ISLAMABAD : Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has strongly denounced the publication of blasphemous caricatures by French Magazine Charlie Hebdo.

In a video statement on Thursday, the foreign minister said these caricatures have hurt the sentiments of millions of Muslims across the world.

“Pakistan has conveyed its concerns to the French government on the despicable act,” said Qureshi and added that those behind the publication of blasphemous caricatures must be taken to task.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that Prime Minister Imran Khan last year had raised the issue of blasphemous caricatures in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session. FM Qureshi expressed the confidence that the world will take immediate steps to put a stop to such acts and tendencies.

He said that Pakistan is a democratic country and believes in freedom of expression, but freedom of expression does not give license to anybody to hurt the sentiments of others.

The foreign minister noted there has been an increase in Islamophobia and Xenophobia across the world.

DNA

Islamabad:-Cosmetic procedures once used to be exclusive to Hollywood. Actresses used to get their facial features enhanced by a plastic surgeon. Plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures were once the open secret of Beverly Hills and there were many negative connotations attached to the act of going to a doctor to look beautiful. Times have changed, cosmetic procedures whether invasive or non-invasive have become a part of the beauty rituals all over the world.

According to a study published by American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 18 million Americans went under the knife for beauty purposes in 2018. As compared to 2017, there have been quarter a million more people who went under cosmetic surgery. Thus proving that these procedures have become commonplace all over the country after years of being frowned upon.

The reasons for such a huge change lie in the excessive use of social media. According to a study published in Current Psychology (2019), females show an increased desire of going under cosmetic procedures if they look at pictures of people with artificially enhanced facial features. The females who spend excessive amounts of time on social media and have followed multiple beauty related accounts are more prone to this impact. The explanation is simple, social media portrays a false picture of beauty and since everyone is an influencer nowadays and seems to have achieved that perfect standard of beauty, everyone thinks that they can get it too with money and access. Such false standards of perfection also raise unrealistic expectations of what it means to be beautiful and thus enable feelings of inadequacy and ultimately depression. As a result, with each day people especially females are becoming desperate to look a certain way and they are rushing towards dermatologists and cosmetic surgeons.

People of Pakistan have also jumped on the bandwagon and there is proof that over the past decade, Pakistanis from upper middle and elite class are getting more and more interested in cosmetic procedures for beauty purposes. A dermatology clinic has become the new beauty parlor.

According to Dr. Sania Javed who is a dermatologist in Lahore, 80% of her patients come to her for cosmetic and beauty procedures such as microneedling, PRP facials and chemical peels and only 20% of them come for medical issues related to skin and are expecting a prescription.

Not only this, a thorough research by oladoc-a digital healthcare company based on their internal and google search data shows that overall there has been an increase in interest among the Pakistani population when it comes to beauty procedures. A very popular procedure is microneedling that dermatologists all over the country are performing. Google’s historical search data shows that the searches related to microneedling first started appearing in 2014 (Pakistan region) and since then the trend has only been going upwards.

ISLAMABAD : Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed the Ministry of Interior to expedite tabling an anti-torture bill in the National Assembly.

Taking to the popular microblogging site Twitter, he said: “Torture is unacceptable in a civilised democratic society & goes against the spirit of Islam, our constitution & our international legal commitments.”

Earlier, the prime minister directed the relevant authorities to make arrangements for the early release of female prisoners both under-trial and convicted in light of the Supreme Court’s orders.

In a tweet, he said the decision to implement the Supreme Court’s Order 299/2020 was taken after consultation with Attorney General Khalid Javed Khan and eminent lawyer Barrister Ali Zafar.

ISLAMABAD : Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has summoned a meeting of the Senators hailing from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and other coalition parties to discuss legislation on Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Well informed sources to the matter said that the senators will meet the PM at 4:30 pm today and the premier would listen to the issues being faced by lawmakers of the upper house of the parliament.

The prime minister would also issue directives to the Senators on legislation pertaining to FATF and other matters.It is pertinent to mention here that the opposition parties  had foiled a bid from the government to pass a bill relating to FATF, anti-money laundering (second amendment) bill 2020 from the Senate.

Earlier on August 28, Prime Minister Imran Khan had said that opposition parties were “blackmailing” his government over FATF bills  despite being aware of the importance of the desired legislation and repeated his resolve not to give the opposition leaders any sort of “relief” in corruption cases.

In an exclusive interview with ARY News’ anchor Arshad Sharif, the PM had said that his government had inherited the FATF grey-list status and is trying hard to comply with the international body’s guidelines to bring Pakistan out of the list but “self-serving” opposition party leaders were trying to blackmail his government against supporting the bills “just to save their ill-gotten wealth”.

During Ayub Khan’s 10 years, the presidential system was adopted; the same goes Zia-ul-Haq, Yahya Khan, and Musharraf’s eras,” he said, adding: “It divided the country, made it weak, and caused a sense of deprivation among the smaller provinces

Ibrar Khan

ISLAMABAD: The PML-N and PPP will convene a session of the opposition Rahbar Committee tomorrow so a date for the All Parties Conference can be decided. This was announced in a joint press conference on Wednesday held by both parties following talks between the party leaders.

PML-N stalwart Ahsan Iqbal, addressing the briefing, said that the PML-N had come to Karachi to express solidarity with the people and to ramp up efforts of rebuilding the metropolis.”In today’s meeting, the opposition parties discussed routine political matters and decided to participate in a Rahbar Committee’s meeting tomorrow,” he said.

Iqbal said that the opposition would respond to the incumbent government’s political, economic, and governance failures by strengthening the collaboration between parties.”The time has now come to convene an All Parties Conference,” he said.

“[The opposition] will bring forward all constitutional and legal options to send this government back home and save the country from disaster,” he said.Iqbal said that the PTI-led government’s “incompetence” has become a disaster for the nation as the country’s economy has plunged, hatred is being spread, and Pakistan’s foreign policy is such that Kashmiris have been looking to us this past year but we have failed to do anything for them.These are some of the issues that we think are “crucial”, the PML-N leader said.

“After the Rahbar Committee’s meeting, an All Parties Conference will be called,” he said, adding that the committee will layout the plan of action of the opposition.Iqbal said that the Charter of Democracy, that was signed by Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, stated that both parties — PML-N and PPP — would strive for the rule of law, an independent judicial system, freedom of press, sovereignty of the Parliament, and defend democracy.

“It was decided that none of the political differences between the parties would come in the way of their goals,” he said, adding that these were the ideals that Pakistan was built on.Iqbal said that today, the freedom of the people is being taken away and that the PPP and PML-N believe that Pakistan’s future depends on Quaid-e-Azam’s vision of the country — which rests with the implementation of the rule of law.

Responding to a question after the briefing ended, he said that PML-N stands with the opposition parties against the imposition of a presidential system.

“When the fall of Dhaka took place, even then the presidential form of government existed in Pakistan,” he said, adding that when the smaller provinces in the country felt discrimination, it was at a time when the presidential system was intact.

“During Ayub Khan’s 10 years, the presidential system was adopted; the same goes Zia-ul-Haq, Yahya Khan, and Musharraf’s eras,” he said, adding: “It divided the country, made it weak, and caused a sense of deprivation among the smaller provinces.”

Iqbal said that after 72 years, experiments in the system of governance system were not needed and that to run the country, the 1973 Constitution was the only way to strengthen the country.

Talking about the rains in Karachi, he said that the rains were unprecedented and no less than a calamity.

“At the time of such a calamity, instead of engaging in blame games we must arrive at a solution to help Karachi get back on its feet,” Iqbal reasoned.

“The federal government must take lead and sit down with Sindh […] damage must be compensated and better infrastructure for the future must be ensured,” he said.

Speaking on legislation to meet the Financial Action Task Force’s requirements, he said that the opposition, fulfilling its national duty had allowed the ratification of the bills.

“The biggest evidence of this is that the foreign minister penned a letter to the leader of the opposition and appreciated the opposition’s role in the process,” he said.

The PML-N leader said the only legislation for which the opposition did not agree was one in which to the government sought to “bring in a black law like NAB’s where anyone can be incarcerated without bail for 90 days and without any justice provided”.

PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif arrived in Karachi today along with party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb and former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal for a one-day visit to the city which was ravaged by torrential rains last week.

During his visit, he met PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari at Bilawal House.

Both parties’ leaders “expressed their resolve to ramp up the democratic struggle against the incumbent leadership,” according to the PPP media cell.