DNA

ISLAMABAD – The Government and the people of Pakistan extend their deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences over the reported loss of several lives as well as injuries to many more as a result of a powerful earthquake in Izmir city and surrounding regions earlier today.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this natural calamity, and we wish a speedy recovery to those injured.

As always, the people of Pakistan share the pain of their Turkish brothers and sisters and stand in full solidarity with them. The Government of Pakistan stands ready to provide all possible support and assistance to our Turkish brethren in this hour of grief.

BEIJING, October 31 (DNA): “A lot of Chinese people travel to Xinjiang to look at lakes, the beautiful mountains, the desert, etc while crossing over the border to Pakistan can be another choice for Chinese tourists,” said Mahmood Zafar Uddin, former special envoy for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

“The northern areas ofPakistan are the most beautiful place in the world. There are lakes, greenery everywhere. And the weather is extremely good and beautiful. We must promote tourism in bothChina andPakistan under the platform of CPEC,” he said according to a report published by China Economic Net on Saturday.
Zafar said, the facilities for the tourists used to be rather limited inPakistan. They may not be able to accommodate hundreds of tourists at a time, while now the Pakistani government is putting great attention to tourism.

“We are setting up small motels where the tourists can be accommodated. Since the roads have been tremendously improved, it may not require a very long time to travel from one point to the other, “ he added.

According to Zafar,Karakorum Highway Phase II project under CPEC has been completed. The speed on the road could go as high as 120 kilometers per hour, and the time consumed from the Chinese border toIslamabadcan be shortened by almost half.

He also suggested Chinese tourist companies introduce packages of Xinjiang plus northern areas ofPakistan. “When people travel to Urumchi or Kashgar, they can go toPakistan and have a good look at the beautiful scenery of theHimalayas from a different view.

That would further increase the connectivity between the people of the two countries. I think in that way, Chinese tourist companies can help in promoting tourism inPakistan.”

“We already have a bus service which was started last year fromLahore to Kashgar. It travels throughKarakorum Highway, a lot of people were interested in traveling on that tour. “Zafar made a special mention that the buses used to travel fromLahore to Kashgar are made inChina.
“Although the bus service has been suspended due to the COVID-19, I think there would be a lot of Pakistani people who are keen to travel to Xinjiang from Lahore, sitting in the bus looking all around while traveling, crossing the border, going into China.

Both sides, particularly the travel companies, have to make efforts to improve this kind of tourism, “he added.

A strong earthquake struck the Aegean Sea on Friday and inflicted damage in both Greece and Turkey, where buildings collapsed killing at least four people with many others trapped under the rubble.

Turkey’s health minister Fahrettin Koca said at least 120 were people injured in the coastal province of Izmir.

People flooded onto the streets in the Turkish city of Izmir after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit, witnesses said. The wreckage of multiple-story buildings in the city’s centre could be seen with people climbing out to escape. Smoke rose into the sky in several areas.

Izmir Mayor Tunc Soyer told CNN Turk about 20 buildings collapsed. The city is the third-largest in Turkey with about 4,5 million residents. Turkey’s interior minister tweeted six buildings in Izmir were destroyed.

Ilke Cide, a doctoral student who was in Izmir’s Guzelbahce region at the time of the earthquake, said he went inland after waters rose after the earthquake.

“I am very used to earthquakes … so I didn’t take it very seriously at first but this time it was really scary,” he said, adding the earthquake lasted for at least 25 seconds.

The earthquake triggered a small-scale tsunami in Seferihisar district, Huseyin Alan, head of Turkey’s Chamber of Geological Engineers, told state news agency TRT, warning people to stay away from buildings.

Footage on social media showed debris including refrigerators, chairs, and tables floating through streets on the deluge. TRT Haber showed cars being dragged by the water and piled on top of each other.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) said it was a magnitude 6.6 earthquake, while the US Geological Survey said it was 7.0. It struck at about 11:50 GMT and was felt along Turkey’s Aegean coast and the northwestern Marmara region.

The US Geological Survey said the depth was 10 kilometres (six miles) and the epicentre was 33.5km (20.8 miles) off Turkey’s coast.

Ali Yerlikaya, governor of Istanbul where the earthquake was also felt, said there were no reports of damage there.

Crisscrossed by major fault lines, Turkey is among the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. More than 17,000 people were killed in August 1999 when a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck Izmit, a city southeast of Istanbul. In 2011, an earthquake in the eastern city of Van killed more than 500.

The foreign ministers of Turkey and Greece pledged on Friday to help each other in rescue and recovery efforts. The two countries have been locked in a dispute over eastern Mediterranean energy rights.

“Greek Foreign Minister [Nikos] Dendias called our minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to wish him the best. Both ministers stressed they were ready to help each other in case of need,” the Turkish foreign ministry said.

Greece rocked

The earthquake was also felt across the eastern Greek islands and even in the Greek capital, Athens.

“We have had many earthquakes in the past, however, I have never felt one that has lasted this long,”  Anna Makris, a school counselling coordinator in Athens, told Al Jazeera.

“There is a real sense of panic and now we are worried about aftershocks,” Makris added.

Greek media said residents of Samos and other islands fled their homes, while some rockfalls were reported.

The director of the hospital in Samos said four people were treated there for light injuries. Both countries reported aftershocks.

Residents of Samos, an island with a population of about 45,000, were urged to stay away from coastal areas, Eftyhmios Lekkas, head of Greece’s organisation for anti-seismic planning, told Greece’s Skai TV.

“It was a very big earthquake, it’s difficult to have a bigger one,” said Lekkas.

Public television ERT reported the earthquake caused a mini-tsunami on Samos and a number of buildings were damaged. It caused the walls of several homes to collapse and triggered flooding in the port.

A resident of the Greek island Ikaria, right next to Samos, told Al Jazeera she ran out of her house after “the earth started moving”.

“Some people screamed and started crying while others were trying to gather everyone to a safe location in fear that buildings would collapse,” she said, asking not to be named. “There are quite a  few damaged buildings and there were landslides on different parts of the island.”

BAKU, OCT 30 – According to Azerbaijan’s State Commission for Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons, the bodies of 30 Armenian servicemen were unilaterally transferred to Armenia in the direction of Alibeyli village of Azerbaijan’s Tovuz region on October 29 through the mediation of the OSCE and the International Committee of the Red Cross with the participation of the Defense Ministry of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

A day earlier, 85-year-old Yevgeniya Babayan, a civilian who was left helpless in the war zone, was handed over to the opposite side on the Georgian-Armenian border as well.

These steps, taken unilaterally upon the instruction of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, are an indicator of Azerbaijan’s good intentions, as well as the value it attaches to international humanitarian law and humanism principles.

Nevertheless, the Armenian side once again demonstrated its inhuman behavior by refusing, at the last moment, to receive 84-year-old Armenian civilian Misha Melkumyan.

We underline that even though Armenia has obstructed the exchange of bodies as well as military prisoners on both sides by grossly violating the humanitarian ceasefire for three times, Azerbaijan instead has taken a unilateral humanitarian step.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has played an exceptional role in the realization of this humanitarian step by the Azerbaijani side.

As always, the principles of humanism will be taken into account by us from this time onward too.

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan will soon launch a campaign against Islamophobia, remarked Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday. We have to make the Europeans understand our religious sensitivities, he said while speaking at the National Rehmatul Lil Alameen Conference in Islamabad.

“We have to tell them that publication of such cartoons hurts our sentiments and that no Muslim can tolerate anything against the Holy Prophet (PBUH),” the PM said.

“No one can even joke about the Holocaust but they don’t think twice before demeaning our religion.” A major reason for this is the failure of Muslim leadership. “I will personally run a campaign against Islamophobia to try to counter the hate against our religion.”

A small group is trying its best to portray Islam in a negative light. They are quite dangerous too, he added.

Pakistan was carved out with the vision to build it on the principles of the State of Madina. “We are facing problems today because, unfortunately, we have deviated from the ideology of our founding fathers.”

PM Khan’s letter on Islamophobia

The PM has written an official letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to ban Islamophobia on the platform.

Dated October 25, the letter highlights that growing Islamophobia is “encouraging hate, extremism and violence across the world, and especially through the use of social media platforms including Facebook”

The premier noted that Facebook has taken the step to “rightly” ban posts that criticise or question the veracity of the Holocaust.

“However, today we are seeing a similar pogrom against Muslims in different parts of the world,” he said. “Unfortunately, in some states, Muslims are being denied their citizenship rights and their democratic personal choices from dress to worship.”

In India, anti-Muslim laws and measures such as the CAA and NRC as well as targeted killings of Muslims and blaming Muslims for the coronavirus are reflective of the abominable phenomenon of Islamophobia, he wrote.

The premier also mentioned how Islam has been associated with terrorism in France and the publication of a cartoon about the Holy Prophet (PBUH) has been allowed. PM Khan recently accused French President Emmanuel Macron of attacking Islam in a series of tweets posted on Sunday.