Month: October 2022

Speaking at the weekly media briefing, FO spokesperson Asim Iftikhar said rehabilitation and reconstruction phase is going to be “a huge task” and continued and sustained support and solidarity of the international community will be required. He specifically mentioned the donors’ conference being hosted by France which is expected to bring together global financial and development partners and ask them to contribute to the rehabilitation and reconstruction work.

The date and venue for the conference, which French President Emmanuel Macron had offered to host, is yet to be decided. Islamabad wants the conference to be co-convened by France and the United Nations, as it was originally suggested by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres during his visit to Pakistan for expressing solidarity with flood victims.

“A comprehensive plan will be taken to this conference. We can expect this to take place towards the end of the year, perhaps end November; final decisions would be taken on this, about the exact timing and the venue of this conference,” the FO spokesman said.

Responding to multiple questions, the spokesman said there was a noticeable uptick in diplomatic engagement with other countries since the current coalition government took office in April after dislodging PTI government.

“I think it is very evident that there is a positive, forward movement; there is improvement and further strengthening of bilateral relations and cooperation with a host of countries. That is evident from the series of interactions, the various visits and meetings that are taking place, the intense diplomacy that you have observed in the last couple of months,” he said.

When asked about the original cipher received from the then ambassador in Washington, the spokesperson said it was present in the foreign ministry, in a proper, safe and secure situation.

The FO spokesperson welcomed US Ambassador Donald Blome’s visit to Azad Jammu and Kashmir, saying it would give him firsthand information about the region, besides helping in making comparison with the situation in the part occupied by India.

Ambassador Blome had visited AJK from October 2 to 4.

Meanwhile, New Delhi objected to the trip and had been particularly upset over the ambassador calling the region by its name, Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

On Friday, India also protested to the US over Blome’s visit to AJK. “Our objection to the visit and meetings in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir by the US ambassador to Pakistan has been conveyed to the US side,” Reuters quoted Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi as saying at a news briefing.

KAKUL: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Saturday advised the passed-out cadets at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA), not to get distracted by fake news, political wrangling in the country and always respect democratic institutions.

The army chief was addressing the passing out ceremony of the 146th PMA Long Course held at PMA, Kakul on Saturday.

The army chief is attending the parade as the chief guest.

WASHINGTON: The US has announced the revised policy in connection with drone attacks being carried out worldwide against terrorists. According to the updated policy signed by US President Joe Biden, his prior approval is essential even against a suspected terrorist who can be targeted in ‘direct action.’

However, the revised policy will not apply to Iraq and Syria.

A description of the policy, along with a classified new counterterrorism strategy memo Biden has also signed, suggests that amid competing priorities in a turbulent world, the United States intends to launch fewer drone strikes and commando raids away from recognised war zones than it has in the recent past.

The policy requires Biden’s approval before a suspected terrorist is added to a list of those who can be targeted for “direct action,” in a return to more centralised control of decisions about targeted killing operations that was a hallmark of President Barack Obama’s second term. The Biden administration’s rules apply to strikes in poorly governed places where militants are active but that the United States does not consider to be “areas of active hostilities.”

Only Iraq and Syria — where U.S. troops and partners are fighting the remnants of the Daesh — are currently deemed to be conventional war zones where the new rules will not apply and commanders in the field will retain greater latitude to order counterterrorism airstrikes or raids without seeking White House approval, the official said. That means the rules will limit any such operations in several other countries where the United States has carried out drone strikes in recent years, including Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen, as well as the tribal region of Pakistan.

The policy is said to declare that capturing is preferable to killing, requiring the military and the C.I.A. to evaluate the feasibility of a capture operation. It also requires them to obtain the consent of the State Department’s chief of mission in a country before carrying out an operation there, the official said.

By limiting targeting approval to specific, named people, the policy does not authorise a tactic that may increase the risk of mistakes that kill civilians: so-called signature strikes, attacking people without knowing their identities based on patterns that raised suspicions. Still, the rules permit seeking Biden’s permission for other types of strikes in extraordinary circumstances. And the rules do not require White House approval for strikes carried out in self-defence, such as the so-called collective self-defence of partner forces.

“Based on the investigation and sufficient evidence, we have determined six suspects,” national police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo told a press conference.

The six people charged with negligence causing death include three police officers and three people responsible for the match and its security, including the head of Arema FC’s organising committee and one of the club’s security officers, he said. Two of the police officers under investigation ordered colleagues to fire tear gas, he said.

The third police officer under investigation knew about FIFA’s safety regulations that prohibit the use of crowd control gas at pitchside but did not prevent tear gas being used by colleagues, he said. The suspects face a maximum sentence of five years in prison if found guilty. Prabowo said more people could be charged.

The Indonesian football association had earlier banned the Arema FC organising committee chief and a security officer from football for life. The announcement came as anger grew over the police response to a pitch invasion.

Officers reacted by firing tear gas into packed stands as fans of Arema FC tried to approach players following their defeat to fierce rivals Persebaya Surabaya on Saturday evening.

The police chief said 11 officers in total fired tear gas “to prevent more spectators from taking to the field” but caused spectators “to panic and… try to immediately leave the arena.” They fired eight canisters into the stands and three onto the pitch, according to the police investigation.

Hundreds of people fled for small exits, resulting in a crush that left many trampled or suffocating to death. Witnesses said the gates were closed. Prabowo said the “doors were not opened completely…and the stewards were not in place” when the match ended. In the crush, “most of the dead victims suffered from asphyxia”.

Most of the children who died at the daycare centre in Uthai Sawan, a town 500 km (310 miles) northeast of Bangkok, on Thursday were stabbed to death, police said, marking one of the worst child death tolls in a massacre by a single killer in recent history.

Police identified the attacker as a former member of the force who was discharged over drug allegations and who was facing trial on a drugs charge. After the attack, he went home and shot dead his wife and child before turning his weapon on himself.

The age range of children at the daycare centre ranged from two to five years, a local official said.

“It’s a scene that nobody wants to see. From the first step when I went in, it felt harrowing,” Piyalak Kingkaew, an emergency worker heading the first responder team, told Reuters.

“We’ve been through it before, but this incident is most harrowing because they are little kids.”

The former policeman had been in court earlier in the day and had then gone to the daycare centre to collect his child, police spokesperson Paisal Luesomboon told broadcaster ThaiPBS.

When he did not find his child there, he began the killing spree, Paisal said. “He started shooting, slashing, killing children,” Paisal said.

‘I begged him for mercy’

Late on Thursday, a Reuters photographer saw the body of the shooter, Panya Khamrapm, being moved in a bodybag from a van to a police station in the province.

“I don’t know (why he did this), but he was under a lot of pressure,” Panya’s mother told Nation TV, citing debt the former policeman had clocked up and his drug taking.

Photographs taken at the daycare centre by the rescue team and shared with Reuters showed the tiny bodies of those killed laid out on blankets. Abandoned juice boxes were scattered across the floor.

“He was heading towards me and I begged him for mercy, I didn’t know what to do,” one distraught woman told ThaiPBS, fighting back tears.

“He didn’t say anything, he shot at the door while the kids were sleeping,” another woman said, becoming distraught.

About 30 children were at the facility — a pink, one-storey building surrounded by a lawn and small palm trees — when the attacker arrived. That was fewer than usual, as heavy rain had kept many people away, said district official Jidapa Boonsom.

The attacker forced his way into a locked room where the children were sleeping, Jidapa said.

Three boys and a girl who survived the attack were being treated in hospital, police said.

The massacre is among the worst involving children killed by one person. Anders Breivik killed 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a summer camp in Norway in 2011, while the death toll in other cases include 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut in 2012, 16 at Dunblane in Scotland in 1996 and 19 at a school in Uvalde, Texas, this year.

Gun laws are strict in Thailand, but ownership is high compared with some other countries in Southeast Asia. Illegal weapons, many brought in from strife-torn neighbouring countries, are common.