Thursday, December 15, 2022
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Why do you want to leave #Pakistan? - Desperate urge to leave Pakistan?
The question we need to ask is: why do these young men have a desperate urge to leave Pakistan?
The thing which is most striking in this scenario is that they are young boys and have a full life ahead of them. Yet the need to leave? The only thing that might make sense is that these young individuals want a better lifestyle and for that they need better opportunities. They want a better chance at life itself. Unfortunately in Pakistan, there are hardly any opportunities available for our younger generation. With a struggling economy, these educated youngsters with college and university degrees are unable to either find jobs in the first place and if they do, those jobs hardly pay well. With rising inflation, it is already difficult to make ends meet for most people but with no jobs in the market, the younger generation’s disillusionment and disappointment with the country is understandable.
Life in Pakistan is a struggle for everyone now. People want to leave the country to carve out a better financial future for their families. They choose to be away from family, leave their comfort and not live in their own homeland just to ensure that their next generation’s future is secure.
Pakistan takes pride in its men and women. Yet there is so little the governments have done to improve the quality and standard of the people’s lives. How hard will it be to provide a place filled with opportunity, a strong education system and a strong economy. Is the youth asking too much for survival? Or is it just the bare minimum? From what we see, it’s the bare minimum. Our governments and leaders have an obligation towards the youth. To provide and nurture them. To give them the belief that their motherland holds them near and dear, so that they can grow and become successful in life.
Despite trying, we are failing the youth. Maybe the problem lies somewhere else. The younger generation deserves leaders who are genuinely willing to invest in their people. We hope the future is better for the young men and women. May they always choose their country above anything else in life. May Pakistan not let the dreams of the young shatter.
https://thecurrent.pk/why-do-you-want-to-leave-pakistan/
بلاول بھٹو کی ایمل ولی کو ملنے والی دھمکیوں کی مذمت
پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کے چیئرمین اور وزیر خارجہ بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے عوامی نیشنل پارٹی کے اہم رہنما ایمل ولی خان کو ملنے والی دھمکیوں کی مذمت کی
ہے۔
کراچی سے جاری بیان میں بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ ایمل ولی خان کو دھمکیاں دہشت گردی ہے جبکہ دہشت گردی کے خلاف حکومت اور پوری قوم کا دوٹوک موقف ہے۔
انہوں نے کہا کہ کسی بھی جمہوریت پسند سیاسی رہنما یا کارکن کا بال بیکا ہونے بھی نہیں دیں گے۔
پی پی چیئرمین نے مزید کہا کہ یقین ہے اس معاملے میں ملوث ملزمان کو قانون کی گرفت میں لایا جائے گا، پی پی ایمل ولی خان سے ہر ممکن تعاون کو یقینی بنائے گی۔
ان کا کہنا تھا کہ متعلقہ حکام اور ادارے ایمل ولی خان کی سیکیورٹی کو یقینی بنائیں۔
FM #Bilawal urges world to have 'fresh look' at #Pakistan in maiden Singapore trip
FM highlights Pakistan's great promise in e-commerce, IT sectors, vows to strengthen country's ties with South East Asian nations.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Friday urged the world to develop a "fresh look" towards Pakistan and move away from its stereotypical image.The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman told The Strait, "As a young political leader, I strongly feel that the world needs to have a fresh look at Pakistan, away from its stereotypical image."The FM told the Singapore-based publication that there are "many opportunities in Pakistan awaiting the world". However, he said that the first step for utilising those opportunities is to lift the travel advisories against Pakistan. Bilawal said: "I strongly feel that the world needs to look at us more objectively, as a promising emerging market." The FM highlighted the country's young population and rapidly growing middle class. Ties with ASEAN The foreign minister specifically mentioned the Pakistani e-commerce market, saying that according to data from German research firm Statista, Pakistan's e-commerce market is estimated to generate $7.67 billion in revenue in 2022. The FM highlighted Pakistan's freelancers, who provide services in IT, telecom, e-commerce, data analytics, financial services, music, and health. "Singapore and other Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries outsource many IT-related activities and financial services and can benefit immensely from our young talent." On the visit, Bilawal stressed that ties with ASEAN countries are a priority for Islamabad. He added that Islamabad is seeking to upgrade its partnership with the regional bloc into a full dialogue partnership. "Some recent initiatives of ASEAN are of great interest to Pakistan, which we believe are bound to unlock immense trade and investment opportunities for emerging economies such as Pakistan. We believe our start-up and fintech ecosystem can contribute by connecting with Southeast Asia," said Bilawal. Bilawal is currently on his maiden trip to Singapore as the FM, where he met with his counterpart, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan. According to a Foreign Office statement issued today, the two leaders reviewed bilateral relations and agreed to enhance bilateral engagements and cooperation. The foreign minister told the Singapore publication that in the context of ASEAN, Pakistan places great importance on its relations with Singapore. He highlighted that Pakistan was among the first countries to recognize Singapore after independence; and how Pakistani immigrants have contributed to its development in the initial years. Bilawal pointed out how the two nations have exchanged high-level visits in the past, including former premier Benazir Bhutto's visit in 1995 and former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew's visits to Pakistan in 1988 and 1992. Bilawal added that the two countries lost the momentum in their bilateral relations over time, adding that his trip's purpose is "to revive that momentum and intensify our bilateral exchanges. Pakistan is keen to strengthen this relationship in all dimensions".
Meeting with President Halimah
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari called on Singapore President Halimah Yacob as well today.
A Foreign Office statement read, "In the meeting, enhanced engagement and mutually beneficial cooperation were discussed while the foreign minister shared Pakistan's desire to intensify cooperation with ASEAN."
https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1018345-fm-bilawal-urges-the-world-to-have-a-fresh-look-at-pakistan-in-maiden-singapore-tripSaturday, December 10, 2022
Pakistani creators on Facebook can monetize content creation, says FM Bilawal
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari announced on Saturday that Pakistani content creators on Facebook can generate income through the platform’s new ‘stars’ feature.
The FM posted a video message from the offices of Meta – the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – announcing the “big news”.
The minister stated that with the new feature Pakistani creators could monetize their Facebook content and “the more stars they get the more money they would earn”.
FM Bilawal hoped that “the youth of Pakistan in particular” would get more productive use out of social media.Meta launched its latest monetization feature, Facebook Stars, for eligible creators in Pakistan to help them connect with their audiences and build a business.
A statement by the global tech giant said Facebook Stars will allow fans to buy and send digital goods to support creators, allow the Pakistani content creators to check their earnings by content type, manage their goals, and access other Stars settings.
The feature is available on Facebook Reels, Facebook Live, on-demand videos, photos, and text posts.
"Helping creators to build community and turn their passions into professions is a key part of our continued investment in Pakistan. Today, we are thrilled to announce that Facebook Stars is open to all eligible creators in Pakistan, so more people can start earning while they grow their creativity, audience and careers," said Meta’s Director of Emerging Markets for the Asia Pacific region Jordi Fornies.
Bilawal tells world to break ‘stereotypes’ about Pakistan
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Sunday, November 27, 2022
Lack of women’s rights in #Qatar means even the privileged like me must do as men say
In the Gulf state, women go to university and walk the streets safely. But one Qatari woman, 23, describes how men remain their ‘guardians’ for their whole lives.
As people around the world watch videos of men smiling and waving flags outside Doha’s stadiums, they are only seeing one side of the story: what this country is like for a man. In fact, they probably aren’t seeing many women at all.
I’m a 23-year-old Qatari woman, and I don’t longingly look out towards the West and think, “I wish I wasn’t so oppressed.” Western experiences aren’t all the same. But since I was a child, I’ve come up against rules and restrictions that limit my freedom.
The moment that I realised I was being treated differently from my brothers was when I was three or four, and I came home from a day out with my family. My three brothers went with my father to the majlis, a room where he would entertain male visitors. I was not allowed in because I was a girl.
Money affords me privileges that others can’t dream of. In Qatar we don’t have a nuclear family structure like in the West. If you’re born into privilege, there are other people involved. Our family had a driver, a housemaid, nannies and a gardener. My first language isn’t Arabic — it’s English, because that’s the language in which I spoke to my nanny, who was Sri Lankan. In many ways I was closer to her than my own mother. Girls go to school in Qatar. I attended a fee-paying school and studied the British curriculum, but education is free to all citizens.
Not all Qatari women wear the veil. When I was 12 or 13, my parents asked if I had thought about it, and if I had decided what I might like to do, if I wanted to wait or had any questions. I decided to say yes, so I started wearing a type of turban at first to cover my hair, then later I started wearing the shayla and the abaya.
Many women go to university as I do. In fact there are more female university graduates in Qatar than males. But that’s often where opportunity ends: the employment rate in Qatar for men is double that of women. As a woman, your priority is to get married and have children. I’ve heard of many women being told by their families that they weren’t allowed to go horse riding or cycling, because their virginity would be ruined and they would be impure. Once when I was a teenager, my aunt told me: “After God, the next person you obey is your husband.”
But today the birth rate is falling, as women pursue careers. Qatari women are also subject to a guardianship system, which is part of sharia. Women need the permission of a guardian, usually a father or brother, to marry, to get government jobs and to apply for a university scholarship. Once married, their guardian is then their husband. Women under 25 must ask permission from their guardian to leave the country.
Culturally, however, guardianship can last a lifetime. A woman’s husband can take out a travel ban to prevent her from leaving the country at any age, and airport officials have been known to stop women from leaving the country on their own. There is no one to appeal to; there are no anti-discrimination laws.
Most women my age hate the guardianship rules, and things are changing in Qatar, but culture is slow to follow. As of January 2020 women don’t need permission to drive, but my father won’t allow it. He said to me, “What if you get into a car crash? Will people see you on the street arguing with a man?” There have been academic trips abroad that I haven’t been allowed to go on. I wanted to study in the UK, but he forbade it. He said, “What will people say when they find out my daughter is sleeping in a house that isn’t mine?”
For my dad, it’s not really about anything other than what other people will say. Everyone knows everyone here. I have tried to fight him so many times, but sometimes you have to pick your battles. I am due to get married to a man who asked my parents for permission, and to whom I have also said yes — that’s how it works here (I’ve already rejected a couple of proposals because they didn’t feel right). The man I’m marrying is a friend of my family’s, and I think he shares a lot of my feminist values, too. From the messages we’ve been sending each other, we seem to be clicking really well. We have met, but only with our families there.
Some of my friends don’t want to get married, because they’re afraid that the person they’ll end up with is going to be more oppressive than their parents. That’s always a risk. There are no laws on rape within marriage. There is contraception, but not emergency contraception such as the morning-after pill, and abortion is only legal in cases of abnormalities with the foetus. Even then, a man must provide consent.
Women can write the terms they want their husband to adhere to in a marriage certificate. They might say something like: “You can’t stop me from getting an education; you can’t stop me from driving,” so that if your husband goes against them, you have proof that he’s violated the terms you agreed to. But unfortunately, not a lot of women do that — it’s seen as bad taste for the woman to ask, and a slight on her husband’s family. Qatari women can’t get a divorce easily. I know some older people who are trapped in marriages that are oppressive, that are physically and emotionally abusive, and yet they can’t escape. If you have children, the father is their legal guardian, and he can stop them leaving the country. The law in Qatar is not there to protect women; it is there to empower men. And there is no way to speak out about it. I have TikTok and Instagram, and often women use Twitter to talk about these topics — sometimes anonymously. Not a lot of Qatari women show their faces online, it’s still a sort of taboo.I do have some freedom, though. I go to the mall and have even walked around Doha on my own and with friends, against my parents’ wishes. It isn’t the danger; Qatar is very safe. Often it’s so hot that the streets are empty, and I find it scarier to be on the Tube in London. I rarely see migrant workers here, who aren’t allowed to live in Doha and reside in camps outside the city instead. They aren’t allowed to bring their family, and there is a feeling here that they are all bachelors who would do harm to women. On Fridays in the mall they’ll say it’s “family only day”, and that is lingo for “no migrant workers”. For my parents, it is more of a status thing. They don’t want me to be seen walking, because people would think: can’t you afford a car? Why would you use public transport? There are public beaches in Doha with women-only days and private beach clubs too, but I rarely go. You might not see women in the stadiums for the World Cup, but they are there. I have friends and family who have been. I know that there is an argument in the West that the World Cup shouldn’t have been held here but I disagree. I remain optimistic that it can be a force for good. With the world watching closely, there’s nowhere for the government to hide. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-rights-in-qatar-drive-work-study-cdqfl53zk
Why underage marriages are still prevalent in #Pakistan
S. Khan
The recent marriage of a 5-year-old girl in Pakistan's western province of Baluchistan has reignited debate over child protection, and the role of hard-line clergy in family matters.In October, two men in Pakistan's Baluchistan province were arrested after police were tipped off that a 5-year-old girl had been forced into a marriage contract.The girl's uncle said that a local man had insisted the girl marry his son, and forced her father to accept a marriage contract. "We insisted that she is too young to contract a marriage," the girl's uncle told DW, adding that the exchange between the two men had been filmed and then reported to police. The local police chief said those responsible for arranging the marriage had been arrested, but the case was not closed. "We are still trying to trace the cleric who performed the religious ceremony of the marriage contract," he said. This is not an isolated incident. According to UNICEF, Pakistan has nearly 19 million child brides. The UN children's agency estimates that around 4.6 million were married before the age of 15 and 18.9 million before they turned 18."But this is just the tip of the iceberg as very few such cases are reported, because reporting them would stigmatize the family that does so," she said.According to Habib, the country's tribal areas have the most cases of underage marriage. Yasmin Lehri, a former lawmaker from Baluchistan's capital Quetta, said almost all girls in rural and tribal areas of the province were married before the age of 18. "In urban areas, because of growing awareness, girls are married at 18 or older […] but in the rest of the province the situation is very grim," she said.Lehri explained that poverty and economic factors played a significant role, with young girls often exchanged between families to work as laborers.Women and children walk with their belongings towards a higher ground following rains and floods during the monsoon season in Dera Allah Yar, district Jafferabad, Balochistan,Women and children walk with their belongings towards a higher ground following rains and floods during the monsoon season in Dera Allah Yar, district Jafferabad, Balochistan. Religious parties oppose setting minimum marriage age. Across Pakistan, civil society has been at the forefront of fighting to end child marriage, pushing for tougher laws and working closely with communities, authorities and religious groups to change attitudes. Pakistani lawmaker Kishwar Zehra said the country's religious right was the biggest opposition to a law stipulating a minimum marriage age."When a bill setting an age limit was presented in the national assembly's committee, it was strongly opposed by religious-minded lawmakers," she told DW. Maulana Sherani, a former chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology, has publicly opposed any law setting the minimum age of marriage for girls. The council advises the government on the compatibility of legislation with Islam. In 2014, the council declared child marriage restraint laws "un-Islamic," triggering outrage from civil society and media. When a bill establishing a minimum age was presented in the Baluchistan assembly, religious parties also opposed it, said former lawyer Lehri. Samia Raheel Qazi, a former lawmaker, said the minimum age for marriage for girls should be 18, and that "a massive awareness campaign is needed to root it out, instead of blaming religion and advocating Western values." https://www.dw.com/en/why-underage-marriages-are-still-prevalent-in-pakistan/a-63860202 Skip next section Expl
Opinion: The army is back at the center of #Pakistan’s politics
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By Hamid MirAfter months of intrigue, Pakistan finally has a new army chief. The job is going to Lt. Gen. Asim Munir, a former head of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the powerful military intelligence agency. Many Pakistanis breathed a sigh of relief at the news, which has — at least for the moment — warded off fears of a fresh political crisis. The reason: In recent months, ex-prime minister Imran Khan has been pushing for a confrontation with the senior army leadership that some feared might lead to the army announcing martial law. For the moment, at least, that threat appears to have been averted. The current situation would have been hard to predict back in 2018, when Khan became prime minister in an election that has been described as one of the dirtiest in the country’s history, marked by intimidation, corruption and extensive vote-rigging. It is widely assumed that Khan — who was toppled from power by a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April — benefited from the army’s support at the time. Khan’s main political opponent, Nawaz Sharif, blamed then-army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa for toppling his government. (Khan tried to turn the tables by accusing Sharif of exploiting the army’s support.) During his first months in office, Khan enjoyed close ties with the military. His good relationship with the generals raised his credibility in India’s eyes, which helped him launch many initiatives to normalize relations with Delhi, including a cease-fire achieved last year. But differences soon began to emerge. Gen. Bajwa wanted to move fast in improving relations with India, but Khan was more cautious. In the fall of 2021, Khan became involved in a conflict with the army over the fate of Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, whom Khan wanted to retain as the head of the ISI despite the army’s plans to transfer him to another position. Khan’s opponents began to suspect that he was planning to appoint Hameed as the new army chief to achieve his own political objectives. (The current chief of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Nadeem Anjum, recently accused Khan of demanding unspecified “illegal” favors from the military.) When the opposition realized that Khan no longer enjoyed the army’s support, they seized advantage of his vulnerability by removing him through a vote of no confidence. That is the source of Khan’s current grudge against the military: He believes that his former allies betrayed him politically, and he’s been trying to get revenge by doing everything he can in the past few weeks to block the appointment of a new army chief. It’s important to remember that Khan isn’t just an ordinary Pakistani opposition leader — he’s a major power player. His party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), controls two big provinces, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as well as two smaller regions, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. The president of Pakistan, Arif Alvi, is a former member of the PTI; he serves as the supreme commander of the armed forces, meaning that the prime minister is supposed to consult him, at least formally, on the appointment of any new army chief. Khan tried to enlist Alvi’s help to block a new appointment; in the end, though, the president took a more cautious stance, advising Khan not to alienate the new head of the army. Khan’s resentment of the military has led him to extremes. Lately he’s been accusing the army of trying to kill him, blaming a serving general (as well as the government) for involvement in the recent shooting that left Khan wounded. Yet there is zero evidence for the claim. (The shooter, who was arrested, cited religious reasons for the attack, though his motives are not entirely clear.) In recent days, Khan tried to add fuel to his feud with the military by staging a major rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi. In the end, though, he decided to call off a planned march on nearby Islamabad, the capital, to avoid causing “havoc,” he said. Khan’s attempts to foment instability by stirring up conflict with the army probably serve his larger goal of pushing for fresh elections this winter. Many politicians think that Khan is intentionally trying to provoke a state of martial law because he wants to become a political martyr to avoid disqualification under corruption charges. Khan himself said in a recent interview: “Let there be martial law, I am not scared.” Bajwa, the outgoing head of the army, just gave a speech in which he affirmed that the military will stay out of politics in the future. Yet the fact remains that no issue is generating more public discussion and concern now than the role of the army. Ironically, it’s all thanks to Khan’s maneuverings. If Khan, as he claims, truly supports an apolitical role for the military, he has my support. Remaining neutral will be the biggest challenge for the new army chief. He must prove that he is not taking sides and that he is not more powerful than the parliament, which should be allowed to shape the country’s foreign policy — especially regarding Afghanistan and relations with India — without interference. The new army chief should focus his efforts on the deteriorating law-and-order situation in the areas bordering Afghanistan, where his soldiers are coming under attack every day. But Pakistan’s state of political uncertainty doesn’t end there. Now that his bid to block the army chief appointment has failed, Khan has shocked everyone with a new move: He has announced that the PTI will pull out of the provincial assemblies it controls. He has played his final card. Pakistanis are bracing for what happens next. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/26/pakistan-army-chief-imran-khan/
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Confronting Iran Protests, Regime Uses Brute Force but Secretly Appeals to Moderates
The outreach to the Khomeini and Rafsanjani families indicates the government is searching for other measures to quell the demonstrations—and considering concessions that only months ago would have been considered unthinkable. Few other Iranian families have deeper roots at the highest levels of the Islamic Republic. An ascetic Shia cleric whose return from exile helped bring down the monarchy in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the father of Iran’s revolution and its first supreme leader until his death a decade later. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani engineered Mr. Khamenei’s ascent to the post. He was the country’s president from 1989 to 1997, and remained a pragmatic insider until he died in 2017. Younger members of the Khomeini and Rafsanjani clans have built careers in business and politics, often as reformists or moderates at odds with Mr. Khamenei. Mr. Rafsanjani’s youngest daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, and other members of the two families have been detained during the recent protests.In late October, Mr. Shamkhani, the head of Iran’s National Supreme Security Council, invited Mr. Ansari, who is close to the Khomeini family, and Hossein Marashi, a relative of Mr. Rafsanjani’s wife, to a meeting in his Tehran office, the people told about the meeting said. Also in attendance, they said, was Behzad Nabavi, who founded the Islamic Republic’s intelligence service and is now close to the reformist former president Mr. Khatami. Mr. Shamkhani, the security chief, expressed confidence in the Islamic Republic’s resilience, saying he had received information the U.S. wasn’t seeking regime change, the people briefed on the meeting said. If the families would ask protesters to stand down, he told them, liberalizing measures that reformist-minded members of these factions had long favored could follow, the people said. Mr. Shamkhani arranged for them to meet a week later with President Raisi, who repeated the request for the support of the two families, the people said. Mr. Marashi suggested to the Iranian leaders that they should reach an agreement with the U.S. on reviving a 2015 agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting international sanctions, the people familiar with the talks said. Reviving the deal—a goal of many moderates and reformists who favor engagement with the West—would ease Iran’s economic isolation and help defuse the protests, he said. The talks have so far gone nowhere, the people said. Officials involved in the nuclear talks have said that the two sides were close to a deal in August, but the negotiations have since deadlocked over Tehran’s demands for an end to an unrelated United Nations investigation of its nuclear activities. After the Iran protests broke out in September, Biden administration officials said the nuclear talks are no longer a priority.
Mr. Marashi said he couldn’t immediately comment when reached by phone and didn’t respond to subsequent requests. Messrs. Shamkhani, Ansari and Raisi—through his government’s website—didn’t respond to requests for comment. Mr. Nabavi couldn’t be reached. Since the meetings, some members of the two families have publicly backed the protesters. Hassan Khomeini, a prominent reformist cleric and grandson of the republic’s founder, issued a public call for sweeping political change. “The most rational way of running the country is majority-oriented democracy,” he told reformist website Bayan Farda on Nov. 8. “You should have hope in God and then trust in people,” he said, adding such views positioned him as loyal to his grandfather’s ideals. A reformists’ faction to which Mr. Marashi belongs is now calling for a referendum to decide on the regime’s future. Other sidelined reformist officials have moved steadily closer to the protesters. Parvaneh Salahshouri, a former Iranian lawmaker who advocated against the mandatory hijab and was the leader of a small group of reformist female legislators, has become steadily more critical of the government since she decided not to run for re-election in 2021.“Be sure that God’s patience has run out with your cruelty,” she warned the government this month in a tweet. She has also criticized reformists, such as Mr. Khatami, saying their efforts to work within Iran’s government have failed. One danger for the regime is that groups that have supported the government—including powerful Shiite clerics based in the holy city of Qom—could reconsider if they begin to doubt its ability to contain the unrest. Even more dangerous is that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful branch of the armed forces that has evolved over decades into a semiautonomous institution with extensive commercial interests, could formally seize power and replace Iran’s theocracy with military-dominated rule. Most Iranians oppose the Islamic Republic’s theocratic form of government, polls show. About 68% of respondents in a 2020 poll of Iranians said they believe that religious requirements should be excluded from state legislation, according to the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran, a nonprofit research foundation in the Netherlands. Only 14% agreed that laws should accord with religious teachings. Even supporters concede that Mr. Khamenei’s push to exclude reformist and moderate voices from the government have left many Iranians feeling disengaged, with no outlet to voice their frustrations other than protests. “In the days when people do not have significant participation in the minimum platforms created for political participation, such as elections, it is clearly necessary to take steps in the direction of designing mechanisms and processes to make the will of the people flow in the structures,” Mohammed Reza Ziaie, a student leader in the Basij militia, which role is to defend the Islamic Republic’s system, told Mr. Raisi in a January public address. Supreme Leader Khamenei has shown no sign of relenting. “We brought together the republic and Islam; we brought together the presence of the people and the opinions of the people and God’s knowledge,” he said in a Nov. 2 recorded address. “We did this work with divine success.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-protests-government-mahsa-amini-11669137860?mod=hp_lead_pos5
Monday, November 21, 2022
Sunday, November 20, 2022
OPINION: Did the Midterms Save American Democracy?
ROSS DOUTHATFor everyone furiously debating the condition of American democracy, the 2022 midterms were a beautiful thing — a gift to both sides of the argument, a Rorschach test that yields to either interpretation. Suppose, first, that you were among the democracy-in-peril alarmists, for whom Trumpism and MAGA Republicanism represent not just a chaotic populism but an existential threat. What did you see happen?Well, you saw an embattled president, Joe Biden, decide to make the defense of democracy itself his key election theme. For this, he was scorned from multiple directions — for ignoring kitchen-table issues, for conflating normal conservative positions with authoritarianism, for failing to offer the kind of radical bipartisanship that his diagnosis would imply. Yet in the end it seemed to work: Voters who were otherwise inclined to vote for G.O.P. candidates did tend to reject exactly the kind of “MAGA Republicans” — the Trump-endorsed and Trump-imitating, the most paranoid-seeming “Stop the Stealers” — that Biden’s argument tried to single out. The red wave predicted by fundamentals and history disappointed, in part, because Americans judged a subset of Republican candidates too extreme to entrust with normal democratic powers. The public did the work of de-Trumpification that Trump-era Republicans themselves had failed to do — and they did so, one could argue, precisely because of alarms raised on democracy’s behalf. Thus the happy conclusion for the alarmist camp: Democracy was in danger, and for this cycle, at least, we saved it. But then imagine yourself a non-alarmist, looking at the same results. For the last few years you’ve heard the alarmists argue that the problem isn’t just Trump or his epigones — that the entire Republican Party has been remade as an authoritarian formation, that its preferred election rules are basically Jim Crow 2.0., that the structures of American government are enabling permanent minority rule by a white-identitarian right, that the United States is on the brink of low-grade civil war, that Jan. 6 never ended and the right won’t accept any election result that doesn’t go its way. Yet what did you see happen? Most Republican candidates losing their elections and conceding entirely normally, the MAGA candidates included. Georgia, supposedly ground zero for the new Jim Crow, delivering normal turnout and another strong performance for its African-American Democratic senator. The structures of American government delivering Republicans less power in Washington than their current raw vote totals would imply, with a Democratic Senate and the thinnest House majority for the G.O.P. despite their solid-seeming majority in the House popular vote. A continued migration of minority voters into the Republican Party, suggesting that the country is actually growing less polarized by race. And a conspicuous absence of the kind of violence that the new-civil-war prognosticators keep expecting.Between these two interpretations of 2022 — the alarmists celebrating a hard-fought victory for democracy and the non-alarmists seeing a predictable return to normalcy — is any synthesis or handshake possible? Let me propose two possible concessions, one from each direction. First, the alarmists might concede that the unique shamelessness of Trump himself, joined to the wild, weird circumstances of 2020 — a pandemic, a wave of riots and protests, an on-the-fly remaking of election procedures — were probably more determinative of Republican voter-fraud paranoia and its Jan. 6 consummation than some deliberate ideological turn toward authoritarianism or semi-fascism. In other words, the results of 2022 don’t vitiate the original alarmist idea that Trump is a dangerous figure who shouldn’t be entrusted with the presidency. But they do call into question the systemic alarmism, the belief that the entire Republican Party is seceding from normal democratic politics and that Trump’s ascent was just a trigger for that process. Then likewise, the non-alarmist might concede that such fascism-on-the-march alarmism, overblown as it may seem, may itself be one of the forces that tends to stabilize a democratic system, by mobilizing and balancing against excesses and paranoias on the other side. That the hyperbole before the midterms — think of the TV historian Michael Beschloss envisioning a right-wing dictatorship arresting and executing children — may have been one reason among many why so many “Stop the Steal” candidates got pasted in their races. And that such alarmism has arguably always played a version of this balancing, stabilizing role, all the way back to the early days of the Republic when the various factions reliably traded accusations of monarchism and Jacobinism. This last image, of extremisms and anxieties about extremism balancing one another out, also suggests a hopeful way for the alarmists and non-alarmists of the Trump era to think about our relationship to one another: not just as rival interpreters of our democracy’s discontents, but as partners, in some strange way, in its continuing stability.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/opinion/midterms-democracy.html
Chinese CH-4B Drone Spotted Over #Balochistan; Reports Indicate #Pakistan Army Is Using Them To Crush Rebellion
Drawing lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war that saw a surge in drone warfare, Pakistan has become the latest state to press its Chinese-origin combat CH-4B drones to hunt Baloch rebels.
Earlier this month, Pakistan allegedly conducted a massive military offensive against Baloch rebels in the Bolan region by deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), fighter jets, and Gunship helicopters, along with SSG Commandos, according to Balochistan Post-English.
According to reports, the Pakistani Army deployed jets against Baloch nationalists in the highlands of Bolan in Balochistan.The Pakistani military operations were resisted by the Baloch militias, which, in turn, killed two SSG Commandos. EurAsian Times could not independently verify the number of Pakistani commandos killed by the rebels.
While the Pakistani Army has used fighter jets and armed helicopters against Baloch rebels for several years, the use of combat UAVs is new and is continuously increasing. The Balochistan Post-English tweeted that China and Turkey have supplied various models of combat UAVs to Pakistan.
According to the information on the microblogging site Twitter and Pakistan-based defense blogs, Chinese CH-4B UAVs were spotted over Bolan, Balochistan, where the rebels killed two SSG Commandos.
The Pakistani military is accused by the people of Balochistan of the excesses committed against them and has intensified its armed assault in recent times.
According to a recent report of The Balochistan Post, the Human Rights Council of Balochistan received 41 cases of enforced disappearance and thirty cases of extrajudicial executions in Balochistan during October 2022.
Pakistan received five Cai Hong 4 (Rainbow 4, or CH-4) multirole medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAVs from China in January 2021. At the time, it was not revealed which variant of the CH-4 drone was acquired by Islamabad.
However, later reports suggested it was the CH-4B variant.
A Chinese PLA detachment based in Pasni, Gwadar, allegedly helps the Pakistani military operate these CH-4 drones. The Pakistan military has a naval air station at Pasni known as PNS Makran. China is developing the Port of Gwadar under the China-Pakistan Economic Agreement (CPEC), a premise for deploying PLA troops in the region.
China pursues a “strategic strongpoint” concept, whereby its military can use strategically located foreign ports with terminals and commercial zones run by Chinese companies.
This makes it plausible that the PLA detachment would assist the Pakistani troops in operating the CH-4B. However, we could not independently corroborate this notion, and Pakistani netizens dismissed it as propaganda.
That being said, Pakistan’s use of combat drones against Baloch insurgents is yet another example of militaries turning to drones for combat after watching the deployment of UAVs in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The conflict has led to a proliferation of drones. Pakistan is slated to receive Bayraktar Akinci and TB2 drones from its ally Turkey.
CH-4B Drones
The ALIT and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC)-developed CH-4 family of multirole MALE UAVs features a wide range of sensor options.
The People’s Liberation Army of China is known to use two variants: the standard CH-4A, which has a flight endurance of 30 hours and is primarily designed for reconnaissance missions, and the strike-capable CH-4B, which can carry a 345-kilogram weapon payload but has a shorter flight endurance of 14 hours. The Pakistani Army reportedly uses the CH-4B Strike variant.
Pakistan’s CH-4 drones were spotted at a Pakistani airbase close to India’s border in August 2021, as reported by EurAsian Times. Satellite imagery shared by an open-source intelligence showed four CH-4 combat drones at the Bahawalpur airbase in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
The drone has attracted many customers worldwide. Just a day before the CH-4B was spotted over Balochistan, Chinese state media Global Times reported a record demand for the CH-4 drone in the international market.
Citing the manufacturer China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the report said it had sold over 200 units of CH-4 drones to international customers.
It has a weapon that can be fired from a distance of up to 5,000 meters and is made explicitly for high-altitude operations over land and water. The UAV also features a retractable electro-optical sensor turret and a data link to the ground control station.
In addition, the CH-4 has a contemporary, two-person control station that allows for both line-of-sight and satellite communications, according to Popular Science. According to military watchers, this Chinese drone resembles the American MQ-9 Reaper.
https://eurasiantimes.com/chinese-ch-4b-drone-spotted-over-balochistan-reports-indicate/