years to achieve the target with success.” Given the current geopolitical situation in the region, especially with respect to Afghanistan, the writer suggests that New Delhi will need to arm itself with patience and resilience to meet the aspirations of the Kashmiri population, but also vigilance and firmness in its ties with the authorities of neighbouring Pakistan. Recently, the Afghan government said that more than 10,000 terrorists, backed by Pakistani institutions, have entered Afghanistan. A spokesperson for President Ashraf Ghani said in a video message sent to media that thousands of terrorists enter Afghanistan from Pakistan to carry out the country’s proxy war. “We have accurate intelligence reports that more than 10,000 Pakistani have entered Afghanistan from Pakistan while another 15,000 are encouraged to come. This shows that a regular institution is training and financing Taliban,” the message said. In the past few weeks, Afghanistan has witnessed a surge in violence as the Taliban has intensified their offensive against civilians and Afghan security forces. Experts believe that a civil war-like is possible in Afghanistan which is likely to have repercussions for the regional security paradigm.Friday, July 30, 2021
#Pakistan - Coronavirus situation grows worse - Heading for confrontation
While Pakistan is menaced by a fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, caused by the delta variant of the virus, the federal and Sindh governments seemed headed towards another confrontation like the one which marked the beginning of the pandemic. While the federal government, through NCOC head Federal Minister Asad Umar, has huffily rejected placing the country under a lockdown, the Sindh government has said that it was contemplating just such a measure as deaths rise and positivity rates continue to stay at unbelievable levels. This is happening even as new vaccine-related restrictions come into place. There will be no ban on air travel, but from Sunday, no one will be allowed to travel unless vaccinated. Teachers (as well as all government servants) have until August 31 to get vaccinated.
There is another complication which neither seems to have considered. The matriculation and intermediate examinations have been announced, and Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood has been blunt in the refusal to postpone them. The federal government’s desire to avoid a lockdown is understandable. The plea is that the economic damage would be immense. The federal government’s fear is probably that that damage would cost it electorally. The Sindh government may feel that its better handling will stand the PPP in good stead in other provinces. However, what should be paramount is the lives that must be saved. The PTI must remember that it will not be judged by its cleverness, but by its willingness to save lives. The extent of destruction seen in India, where bodies were being piled on pavements and cremation grounds and cemeteries were turning away bodies, has not happened in Pakistan, but looms.
The only way out is for the government to be ready to do what it takes. The federal government must also be careful that it does not get involved in the kind of unedifying conflict with the Sindh government that bede billed the national response to the covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately the fourth wave will not remain restricted to Karachi. It will inevitably move upwards, to Punjab and Sindh, which have PTI governments. The NCOC must be ready to take the steps needed, including complete lockdowns. https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/07/31/coronavirus-situation-grows-worse/
#Pakistan - Taliban not ‘normal civilians’ by any standard: Afghan envoy on Imran Khan’s remark
The Afghan envoy was responding to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s comment in which he had defended his inability to stop terrorists from crossing over the border.
Afghan ambassador to India Farid Mamundzay on Friday said the Taliban are not “normal civilians” by any standard as common people are not cruel to humankind. The Afghan envoy was responding to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s comment in which he had defended his inability to stop terrorists from crossing over the border.In an interview with PBS NewsHour, Khan had said that Pakistan hosts three million Afghan refugees of which the majority are Pashtuns, the same ethnic groups as the Taliban fighters. He added that the Taliban are “normal civilians” and “not some military outfits” that Pakistan can hunt down in those refugee camps. “I think with no standards we can call the Taliban, ordinary citizens. I think common people don’t commit crimes that are justified. They'll not be cruel to humankind,” news agency ANI quoted Mamundzay as saying. Pakistan has long been accused of helping the Islamic fundamentalist group militarily, financially, and with intelligence in their fight against Afghan defence forces. About 6,000 terrorists of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are operating on the Afghan side of the border, according to a report by the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team. The Taliban fighters, meanwhile, have been making rapid advances in Afghanistan as the US troops are nearing their final withdrawal. China has been wary of Afghanistan becoming a hub for the al-Qaeda-backed East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) if the Taliban takes control of the country. Earlier this week, China’s state councillor and foreign minister Wang Yi met a visiting Taliban delegation in Beijing.Wang called the Taliban a “critical military and political force” in Afghanistan, urging the group to crack down on the ETIM, a separatist outfit Beijing alleges of waging an insurgency in Xinjiang province. The Afghan envoy said that China has also suffered from terrorism and would continue to suffer if terrorist groups remain operational in Afghanistan, reported ANI. “We want all countries in the region, particularly major countries like China and India to give strong msg to Taliban,” Mamundzay added. The Afghan envoy also denied any talks with India regarding military assistance, saying they are receiving sufficient support from the United States and several Nato member states. https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/taliban-not-normal-civilians-by-any-standard-afghan-envoy-on-imran-khan-s-remark-101627651448215.html
#Pakistan - Positivity rate reaches 7.1pc in #Lahore
With a sharp increase in Covid cases, Punjab reported 12 deaths and 617 new infections during the last 24 hours.
In an alarming situation, the positivity rate in Lahore has reached 7.1 per cent, the highest one since Delta variant surfaced in the city.
Bahawalpur city reported 4.1pc, Multan 2.9 and Faisalabad district 7.2pc infectivity rate during the last 24 hours.
Of the new positive cases, 289 were reported in Lahore and 114 in Rawalpindi, the two districts which have been sharing most burden of the disease.
With new positive cases, the total number has reached 354,312 while deaths 10,976 in Punjab, according to the Covid update released here on Wednesday.
Punjab Primary and Secondary Healthcare Secretary Sara Aslam said the Covid cases were increasing fast across the province due to the presence of Delta variant.
She suggested the citizens to take preventive measures as the fourth wave was taking an ugly shape.
The health secretary said the government had intensified campaign to vaccinate maximum number of people, being the best solution to stop further transmission of the Delta variant.
She said health teams vaccinated 45,850 people in Lahore during its door-to-door drive.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1637495/positivity-rate-reaches-71pc-in-lahore
Pandemic won't end after 9-day lockdown 'but hospitals will not choke up': Sindh CM
The chief minister said that it is being said that "it is not as if the pandemic will end in nine days", but what must be understood is that in this period "hospitals will not choke".
Answering a question regarding why a nine-day lockdown was announced, versus a 15-day one, Shah said that the task force, in its meeting today, acknowledged that this period — which amounts to five actual days of lockdown as four days will be regular off days for businesses anyway — will be one "that will cause minimum economic damage".
He added that doctors concurred that "something is better than nothing".
"At least a break will be provided — think of it as a speed breaker slowing things down," Shah said.
"Then, when we reopen, I hope people will continue to follow SOPs, so we are not forced to repeat such a move," the chief minister said.
Shah said that after the meeting, he spoke to National Command and Operation Centre chief Asad Umar, as well as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan "and both assured me of the Centre's cooperation".
"Whatever we have notified is after consultations and taking NCOC on board."
The Sindh chief minister said that the order extends to all of Sindh "but our focus is on Karachi because it is the worst off".
He said that no exams will take place from Monday-Friday and the two weekends that fall within the lockdown period.
Shah, responding to whether private organisations will be required to remain shut, said that the government "is advising that they do remain shut or keep staff to a minimum".
"The purpose is for no one to exit their home, unless there is an emergency," he explained.
'Focus on getting vaccinated'
The Sindh chief minister urged all the media persons to encourage everyone to get vaccinated, as all vaccines offer protection.
"Vaccinated individuals are an extremely low percentage of those people who die due to coronavirus," he said.
Shah said that in the next nine days, people should "forget about everything else, and just focus on getting vaccinated".
He acknowledged that people might have to queue up in long lines to get themselves inoculated "but this is in your own benefit".
Citing his own example, he said that given his role, he was unable to exercise as much caution as is required but he remained safe and did not get infected due tot he
To a question, he said that the government is trying to increase the number of vaccination centres and mobile vaccination centres, and is mulling on a suggestion by the ulema to have mosques and imambargahs used for the exercise.
What can be expected in the nine-day period
The Sindh chief minister said that those wearing a mask "will not be caught", whereas he "won't be able to anyone found not wearing one".
According to a statement by the CM House, the lockdown will be in place till the 9th of August and "will be particularly focusing the retail industry in the city".
- Essential services will be open.
- Food and food related industry will be open, restaurants will only be allowed delivery, no take away, dine in or outside.
- Health facilities will remain open, so will bakeries, meat and vegetable shops and grocery.
- Vaccination centers will function as usual.
- Banks are not under our jurisdiction but we will certainly request that they operate with minimal staff. Same with the ports.
- Petrol pumps will remain open.
- Media persons with masks are allowed.
- Utility companies and municipal services will not come under lockdown.
- There will be no examinations next week; all exams must be postponed till after the lockdown is lifted.
https://www.geo.tv/latest/362556-pandemic-wont-end-after-9-day-lockdown-but-hospitals-will-not-choke-up-sindh-cm
Thursday, July 29, 2021
Pakistan’s Pyrrhic Victory in Afghanistan
By Husain Haqqani
Islamabad Will Come to Regret Aiding the Taliban’s Resurgence.Pakistan’s security establishment is cheering the Taliban’s recent military gains in Afghanistan. The country’s hard-liners have funneled support to the Taliban for decades, and they can now envision their allies firmly ensconced in Kabul. Pakistan got what it wished for—but will come to regret it. A Taliban takeover will leave Pakistan more vulnerable to extremism at home and potentially more isolated on the world stage. The end of the United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan also promises to mark a turning point in its relationship with Islamabad. Pakistan has long veiled its ambitions in Afghanistan to maintain relations with Washington, but that balancing act—seen in Washington as a double game—will prove impossible in the event that a reconstituted Islamic emirate is established in Kabul. This would not be the vindication that Pakistan’s military is expecting: the Taliban are less likely to defer to Pakistan in their moment of triumph, and the Americans are not likely to reconcile with the group over the long term. Pakistan’s nightmare scenario would be to find itself caught between an uncontrollable Taliban and international demands to rein them in. The Taliban’s victory will have an equally disastrous effect on Pakistan’s domestic peace and security. Islamist extremism has already divided Pakistani society along sectarian lines, and the ascendance of Afghan Islamists next door will only embolden radicals at home. Efforts to force the Taliban’s hand might result in violent blowback, with Pakistani Taliban attacking targets inside Pakistan. And if fighting between the Taliban and their opponents worsens, Pakistan will have to deal with a new flow of refugees. A civil war next door would further damage the country’s struggling economy. Pakistani critics of their country’s involvement with the Taliban have long feared and predicted this scenario. But Pakistan’s generals see the Taliban as an important partner in their competition with India. Weak civilian leaders in Islamabad, meanwhile, have acquiesced to a policy that prioritizes the elimination of real or perceived Indian influence in Afghanistan. For decades, Pakistan has played a risky game by supporting or tolerating the Taliban and also trying to stay in Washington’s good graces. It worked for longer than many might have expected, but it was never going to prove sustainable in the long term. Pakistan has managed to kick the can down the road for a long time. Soon, however, it will reach the end of the road. THE INDIAN OBSESSION
Pakistan’s security establishment has long obsessed about imposing a friendly government in Kabul. That fixation is rooted in the belief that India is plotting to break up Pakistan along ethnic lines and that Afghanistan will be the launching pad for antigovernment insurgencies in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions. These fears have their roots in the fact that Afghanistan claimed parts of Balochistan and Pakistan’s Pashtun regions at the time of Pakistan’s creation in August 1947. Afghanistan recognized Pakistan and established diplomatic relations a few days later but did not acknowledge the British-drawn Durand Line as an international border until 1976. Afghanistan also remained friendly with India, leading Pakistan to allow Afghan Islamists to organize on its territory even before the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979.
Despite extensive U.S.-Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan during the Cold War, the two countries never truly reconciled their divergent interests in the country. The United States sent arms and money for the mujahideen through Pakistan as part of a global strategy to bleed the Soviet Union but showed little interest in Afghanistan’s future once the Soviets left. Pakistani officials, on the other hand, saw the anti-Soviet jihad as an opportunity to turn Afghanistan into a satellite state. They favored the most fundamentalist mujahideen in the hope that a future government under their control would reject Indian influence and help suppress Baloch and Pashtun ethnic nationalism along their shared border.
These unresolved differences have festered in the intervening decades. Even after Pakistan became the logistical hub for U.S. forces in Afghanistan following 9/11, officials in Islamabad worried about India’s influence in Kabul. Pakistan’s military supported the Taliban, arguing that the group represented a reality on the ground that their country, as Afghanistan’s neighbor with an ethnically overlapping population, could not ignore. For Islamist sympathizers, including those within the establishment, there was also perverse pleasure in causing pain to the United States.
The Taliban’s victory will have a disastrous effect on Pakistan’s domestic peace and security.General Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, spelled out publicly in 2014 how the ISI used aid provided by the United States after 9/11 to continue funding the Taliban and how it benefited from the U.S. decision to initially ignore the Afghan Islamist group in favor of its pursuit of al Qaeda. He told a television audience in 2014: “When history is written, it will be stated that the ISI defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with the help of America. Then there will be another sentence. The ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.” More recently, senior Pakistani officials have also crowed about the U.S. failure to eliminate the Taliban. Washington’s diplomatic engagement with the Islamist group, they believe, amounts to a tacit acceptance of its influence in Afghanistan. After the February 2020 signing in Doha of the U.S.-Taliban agreement, which paved the way for the U.S. troop withdrawal, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, a former Pakistani minister for defense and minister for foreign affairs, tweeted a photograph of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meeting Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. He added a comment: “You might have might on your side, but God is with us. Allah u Akbar!” As foreign minister, Asif insisted that Pakistan’s relations with the Taliban only reflected acknowledgment of their political force in Afghanistan. He also criticized the United States for turning Pakistan into a “whipping boy” for its own failure to destroy the group. But he felt no need for diplomatic doublespeak in this moment of triumph. To Pakistanis such as Gul and Asif, the Taliban’s impending victory is also a victory for Pakistan’s covert operations. This triumphalism is likely to backfire. Americans have never recognized Pakistan’s perception of an existential threat from India as serious, which is why they never understood Pakistan’s preference for Pashtun Islamists over Afghan nationalists. Pakistani officials have, over the years, chosen to flatly deny Pakistani actions in Afghanistan or to explain them away. This has led to charges of double-dealing from the Americans, spurring further mistrust in the bilateral relationship. Relations with India and the rest of the world have also suffered, and Pakistan has come to depend excessively on China. Of its $90 billion in external debt, Pakistan owes 27 percent—or more than $24 billion—to Beijing. It has also been forced to rely on lower-quality Chinese military technology after losing U.S. military assistance. FAR FROM “NORMAL”
Thirty years of support for jihad has also stoked the country’s internal dysfunction. Its economy has struggled, except in years of generous American aid. Homegrown Islamist radicals have incited sporadic violence, such as terrorist attacks on religious minorities and riots demanding the expulsion of the French ambassador over alleged blasphemy in France against the Prophet Muhammad. Women’s rights have been publicly questioned and threatened, and mainstream and social media are regularly censored to accommodate radical Islamist sensibilities. The government was forced to “Islamize” the curriculum at the expense of courses in science and critical thinking.
Ironically, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan comes amid promises to reverse these trends. Four years ago, Pakistan’s current army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, declared that he wanted to transform Pakistan into “a normal country.” He has since also spoken of the need to improve relations with India and reduce Pakistan’s dependence on China.
That vision of transformation included an effort to enable a settlement in Afghanistan. Pakistan started fencing the long and porous border with its neighbor, made overtures to the Kabul government, and promised to help the United States in achieving a peace agreement. Bajwa indicated Pakistan’s willingness to expand its partners in Afghanistan to include non-Taliban factions. The ISI arranged meetings between U.S. negotiators and some Taliban leaders, leading to the Doha Agreement, which set a timetable for U.S. military withdrawal in return for vague Taliban promises to start peace talks with other Afghans and prevent territory they controlled from being used to launch terrorist attacks against the United States.
The United States is unlikely to soon forgive Pakistan for its decades-long enabling of the Taliban.Instead of spurring a return to normalcy in Pakistan, this agreement will only exacerbate the country’s challenges. Given the Taliban’s hard-line ideology, it was unrealistic for American negotiators to expect that the group would compromise with other Afghans, especially the Kabul government. And although Pakistan facilitated this deal in the hope that it would improve its standing with the United States, it is now likely to get blamed for the Taliban’s refusal to stop fighting and agree to power sharing. Bajwa’s proclaimed desire to change course has been impeded by Pakistan’s earlier policies. Given Pakistan’s poor relationship with almost all other groups in Afghanistan, it may have little choice but to stick with the Taliban in the event of renewed civil war across its northwestern border. The agreement will also not achieve Washington’s counterterrorism aims. A UN Security Council report published in June found that the Taliban have not broken off ties with al Qaeda and that senior al Qaeda officials have recently been killed “alongside Taliban associates while co-located with them.” The report also identified the Haqqani network, a group the U.S. military once described as a “veritable arm of Pakistan’s ISI,” as the primary Taliban linkage with al Qaeda. “Ties between the two groups remain close, based on ideological alignment, relationships forged through common struggle and intermarriage,” the report reads.U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, meanwhile, has said that al Qaeda could reconstitute itself in Afghanistan within two years of an American withdrawal. None of these facts have changed President Joe Biden’s commitment to pulling out U.S. forces.Pakistan is anticipating a Taliban victory, even as its leaders continue to speak of the need for reconciliation among Afghans. Although public statements from Islamabad will continue to describe Pakistan’s desire for peace, U.S. officials are unlikely to believe Pakistan’s protestations that it does not want a Taliban military takeover. The two countries’ relationship seems poised to become even more unreliable in the years ahead.
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FORFor those Pakistanis who see the world through the prism of competition with India, a Taliban victory offers some consolation. Pakistan has not been doing well in competition with India on most fronts, but its proxies in Afghanistan appear to be succeeding—even if Pakistan cannot fully control them. But it is a pyrrhic victory. These developments will take Pakistan further away from becoming “a normal country,” perpetuating dysfunction at home and locking it into a foreign policy defined by hostility toward India and dependence on China. Washington and Islamabad’s long, mutual entanglement in Afghanistan threatens to further weaken the U.S.-Pakistani relationship. The United States is unlikely to soon forgive Pakistan for its decades-long enabling of the Taliban. For years to come, Pakistanis will argue whether it was worth the effort to influence Afghanistan through Taliban proxies when, after 9/11, Pakistan could have secured its interests by fully siding with the Americans. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-07-22/pakistans-pyrrhic-victory-afghanistan
افغانستان کی صورتحال کے پیشِ نظر پاکستان کے لیئے ضروری ہے کہ ملک میں حکومت پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کی ہو، چیئرمین پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی بلاول بھٹو زرداری
کراچی (29 جولائی 2021) پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی کے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا ہے کہ افغانستان کی صورتحال کے پیشِ نظر پاکستان کے لیئے ضروری ہے کہ ملک میں حکومت پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کی ہو۔ نظر آرہا ہے، اگلی حکومت پی پی پی کی ہوگی۔ کارکنان ابھی سے تیاری شروع کردیں، عام انتخابات کسی وقت بھی ہو سکتے ہیں۔ پی پی پی کراچی ڈویژن سے تعلق رکھنے والے ارکانِ اسمبلی، عہدیداران اور کارکنان کے اجلاس سے خطاب کرتے ہوئے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ ہم جانتے ہیں کہ آنے والے دنوں میں مشکلات ہیں، اور ایسے حالات میں ملک کو فقط ایک پارٹی سنبھال سکتی ہے، اور وہ پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی ہے۔ افغانستان کی صوررتحال کا اثر کراچی پر بھی ہو سکتا ہے، جو دنیا میں پشتون آبادی کا سب سے بڑا شہر ہے۔ “ہم تیاری کر رہے، ہیں کہ آنے والے دنوں میں پیدا ہونے والی صورتحال کا کس طرح سامنا کرنا ہے”
چیئرمین پی پی پی بلاول بھٹو زرداری کی سربراہی میں پی پی پی کراچی کے عہدیداران، کراچی سے پی پی پی کے ٹکٹ ہولڈر اور کراچی سے پی پی پی کے اراکین پارلیمان کے اجلاس میں چیئرمین پی پی پی کو کراچی کے عوامی نمائندوں نے ہر علاقے کے عوامی مسائل اور ان کے حل کے اقدامات کے حوالے سے آگاہ کیا گیا، اجلاس کے شرکاء سے خطاب کرتے ہوئے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری کا کہنا تھا کہ پورا پاکستان جان چکا ہے کہ پی ٹی آئی کا مقابلہ اور اسے شکست سے ہمکنار فقط پی پی پی کرسکتی ہے۔ “یہ حکمت عملی پی پی پی کی تھی کہ ضمنی انتخابات میں سلیکٹڈ حکومت کا مقابلہ کرنا ہے، جو کامیاب ثابت ہوئی”۔ پی پی پی چیئرمین نے کہا کہ کارکنان پر زور دیتے ہوئے کہا کہ وہ بلدیاتی الیکشن کے لیئے بھرپور تیاری کرلیں۔ کراچی کے عوام جان چکے ہیں کہ اگر کراچی کو بچانا ہے تو پی ٹی آئی اور دہشتگردوں کو بھگانا ہے۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ جہاں تک انتظامی و ترقیاتی کاموں کا معاملہ ہے، کراچی میں عوام کے مسائل حل کرنے کے لیئے پولیکٹیکل مانیٹرنگ اور چیک اینڈ بیلنس کا فقدان ہے۔ انہوں نے مزید کہا کہ کراچی میں پانی، کچرے اور ٹرانسپورٹ کے مسائل کو حل کرنا ان کی ترجیحات میں شامل ہے۔چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے بتایا کہ انہوں نے وزیراعلی کو ٹاسک دیا ہے کہ کراچی سمیت تمام اضلاع میں عوام کے مسائل حل کرنے کے لیئے ایسا سیاسی نمائندہ لایا جانا چاہئے، جو عام شہریوں کے لیئے ہر وقت موجود ہو”۔چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ کچھ لوگ جو سندھ پر حملہ آور ہیں اور یہاں حکومت کرنے کے خواب دیکھ رہے ہیں، پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی اپنے بل بوتے پر ان کا مقابلہ کرے گی۔ “سندھ کا پورا سیاسی کچرا جمع کرکے پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کا مقابلہ کرنے کی کوشش کی جارہی ہے”۔ پی پی پی چیئرمین نے کہا کہ صوبہ سندھ سے وفاقی حکومت کی جانب سے ناانصافیوں کا سلسلہ جاری ہے۔ حکمران جماعت کے وفاقی وزیر نے اسمبلی فلور پر اعتراف کیا تھا کہ پانی کے معاملے پر سندھ کے ساتھ ناانصافی ہو رہی ہے، لیکن اس کے باوجود عمران خان نے سندھ کے لیئے پانی میں ایک قطرے کا بھی اضافہ نہیں کیا۔ مردم شماری کے معاملے پر ڈاکہ ڈالا گیا ہے، جبکہ گیس، بجلی، اور روزگار کے معاملے پر بھی ناانصافیاں کی جاتی ہیں۔ اسٹیل ملز کے 10 ہزار خاندانوں سے زریعہ گذرمعاش چھینا گیا ہے، جبکہ ایف آئی آے میں سندھ سے تعلق رکھنے والے افسران کو نوکریوں سے نکالا گیا ہے، اجلاس میں شیری رحمان، نثار کھوڑو، وزیراعلی سندھ، وقار مہدی، ناصر شاہ، عاجز دھامراہ، تاج حیدر اور راجہ عبدالرزاق بھی شریک تھے۔
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/25291/
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
What you need to know about the highly contagious delta variant
The highly transmissible coronavirus variant called delta is now the dominant strain in the United States, and continues to gain steam. Modeling shows the variant now accounts for 83.2 percent of all new infections in this country, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said during a White House news briefing Thursday that delta is “more aggressive and much more transmissible” than previous strains and is “one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of and that I have seen in my 20-year career.” “We are yet at another pivotal moment in this pandemic, with cases rising again and some hospitals reaching their capacity in some areas. We need to come together as one nation, unified in our resolve to protect the health of ourselves, our children, our community, our country and our future with the tools we have available,” she said. The good news, Walensky has said, is that all three coronavirus vaccines authorized in the United States offer strong protection against severe disease and death from covid-19. Preliminary data from several states over the past several months suggests that 99.5 percent of covid-19-related deaths occurred among unvaccinated people, she said. Here are answers to commonly asked questions about the delta variant and how to protect yourself. What is the delta variant?
The variant first identified in India last year is now dominant in the United States.
The delta variant, also known as B.1.617, was first detected last year in India, where it has been ravaging the nation and has since spread to dozens of other countries, upending plans for a return to normalcy.
Delta has several lineages with slightly different sets of mutations. One of those — B.1.617.2 — is also now the dominant coronavirus variant in the United Kingdom, where it accounts for the vast majority of all covid-19 cases in that nation.
Health experts describe delta as the most “fit” variant of the coronavirus. That means it’s likely to outcompete other variants and make more people sick from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, said Monica Gandhi, an infectious-disease expert at the University of California at San Francisco. “It’s the one that is most likely to latch onto cells in a host, and it attacks that host better than the other variants, because it can replicate itself better.”Why is the delta variant a concern? Early research suggests the delta variant is about 50 percent more contagious than the alpha variant, which was first identified in the United Kingdom and became the predominant variant in the United States during the spring. Alpha was already about 50 percent more transmissible than the original variant of the coronavirus first identified in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Although there is compelling evidence that delta is more transmissible, there is limited data on whether it is more likely to result in severe illness.
Public Health England (PHE) found that the variant may be associated with a higher risk of hospitalization, and some early research from Scotland suggests that the risk of hospitalization with covid-19 from the delta variant is about twice the risk from the alpha variant — with unvaccinated people at the greatest risk.But health experts caution that there is not yet conclusive evidence that delta causes more severe disease. Hospitals serving areas where it is surging have reported admitting more young and middle-aged covid-19 patients, but that may be because they are less likely to be vaccinated. How effective are the vaccines against the variant? Real-world data suggests that all three vaccines authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration offer strong protection against severe disease and death from the delta variant, although they appear to offer less robust protection against minor to moderate infections.
Such data has come not only from the United States but also from other countries. “I think this is a really important point, because that’s our primary goal with our vaccination effort: to prevent severe disease, to prevent hospitalization, to prevent deaths,” said William Moss, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In the case of the two-dose messenger RNA vaccines, both shots are needed to mount a strong response against the delta variant. A study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 36 percent effective against symptomatic disease caused by the delta variant after the first shot of the two-shot regimen, but 88 percent effective after the second shot. This confirms earlier findings from PHE.In terms of preventing hospitalizations from delta, a separate PHE paper suggested that the Pfizer vaccine was 94 percent effective after the first shot and 96 percent effective after the second.
Health experts said that, because the Moderna vaccine uses the same technology as the one from Pfizer, they extrapolate that it offers similar protection.
As for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, one journal preprint showed that it had a diminished immune response to the delta variant in laboratory tests. However, other studies including one recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest that it can provide robust protection for months after vaccination. Some researchers believe the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may end up showing similar results to the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was included in the PHE studies and found to be 60 percent effective against symptomatic disease and 92 percent effective against hospitalization after both doses. The AstraZeneca vaccine has not been approved for use in the United States.“The good news is that our vaccinations are highly effective,” President Biden has said. “Fully vaccinated Americans have a high degree of protection, including against this delta variant.” The president said the rapid spread of a more easily transmissible and potentially more dangerous variant “should cause everybody to think twice.” “And it should cause reconsideration, especially in young people who may have thought that they didn’t have to be vaccinated, didn’t have to worry about it, didn’t have to do anything about it up to now,” he added. How will the delta variant affect the United States? With more than 160 million Americans now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, the delta variant is not expected to cause massive outbreaks across the United States. Instead, health experts anticipate that it will cause surges in communities where vaccination rates are lower, posing the most serious risk to those who are older, sicker and unvaccinated.
How will the delta variant affect the United States?
With more than 160 million Americans now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, the delta variant is not expected to cause massive outbreaks across the United States. Instead, health experts anticipate that it will cause surges in communities where vaccination rates are lower, posing the most serious risk to those who are older, sicker and unvaccinated.
“We’re going to have to face it throughout the United States,” said Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine and executive vice president at Scripps Research.
Topol said the states that are most vulnerable are the ones that have had fewer coronavirus cases and lower vaccination rates, meaning they do not have as much natural and vaccine-induced immunity. States with higher vaccination rates, such as Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, have “a delta wall,” he said.
Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, has said he is “very concerned” about the variant, because it could lead to “two Americas”: one largely protected because of high vaccination rates, the other experiencing surges because of low vaccination rates.
“When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, what you are going to see among undervaccinated regions — be that states, cities or counties — you’re going to see these individual types of blips. It’s almost like it’s going to be two Americas,” he said.
Do symptoms from delta infections differ from infections from other variants of the coronavirus?
There is little research on this, but some people have reported symptoms such as a headache, sore throat and runny nose, without the hallmark covid-19 signs, such as a loss of taste and smell.
Will booster shots be needed?
That is an open question. Federal health officials are not recommending them at this time but at least one of the vaccine makers said it plans to seek approval for a booster shot.
Data recently released earlier this month by Israel’s Health Ministry showed waning vaccine efficacy against the coronavirus in that highly vaccinated country as the delta variant became more widespread. The data showed that vaccinated people retained protection against severe disease and hospitalization, but had markedly lower protection against infection and symptomatic illness.
Citing that data, Pfizer and its partner BioNTech released a statement July 8 saying they would seek federal regulatory approval for a booster shot following studies that found such a shot caused disease-blocking antibodies to increase five to 10 times higher than after the two-shot regimen. “We continue to believe that it is likely, based on the totality of the data we have to date, that a third dose may be needed within six to 12 months after full vaccination,” the statement said.But hours later, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a rebuke, saying “Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time.”The HHS statement said “a science-based, rigorous process” headed by the CDC, FDA and the National Institutes of Health would determine when or whether boosters were necessary. What else can people do to protect themselves?
Health experts say that people who are not yet vaccinated should continue to wear masks and make plans to get vaccinated as soon as they can.
While the CDC no longer recommends masking for those who are fully vaccinated, because the vaccines provide a high degree of protection, Fauci said individuals may make their own assessments of risk based on their age, health status and circumstances.
Those living in areas where vaccination rates are low and delta cases are high may want to continue covering their faces, particularly in high-risk settings, such as indoor gatherings, areas with large crowds or places such as senior living facilities, where the consequences of transmission could be grave. Los Angeles County announced July 15 that it was reinstituted an indoor mask mandate for everyone.
The World Health Organization is still urging people around the world to mask up. Mariângela Simão, the WHO’s assistant director general for access to medicines and health products, recently told reporters: “People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves.”
Gandhi said that recommendation makes sense coming from the WHO, which is dealing with very mixed populations across the globe, many with high amounts of circulating virus, low vaccination rates and less effective vaccines. Only about 13 percent of the world’s population has been fully vaccinated against the virus.
“The likelihood of getting a breakthrough infection with any variant is not just dependent on your vaccination status but the amount of virus you’re seeing circulating in your community,” she said. “It’s why health-care workers in India, even though they were fully vaccinated, still had breakthrough infections, because they were seeing so much virus.”
Health experts also urge vaccinated people to get tested for the coronavirus if they experience any symptoms related to the illness, to rule out potential breakthrough infections and to seek treatment if they test positive.
What about people who are immunocompromised?
Vaccination is still the top recommendation to protect against the virus, including the delta variant, although not all immunocompromised people may mount a robust response. But others will build immunity from the shots, and there appears to be no harm from getting immunized, said William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Beyond that, individuals with compromised immune responses should practice social distancing, wear masks and avoid crowds, particularly indoors. “Those things continue to pertain to these highly susceptible people,” he said.
Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases and preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, said it’s also important for immunocompromised people to get tested if they experience symptoms, especially as the new influenza season rolls around, so they can get treated appropriately — either for flu or covid-19. In some cases, for example, antiviral medications may be used to treat influenza and monoclonal antibodies may be used to treat covid-19, which can reduce the risk of hospitalization and death when used early in the course of the disease.
What about the risk to children, and how can parents protect them?
There is no indication the delta variant is more virulent if it infects children, said Paul A. Offit, a pediatrician and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
However, because delta is more contagious than earlier variants, children are at somewhat greater risk of infection. Those who are 12 and older are eligible for vaccines, and federal health officials recommend they be immunized for greater protection.
Offit suggests parents make sure that unvaccinated children ages 2 or older, if not eligible for the vaccines, wear masks if they are in public spaces indoors, in accord with CDC guidance.
The CDC also recommends that parents make sure their unvaccinated children wash their hands often with soap and water, avoid close contact with those who are coughing, sneezing or complaining of feeling unwell, and limit interactions with people who are at high risk of developing severe disease.
The bottom line is that people need to take measures to protect themselves and their loved ones against the delta variant.
“If you haven’t had covid, you’re not vaccinated and you’re not wearing a mask, you’re basically asking for delta trouble. It’ll find you. It’s the most efficient form of the virus for finding hosts, by far. If you’re not vaccinated, a mask is important right now,” Topol said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/07/delta-variant-covid/
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir elections 'rigged': Huge protests against Pakistan Army in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is set to form government in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The Opposition has alleged 'rigging' in PoK Legislative Assembly elections.
Amid reports of poll-rigging in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Legislative Assembly elections, huge demonstrations were held in PoK against the Pakistani Army.
Thousands of people took to the streets against Pakistan Army as several reports emerged that Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) interfered in the election process of PoK which as conducted on July 25.PTI won 25 seats, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) 11 and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) bagged 6, reports suggested. The PoK assembly has a total of 53 members, however, only 45 are directly elected.
The opposition parties are up in arms with the Imran Khan government and have termed the election process in PoK a farce.
"The assembly elections were nothing but a farce exercise to hoodwink the people," PoK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider said.
Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) vice-president Maryam Nawaz has refused to accept the PoK assembly election results. PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also alleged that the polls were rigged and rejected the results of the elections.
India had slammed Pakistan for conducting elections in Gilgit-Baltistan and said any action to 'alter the status of the militarily occupied region has no legal basis'.
“We have seen reports regarding announcement of elections to the so-called "Gilgit-Baltistan” Legislative Assembly to be held on November 15, 2020. The Government of India has conveyed its strong protest to the Government of Pakistan and reiterated that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of so-called Gilgit and Baltistan are an integral part of India by virtue of its accession in 1947. The Government of Pakistan has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it,” the MEA statement had said.
https://www.timesnownews.com/international/article/pakistan-occupied-kashmir-elections-rigged-huge-protests-against-pakistan-army-in-pok/790733
Gunman in Pakistan Fires on Car Carrying Chinese Engineers
By Saeed Shah and Waqar Gillani
The attack is the latest on China’s citizens in the country, which is a close ally of Beijing.
A gunman opened fire on a car carrying two engineers in the southern port city of Karachi, the latest attack on Chinese nationals in close ally Pakistan. One of the engineers was hit four times, mostly in the arm, police said, but was in stable condition. The other engineer and a Pakistani driver were uninjured in the attack.Chinese nationals have been the victims of multiple recent attacks in Pakistan. Earlier this month, a bombing killed nine Chinese construction workers in a bus being taken to the site of a dam being built in northern Pakistan. That was the deadliest attack on Chinese nationals in Pakistan in recent years.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing Wednesday that China was closely monitoring the incident, which it described as an isolated event, but said that it was still under investigation. “We have full confidence in Pakistan’s ability to protect Chinese citizens and property in Pakistan,” he said. The engineers targeted Wednesday had come to Pakistan earlier this month to fit Chinese equipment at a Pakistani-owned plastic manufacturer in Karachi. They were being taken to work in the morning, by a driver and car provided by the factory, when a motorcycle pulled up alongside, police said. One of the people on the motorcycle opened fire at the back of the car. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting. “This shooting will cause problems with the Chinese who will be livid at another incident so soon after the other attack,” said Raffaello Pantucci, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, located in Singapore. “Pakistan may have to now revisit security for all Chinese in Pakistan, which is a big job.” Chinese interests in Pakistan have been targeted mostly by separatists from the western province of Balochistan, who accuse Beijing of exploiting the resources of their region. It remains unclear whether the other main set of insurgents in Pakistan, jihadists such as the Pakistani Taliban, are also going after the Chinese targets. According to Islamabad, both Baloch separatists and Pakistani Taliban have bases across the border in Afghanistan, which makes their presence there also a source of worry for Beijing. China was so concerned after the attack on the workers on the dam this month that it dispatched its own investigators to Pakistan, which was followed by a visit of Pakistan’s foreign minister and intelligence chief to Beijing. No group claimed responsibility for the explosion. In April, there was a bombing in the parking lot of a hotel where the Chinese ambassador was staying in the Western city of Quetta. He was unhurt, and it is unclear whether the ambassador was the target. The group claiming responsibility, the Pakistani Taliban, said they had targeted the security guards outside the hotel. Targets of other attacks in recent years include the Chinese consulate in Karachi, the partly Chinese-owned stock exchange in Karachi and a hotel in the Chinese-run port of Gwadar.China and Pakistan are close allies. Beijing is working on a multibillion-dollar building spree in Pakistan, a flagship for its global Belt and Road Initiative to spread Chinese influence through infrastructure projects. Thousands of Pakistani army, paramilitary personnel and police are deployed to guard the construction sites and Chinese citizens involved in the projects. There are also Chinese construction projects and commercial activities that are separate from the Belt and Road, which often have much thinner security provided. The Chinese workers targeted in the bombing earlier this month and in the Wednesday shooting weren’t working on Belt and Road projects. The Chinese engineers targeted in the shooting Wednesday hadn’t been provided with any security, and police said they were previously unaware of their presence in the city.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gunman-in-pakistan-fires-on-car-carrying-chinese-engineers-11627477869
عمران خان سے کشمیر میں پی پی پی کی جیت ہضم نہیں ہوئی اور انہوں نے امورِ کشمیر میں غیرآئینی مداخلت کرکے جیالے امیدوار سے سیاسی انتقام لینا شروع کردیا، چیئرمین پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی بلاول بھٹو زرداری
پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی کے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے آزاد کشمیر میں پی پی پی رہنما چوہدری یاسین اور ان کے خاندان کو سیاسی انتقام کا نشانہ بنائے جانے کی مذمت کرتے ہوئے کہا ہے کہ قاتلانہ حملہ چوہدری یاسین پر ہوا اور پولیس نے حملہ آوروں پر مقدمہ درج کرنے کے بجائے الٹا چوہدری یاسین کے خلاف ایف آئی آر درج کرلی گئی جبکہ کوٹلی سے ان کے نامزد امیدوار چوہدری یاسین نے اپنے خلاف ہوئے قاتلانہ حملے کی ایف آئی آر درج کرانے کی کوشش کی مگر پولیس نے درج نہیں کی،
میڈیا سیل بلاول ہاؤس سے جاری اپنے ایک بیان میں چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ اگر میرے کارکنوں کے خلاف سیاسی انتقام کا سلسلہ بند نہ ہوا تو وہ آزاد کشمیر میں خود احتجاج کی سربراہی کریں گے، ان کا کہنا تھا کہ عمران خان سے کشمیر میں پی پی پی کی جیت ہضم نہیں ہوئی اور انہوں نے امورِ کشمیر میں غیرآئینی مداخلت کرکے جیالے امیدوار سے سیاسی انتقام لینا شروع کردیا، انہوں نے یہ بھی کہا کہ عمران خان نے تحصیل چڑھوئی میں ہوئے دو افراد کے قتل کے افسوس ناک واقعے میں براہ راست جج بن کر پی پی پی امیدوار کو مجرم ٹہرادیا، اس موقع پر چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے سوال اٹھاتے ہوئے کہا کہ یہ کیسی مدینے کی ریاست ہے کہ عمران خان کے خلاف تقریر کرلو تو نیب نوٹس بھیج دیتا ہے، سیٹ جیت لو تو قتل کا مجرم بنادیا جاتا ہے،
پی پی پی سربراہ نے یہ بھی کہا کہ انصاف کا تقاضہ تو یہ تھا کہ دو افراد کے قتل کے افسوس ناک واقعے میں چوہدری یاسین کے مطالبے پر ہونے والی جوڈیشل انکوائری کے نتائج کا انتظار کیا جاتا، اس موقع پر انہوں نے اس خدشے کا بھی اظہار کیا کہ برطانیہ میں مقیم پاکستانی کمیونٹی میں عمران خان کے چوہدری یاسین کے خلاف سیاسی انتقام کی وجہ سے پیدا ہونے والی بے چینی کے اثرات دور رس ہوں گے، ان کا کہنا تھا کہ دو نشستوں سے کامیاب ہونے والے چوہدری یاسین سے عمران خان کا سیاسی انتقام چھوڑی جانے والی ایک نشست کو ہتھیانے کے لئے بھی ہے جبکہ عمران خان کی ایماء پر پی پی پی رہنما چوہدری یاسین کے گھر کے محاصرے سے لے کر چادر اور چار دیواری تک کا تقدس پامال کیا گیا۔
#Pakistan # PPP - What sort of Riasat e Madina is this where you are accused of murder if you win a seat? -Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/25287/
Tuesday, July 27, 2021
As Infections Rise, C.D.C. Urges Some Vaccinated Americans to Wear Masks Again
By Apoorva Mandavilli
Revising a decision made just two months ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday that people vaccinated against the coronavirus should resume wearing masks in public indoor spaces in parts of the country where the virus is surging. C.D.C. officials also called for universal masking for teachers, staff, students and visitors in schools, regardless of vaccination status and community transmission of the virus. With additional precautions, schools nonetheless should return to in-person learning in the fall. The recommendations are another baleful twist in the course of America’s pandemic, a war-weary concession that the virus is outstripping vaccination efforts. The agency’s move follows rising case counts in states like Florida and Missouri, as well as growing reports of breakthrough infections of the more contagious Delta variant among people who are fully immunized. “The Delta variant is showing every day its willingness to outsmart us,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the C.D.C., said at a news briefing on Tuesday. The C.D.C. said Americans should resume wearing masks in areas where there are more than 50 new infections per 100,000 residents over the previous seven days, or more than 8 percent of tests are positive for infection over that period. Health officials should reassess these figures weekly and change local restrictions accordingly, the agency said. By those criteria, all residents of Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana, for example, should wear masks indoors. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. counties qualify, many concentrated in the South. The agency said that even vaccinated Americans in areas without surges might consider wearing a mask in public indoor settings if they or someone in their household has an impaired immune system or is at risk for severe disease, or if someone in the household is unvaccinated. That includes vaccinated parents of children under age 12, who are currently ineligible for the shots. C.D.C. officials were persuaded by new scientific evidence showing that even vaccinated people may become infected and may carry the virus in great amounts, perhaps even similar to those in unvaccinated people, Dr. Walensky acknowledged at the news briefing.
In communities with growing caseloads, vaccinated and unvaccinated people should return to wearing masks indoors in public areas, health officials said.
Data from several states and other countries show that the variant behaves differently from previous versions of the coronavirus, she added: “This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendation.”“This is not a decision we at C.D.C. have made lightly,” Dr. Walensky added. “This weighs heavily on me.” Americans are tired and frustrated, she said, and mental health challenges are on the rise. After the agency’s announcement, White House staff were instructed to begin wearing masks again indoors. The Biden administration is considering requiring all federal employees to be vaccinated or to submit to regular testing and workplace restrictions, requirements similar to those being imposed in New York City and California. “We have a pandemic because of the unvaccinated, and they’re sowing enormous confusion,” President Biden told reporters on Tuesday. “The more we learn about this virus and the Delta variant, the more we have to be worried and concerned. And there’s only one thing we know for sure — if those other hundred million people got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world.” The C.D.C. needed to revisit its recommendations, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the administration’s lead adviser on the pandemic. “I don’t think you can say that this is just flip-flopping back and forth. They’re dealing with new information that the science is providing.” The vaccines remain remarkably effective against the worst outcomes of infection with any form of the coronavirus, including hospitalization and death. But the new guidelines explicitly apply to both the unvaccinated and vaccinated, a sharp departure from the agency’s position since May that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most indoor spaces. Those recommendations, which had seemed to signal a winding down of the pandemic, were based on earlier data suggesting that vaccinated people rarely become infected and almost never transmit the virus, making masking unnecessary. But that was before the arrival of the Delta variant, which now accounts for the bulk of infections in the United States. And it may be followed by others. “The big concern is that the next variant that might emerge — just potentially a few mutations away — could evade our vaccine,” she said. Whether masks become ubiquitous again may depend on local surveillance and outreach efforts, which vary from state to state. Many Americans simply do not know what infection rates and positive test rates are in their area on a week-by-week basis. Based on what scientists are learning about the Delta variant’s ability to cause breakthrough infections, “this is a move in the right direction,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the two leading teachers’ unions, strongly endorsed the C.D.C.’s move to universal masking in schools. “Masking inside schools, regardless of vaccine status, is required as an important way to deal with the changing realities of virus transmission,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the A.F.T. “It is a necessary precaution until children under 12 can receive a Covid vaccine and more Americans over 12 get vaccinated.” Other union officials said the guidance did not go far enough, and would fail to protect frontline and essential workers in supermarkets, retail stores and meatpacking plants. “A national mask mandate is the only way we can finally take control of this virus,” said Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International. Whether state and local government officials are willing to follow the agency’s guidance is far from certain. And there is sure to be resistance from pandemic-fatigued Americans, particularly in regions of the country where vaccination rates are low and concerns about the virus are muted. Some jurisdictions, like Los Angeles County and St. Louis County, have already reinstated mask mandates in response to rising cases. But officials in some communities in Los Angeles County have said they will not enforce a mandate. And the Missouri attorney general has filed a lawsuit against the city of St. Louis to stop the measure. Businesses, too, are likely to find that new mask recommendations complicate plans to return to their offices in places where the virus is spreading and may necessitate new mandates for employees to get vaccines. The Washington Post, for example, on Tuesday said it would require proof of vaccination as a condition of employment when workers return to the office in September, after hearing concerns from many employees about the emergence of coronavirus variants. If businesses believe that such mandates would be beneficial, “we encourage them to do so,” Dr. Walensky said at the news briefing. “We’re encouraging, really, any activities that would motivate further vaccination.”
As recently as last week, a C.D.C. spokesman said that the agency had no plans to change its masking guidance, unless there was a significant change in the science. Now researchers have begun to turn up disturbing data.The Delta variant is thought to be more than twice as contagious as the original version of the virus. Some research now suggests that people infected with the variant carry about a thousandfold more virus than those infected with other variants, and they may stay infected for longer. C.D.C. officials were swayed by new research showing that even vaccinated people may carry great amounts of the variant virus in the nose and throat, suggesting that they also may spread it to others. Large so-called viral loads may help explain reports of breakthrough infections in groups of vaccinated people. For example, an outbreak that began in Provincetown, Mass., after Fourth of July festivities there, has grown to include at least 765 cases, according to Steve Katsurinis, chair of the Provincetown Board of Health. Of the 469 cases reported among Massachusetts residents alone, 74 percent were in people who were fully immunized, Mr. Katsurinis said. Smaller clusters of breakthrough infections have been reported after weddings, family reunions and dinner parties. Some of the infected people had symptoms, but the vast majority were not seriously ill, suggesting that immunity produced by the vaccines quickly curbs the virus. Vaccines “are not a force field,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. Instead, vaccination trains the immune system to recognize cells that become infected with the virus. “The term ‘breakthrough infection’ is probably a bit misleading,” she said. “It’s probably more realistic that we talk about ‘breakthrough disease’ and how much of that is occurring.” Dr. Walensky acknowledged that some vaccinated people can become infected with the Delta variant and may be contagious, but maintained that it was a rare event. So far vaccinated people account for just 3 percent of hospitalizations, officials have found. Dr. Gounder and other experts said that it is unclear how often vaccinated people transmit the virus to others, but it may be more common than scientists had predicted as the original virus was spreading last year. Vaccinated people — particularly those with weak immune systems or otherwise at high risk — should consider wearing masks even in areas of low transmission, he said: “Masks can effectively reduce the amount of virus that we breathe in and prevent us from getting sick, and so they augment the impact of our vaccine. Almost everywhere in the U.S., it’s a good idea.” Infections have been rising swiftly in the United States, to more than 56,000 daily cases on average, as of Tuesday, more than four times the number a month ago. Hospitalizations have also been ticking up in nearly all states, and deaths have risen to an average of 275 per day. Federal officials need to articulate clear plans for testing and long-term masking, experts said. “The question is, what are the offramps for masking?” asked Dr. Nuzzo. “If we want to continue to ask people to step up, we need to give them a vision of what we’re working toward.” The C.D.C. should have simply have told all Americans to wear masks indoors, said Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at University of Washington and former C.D.C. scientist. ''If you look at the country, every state is seeing a rise in transmission,” Dr. Mokdad said. “So why not say, ‘Everybody in the U.S. should be wearing a mask indoors?’ The whole country is on fire.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/health/covid-cdc-masks-vaccines-delta-variant.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
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