ISLAMABAD, NOV 20 (DNA) — Federal Minister for Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety and Chairperson Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) Shazia Marri has said that the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) is providing scholarships to deserving families for children’s education and health under Benazir Nashouma and Benazir Taleemi Wazaif Programs.

In her message on the occasion of International Children’s Day on Sunday, Shazia Marri said that we should remember millions of those children who have been displaced by the recent floods and who are waiting for our help. We all should come to stand together to help those suffering children. “Today is the day to work together for the welfare of children”, she added.

The Federal Minister mentioned the Benazir Nashonuma Program and said that through this program, sachets of vitamins and minerals are provided to the mothers and children, which make them healthy.

Highlighting the importance of education, Chairperson BISP, Shazia Marri said that through Benazir Taleemi Wazaif, children of deserving families are provided with services to get basic education, and girls are given special importance over boys so that poor parents can support girls’ education. =DNA

ISLAMABAD, NOV 20: PPP Senator Raza Rabbani Sunday called for a joint parliament session to hold a briefing on last week’s terrorist attack at the Pak-Afghan border crossing in Chaman that martyred a Frontier Corps (FC) soldier and injured another two.

The trade activities and other cross-border movements were halted under the border closure after unidentified armed men opened fire on the Pakistani security troops from inside Afghanistan, martyring an FC soldier and injuring two others on November 13.

“Armed men from Afghanistan opened fire on the Pakistan security forces personnel at the Friendship Gate,” Rabbani said while sharing the details about a flag meeting between the authorities from the two sides.

He said that Saturday’s flag meeting remained futile.

The senator further stated that a rise in terrorist activities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan has been observed, while the progress in parleys with the banned outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) remains unclear.

Calling for a joint parliament session, Rabbani said that a special briefing should be given on the terrorist attack at the Friendship Gate and progress on talks with TTP should be shared.

He also called for a briefing on the increase in terrorist activities in the two provinces and said that amendments in the rules for the appointment of the chairman and the reformation of the parliamentary committee of national security should be notified.

Rabbani said that the Pak-Afghan border crossing at Chaman will remain closed for an indefinite period.

Hundreds of trucks containing goods were stuck waiting on both sides of the border, which Chaman Deputy Commissioner Abdul Hameed Zehri said was closed after prolonged firing between security forces from both sides.

A spokesperson for the media wing of Pakistan’s military said they were looking into the situation to determine what had happened.

Meanwhile, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, in her weekly press briefing Thursday, said that matter has been raised with the Afghan authorities and is currently under investigation.

Baloch said that the pedestrians who were stranded at the border have been allowed to cross and we remain vigilant and actively involved in the matter.

Pakistan has called on the Taliban to ensure it lives up to promises that it would not harbour international militants. The Taliban denies harbouring militants.

ISLAMABAD, NOV 20: Pakistan Sunday welcomed a UN climate summit’s initiative to set up a “loss and damage” fund for vulnerable countries and termed it the “first step in reaffirming the core principles of climate justice”.

The UN’s COP27 climate summit has approved the creation of a special fund to cover the losses suffered by vulnerable nations hit by the impact of global warming.

Delegates applauded after the “loss and damage” fund was approved by consensus following two weeks of contentious negotiations over demands by developing nations for rich polluters to compensate them for the destruction from weather extremes.

In a series of tweets, Federal Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman said it’s been a long 30-year journey from demand to the formation of the loss and damage Fund for 134 countries. “We welcome today’s announcement and joint text hammered out thru many nights. It’s an important first step in reaffirming the core principles of climate justice,” the minister said.

Pakistan and other climate-vulnerable countries — at the COP27 —had demanded the international community to take steps to mobilise “loss and damage” funds for disaster-hit nations, and some say rich nations must pay these costs because their historical emissions are mostly responsible for global warming.

Rehman noted that now that the fund has been established, Pakistan looks forward to it being operationalised and becoming a robust body that can answer with agility to the needs of the vulnerable, the fragile and those on the frontline of climate disasters. The minister said the announcement offers hope to vulnerable communities all over the world who are fighting for their survival from climate stress.

It also, she noted, gives some credibility to the COP process, and now it’s up to the transitional committee to move it forward by December 2023 as decided. Pakistan — the world’s fifth largest population — is responsible for only 0.8% of global greenhouse emissions but is one of the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by global warming.

Earlier this year, Pakistan was struck by devastating monsoon floods that left nearly a third of the country under water, affecting more than 30 million people and leaving a repair bill estimated at nearly $30 billion.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif noted that the establishment of the loss and damage fund at the UN climate summit was the first pivotal step towards the goal of climate justice. “It is up to the transitional committee to build on the historic development,” he said.

Concerted effort

The “loss and damage” inflicted by climate-induced disasters was not even officially up for discussion when UN talks in Egypt began.

But a concerted effort among developing countries to make it the defining issue of the conference melted the resistance of wealthy polluters long fearful of open-ended liability and gathered unstoppable momentum as the talks progressed.

“At the beginning of these talks loss and damage was not even on the agenda and now we are making history, said Mohamed Adow, executive director of Power Shift Africa.

“It just shows that this UN process can achieve results and that the world can recognise the plight of the vulnerable must not be treated as a political football.”

Loss and damage covers a broad sweep of climate impacts, from bridges and homes washed away in flash flooding, to the threatened disappearance of cultures and whole islands to the creeping rise of sea levels.

This year an onslaught of climate-induced disasters — from catastrophic floods in Pakistan to severe drought-threatening famine in Somalia — sharpened the focus on disaster-hit countries, which were already struggling with soaring inflation and mounting debts.

Mushahid says ‘Asian hands to shape Asian destiny in Asian Century’, 70 political parties from 33 countries participate

DNA

ISLAMABAD, NOV 20: The International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), Asia’s oldest and largest organisation of political parties, unanimously elected Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed as the ICAPP Co-Chairman at its biennial  conference here in the historic Turkish city, with 200 representatives and leaders of 70 political parties from 33 countries participating. Mushahid’s name for Co-Chairman was proposed by Thailand and Iran, and supported by China, Cambodia, Russia, Lebanon, Turkiye and Indonesia, before being put to a vote.

Former Foreign Minister of South Korea, Chung Euiyong, was re-elected Chairman of ICAPP.

The ICAPP Conference, held once every two years, also issued the ‘Istanbul Declaration’ which expressed solidarity with victims of the ‘recent devastating floods in Pakistan of epic proportions’ and urged  ‘alleviating hardships of people through climate finance and climate justice’.

Senator Mushahid Hussain thanked the participants for reposing confidence in him and termed his election as a ‘humbling experience for me personally and a great honour for Pakistan’ to be so recognised at an important global forum, which represents public opinion and political parties of the world’s largest continent, Asia.

Mushahid Hussain termed the current epoch as historic transformation for Asia as the ‘balance of economic and political power is shifting from West to East’ marking the ‘dawn of the ‘Asian Century’, which he noted the great visionary Poet of the East, Dr Allama Iqbal, had predicted 90 years back, when he wrote: ‘see, the Sun rising in the East’! He said ‘ICAPP is continuation of the Bandung Spirit, which started in 1955 with the first Afro-Asian Summit hosted by the great Indonesian leader, Dr Soekarno, at the Indonesian city of Bandung’. Senator Mushahid Hussain said the ‘time has come that Asian hands must shape Asian destiny and the future of Asia’. He recounted his own early exposure to Asia, when he was a student studying at a school in Jakarta while his father served as Pakistan’s first Defence Attaché to Indonesia, and later his travels to China, Vietnam, Korea and Cambodia and other Asian countries.

Mushahid also referred to Pakistan’s close connections to Asia, when Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah supported the cause of Indonesian Independence in 1945, the Palestine issue in 1940 and admired the leadership of Turkey’s Mustafa Kamal Ataturk. He said formation of Indian National Army (INA) in Singapore in 1942 served as a catalyst for the freedom struggle in the South Asian subcontinent. Pakistanis also joined in solidarity with the Vietnamese people, while refusing to join the Korean War, although Pakistan participated in the 1955 Bandung Conference.

Senator Mushahid Hussain also quoted from three different world leaders to underline that the ‘current global scenario is unpredictable, volatile and unstable’, noting that President Biden calls it ‘the decisive decade’, President Putin says ‘this is the most dangerous decade after World War II’, while President Xi Jinping talks of ‘once in a century transformative change in the world’. In this context, Mushahid urged Asians to ‘avoid Bloc politics and reject any New Cold War’. He also praised Turkish President Erdogan’s role as a ‘bold voice for Asian rights’. A Media Forum, Business Council and a Tourism Conference were also held on the sidelines of the main ICAPP conference.

Earlier, ICAPP leaders, Chairman Chung Euiyong and Co-Chairman Senator Mushahid Hussain, accompanied by former Interior Minister and Deputy Chairman of Turkey ruling Justice & Development Party, Efkan Ala, visited the site in Istanbul’s Istaqlal Street where a terrorist bomb had killed and injured Turkish children, women and men, and they laid a floral wreath at the site, expressing solidarity with the victims families and condolences with the Turkish nation on this heinous crime against humanity. Mushahid also offered Fateha for the victims.

The next ICAPP Conference will convene in Cambodia in 2024.

ISLAMABAD, Nov 19 (DNA): Foreign Minister and Chairman Pakistan Peoples
Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday said that under relevant
procedure and laws, the appointment of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS)
was a prerogative of the incumbent prime minister whereas Imran Khan was
trying to make the whole process controversial, which would not be
allowed.

Addressing a news conference here, the foreign minister said that
Pakistan Tehreek-I-Insaf chief wanted to link his politics with the
appointment process of the new army chief.

Imran Khan thought about himself only and did not care for the entire
country suffering from the consequences of his petty politics, Bilawal
regretted.

“Why did you choose Rawalpindi? Khan sahib let this decision
(appointment of COAS) happen,” he said and suggested to PTI’s chief to
postpone his long march for the time being.

The foreign minister said the previous PTI’s government had damaged
country’s foreign policy, economy and democratic set up and now Imran
Khan only wanted to create political instability which would be strongly
resisted.

He said that during International Monetary Fund agreement, Imran Khan
had attacked Islamabad, which was foiled. Now all the democratic forces
in the country were united and the PTI chief would not be allowed
playing such like past tactics, he added.

Pakistan and its people could no longer bear any crises, he maintained.

The foreign minister said peaceful demonstration was a democratic right,
but no unconstitutional or undemocratic tactics could be allowed and
reiterated that Pakistan Peoples Party would play its democratic role as
it had manifested in the past by resisting all the undemocratic moves.

“Khan sahib wants to stop institutions playing their democratic role. He
wants to make undemocratic moves, but we will not allow him,” he added.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the parliamentary parties had played a
very democratic role to oust the government of Imran Khan through a vote
of no confidence.

The foreign minister said that Imran Khan had always carried out his
politics on the shoulders of undemocratic forces.

He said the future of a politician like Imran Khan was linked with
making institutions controversial.

If Imran Khan wanted a real freedom, then why did he wait for this week
for his political objectives? the foreign minister questioned.

Bilawal said the appointment of the new army chief was an administrative
decision and its completion would end the politics of Imran Khan.

Bilawal said the entire world was facing economic disaster due to the
Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Imran Khan’s decisions had damaged Pakistan’s ties with the countries in
the Middle East, Europe and the US, he added.