KARACHI: Following the medical staff’s strike across government hospitals in Sindh, patients remain stranded, while OPDs and operation theaters remain shut making access to healthcare difficult for public and adding to their misery.

As a result of the strike, the province’s largest government health facility in Karachi the Civil Hospital is deserted and its operation theaters are also empty.

The hospital has gathered a mound of garbage with its sanitary staff refusing to work. While sanitation has also been poor in Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), National Institute of Child Health (NICH), Lyari General Hospital, and other medical establishments of the government.

OPDs remain closed in all of Karachi’s biggest hospitals for the past several days, which has forced poor patients and their families to seek treatment in expensive private healthcare facilities.

The situation is similar in other cities including Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Larkana, and Jacobabad where hospitals’ medical staff remains on strike following which patients rushing toward private hospitals, medical centres and clinics.

It should be noted that protests for the closure of health risk allowance are ongoing across government hospitals in Sindh on behalf of the Grand Health Alliance.

Demonstrations are being held by young doctors, nurses, paramedical, and sanitary staff. The protestors have resolved to continue strike until their demands are met.

Nursing leader Shahid Iqbal said that all the government medical staff has been protesting for the last 25 days across Sindh and have not been performing any duties except for working in the emergency. Iqbal demanded the provision of health risk allowance.

Patients, meanwhile, have demanded the protesting medical staff to end their strike and provided treatment across government hospitals in the province.

Washington, Nov 14 (AFP/APP): Former US president Donald Trump is expected to officially launch another White House bid on Tuesday, refusing calls from within his own Republican party to fade away after his loyalists underperformed in this year’s midterm elections.

The 76-year-old billionaire, whose 2016 win shocked America and the world, has summoned the press to his Florida mansion for a “very big announcement” at 9:00 PM Tuesday (0200 GMT Wednesday).

“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he’s running for president,” said one of his advisors, Jason Miller, who predicts the speech will be “very professional, very buttoned up.”

Known for his unpredictability, Trump could still change his mind at the last minute, but for months he has barely hidden his desire to vie for the presidency again in 2024.

Delaying the announcement now, as some of his advisors have reportedly suggested to him, would be highly awkward for Trump because he has billed it as “perhaps be the most important speech given in the history of the USA.”

A 2024 White House bid would be Trump’s third presidential campaign and — if he wins his party’s nomination — the fifth national election with him as the Republican Party standard-bearer.

In 2016, Trump and the Republicans swept into power, taking control of the White House and maintaining their majorities in both chambers of Congress.

But Democrats won back the House of Representatives in a 2018 landslide after campaigning largely against Trump’s caustic style.

Trump then lost reelection in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden — Trump still refuses to accept defeat — while Democrats won control of the 100-seat Senate with a de-facto majority due to Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote in the chamber split 50-50.

After leaving Washington in chaos shortly after his partisans stormed the US Capitol, Trump chose to remain in the political arena, continuing to fund-raise and hold rallies around the country.

Leading up to the 2022 midterm vote, in which Biden’s Democrats had been expected to lose handily, Trump made denial of the 2020 election results a key litmus test for candidates to win his influential political endorsement.

But the predicted Republican “red wave” failed to materialize, and Democrats will maintain their control of the Senate. In the still-undecided House, Republicans seem likely to eke out only a razor-thin majority.

The results have emboldened Trump’s Republican detractors and sapped most of his political momentum heading into the Tuesday campaign launch.

   “It’s basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race, and it’s like, three strikes and you’re out,” said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a vocal Trump critic, Sunday on CNN.

Trump’s response has been to double down on unfounded claims of ballot rigging in the midterms, posting on his Truth Social platform that the results were a “scam” — and pointing a finger of blame at Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

“It’s Mitch McConnell’s fault,” he posted, saying the Kentuckian had badly allocated campaign funds and pursued a flawed legislative agenda.

“He blew the Midterms, and everyone despises him,” said Trump, who has long been at loggerheads with McConnell.

Tuesday’s announcement is widely seen as a way to take the wind out of the sails of potential Republican rivals, namely Ron DeSantis, the freshly-reelected Florida governor and rising star who has also won the backing of Rupert Murdoch’s conservative media empire.

Trump’s new White House pursuit will also be hampered by the multiple investigations into his conduct before, during and after the presidency — which could result in his disqualification.

A suspect was arrested by the early hours of Monday

Agencies

ANKARA: Turkey’s interior minister accused the Kurdistan’s Workers’ Party (PKK) of responsibility for a bombing in a busy Istanbul shopping thoroughfare that killed six people and said on Monday a suspect has been arrested.

The explosion tore through Istiklal Street, a popular shopping destination for locals and tourists, on Sunday afternoon, wounding dozens.

A suspect was arrested by the early hours of Monday.

“The person who planted the bomb has been arrested,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in a statement broadcast by the official Anadolu news agency.

“According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organisation is responsible,” he said.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara as well as its Western allies, has kept up a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s.

Regularly targeted by Turkish military operations, the group is also at the heart of a tussle between Sweden and Turkey, which has been blocking Stockholm’s entry into Nato since May, accusing it of leniency towards the PKK.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the “vile attack” on Istiklal.

“It might be wrong if we say for sure that this is terror but according to first signs … there is a smell of terror there,” Erdogan told a news conference on Sunday.

Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay said, “We believe that it is a terrorist act carried out by an attacker, whom we consider to be a woman, exploding the bomb”.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said: “A woman had been sitting on one of the benches for more than 40 minutes and then she got up”.

“One or two minutes later, an explosion occurred,” he told A Haber television.

“There are two possibilities,” he said. “There’s either a mechanism placed in this bag and it explodes, or someone remotely explodes (it).”

“All data on this woman are currently under scrutiny,” he said.

Soylu’s announcement did not add any details about the woman.

Turkish cities have been struck by militants and other groups in the past.

Istiklal Street was hit during a campaign of attacks in 2015-2016 that targeted Istanbul and other cities, including Ankara.

Those bombings were mostly blamed on the militant Islamic State group and outlawed Kurdish militants, and killed nearly 500 people and wounded more than 2,000.

Sunday’s explosion occurred shortly after 4:00pm (1300 GMT) in the famous shopping street.

Helicopters flew over the city centre after the attack. Police established a large security cordon to prevent access to the area for fear of a second explosion.

Images posted on social media showed the explosion was followed by flames and immediately triggered panic, with people running in all directions.

Several bodies were seen lying on the ground nearby.

“I was 50-55 metres away, suddenly there was the noise of an explosion. I saw three or four people on the ground,” witness Cemal Denizci, 57, told.

“People were running in panic. The noise was huge. There was black smoke,” he said.

Istiklal, in the historic district of Beyoglu, is one of the most famous arteries of Istanbul. It is entirely pedestrianised for 1.4 kilometres, or about a mile.

Criss-crossed by an old tramway and lined with shops and restaurants, it attracts large crowds at the weekend.

Many stores closed early in the neighbouring district of Galata, while some passers-by, who came running from the site of the explosion, had tears in their eyes.

A massive deployment of security forces barred all entrances and rescue workers and police could be seen.

Turkey’s radio and television watchdog, RTUK, placed a ban on broadcasters showing footage of the blast, a measure previously taken in the aftermath of extremist attacks.

Access to social media was also restricted after the attack.

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Monday that PTI chairman Imran Khan’s rebuttal of the foreign conspiracy narrative was a reminder of the “vicious role he played to harm Pakistan’s external relations while pursuing his own petty politics”.

In an intervie w with British newspaper Financial Times, Imran — who has repeatedly claimed that a US-backed conspiracy was behind his ouster in April — said he no longer “blamed” the US administration for his removal from power.

The PTI chief also said he wanted a “dignified” relationship between Washington and Islamabad.

“As far as I’m concerned it is over, it’s behind me,” the newspaper quoted Imran as saying. In a tweet today, the premier said that the nation was shocked by Imran’s “deceit and treachery inflicting irreparable damage on Pakistan”.

Meanwhile, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, in a series of tweets, said that the former premier will have to provide an answer for the apparent change in his narrative.

She addressed Imran and said that putting the matter behind him would not suffice.

“You will have to give an answer for the narrative on the basis of which lies and chaos were spread in the country,” she said, adding that withdrawing the claims without giving an explanation would not be enough.

“Today is a question mark for all those who believed what Imran said.”

Lambasting Imran for “playing with national interest”, the information czar said the former PM cannot get rid of all the accusations by saying “it’s behind me”.

“After destroying the country with his lies, Imran is now telling everyone to forget the US conspiracy narrative,” she said.

“Does Imran think his supporters are sheep and goats?”

The PML-N minister said the PTI chief is backtracking from his narrative of US conspiracy, imported government and the regime change operation because it never existed in the first place.

“Today, Imran Khan has given up on his narrative of imported government and regime change,” Marriyum added, saying that the real face of the party’s so-called Haqeeqi Azaadi had been “completely exposed”.

The information minister accused Imran of putting the country’s foreign relations in grave danger for the sake of power.

“Imran played a dirty game with national interests in his lust for power. He pulled off tricks and put the country and its people at stake. After teaching lies to the nation, Imran now says that the US conspiracy is over.”

She questioned how Imran could tell everyone to leave the US conspiracy narrative behind when he had kept appealing to the Supreme Court to take notice of it.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman also termed Imran’s recent claims as the “mother of all U-turns”.Separately, addressing the parliament later in the day, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Imran should not be allowed to go scot-free after the series of allegations levelled against the “imported” government for coming into power through a “US conspiracy” and a “regime change operation.”

Discussions underway to do away with the legislation, claims Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah

DNA

ISLAMABAD: The PML N government intends to change the law that seeks to give extension to the Chief of the Army Staff in order to defuse any confusions, said the Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah while speaking in a TV show on Monday.

The interior minister further said the government was already in contact with its allies on this issue and wants to do away with it sooner rather than later. He said the high command of the PML N discussed these issues during recent meetings.

Rana Sanaullah further said the purpose of doing away with the extension system is to avoid any confusion and unnecessary controversies. He said, respective army chiefs may try to get extension which may create institutional problems therefore the government wants to amend this provision. He hoped the military establishment would also support the initiative.

To a question he said the summary for the appointment of new army chief shall be initiated as per law. He said the prime minister will make the selection keeping in view the larger interest of the country.

He said, there were unnecessary rumors being spread about this appointment. He also dispelled the impression as if this appointment were discussed in London. He said, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is well aware of the sensitivity of this appointment there he would never discuss it publicly. He avoided the question when he was asked whether the current DG ISI was also in the run for the coveted slot. He made it clear that no government high officials had ever met with the candidates being discussed for the top post.

The Interior Minister said, “people should wait and see and avoid speculations”. He however asserted that everybody would be satisfied with the selection the prime minister will make, at the end of the day. He also ruled out divergent views among the party leaders on various names being discussed for the said post.