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IHC seeks comments about PTI chief’s shifting to Adiala Jail

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 9 (APP): The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday sought comments from the federal and Punjab governments in appeals pertaining to provision of A-Class to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan and his shifting from the District Jail Attock to Central Jail Adiala.

Chief Justice Aamer Farooq heard the appeals filed by the former prime minister through his legal team.

During the course of proceedings, the petitioner’s lawyer Sher Afzal Marawat informed the court that they went to the Attock Jail last day on the IHC’s directions but they were not permitted to meet the former prime minister.

The chief justice observed that the prisoner should be provided facilities as per the law, and a delegation of two or three lawyers could go to meet him.

The counsel prayed the court to issue an order as per the list of lawyers presented to the bench.

The chief justice observed that the court would pass an order as per the list, directing the lawyer not to create a political gathering there.

He questioned as to who was authorized to take a decision regarding sending an accused to a certain jail.

The lawyer replied that it had also to be viewed that whether there was any dishonesty or not in this matter. There was not a single reason to keep Chairman PTI in Attock Jail.

The lawyer also prayed the court to issue orders regarding meeting with his client and provision of homemade food to him in jail. The court said that it would also view this matter.

The case was then adjourned till August 11.

Senate session adjourned indefinitely

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 09 (APP): Senate session on Wednesday was prorogued to a close sine die after completing all scheduled business.

“The decision to prorogue the Senate session, in line with the powers granted by Clause (1) of Article 54 of the Constitution, has been made by the President following the conclusion of the session’s agenda,” Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani, who was leading the session, announced.

US fellowships help Pakistani youth ace unique skills, enhance leadership qualities: PUAN members

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 9 (APP):The Pakistan-US Alumni Network (PUAN) members on Wednesday said the United States (US) funded fellowships and training programmes have benefitted Pakistani youth to ace unique skills and enhance their leadership qualities through diversified cultural interactions and engagements in the States.

Young energy expert and Fulbright scholar, Waqas Idrees told APP that he had acquired advanced qualifications from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) through the US State Department’s fully-funded Fullbright scholarship.

He was one of the only experts on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and also a sustainability and climate risk professional.

He said the major reason behind less participation of Pakistani youth in the US fellowship programmes was the lack of commitment among the youth which was a generational thing hindering them to exploit their true potential through tough and hard competitive processes.

Idrees said the Fullbright and International Visitors Leadership (IVL) programmes for students were found hard to grasp by the local students.

Referring to his own example, he said he had achieved a Fulbright scholarship in the fourth attempt whereas the PUAN provided him the opportunity to study in the US.

He informed that many PUAN alumni like him approach students in Universities to apply for Fullbright scholarships.
Waqas Idrees mentioned that he had done research on ‘Boston blizzards’ impacting impoverished children which was adopted and implemented in Africa to support children facing crisis which was a great accomplishment.

“I did a project on Afghan refugees to support children to earn bread and study simultaneously. It is my tenth year after successfully completing my Fulbright scholarship. I have developed an ICARE (climate advocacy and education initiative)
programme to support the impoverished children in educational institutions to learn more about climate change and action,” he added.

Waqas Idrees had also worked with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on its energy-related projects, competitive auctions on renewables and also working with the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).

The ICARE initiative, he said was focussing on the children belonging to the middle calls who were unlike the elites not aware of climate change. It was working with private, public and charity schools supporting out-of-school children.

He suggested that there was a need to improve communication and the top-down approach to achieve youth inclusion and integration.

Sana Tahir, an environmentalist working with the National Cleaner Production Center Foundation (NCPC) also availed an opportunity in 2013 under the U.S. legislative fellowship programme. She had done her BS and MS in Environmental Sciences from the University of the Punjab.

She said that she had learned a lot about cultural issues during her U.S. experience and also acquired knowledge about Eco-Roof topping and other innovative concepts.

She visited government and power organisations in the U.S. during her fellowship. Sana Tahir appreciated the civil society and volunteer work that inspired her and moved her to replicate it back in the country.

She mentioned that the civil society in the U.S. was more empowered as compared to Pakistan and was always ready to work and have an enhanced policy footprint. For example, she said Saturdays were dedicated to volunteer work.

She encouraged women and girls to visit the U.S. and learn new technologies and techniques.

Director General World Wide Fund for Nature Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan), Hammad Naqi Khan said WWF is the largest environmental organisation globally and also in Pakistan.

He said the members of PUAN came from diverse backgrounds, areas, genders and social cohorts and it was very important to take the opportunity to sensitise and impart the gravity of the issue to them for a stronger and effective climate action.

He added that these experts should be infused with a proactive approach to climate change as the climate crisis was one of the biggest challenges and also an economic challenge for Pakistan.

“Our economy is based on water. For us, climate change is water change. Half of the water comes from glaciers and half from monsoon rains. The studies clearly say that the third largest snow reserve outside the polar region is in Pakistan and it is melting at a faster pace. In the first cycle we will have more water and then it will decline but our population is growing,” the DG WWF-Pakistan said.

He said the climate disasters would accelerate in the coming years where as an individual, farmers, industrialists and others everybody had to play their roles for a climate-resilient and sustainable future.

“Climate change can’t be tackled in isolation. It is imperative to engage these professionals like PUAN alumni to spread the message,” he said.

He said that though PUAN had a good foundation and needed to roll out milestone targets for climate action and resilience measures. “Let’s have some pragmatic and ambitious milestones through the platform of PUAN and it should monitor its implementation for result-oriented interventions,” he added.

India now committing “Demographic Terrorism” in IIOJK

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MIRPUR AJK, Aug 09 (APP): India has now reached the stage of “Demographic Terrorism” in Kashmir and as a Kashmiri, I feel that there will be Kashmir but without Kashmiris”, said Dr. Mubeen Shah.

The former Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry Srinagar “at present in exile in Turkey”, Dr Mubeen Shah categorically expressed these views while speaking at an international seminar on the current ugly situation of Jammu & Kashmir state in IIOJK hosted in Istanbul late yesterday.

“Demographic Terrorism in Indian occupied Kashmir and our responsibilities”, was the topic of the seminar.

Unveiling the whole story and nullifying the narrative of India in the bleeding vale of Indian Illegally occupied Jammu Kashmir State, Dr Shah said it was crystal clear before the external world that India has turned the disputed Jammu Kashmir State in her illegal occupation, the biggest prison on the planet – which, he underlined, was the eye opener for the freedom, human rights and peace-loving civilized world across the globe.

Dr Mubeen Shah continued by saying “right to self-determination for Kashmiris is an integral element of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. The principle of self-determination is prominently embodied in Article 1 of the Charter of the United Nations (UN)”.

“Until we get justice i.e. to choose our future, the human rights violations in IIoJK will continue & now Demographical terrorism is in place”, he added.

What is happening under this, he underlined unveiling that issuing of domicile certificates (About 1 million non-Kashmiri have received domicile certificates which also shows a further 7,346 retired bureaucrats and army officers have also signed up).

Occupying our economic spaces. As per the latest information received by me, Indians are focusing on tourist areas like Pahalgam.

It may be also because that area is a part of the area the Kashmiri Hindus desired to be a part of a separate Homeland for the Kashmiri Hindus in the Valley of Kashmir comprising the regions of the Valley to the East and North of Jhelum River.

That plan was scuttled by Kashmiris in 2008 but now after August 2019, it has come in a different avatar.
On 28 November 2019, India’s consul-general in New York proposed an “Israeli model” on Kashmir & this appears to be a part of the same model”, Dr Shah said.

Unveiling the true ugly posture of the bleeding IIOJK state, the exiled Kashmir attested reports that from 2019, about 10000 Kashmiri women have gone missing.

This could be a massive human trafficking ring run by the Indian evil fascist Modi Hindutva occupation regime to destroy Kashmiri social fabric & is done by the same forces who promote International Yoga Day and make Muslims do yoga exercises in Muslim shrines in Kashmir in their program of cultural genocide.

“Unfortunately our Islamic countries of OIC also promote yoga which starts with the worship of the sun. Desecration of the womenfolk of the occupied nation is the calling card of the evil occupier and has been the way for millennia in such cases & we have videos also calling for marrying Kashmiri women right from 2019, A BJP legislative assembly is on record advocating to go to Kashmir, buy plots of land and get married”, Dr. Shah disclosed in his detailed address to the conference.

“We fear when there will be direct train services between Delhi and Srinagar (planned to be by end of 2023), hundreds of thousands of Indians will flood Kashmir and the modus operandi elaborated above will be multiplied multifold”, he said adding “Occupied Kashmir is presently ruled directly by Delhi.

They have started a scheme where landless people will be given land and loans for housing.

The figures touted by the local government have been shown as 200000 while the number of homeless ‘people’ was 19,047 in 2021.

This means that all others have come from India. All this we feel is a start of by which hundreds of thousands of settlers from India will be settled in future to complete the demographic terrorism”.

Dr Shah said that Kashmiris have been silenced by actions of our civil society human rights defenders like Khurram Pervaz besides journalists who are in prison like Fahad Shah; this all became more pronounced after 5th August 2019.
India, Dr Shah said, killed our resistance icons by keeping them under house arrest or jail with no access to treatment like Sehrai sahib and Geelani sahib.

They are now having sinister plans to kill our other Iconic resistance leaders like Yasin Malik through their managed justice system in spite of his conversion from an armed resistance leader to a person who was now leading the resistance in a peaceful manner.

He emphasized saying “Our responsibility and actions needed keeping the gravity of the problem in view need to be done with no further time lost as we fear that there will be Kashmir but without Kashmiri’s”.

Dr Mubeen Shah said it was the earnest need to tell the truthful narrative about this with reasons in every forum whenever we speak on Kashmir and encourage telling our story through things like the song which was released yesterday “Jails of Kashmir” by a Turkish our friend MR Tugray Evren.

“I would take the opportunity of the presence of representatives of the Turkish as well as Kuwait Parliament besides civil society members to impress on their government as well as the OIC that Until and unless we go to the main action needed i.e. in the imposition of economic sanctions which is what America and Europe are putting on Russia without any unanimous resolution of the UN while as in our case, there is a clear cut resolution not being implemented for the last 75 years. I fear till India does not have an economic cost they will not back out”, said Dr. Shah.

The Kashmiri business icon from IIOJK in exile urged that Pakistan should revoke Shimla Agreement after India re-annexed IIOJK on Aug. 05, 2019.

India changed its status unilaterally & bilateralism has only made us suffer and delayed the implementation of UNSC resolutions.

Many even feel Pakistan should allow AJK as a base camp for the freedom movement in IIOJK. LOC should mean nothing to people on the AJK side.

Dr Shah expressed the hope that the conference will give the necessary direction as well as put in place the correct narrative which will achieve for us the right of self-determination for which we are waiting for more than 75 years.

He thanked the organizer of the moot, a constituent member just like the NGO Kashmir House Turkey of Kashmir Diaspora coalition, for hosting the grand congregation inviting seasoned speakers to apprise this august gathering about the subject in length to put in right perspective that the denial of Right Of Self Determination to Kashmiri’s was the biggest human right violations in Kashmir as every other human right violation flows from that.

He also thanked the audience for the huge gathering on this occasion attending the moot to show support to us Kashmiri especially from Kuwait as well as from within Turkiye especially members of Parliament from Turkey.
APP/AHR

All set for landing first int’l flight at Skardu airport on Aug 14

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Skardu, Aug 09 (APP): All arrangements are in the final stages for an international flight to land for the first time in the history at Skardu airport.

The first flight from Dubai will arrive in Skardu on 14th August which will be a historic day for Pakistan as the international flights will change the fate of the people of Gilgit Baltistan.

Though every government in the country has given top priority to developing these beautiful parts of Pakistan and spent huge funds for this purpose after the operation of international flights directly from foreign countries to Skardu international airport, investment, trade, tourism, culture and expedition will be fast promoted and the source of foreign exchange will be raised, UN employment will be reduced, local hotelling and transport sectors will be further strengthened.

It is also expected that local fruits like apricots, apples, walnuts, almonds, Cherry and especially dried fruits can be exported through the said international flights.

On the other hand, arrangements are made for re-fueling the international aircraft which was not available here in Skardu before but now Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has arranged fuel tankers at Skardu airport.

The people of Baltistan are anxiously waiting to see the first International flight and there will be jubilation in Skardu on 14th August.

It is also to be mentioned here that many International and domestic tourists are also coming from different countries and different cities of the country through Karakuram Highway both through their own vehicles and public transport to see the scenic beauties of Baltistan.