Committee formed to implement Pak-Saudi projects in film, drama fields

 

A committee has been formed to implement joint projects between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the fields of film and drama.

A decision to this effect was made during a meeting between Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb and Saudi Ambassador to Pakistan Nawaf bin Saeed Al-Malki in Islamabad on Wednesday.

The Minister appreciated ambassador's efforts for relief activities in the flood affected areas.

She said as per vision of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Pakistan desires to further strengthen trade and business-to-business linkages between the two countries.

Speaking on the occasion, the Ambassador said Pakistanis, working in Saudi Arabia, are playing a key role in the development of the Kingdom.

Expressing his sympathies over the losses in floods, he said Saudi Arabia will continue to support Pakistan in this hour of need. 

PM terms completion of CPEC projects within stipulated time as national priority

 

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has declared completion of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects within the stipulated timeframe as a national priority and directed to expedite work on these projects.

He said this while chairing a meeting in Islamabad on Wednesday to review progress on CPEC and other Chinese projects.

The Prime Minister said Main Line-One is a flagship project of CPEC and a game changer for Pakistan. He said ML-1 will ensure rail connectivity with Central Asian States and lead to development and prosperity of the entire region. He said ML-1 will play a cardinal role in the economic development of the country by connecting Pakistani seaports with China and Central Asian States.

The Prime Minister said ML-1 project will also ensure economic revival and development of Pakistan Railways.

Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the investment from Chinese companies in Pakistan's solar power projects. He said the government is completing the CPEC projects on priority basis, which were stalled during last four years of the previous government.

The Prime Minister said CPEC is entering Business to Business phase from Government to Government stage. He said now an era of industrial development is going to begin in Pakistan under CPEC. 

Shehbaz Sharif said Karachi Circular Railways project will reduce traffic issues of the citizens and provide them safe travel facilities.

The meeting was given a detailed briefing about infrastructure projects, especially, ML-1, Karachi Circular Railways, Karakoram Highway, and other initiatives. A comprehensive strategy was presented in the meeting on current position of the CPEC projects and pace of work on them.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, who attended the meeting via video link, thanked the Prime Minister for including Karachi Circular Railways to CPEC projects.

Pakistan urges UN Communication for more efforts to shine spotlight on climate crisis

 

Pakistan urges United Nations Communication for more efforts to shine a spotlight on the climate crisis.

This was stated by Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, Ambassador Munir Akram while speaking in the General Debate of the Fourth Committee on Questions related to Information”, Fourth Committee, 11th meeting - General Assembly, 77th session as Chair of G77 and China.

He said that as the world has entered a climate emergency, a key communications priority for the Department must be to highlight the challenges of climate change” said Ambassador Munir Akram.

He urged the Global communications department to take appropriate measures to enhance world public awareness about reinforcing multilateralism, unprecedented humanitarian crises, and needs in the world, in particular, strategic coordination in humanitarian relief, especially in natural disasters.

On behalf of the Group, he also insisted on a need for the communication messages from the United Nations to be accurate, reliable, and impartial. 

While taking note of the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech, and of the United Nations Guidance Note on Addressing and Countering COVID-19-related Hate Speech, the Group encouraged the Department of Global Communications to address hate speech narratives and to promote tolerance, non-discrimination, pluralism and freedom of opinion and expression, in order to assure that the key messages are spread in an equitable basis and targeting all peoples.

He urged the DGC to intensify its support for the efforts of the United Nations System to fight against disinformation. He also reiterated Group’s call for increased focus on the dissemination of factual, timely, targeted, clear, accessible, multilingual, and science-based information on all platforms.

G77 commended the Department for its continued efforts in raising awareness of the work and activities of the United Nations.

The group also commended the Department of Global Communication’s ‘efforts to support the United Nations agenda on issues such as sustainable development, peace and security, and human rights.

He urged the DGC to continue to support and strengthen the UN information centers and carry out the rationalization process of such centers in consultation with all concerned Member States.

PM urges provincial govts to play due role to mitigate sufferings of flood-affected people

 Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has urged all provincial governments to cooperate with the federal government beyond all political affiliations to mitigate the sufferings of flood affected people of the country.

He stated this while chairing a meeting of National Flood Response and Coordination Centre in Islamabad on Thursday.

The Prime Minister said as wheat sowing season begins, therefore seeds will be provided to farmers of flood hit areas.

He said that federal and provincial governments will bear the cost at fifty percent share each. He added that NDMA is procuring very good quality seeds.                 

He said provincial governments of Sindh and Balochistan have selected districts where they need federal government's relief but Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab have refused to accept this.

The Prime Minister urged the two provincial governments to cooperate with federal government so that no shortage of wheat occurs.      

He said the federal government is not allowing private sector to import wheat because it wants to save every penny of the national exchequer. 

Shehbaz Sharif said the government was filling the gap between wheat supply and demand caused during last four years. He made it clear that nobody will be allowed to misuse this calamitous situation and earn profits or do hoardings. 

He said distribution of cash relief assistance amount among families of those who died, injured or were affected in any other way during floods is underway in a transparent manner.

The Prime Minister said other essential items like tents, medicines, food packages, water and mosquito nets have been distributed across the country as per the requirement of every flood affected area.

He said China is to provide us high quality winter tents for upcoming cold weather.

Govt inks $172million Debt Suspension Agreement with JICA

 

Pakistan has signed an agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency for deferment of payment of loans worth 172 million dollars, under the G-20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) framework.

The amount, initially repayable between July and December last year will now be repaid over a period of six years (including one-year grace period) in semi-annual instalments.

The government has already signed agreements with JICA for suspension of 506 million dollars payment.

The G-20 has provided the fiscal space to Pakistan which is necessary to deal with the urgent health and economic needs of the country.

The total amount of debt that has been suspended under the DSSI framework, covering the period from May 2020 to December 2021, stands at 3,686 million dollars.

Pakistan has already signed 102 agreements with 21 bilateral creditors for the deferment of its debt repayments under the G-20 Initiative amounting to suspension and deferment of almost 3,441 million dollars.

Negotiations for remaining agreements to be signed under the G-20 Initiative are also going on.

                    

‘TTP sends’ extortion letter to K-P minister

  

A letter, demanding payment of Rs8 million, was sent to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) leader and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Science and Technology Minister Atif Khan, it emerged on Wednesday.

According to a report, Khan received the letter from the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The letter also threatened Khan with assassination if the payment was not made within three days.

The TTP, however, denied the allegations that it had sent the threatening letter. The group said that a reference number mentioned in the letter did not belong to it.

Sources told The Express Tribune that all letters of the TTP were issued through the Markazi Shura [Central Committee] on its official letterhead.

Speaking with the media, Khan said that he had received the letter “the way extortion [threats] are normally received”, adding that he would not budge to any threats.

He refused to pay the extortion amount and added that he had informed all relevant security agencies of the incident. “The ball is now in the agencies’ court to take appropriate action,” he said.

The extortion letter is the latest addition to emerging concerns about the resurgence of militancy, especially the TTP in K-P. There have been widespread protests against the regrouping of militants in the country.

Earlier this month, crowds in Swat staged massive demonstrations to protest against a militant attack on a school van that left the driver dead and two students injured.

Local residents demanded the arrest of culprits responsible for the attack in Charbagh and an operation against militants camped on the mountain tops in the district and challenging writ of the state.

After Swat, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Khyber, South and North Waziristan districts against the increasing incidents of militancy and lawlessness in Lakki Marwat district.

Meanwhile, a grand Jirga organised by the civil administration of Malakand division has resolved that the people of K-P will not let any group or individual to disrupt peace in the province.

According to a statement issued by the Swat deputy commissioner, the jirga of Swat, Buner, Shangla, Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Malakand and Bajaur districts was held on Saturday in Saidu Sharif.

The Jirga participants discussed the security situation in Swat and other districts of Malakand division and the measures taken to ensure peace and stability.

Nadra launches App enabling citizens to access data faster

 

ISLAMABAD: In yet another step towards making operations in Pakistan digital, the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) on Wednesday launched a mobile application ‘Rahbar’ which would not only enable citizens across the country to find the nearest Nadra Service Centre but offer much more through a simple click.

Nadra Chairman Tariq Malik, while announcing the citizen-centric mobile application, said: “Citizen’s residing inside Pakistan were unable to know about the location of the Nadra centre that best suits their vicinity. With Rahbar, the citizens can now make a well-informed decision about visiting any Nadra centre, keeping in view the location, distance, number of applicants-in-waiting, and average processing time through their mobile phones.”

He said such initiatives were aimed at converting Nadra offices to citizen service centres rather than only registration centres, adding that the application will ensure that citizens are facilitated to the max.

Furthermore, he said: “From now onwards, Nadra’s service will be in the public eye. This is the true manifestation of digital Pakistan and e-governance.”

Through this application, the citizens would also be able to have an idea about the number of citizens queued up awaiting their turn, processing time and the location of all Nadra registration centres in real time. The application would display offices in a list as well as on a map. The map would also show the location of the nearby Mobile Registration Van along with the registration office, making it convenient for users to navigate towards any Nadra centre with ease.

The application comprises filters to sort the centres including female-only centres, 24/7 Nadra centres and regular and executive Nadra centres. The application has an auto-refresh feature that would operate after every three minutes to update data.

Moreover, it has its own search engine that enables users to search for all Nadra offices through city, name, or location. To facilitate every Pakistani, this application has specially been designed in both Urdu and English.

This navigational mobile application showcases Nadra’s technical capabilities and citizen-centric approach. The application can be downloaded from Google Play Store (Android) and Apple Store (iOS) which can easily be accessed from all over Pakistan.

It may be mentioned here that Nadra has always been involved in facilitating the citizens of Pakistan by offering a wide range of services.

However, with increase in the stack of services, the caseload of processing has also increased considerably.