Month: April 2023

MUZAFFARABAD: A session of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Assembly to elect a new prime minister was adjourned on Monday without the poll being held.

The election was announced after Sardar Tanveer Ilyas’ disqualification by the AJK High Court in a contempt case.

The session, which was due to start at 11am, finally began at 3:30pm under the chairmanship of Speaker Riaz Ahmed. However, the session was adjourned till 11am tomorrow without a new prime minister being elected.

The PTI enjoys a majority in the AJK Legislative Assembly, but their path to secure a candidate loyal to Imran Khan as the premier may get difficult.

AJK President Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry has rebelled against his own party and created a forward bloc in the assembly. According to sources, Chaudhry’s forward bloc has the support of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

However, PML-N AJK President Shah Ghulam Qadir told Daily Jang that as per a “power-sharing formula” their alliance was with the PPP.

“If the candidate for PM was from PPP then we would have been bound to vote for him,” explained Qadir. He added that the PPP did not contact the party when it was negotiating with the forward bloc and neither did the latter contact them.

“If the situation remains like this then PML-N, with its seven votes, will make its own decision,” said the PML-N leader.

However, sources shared that after seeing Qadir’s reaction AJK President Chaudhry reached out to the PML-N to seek support for the forward bloc candidate.

Sardar Tanveer Ilyas disqualified
Last week, in a major setback to PTI, AJK High Court disqualified Sardar Tanveer Ilyas for contempt of court.

The decision of the high court came after Ilyas was summoned to AJK’s supreme court and high court for using a “threatening tone” in one of his speeches.

The court declared Ilyas ineligible from holding any public office and asked AJK’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Abdul Rasheed Sulehria to hold polls for a new prime minister.

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Mufti Abdul Shakoor passed away in a road accident in the federal capital, the Islamabad Police said Saturday.

Police told U News that the incident occurred around iftar (evening) when the federal minister was headed towards Secretariat Chowk from a local hotel.

In a statement, the capital’s police said the minister was driving the car himself when a Toyota Hilux Revo — with five people onboard — smashed his vehicle at the driver’s side.

The federal minister was shifted to Polyclinic Hospital in the federal capital, but due to severe internal bleeding, he succumbed to his wounds, the police said.

Senior police officers, according to the police, have arrived at the scene of the crime, and the people in the vehicle that smashed the federal minister’s car have been arrested. Two of the five men are injured.

Islamabad Inspector-General Dr Akbar Nasir Khan, Minister for Information Marriyum Aurangzeb, and other federal ministers have also reached the hospital, where Shakoor breathed his last.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah directed the capital’s police to ensure that a “complete investigation” is conducted regarding the accident.

“Initial information suggests that Mufti Shakoor passed away due to an injury to his head,” Islamabad IG Khan told journalists outside the hospital.

Mufti Shakoor’s funeral prayer will be offered tomorrow (Sunday) at 2 pm in Lakki Marwat, and he will be laid to rest in his native town, a JUI-F spokesperson said in a statement.

The religious scholar was elected as a Member of the National Assembly (MNA) from NA-51 on the ticket of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in the 2018 general elections.

President Dr Arif Alvi also expressed his regret over the death of the federal minister and paid tribute to the deceased’s services for interfaith harmony.

In his condolence statement, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Shakoor was a “practical scholar, an ideological political activist, and a decent human being”.

PM Shehbaz said the deceased federal minister was among Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s ideological leaders.

“Mufti Abdul Shakoor performed his duties with diligence, sincerity and honesty as Minister of Religious Affairs,” the premier said, paying glaring tribute to him.

Pakistan Peoples Partry Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari expressed sorrow over the demise and prayed for the federal minister’s forgiveness. Senator Sherry Rehman said she stands with his family in their time of sorrow.

Sanaullah also expressed grief over Shakoor’s demise and said JUI-F has been deprived of a dedicated politician.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders Fawad Chaudhry and Faisal Javed also extended their condolences and prayed for the deceased federal minister.

The fire engulfed the five-storey building in the Al-Ras neighbourhood, one of the oldest parts of Dubai and home to many migrant workers and traders, on Saturday afternoon, according to Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National.

Local media said the fire had been put out.

“Preliminary investigations showed that lack of compliance with building security and safety requirements caused the fire” the National said citing a civil defence statement.

Naseer Vatanappally, an Indian social worker who was at the Dubai Police mortuary to help identify the victims on Saturday night, told the Khaleej Times that 12 out of the 16 people who died have been identified, including four Sudanese nationals, three Pakistani cousins, four Indians and one Cameroon national.

“Relatives, friends and colleagues of these 12 people came through the night to identify them,” the Khaleej Times quoted him as saying.

Terming it to be a “heartbreaking process”, he added, “I went home at 5am but had to return because I was the central point of contact for everyone coming.”

The Gulf News had quoted him saying that the four Indians included “a couple from Kerala and two men from Tamil Nadu who worked at the building”.

He said he was coordinating with Dubai Police, the Indian Consulate in Dubai, other diplomatic missions, and friends and relatives of the deceased.

The Foreign Office has yet to issue a statement confirming the deaths.

Additionally, Gulf News said that the fire broke out in an apartment located on the fourth floor of the building.

It said that teams from the Port Saeed Fire Station and the Hamriyah Fire Station provided backup to the firefighting operations, adding that the fire was brought under control at 2:42pm after which cooling operations were started.

The Gulf News reported the spokesperson for Dubai Civil Defence (DCD) as saying that urgent medical aid was being provided to the injured.

It added that the DCD teams had arrived at the site and had “started both evacuation and firefighting operations within six minutes of being notified”.

The spokesperson said preliminary investigations showed that the lack of compliance with building security and safety requirements had caused the fire.

“Relevant authorities are conducting a comprehensive investigation to provide a detailed report on the causes of the accident,” the Khaleej Times quoted him as saying.

Residents recount incident as building is sealed

The Khaleej Times, in another article, reported tenants present on the road at around 1am Sunday morning as they awaited to return home while the building had been sealed.

It said the residents sipped on a cup of tea, talked to each other, or read the Holy Quran as they awaited any news related to their apartments.

“Tenants of the first, second, and third floors escaped by the stairs or slid by a rope tied to the grills of their balconies. People residing on the fourth floor were unable to as the corridors were filled with smoke,” a tenant told the Khaleej Times.

The publication also quoted an eyewitness as saying that they saw flames billowing out of the building. A worker at a shop in the building told the news outlet that they heard a “loud bang”.

“We couldn’t figure out what was happening for a few minutes. But then we saw smoke and fire coming out of the window,” he told the Khaleej Times.

“There was smoke everywhere and we could not see anything. So we decided to exit the building and wait for the police.

“Fire engines, firemen and police officers were at the spot within minutes. They brought a crane and started helping people. Their swift action helped save many lives,” the Khaleej Times quoted him as saying.

While many Western countries are upping their investments in atomic energy to reduce their emissions, Germany is bringing an early end to its nuclear age.

Europe’s largest economy has been looking to leave behind nuclear power since 2002, but the phase-out was accelerated by former chancellor Angela Merkel in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

 

The exit decision was popular in a country with a powerful anti-nuclear movement, stoked by lingering fears of a Cold War conflict and atomic disasters such as Chernobyl in Ukraine.

“The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable,” said Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, who this week made a pilgrimage to the ill-fated Japanese plant ahead of a G7 meeting in the country.

But the challenge caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which put an end to cheap gas imports, and the need to quickly cut emissions has upped calls in Germany to delay the withdrawal from nuclear power.

Greenpeace, at the heart of the anti-nuclear movement, organised a celebratory party at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to mark the occasion.

“Finally, nuclear energy belongs to history! Let’s make this April 15 a day to remember,” the organisation said. In contrast, the conservative daily FAZ headlined its Saturday edition “Thanks, nuclear energy,” as it listed the benefits it said nuclear had brought the country over the years.

Initially planned for the end of 2022, Germany’s nuclear exit had already been pushed back once. As Russian gas supplies dwindled last year, officials in Berlin were left scrambling to find a way to keep the lights on, with a short extension agreed until mid-April.

Germany, the largest emitter in the European Union, also powered up some of its mothballed coal-fuelled plants to cover the potential gap left by gas.

The challenging energy situation had increased calls domestically for the exit from nuclear to be delayed. Germany had to “expand the supply of energy and not restrict it any further” in light of potential shortages and high prices, the president of the German chambers of commerce Peter Adrian told the Rheinische Post daily.

The conservative leader of Bavaria Markus Soeder meanwhile told the Focus Online website that he wanted the plants to stay online and three more to be kept “in reserve”.

Outside observers have been similarly irked by Germany’s insistence on exiting nuclear while ramping up its coal usage, with climate activist Greta Thunberg in October slamming the move as “a mistake”.

At the Isar 2 complex in Bavaria, technicians will progressively shut down the reactor from 10pm on Saturday, severing it from the grid for good.

Atiq Ahmed, 61, who had been jailed since 2019 and was convicted of kidnapping, was answering reporters’ questions on Saturday when he and his brother Ashraf were shot at close range, the television images showed.

“According to preliminary information, three persons posing as journalists approached them and opened fire… The attackers have been held and are being questioned,” police official Prashant Kumar said.

 

The TV clip in the northern city of Prayagraj shows the assailants shouting Hindu slogans after the brazen attack.

The two victims were from India’s Muslim minority but police did not say whether they were investigating a possible sectarian motive in the killings.

The brothers were deeply involved in India’s criminal underworld — the ex-MP was reportedly facing more than 100 different cases — and press reports said the attackers were petty criminals.

The pair were being taken to hospital for medical examinations and were surrounded by police officers at the time.

Local media reports said one of the gunmen was even carrying a television camera and another a microphone with the logo of a television channel.

Several days earlier police in the same state of Uttar Pradesh said they had shot dead Ahmed’s 19-year-old son and his accomplice in a shootout. Both were wanted in a case of murder.

Scores of people facing charges have been killed in the state in recent years in similar so-called “police encounters”, which rights groups say are often extra-judicial executions.

Ahmed, who had been facing charges of murder and assault, last month had claimed in a petition to India’s top court that his life was under threat from the police.

Following his shooting, gatherings of more than four people were banned Sunday across the crime-rife northern state of 200 million people that are ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The shooting sparked outrage among opposition parties accusing the BJP of ruling by fear.

Hundreds of politicians belonging to all parties across India have criminal cases pending against them, with poor Uttar Pradesh a particular hotspot.

These include nearly half of government ministers in the state including the state premier, according to independent monitoring group the Association for Democratic Reforms.