PTI, JI, other Opposition parties unite for struggle to restore democracy

ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties including the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Sunni Ittehad Council, Jamaat-e-Islami, Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and other like-minded groups have united to launch a joint struggle for the supremacy of the Constitution and restoration of democracy.

In a consultative meeting hosted by the Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) in Islamabad, all parties joined hands under the same roof to protect the Constitution and democracy from threats, as the state system and democracy remain paralysed due to intervention, their statement read.

The meeting was attended by PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, Omar Ayub, Asad Qaiser and Raoof Hasan; Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party’s Mahmood Khan Achakzai, Abdul Rahim Ziyaratwal, Sardar Shafiq Khan Tareen and Riaz Khan.

Politicians of the Balochistan National Party included Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal, Sajid Khan and Tarin Parviz Zohoor, while Jamaat-e-Islami leadership comprised Liaquat Baloch and Amir-ul-Azeem.

SIC’s Sahibzada Muhammad Raza as well as MWM’s Allama Raja Nasir Abbas Jafari, Syed Asad Abbas Naqvi and Nasir Shirazi Mohsin Shehryar were also present in the meeting.

During the meeting, the Opposition parties’ leadership expressed their deep concern over the increasing involvement of the establishment in politics and termed it as a threat to the security of the country and national institutions.

“The establishment’s unconstitutional political role and interference has created a terrible distance between the people and the state,” it was emphasised. The leaders then decided that there was a need for a joint struggle to achieve these objectives and also contact other parties of Pakistan in view of these objectives.

The meeting agreed on the basic principles of complete restoration of the Constitution, rule of law, complete restoration of democracy through free and fair elections, independence of the judiciary and civil supremacy. It noted that there were major threats to the country’s future.

“Today’s meeting understands the fundamental reason for all the crises of the country and the deviation from the unanimous Constitution of the country and the disregard to the elected parliament of millions of people.

“That the Constitution will be protected and defended at all costs and there will be no compromise on it and that the real source and centre of the formation of Pakistan’s internal and external affairs will be the truly elected parliament of the people. No decision will be accepted and no one will be allowed to do so without the will and approval of parliament,” the leaders declared.

In the meeting, the politicians rejected the “changed” results of the general elections of February 8, 2024, and condemned the manipulation done “hypocritically”. The politicians also shared their displeasure over the “fake” government imposed on the people.

The forum declared that the present “fake” government has been provided with artificial stability by the establishment and unelected people have been imposed on the people through rigging in the elections. The meeting demanded that the establishment immediately stop all kinds of interference in politics.

The forum said due to the wrong internal and failed policies of civil servants, political instability and global isolation in the country and in order to bring the country out of political stability and global isolation, the formulation of the country’s internal and foreign policy is necessary from the country’s truly elected parliament.

AAP minister alleges she’s under pressure to join BJP or face arrest

The minister was quoted by the Indian Express as saying she was “threatened” to join the BJP if she did not wish to be arrested within the next month.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, curiously after the prosecution did not oppose the bail, reports said.

Accusing the BJP of trying to topple the AAP and the Delhi government, she said: “After arresting four of our senior leaders — Satyendar Jain, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal — the BJP is conspiring to arrest four more leaders of the AAP.

Atishi says four more party leaders will be arrested soon

They (BJP), thought AAP will fall with the arrest of CM Arvind Kejriwal and the senior leadership. Now as they have realized, it is not going to happen, they are targeting us.”

The arrests of two serving chief ministers — of Delhi and Jharkhand — by the Modi government’s ‘agencies’ were at the heart of a mammoth opposition rally in Delhi on Sunday.

Atishi added: “They are going to arrest me, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Durgesh Pathak and Raghav Chadha. After the mega INDIA alliance rally on Sunday, the BJP is now scared… So, it is plotting to arrest the four senior leaders of the party that remain.”

The minister also alleged that the ED will soon raid these leaders’ homes and issue summons to them before making the arrests. “I have also been told that soon, the ED is going to raid my personal residence, my relative’s place, and after that four of us will be issued summons and will be subsequently arrested,” she said.

The minister alleges that she was approached by the BJP and “threatened” to join the party. “I have been approached by the BJP, through one of my close aides, to join their party.

They are also threatening me with the fact that if I do not join the party, I will be arrested by the ED in the next one month and my political career and future will end… They reached out to one of my close associates with this offer and said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP want to topple and destroy the AAP,” she said.

“I want to tell the BJP that AAP leaders are not going to get scared of your threats. We are soldiers of Arvind Kejriwal and followers of Bhagat Singh!

“We will die and suffer but will fall into your trap and join the BJP. You can arrest all our leaders, all MLAs, but we will not stop our fight.”

Hitting back, Delhi BJP secretary Harish Khurana said, “A new day, a new manohar kahani (beautiful story); Atishi has tried to spread media sensation once again… It is a challenge Atishi-ji — give us a name or a BJP delegation or we will once again file a police complaint against you.”

“You are making such allegations because Arvind Kejriwal, your topmost leader, is in jail for corruption at the honourable court’s directions.

“For 14 months, Manish Sisodia has been in jail as per court directions. Sanjay Singh, Vijay Nair, Kavitha are in jail not because of ED’s orders on the directions of honourable courts,” Khurana added.

7 dead, hundreds injured in most powerful Taiwan quake in 25 years

Officials said the quake was the strongest to shake the island in decades, and warned of more tremors in the days ahead.

“The earthquake is close to land and it’s shallow. It’s felt all over Taiwan and offshore islands,” said Wu Chien-fu, director of Taipei’s Central Weather Administration’s Seismology Centre.

Strict building regulations and widespread public disaster awareness appear to have staved off a major catastrophe for the earthquake-prone island, which lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.

Wu said the quake was the strongest since a 7.6-magnitude struck in September 1999, killing around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.

Wednesday’s magnitude-7.4 quake hit just before 8:00am local time (0000 GMT), with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) putting the epicentre 18 kilometres south of Taiwan’s Hualien City, at a depth of 34.8 kilometres.

Three people among a group of seven on an early-morning hike through the hills that surround the city were crushed to death by boulders loosened by the earthquake, officials said.

 

 

Separately, a truck driver died when his vehicle was hit by a landslide as it approached a tunnel in the area.

The National Fire Agency said all the deaths occurred in Hualien county, and that so far 736 people had been injured in the quake, without specifying how seriously.

Social media was awash with shared video and images from around the country of buildings swaying as the quake struck.

Dramatic images were shown on local TV of multi-storey structures in Hualien and elsewhere tilting after the quake ended, while a warehouse in New Taipei City crumbled.

The mayor there said more than 50 survivors had been successfully plucked from the ruins of the structure.

Local TV channels showed bulldozers clearing rocks along roads to Hualien, a mountain-ringed coastal city of around 100,000 people that has been cut off by landslides.

“It was shaking violently, the paintings on the wall, my TV and liquor cabinet fell,” one man in Hualien told broadcaster SET TV.

President Tsai Ing-wen called for local and central government agencies to coordinate with each other, and said that the military would also be providing support.

 

 

Regional impact

In Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines, authorities initially issued tsunami warnings but by around 10am (0200 GMT), the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said the threat had “largely passed”.

In the Taiwanese capital, the metro briefly stopped running but resumed within an hour, while residents received warnings from their local borough chiefs to check for any gas leaks.

Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates, while nearby Japan experiences around 1,500 jolts every year.

Across the Taiwan Strait, social media users in China’s eastern Fujian province, which borders Guangdong in the south, and elsewhere said they also felt strong tremors.

Residents of Hong Kong also reported feeling the earthquake.

China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province, was “paying close attention” to the quake and “willing to provide disaster relief assistance”, state news agency Xinhua said.

Fabrication at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — the world’s biggest chip maker — was briefly interrupted at some plants, a company official told AFP, while work at construction sites for new plants was halted for the day.

The vast majority of quakes around the area are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to the depth of the epicentre below the Earth’s surface and its location.

The severity of tsunamis — vast and potentially destructive series of waves that can move at hundreds of kilometres per hour — also depends on multiple factors.

Japan’s biggest earthquake on record was a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea jolt in March 2011 off its northeast coast, which triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.

The 2011 catastrophe also sent three reactors into meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing Japan’s worst post-war disaster and the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Japan saw a major quake on New Year’s Day this year, when a 7.5-magnitude tremor hit the Noto Peninsula and killed more than 230 people, many of them when older buildings collapsed.