Month: June 2024

President Asif Ali Zardari has constituted the National Economic Council under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a notification issued by the Cabinet Division said on Friday.

“In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (1) of Article 156 of the Constitution of Pakistan, the president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is pleased to constitute the National Economic Council […],” the notification read.

As per the document, the chief ministers of all four provinces, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan will be part of the newly formed body.

Moreover, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, federal ministers Khawaja Asif, Muhammad Aurangzeb and Ahsan Iqbal are also members of the NEC.

The notification stated that Planning Commission’s deputy chairman, finance secretary, secretary on economic affairs and federal minister Ahad Cheema could also attend the meetings of the council on special invitation.

Meanwhile, four members of the National Economic Council have been nominated by the respective chief ministers under paragraph (b) of clause (1) of Article 156 of the Constitution.

These members include Senior Minister for Planning and Development Marriyum Aurangzeb, Minister for Irrigation, Government of Sindh Jam Khan Shoro, Adviser to KP Chief Minister on Finance Muzammil Aslam and Balochistan Minister for Planning and Development Zahoor Ahmed Buledi.

The first meeting of the National economic Council has been summoned on June 10.

The United Nations on Friday called for the immediate release of 11 of its personnel detained by Iran-backed Huthi rebels in different parts of war-torn Yemen in an apparently coordinated sweep.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented Friday a new education programme promoting the family and moral order, despite protests from teaching unions accusing him of Islamising education.

“The ultimate aim of these efforts is to bring up our children as people who respect morality, are courageous, willing, productive, compassionate, patriotic, blessed with critical sense, competent and virtuous and demonstrating spiritual integrity, with heart and body,” Erdogan said.

He also hit out at the “global scourge” of gender ideology and said there would be new lessons on “politeness, manners and the family within the structure of Turkish society”.

Erdogan, who has often hit out at LGBTQ rights groups, said there would be optional classes “on the holy Koran, the prophet’s life” and other Islamic subjects.

Teaching unions called for a protest on Tuesday against the programme, which they said was “contrary to secularism, science and democratic teaching”.

“We call on everyone to fight together for the rights and future of children,” Simge Yardim, board member of the Egitim-Sen union, wrote on X.

The unions accuse the government of reducing teaching on mathematics and science and replacing it with classes on Islam.

They complain that supposedly optional religious classes often become obligatory by default due to a lack of other options.

NEW DELHI: Indian Presi­dent Draupadi Murmu invited Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi for the swearing in of the government on Sunday, after his election as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), this time including his own BJP lawmakers, on Friday.

 

 

Addressing the NDA in his acceptance speech, Modi displayed all the bitterness he showed towards the opposition during his furious electioneering, particularly targeting the Congress party by name. The speech exuded a distinct sense that Modi had not abandoned the combative mode, ignoring the convention that such occasions are used to highlight the achievements of democracy. This could be because he would remain insecure until winning the mandatory trust vote in the new Lok Sabha.

 

 

In a TV discussion with political analyst Parakala Prabhakar, the anchor noted that the name of Modi’s BJP rival and cabinet colleague Nitin Gadkari was being mentioned among a section of BJP MPs as a better alternative to him. Gadkari was seen not rising from his seat when others stood up to greet Modi in the central hall of the parliament. It is possible that a section of the opposition parties would also agree to back him should Gadkari throw his hat in the ring.

The BJP has fallen short of a majority in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, winning 240 seats, and having to rely on its allies to form the government. But Modi persisted, claiming, “people of the country know that we had never lost before and neither have we lost now”. At the meeting, he was unanimously elected as the leader of NDA, leader of the BJP in the Lok Sabha, and the leader of the BJP parliamentary party board.

Shift to NDA govt

The new government depends crucially on the support of the Janata Dal (United) led by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and the Telugu Desam Party led by Chandrababu Naidu who hold the key, as was evidenced in their seating position right next to Modi at the front table during the NDA parliamentary party meeting. While the BJP tailored its campaign around Modi alone, including naming its election manifesto as Modi ki Guarantee, ever since the party failed to win a majority on its own, the references to his government have swiftly moved to “NDA government” from the “Modi government”.

Modi continued with his attack on the opposition. “You have seen our behaviour after the 4th. We know how to handle our victory. Our sanskar is such that we don’t take victory too seriously and neither do we mock those who have been defeated. You can ask any child whose government was in power before the Lok Sabha elections? They will say the NDA. Then ask who formed the government after 2024, and they will say the NDA. So how did we lose? It was an NDA government in the past, still is and will be.”

The biggest blow to the BJP’s final tally came from UP, where it won only 33 seats. Overall, the NDA — BJP and Rashtriya Lok Dal — won only 36 seats in comparison to the INDIA bloc’s 43 seats. The Samajwadi Party won 37 seats, while the BJP won 33, the Congress six, RLD two and Apna Dal (Soneylal) one, and Azad Samaj Party one.

While the main table gave pride of place to all the BJP allies which are now crucial to the government formation, interestingly, RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary was conspicuous by his absence and was made to sit with other new MPs, even though Anupriya Patel whose Apna Dal (Soneylal) won only one seat in comparison to the RLD’s two got a seat at the main table, The Wire noted. Chaudhary who was part of the INDIA bloc had joined the NDA before the polls.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said Thursday that his African National Congress (ANC) would seek to form a government of national unity, after failing to win an outright majority in last week’s general election.

After hours of deliberations, Ramaphosa said the ANC’s leadership had decided to try to band together with a broad group of opposition parties, ranging from the far right to the hard left.

The ANC won 40 percent of the vote — its lowest score ever — and for the first time since the advent of democracy in 1994 it needs the backing of other groups to remain in power.

“We have therefore agreed that we will invite political parties to form a government of national unity as the best option to move our country forward,” Ramaphosa said at a press conference late in the evening after the marathon ANC talks.

ANC negotiators, he said, had already held talks with several parties including the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) and the anti-immigrant Patriotic Alliance (PA).

It was not immediately clear if they had all agreed to join.

“The purpose of the government of national unity must be, first and foremost, to tackle the pressing issues that South Africans want to be addressed,” Ramaphosa said.

“These issues include job creation and the growth of our economy that will be inclusive, the high cost of living, service delivery, crime and corruption,” he said.

– ‘Bad blood’ –

Analysts said the party of late anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela was divided over who to share power with, and some cast doubt over the workability of such a broad coalition.

“I cannot… see how it can really work,” analyst and author Susan Booysen told AFP before the official announcement. “There is just so much bad blood and ill feeling between different political parties.”

The ANC will have only 159 members in the 400-seat National Assembly, down from 230 in 2019.

Ramaphosa noted that the ANC had “ideological and political differences” with other parties but said South Africans expected politicians to overcome them and “find common ground” to “work together for the good of everyone”.

Policy differences are particularly stark between the two largest parties cited by Ramaphosa, the DA and the EFF.

The former won 87 seats with a liberal, free-market agenda, while the latter secured 39 lawmakers supporting land redistribution and the nationalisation of key economic sectors.

Earlier the ANC said it had also “repeatedly” reached out to former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, which won 14.6 percent of the vote and 58 seats, but had received no response.

Zuma, a former ANC chief, has long been bitter about the way he was ousted by his own party under a cloud of corruption allegations in 2018.

The MK, which was established only late last year, has rejected the election results and said it would not back an ANC-led government if Ramaphosa remained at the helm.

But the president’s party plans to keep him.

– ‘Betrayal’ –

There had been speculation the ANC might seek to form a minority government or a coalition with one or two major parties.

But a possible deal with the DA, an option favoured by investors and the business community, caused an outcry within the ANC, with many seeing it at odds with the party’s left-leaning traditions.

Outside the hotel where the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) was meeting, about a dozen protesters held signs reading “Not in our name. #NotwiththeDA”.

“They want to take key ministries and once they have them they will reverse the progressive policies,” Panuel Maduna, a protesting ANC member, said of the DA.

The South African Communist Party, an historic ally of the ANC, also said it was against any arrangement with “neo-liberal forces”, while the metalworkers trade union NUMSA on Thursday described a potential deal with the DA as “the final betrayal of the working class”.

The new parliament is to meet in less than two weeks and one of its first tasks will be to elect a president to form a new government.

The ANC retains the respect of many South Africans for its leading role in overthrowing white-minority rule.

Its progressive social welfare and black economic empowerment policies are credited by supporters with helping millions of black families out of poverty.

But many voters deserted it at the recent election amid widespread discontent at high unemployment, rampant crime, graft scandals and power shortages.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been at war with the regular army since April 2023, on Wednesday attacked the central village of Wad al-Noura in al-Jazira state “in two waves” with heavy artillery, the Madani Resistance Committee said.

It reported on Wednesday that the feared paramilitaries had “invaded the village”, causing dozens of casualties and widespread displacement.

The attack “claimed the lives of more than 104 martyrs” and “injured hundreds” said the committee, one of hundreds of similar grassroots groups across Sudan, adding that it reached the toll via “initial communication with village residents”.

The UN resident coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said she was “shocked by reports of violent attacks and a high number of casualties” in the village.

She called for an investigation and for “those responsible to be held accountable”.

“Human tragedy has become a hallmark of life in Sudan. We cannot allow impunity to become another one,” she added.

On social media, the committee shared footage of what it said was a “mass grave” in the public square, showing rows of white shrouds laid out in a courtyard.

In a little over a year, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, including up to 15,000 in a single West Darfur town.

However, the war’s overall death toll remains unclear, with some estimates of up to 150,000, according to US special envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello. The RSF has repeatedly besieged and attacked entire villages across the country, and has been notorious for widespread looting as well as sexual and ethnic violence.

In a statement, the RSF said it had attacked three army camps in the Wad al-Noura area, and clashed with its enemy “outside the city”. The resistance committee called the RSF’s statement an “expected” attempt to “criminalise the people of Wad al-Noura and label them a legitimate target”.

It also said the villagers had “called for help from the armed forces, which did not respond”. The military has not issued an official comment, but Sudan’s ruling sovereignty council, under army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, called Wednesday’s attack a “heinous massacre of defenceless civilians”.

The army has come under repeated criticism from Sudanese civilians for “abandoning” them and retreating in the face of RSF offensives, particularly in al-Jazira and the western Darfur region.

Both the army and the RSF — commanded by Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo — have been accused of war crimes, including targeting civilians, indiscriminately shelling residential areas and looting or obstructing humanitarian aid.

The Emergency Lawyers, a pro-democracy group of volunteers who document the war’s atrocities, said on Thursday the attack on Wad al-Noura was a “war crime” and called on the international community to “exert pressure” on both sides to abide by international law.

The UN migration agency warned on Thursday that internal displacement figures in Sudan could “top 10 million” within days.

Since the war began, more than seven million people have fled their homes for other parts of Sudan, adding to 2.8 million already displaced from previous conflicts in the war-torn country of 48 million inhabitants.

“The world’s worst internal displacement crisis continues to escalate, with looming famine and disease adding to the havoc wrought by conflict,” the International Organization for Migration said in a statement.

Across Sudan, 70 per cent of those displaced “are now trying to survive in places that are at risk of famine”, it added. The UN says 18 million people in Sudan are acutely hungry, with 3.6 million children acutely malnourished.

Widespread hunger has haunted the country for months, while aid agencies say a lack of data has prevented the official declaration of a famine.

If the current humanitarian situation continues, 2.5 million people could die of hunger by the end of September, according to recent estimates by the Clingendael Institute, a Dutch think tank. That figure is “about 15 percent of the population in Darfur and Kordofan”, the country’s vast western and southern regions which have seen some of the worst fighting, the institute said.

The UN has accused both sides of “systematic obstructions and deliberate denials” of humanitarian access.