23-10-2025

Month: July 2024

PM Shehbaz announces nationwide campaign to eradicate Hepatitis C

ISLAMABAD: Announcing a nationwide campaign to eradicate the disease, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday called for united efforts to raise awareness and work towards a hepatitis-free future, as the international community observed World Hepatitis Day.

“I am pleased to announce a nationwide campaign aimed at eradicating Hepatitis C. As a part of this noble endeavour, our focus will be on decentralising testing and treatment centres, ensuring that the services provided are tailored to the needs of our citizens, in alignment with the global strategy,” PM Shehbaz said.

The prime minister reassured that every citizen would have free access to screening and treatment facilities for Hepatitis C.

Meanwhile, the World Hepatitis Day is being observed worldwide today with the theme ‘It’s Time for Action’.

The theme highlights the urgent need for swift and decisive measures to tackle hepatitis on a global scale.

This call to action is reinforced by the alarming statistic that in every 30 seconds someone dies of a hepatitis-related illness globally, as per the World Health Organisation.

On this day, the prime minister said, let us stand united in our efforts to raise awareness, support those affected by viral hepatitis, and work towards a future free from the burden of this disease.

“Together, we can make a difference and build a healthier and more prosperous nation,” he said in his message to the nation.

He said the day was dedicated to raising awareness about hepatitis and its impact on individuals and communities worldwide.

Shehbaz said this year’s theme was a reminder for urgent actions to prevent, diagnose and treat hepatitis and emphasised necessary actions to help eliminate the disease and ensure a healthier future for all.

He said that hepatitis was a silent epidemic that affected millions of people around the world, causing liver inflammation and potentially leading to severe complications if left untreated.

“Pakistan has a very high burden of Hepatitis C infection, having 10 million infected cases, out of 60 million hepatitis C cases globally. Our country is facing an epidemic of Hepatitis C and it is feared that we may also see an epidemic of liver cancer, if necessary actions to prevent and eliminate viral Hepatitis are not taken,” he warned.

The prime minister highlighted that the country had made significant progress in combating viral hepatitis through awareness campaigns, vaccination programs, and improved access to testing and treatment. “However, there is still much work to be done. We must continue to prioritise hepatitis prevention, ensure early diagnosis, and provide affordable and accessible treatment options for all,” he added.

PM Shehbaz said that the government stood firm in its dedication to overcome the challenges posed by hepatitis.

He recalled that during his tenure as Punjab chief minister, the Pakistan Kidney & Liver Transplant Institute project, a milestone in the provision of state-of-the-art medical facilities to kidney and liver patients was established along with modern Hepatitis Filter Clinics that were set up in all the 36 districts of Punjab.

“We have done it before and we will do it again. The core objective remains to uplift the health and well-being of those afflicted with HCV, while simultaneously reducing the detrimental impact it has on work productivity, preventing liver cancer, and averting premature death,” he added.

Death toll hits 35 as Kurram tribal land feud clashes enter 5th day

PESHAWAR: A land feud between tribes in the northwestern part of the country has claimed at least 35 lives since its escalation into an armed battles four days ago, officials said Sunday.

Two tribal groups have been fighting since Wednesday, when a gunman opened fire at a council negotiating a decades-long dispute over farmland, local police official Murtaza Hussain said.

While no one was wounded in that attack, Hussain said it reignited longstanding tensions between the clans who live side-by-side in Boshehra and Malikhel areas of the district of Kurram on the border with Afghanistan.

Hussain confirmed that the conflict had “claimed 35 lives” so far.

“The government and local leaders are attempting to halt the fighting through jirgas (tribal councils), but have not yet succeeded,” he said.

Inter-family feuds are common in the country.

However, they can be particularly protracted and violent in the mountainous northwestern region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where communities abide by traditional tribal honour codes.

A senior government official from Kurram district, who asked to remain anonymous, also gave a death toll of 35 but said 151 more people had been wounded.

“All attempts to resolve the conflict have failed,” he said.

A police source, who asked not to be identified, said both sides were using automatic weapons and mortars in fighting focussed around the town of Parachinar, which had been blockaded by law enforcement.

“The area is still witnessing clashes involving the use of both small and large weapons,” the senior Kurram district official said.

Traffic on the main roads also remained suspended due to the continuing firing.

Kurram is part of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a semi-autonomous area that was merged with KP in 2018.

The move brought the region into the legal and administrative mainstream, although police and security forces frequently struggle to enforce the rule of law there.

Lebanon calls for international probe into fatal Golan Heights strike

Lebanon on Sunday called for an international investigation into a strike that killed 12 people including children on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, warning against a large-scale retaliation.

The Israeli military said that an Iranian-made rocket that Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired on Saturday hit a football field in Majdal Shams, a Druze Arab town, killing children and teenagers who were playing there.

Hezbollah, which claimed multiple attacks on Israeli military positions during the day, has denied it was behind the Majdal Shams strike, saying it had “no connection” to the incident.

In a statement on X, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib urged for an “international investigation or a meeting of the tripartite committee held through UNIFIL to know the truth” about who was responsible for the attack.

The tripartite committee refers to military officials from Lebanon and Israel, which are technically at war, together with peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Bou Habib, in a statement issued by the foreign ministry, said he “expected the Majdal Shams strike was carried out by other organisations or was an Israeli mistake or a mistake by Hezbollah” .

He insisted the Lebanese group targets “only military” positions and ruled out them carrying out an intentional attack on civilians in Majdal Shams.

The statement, carried by the state-run National News Agency, said that Bou Habib also “called for the complete and comprehensive application” of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.

The resolution ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, and called for the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.

“A large attack by Israel on Lebanon will lead to a deterioration of the regional situation and will spark regional war,” Bou Habib warned, according to the statement.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday vowed to “hit the enemy hard” following the Majdal Shams strike, while Iran warned Israel that any new military “adventures” in Lebanon could lead to “unforeseen consequences”.

Hezbollah says it has been acting in support of Gazans and ally Hamas with its cross-border strikes, which began the day after the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which sparked the war in Gaza.

The group on Sunday afternoon announced its first attack on an Israeli position since the day before, saying it also came “in response to enemy attacks” on south Lebanon villages and homes.

The cross-border violence since October has killed at least 527 people in Lebanon according to an AFP tally, most of them fighters but also including 104 civilians.

On the Israeli side, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

Five killed in Israeli strike on Gaza camp

A witness said a newborn was among the dead in Al-Mawasi near Khan Yunis city, where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge from the war, now nearing its 11th month. Since Monday, Israeli forces have operated in and around Khan Yunis including in parts of the coastal area of Al-Mawasi.

Miriam al-Astal who lives in Al-Mawasi said a newborn baby was killed. “We were sitting in the tents… when suddenly we heard an explosion,” she said. “I swear” there was no militant activity in the area, she said.

Israel had warned on Monday its forces would “forcefully operate” in the Khan Yunis area — from which troops withdrew in April — and on Saturday the civil defence agency said that 170 people have been killed by the renewed fighting and military operations. The military said its latest operations there were to prevent rocket fire.

Tanks pushed further into the three towns of Al-Karara, Al-Zanna, and Bani Suhaila, in the east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, and medics said at least nine Palestinians were killed earlier on Sunday by Israeli military strikes in those areas.

Residents said fierce fighting could be heard in eastern areas of Khan Yunis where the army was operating. The new incursions caused thousands more families to leave their homes and head to overcrowded areas in Al-Mawasi to the west, and north to Deir Al-Balah.

Later on Sunday, two separate Israeli air strikes on Khan Younis killed at least 15 Palestinians, medics said. Another airstrike on a house at the centre of Khan Yunis city killed 10 people, health officials said.

Meanwhile, in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israeli forces advanced deeper into northern parts of the city, where they have yet to take full control.

In Central Gaza, the Israeli military on Sunday called upon Gazans to evacuate parts of the Bureij and Shuhada areas.

Western powers, UN warn Tel Aviv against escalation

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Western powers, including the US, Britain France and Germany condemned the attack and appealed for calm, as Iran warned Israel any new military “adventures” in Lebanon could lead to “unforeseen consequences”.

Israel’s army called it “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since October 2023 and blamed Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement for firing the rocket but the Iran-backed group that has targeted Israeli military positions in the past in response to illegal occupation of territory and unabated strikes on Palestinians said it had “no connection” to the latest incident.

The rocket hit Majdal Shams, whose population are Arabic-speaking Druze. Many residents of the Druze town have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.

EU, Lebanon seek independent probe into Golan strike

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned early from the US and went immediately into a security cabinet meeting, said: “Hezbollah will pay a heavy price” for the attack, “a price it has not paid before”. Earlier, Netanyahu had told the US Congress that Israel would do “whatever it must” to secure its northern border.

Blaming Hezbollah for “crossing all red lines”, Israel said it hit Hezbollah targets “both deep inside Lebanese territory and in southern Lebanon”.

Syria denounced Israel’s “false accusations” against Hezbollah and said Israel was looking for “pretexts to enlarge its aggression”. Also, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani warned Israel “any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the broadening of the scope of instability, insecurity and war in the region” and Israel would be then responsible for “the unforeseen consequences and reactions to such stupid behaviour”.

In a statement on X, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib on Sunday called for an “international investigation or a meeting of the tripartite committee held through UNIFIL to know the truth” about who was responsible for the attack and “called for the complete and comprehensive application” of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The tripartite committee refers to military officials from Lebanon and Israel along with peacekeepers from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

Also, EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the “bloodbath” and said there should be “an independent international investigation into this unacceptable incident.”

The UN urged “maximum restraint”, warning that intensifying exchanges of fire “could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief”.

Britain condemned the attack, as did Germany, whose foreign ministry urged “cool heads”.

Politics to roar back at Westminster in blame game over funding

For the first time since the general election, party politics will come roaring back at Westminster on Monday.

Yes, there was a bit of it at the State Opening of Parliament a few weeks back, but ceremony and civility took centre stage then really.

I don’t expect much of either later.

When the chancellor gets to her feet in the House of Commons this afternoon, she will claim a whole graveyard’s worth of political skeletons have been crashing out of every cupboard in Whitehall since Labour won the election.

For Rachel Reeves, it won’t be “things can only get better” as Labour’s victory anthem in 1997 claimed, but “it turns out things are a whole lot worse” or words to that effect.

There are two big questions: the extent to which this claim is believable and why the government is doing this now.

Firstly, that question of believability.

Paul Johnson, the director of the highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), told the BBC: “I don’t think it’s really very credible at all.”

The basis for this argument is that so much about the public finances is, well, public: there was a Budget in March, and alongside it, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s economic and fiscal outlook.

Nonetheless, the argument we will hear from Rachel Reeves, in a Commons statement, a 30-odd page accompanying document and in a news conference at the Treasury, will be something like this: “We blame the other lot.”

They reckon by the time they are done, on Monday evening, the IFS and others will be acknowledging the numbers are different from what was previously publicly known.

Central to their argument will be the scale of what are known as “in-year costs” that were not accounted for in the documents back in the spring.

Senior Conservatives I speak to say this isn’t credible just a few months into the financial year and beyond that governing is about choices: it is up to Labour now to decide what it wants to do.

You get a sense of how Labour will counter this, in a thread on X from former Treasury adviser and Labour peer Lord Wood.

In essence, he argues, you have to be in government to know of any gaps between what it is estimated a project will cost, and the actual bill.

This will be the argument made to justify cancelling various rail, road and hospital building projects which ministers will claim there wasn’t and isn’t the money for.

We also expect the government to accept the pay increases above inflation for teachers and many NHS staff recommended by the independent pay review bodies for those sectors.

This, ministers will argue, is both the right thing to do and will, they hope, mean no more strikes.

But it is a choice and an expensive one – and not one that can be blamed on the previous government.

Expect to see Jeremy Hunt, now the shadow chancellor, argue robustly that he himself took plenty of difficult decisions to ensure the economic picture would be considerably better now than it was, as his opponent claims her inheritance is dire.

Of course, both of these things can be true at the same time.

So, why is the government doing this now?

This is where we get to its broader strategy, which they are chunking up into three parts, across the next five years – in the countdown to the next general election.

The first element of this is what they will call “fixing the foundations”.

Expect to hear no end of references to this in the coming weeks and months. This is where they will bang on about how grim things are while the Tories are busy arguing among themselves about who should replace Rishi Sunak.

The aim then, in stage two, is a sense of “rebuilding Britain” – and they mean that literally, ie building stuff, particularly homes. Lots more homes, which might be easier said than done. They will be saying more about that on Tuesday.

And the third element is people feeling better off – and they have their fingers crossed that this will be a real sentiment, not just a hope and a slogan, as the next election nears. Let’s see.

But back to “fixing the foundations”. Monday is day one of this, and is also about laying some political foundations for tax rises expected in the autumn.

We’ll also find out the date of the Budget.

It is widely expected in October and almost as widely expected are tax rises.

Putting up the main rates of income tax, VAT and national insurance have been ruled out, so instead don’t be surprised if there are, for instance, hikes to capital gains tax and inheritance tax and pension tax relief becomes less generous.

That, though, is for the autumn.

Today will park the political pleasantries of the last few weeks and see a pretty noisy argument about the last government, the new government and what might come next.

Govt delegation calls on protesting JI leadership in Rawalpindi

RAWALPINDI: While Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) continues its sit-in protest at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi, the government has initiated formal communication with the party to have “serious talks” as the former continues its demonstration against rising inflation and exorbitant electricity bills.

A three-member government delegation that included Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar, Minister for Energy Awais Leghari, and MNA Tariq Fazal Chaudhry called on the JI leadership late on Saturday night at the site of the sit-in on Murree Road, Liaquat Bagh. The delegation extended an invitation for talks.

The information minister asked JI Emir Hafiz Naeem to end the sit-in. The top JI leader, however, denied the request and declared that the demonstration would go on until all of the requests were met.

A spokesperson for the protesting party said Naeem had declined to end the protest until their demands were accepted. Quoting the JI chief as saying he said they would definitely hold negotiations, nevertheless their demands would not be compromised.

The leaders of the ruling party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), later met JI Vice Emir Liaquat Baloch and traders’ leader Muhammad Kashif Chaudhry briefly.

Tarar, in a statement following his meetings, apprised media that the formal process for talks with the JI would begin on Sunday. “The JI leadership will constitute a committee to start the process of talks with the government,” he maintained.

Earlier on Saturday, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi called the JI vice emir to discuss the religio-political party’s demands. During the telephonic conversation, Baloch apprised the minister about the JI’s demand to end the protest.

The party on Friday claimed at least 1,150 of its workers were arrested while trying to march towards the federal capital after authorities had imposed Section 144 across Punjab and Islamabad.

Vowing to continue its protest, since then the JI has staged a sit-in in Rawalpindi, blocking the major Murree Road leading to widespread traffic disruptions across the city.

Earlier, speaking to party workers at the sit-in, Naeem called on the Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz-led Punjab government to release his party’s activists and withdraw the cases lodged against them.

Stressing that if their demands were not met, Naeem said that the party had the option to direct its protest “in any direction”.

“Fascism and talks cannot go hand in hand,” he said.

Speaking on the issue of talks with the government, the JI chief said that the party had reservations about the names that had come from the government side.

Revealing that the party had empowered Baloch to hold talks, he noted that he would announce the JI’s negotiation committee once the government announced its own and their reservations on the names proposed by the other side were addressed.

He also announced to hold a public rally at the metropolis’s Murree Road on Sunday evening which would be followed by a women’s gathering on Monday.

Meanwhile, the JI put forward a nine-point charter of demands to the government to provide relief to the masses. Addressing a press conference, Baloch said the interior minister contacted JI leadership thrice. “The process of talks can start once the government releases our workers and remove reservations,” he said.

The JI leader said his party wanted to resolve the issue peacefully but first the federal and Punjab governments should release workers arrested from different places.

He said the police also raided his house in Lahore and detained his guests and servants from there.

To start with the agenda of demands, he said:

• It should end Petroleum Development Levy on all the petroleum products and withdraw increases in prices of these products.

• 20 % reduction in prices of food commodities, electricity and gas tariffs.

• Renegotiate agreements with IPPs, particularly end clause of agreement on making payments in US dollar.

• Reduction in taxes such as on agriculture and industrial sectors.

• Ensure incentives to industrial sector, trade and investment.

• Withdrawal of increase in taxes on the salaried class and imposition of taxes on privileged class.

• Cut in non-development expenses by 35 %.

• Withdrawal of all taxes on stationery and other items used in education and training of children.

JI Karachi stages 20 sit-ins in solidarity with Pindi protesters

The JI Karachi organised 20 sit-ins across the city on Saturday to express solidarity with the protest in Rawalpindi, which is calling for the abolition of contracts with independent power producers (IPPs), a rationalised tax regime, and relief for the salaried class.

JI leaders Saifuddin Advocate and Taufiquddin Siddiqui, among others, addressed the gatherings.

The protests were participated by a host of party workers and Karachi residents, and large screens were set up to display the proceedings from Islamabad. JI Karachi chief Munem Zafar has already travelled to Islamabad to join the sit-in there.

In their addresses, JI leaders Taufiquddin Siddiqui and Saifuddin Advocate informed participants that despite a brutal crackdown by the police, thousands of citizens had gathered on Murree Road.

Pakistan to become world’s major power, says Hungarian PM

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Saturday forecast a shift in global power away from the “irrational” West towards Asia and Russia, predicting that Pakistan will become one of the world’s future big powers.

“In the next long decades, maybe centuries, Asia will be the dominant centre of the world,” Orban said while also mentioning China, India, and Indonesia as the future big powers.

“And we Westerners pushed the Russians into this bloc as well,” he said in the televised speech before ethnic Hungarians at a festival in the town of Baile Tusnad in neighbouring Romania.

He also said that Russia’s leadership was “hyper rational” and that Ukraine would never be able to fulfil its hopes of becoming a member of the European Union or Nato.

Orban, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, has sharply differed from the rest of the bloc by seeking warmer ties with Beijing and Moscow, and he angered some EU leaders when he went on surprise visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing this month for talks on the war in Ukraine.

He said that in contrast to the “weakness” of the West, Russia’s position in world affairs was rational and predictable, saying the country had shown economic flexibility in adapting to Western sanctions since it invaded Crimea in 2014.

He added that Ukraine would never become a member of the EU or Nato because “we Europeans do not have enough money for that”.

“The EU needs to give up its identity as a political project and become an economic and defence project,” Orban added.

The EU opened membership talks with Ukraine late last month, although a long and tough road lies ahead of the country before it can join the bloc.

A declaration at the end of the Nato summit this month said the alliance will support Ukraine on “its irreversible path” towards membership.

Children among 30 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school

The Hamas-run government media office said 15 children and eight women were among those killed in the strike in the central town of Deir Al-Balah. More than 100 people were wounded, the media office and the Gaza health ministry said.

Israel’s military said it had targeted fighters operating there and that it had taken steps to reduce the risk to civilians.

Separately, nine people were killed in a rocket attack on a football ground in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday.

Eleven dead as rocket hits football pitch in occupied Golan Heights

At Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, ambulances rushed the wounded in for treatment. Some people arrived on foot, their clothes stained with blood.

Reuters footage showed people returning to the site of the bombing to check on their belongings, and fires burning in the area.

Um Hasan Ali, a displaced woman living at the school, said it had only been a couple of months since she returned to Gaza from Egypt with her daughter who had been taken there for medical treatment. Now her daughter had been wounded in the strike and taken to hospital, she said.

Another woman, Ibtihal Ahmed, told Reuters she was sitting in a neighbour’s tent when she heard heavy bombing.

“I started running, my daughter was one place and I was at another, I saw people running towards the place that was struck. The people sheltering in Khadija school are all wounded people, they are innocent and this should not happen to them,” she said.

On Saturday, the military said it had instructed Palestinians to evacuate the southern neighborhoods of Khan Younis and move to the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone. Israeli attacks in Khan Younis on Saturday killed 14 people, health officials said.

UN and humanitarian officials accuse Israel of using disproportionate force in the war and of failing to ensure civilians have safe places to go, which it denies.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokes­pe­rson for Palestinian President Ma­h­­­moud Abbas, blamed the Isra­eli attacks on the support of the US.

 

A rocket fired from Lebanon hit a football pitch in an Arab town in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Saturday, killing 11 youngsters in what the army described as the “deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since October 7”.

The Israeli army alleged that Lebanese group Hezbollah fired the deadly rocket that killed the youngsters aged between 10 and 20 years when they were hit on the pitch in the town of Majdal Shams.

Hezbollah denied it was responsible for the deadly strike. “The Islamic Resistance has no connection to this incident,” it said, referring to its military wing.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on X that 11 youngsters were killed in the attack, while the emergency service Magen David Adom said 19 others were wounded when the rocket hit Majdal Shams.

Anti-Pakistan bill introduced in US Senate

WASHINGTON: US Republican Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill on Friday, aiming to halt security assistance to Pakistan for its alleged threats towards India.

The US-India Defence Cooperation Act requires a report on Pakistan’s “use of offensive force, including through terrorism and proxy groups against India”.

The proposed bill also aims to “bar Pakistan from receiving assistance if it is found to have sponsored terrorism against India”.

Senator Rubio also proposed to strengthen the US-India partnership to counter China’s influence, saying it is essential to enhance the strategic diplomatic, economic, and military relationship with New Delhi.

The bill aims to provide support to India in its response to growing threats to its territorial integrity and provide necessary security assistance.

Senator Rubio, in his legislation, has proposed to treat India as the same status as US allies such as Japan, Israel, South Korea, and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies regarding technology transfers.

He also suggests providing a limited exemption for India from Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions.

It is to be noted that CAATSA — a tough US law — authorises the US administration to impose sanctions on countries that purchase major defence hardware from Russia.

The bill, if approved, would allow India to purchase equipment from Russia currently used by the Indian military without having to face US sanctions.

Furthermore, the legislation also seeks to “set a sense of Congress that expeditious consideration of certifications of letters of offer to sell defence articles, defence services, design and construction services, and major defence equipment to India is consistent with US interests and it is in the interest of peace and stability India to have the capabilities needed to deter threats”.

It also aims to authorise the Secretary of State to enter into a memorandum of understanding with India to increase military cooperation.

The bill also seeks to expedite excess defence articles to India for two years and grant India the same status as other allies and expand International Military Education and Training Cooperation with New Delhi.

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