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SINCE 2009, rich nations have failed to fulfil the pledge of $100bn every year in climate finance to developing nations.—AFP/file • 70 ministers gather to hammer out details before next month’s UN climate summit in Dubai • Many sceptical of rich countries’ willingness to set up the fund ABU DHABI: Setting up a “ loss and damage ” fund for poorer nations hit by climate change dominated preliminary talks on Tuesday one month before COP28 in Dubai, where delegates look set to tussle over the future of fossil fuels. Around 70 ministers have gathered since Monday at the Emirates Palace, a luxurious resort in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi, to hammer out details before next month’s UN climate summit, the most important since the landmark Paris agreement in 2015. “The main focus for the moment is clearly the loss and damage fund,” said French Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher. The agreement to set up a dedicated fund to help vulnerable countries cope with climate ...

The caretaker government on Tuesday maintained the current prices of petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD) for the next fortnight. According to a notification from the Ministry of Finance, available with Dawn.com , the prices of petrol and HSD will remain Rs283.38 and Rs303.18 per litre, respectively. Meanwhile, the prices of kerosene oil and light-diesel oil were reduced by Rs3.82 and Rs3.4 per litre, respectively, to Rs211.03 and Rs189.46 per litre. The move comes contrary to expectations of a reduction of Rs5-18 per litre for diesel and petrol. Official sources had told Dawn that the price of HSD was likely to decrease by about Rs5-6 per litre, falling to less than Rs300 per litre, unless the caretaker government further increased the petroleum levy. On the other hand, petrol was expected to be cheaper by about Rs18 per litre. This was mainly due to the rupee’s gain of about Rs3 against the dollar over the last fortnight, while the average price of diesel has dropped by about $1....

ISLAMABAD: A global body has warned that the fragile progress to strengthen preparedness made in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic is at risk, and the world’s capacity to deal with a potential new pandemic threat remains inadequate. The warning has been issued by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), an independent body responsible for assessing the state of the world’s preparedness for pandemics and other health emergencies. According to worldometers, 697,096,916 cases and 6,932,519 deaths have been reported because of the coronavirus since the beginning of Covid-19 in December 2019. Most number of cases have been reported in US i.e. 109,066,255 and Pakistan is ranked at 53rd number with 1,581,910 cases and 30,664 deaths. The GPMB was established in 2018 following the recommendation of a high-level panel on the global response to health crises. Global Preparedness Monitoring Board highlights weaknesses in critical areas of preparedness in wake of Covid-19 The GPMB mo...

LAHORE: Army troops and Rangers personnel will be deployed for the upcoming general elections in Punjab to perform security duties, the provincial caretaker government has said. Chief Election Commi­s­s­­ioner (CEC) Sikandar Sul­tan Raja held a meeting with caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi and his cabinet members on Monday to discuss measures for ensuring ‘free and fair’ elections. “The army and Rangers will be deployed in Punjab for the upcoming polls. As many as 147,000 army and paramilitary personnel will perform election security duties. Some 7,000 of 50,000 polling stations in Punjab have been declared sensitive,” Punjab caretaker Information Mini­ster Amir Mir told a presser. He said it was agreed during the meeting that the elections would be held ‘on time’ and in a transparent manner. When asked whether the ECP had finalised the date for the polls, as he claimed they would be held ‘on time,’ the minister responded, “No date for the polls has been finalised as of y...

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) came down hard on the federal authorities on Monday, directing the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) to take up audio leaks matter with the cabinet in order to devise a legal framework for surveillance. “How is electronic surveillance being done, and who is doing it? Who is the competent authority for taking decision of recording phone calls? The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) says they have not permitted listening third party conversation to anyone,” Justice Babar Sattar remarked during the hearing of the petitions of Bushra Bibi , the spouse of ex-premier Imran Khan, and Najamus Saqib , son of former chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar. “The audio of the Prime Minister’s Office, a Supreme Court judge and a former chief justice’s family was leaked. It is a terrible decision to do so without taking the state of Pakistan into confidence,” Justice Sattar noted. The petitions were moved by the son of ex-CJP Saqib who had challen...

• Inzamam steps down after ‘conflict of interest’ allegations emerge • TV anchor under fire for displaying WhatsApp chat with Babar without consent THE turmoil continues back home; its aftershocks threatening to further derail Pakistan’s campaign at the World Cup in India. It’s an unwelcome distraction that could’ve been put off, at least until Babar Azam’s men were well and truly out of the race for the semis. But that’s Pakistan cricket for you: a place where things unravel fast. This time, a lot has happened in the space of just over 48 hours, culminating in the resignation of chief selector Inzamamul Haq on Monday, on the eve of yet another must-win game for Pakistan against Bangladesh in Kolkata. So when Pakistan take the field at Eden Gardens, looking to keep alive their faint hopes of reaching the last four, they will be essentially be doing so with the man who selected them no longer at the helm; the man who, alongside captain Babar, was named as being responsible for the ...

TAMPA (Florida): A street is closed off following the fatal shooting in the Ybor City area, on Sunday.—AFP FLORIDA: Gunfire erupted in the midst of Halloween festivities early on Sunday around a clutch of bars and clubs in the Florida city of Tampa, leaving at least two people dead and 18 others injured, police said. Videos posted on social media site X showed a chaotic scene of crowds of people running through the streets with the sound of at least a dozen shots ringing out. The videos showed police scrambling to give aid to costumed victims bleeding on the sidewalks. The images came as a grim reminder of the last year’s tragedy in Seoul when a stampede during Halloween festivities left nearly 160 people dead. However, police said a fight between two groups broke out around 3am in the historic neighborhood of Ybor City, where hundreds of people filled the streets. As soon as the shooting began, people ran for their lives and the clubs and bars were closed. While early i...

KARAGANDA: Kazakhstan held nationwide mourning on Sunday after 45 people died in a blaze at an ArcelorMittal mine, the worst accident in the Central Asian country’s post-Soviet history. The tragedy, which struck at the Kostenko coal mine in the Karaganda region on Saturday, came after a series of deadly incidents at ArcelorMittal mines and has prompted the nationalisation of the company’s local affiliate. Kazakhstan’s emergency services said on social media that the bodies of 45 people had been found, whereas the search for four miners continued. Rescuers earlier warned that finding the remaining miners alive were “very low”, due to the lack of ventilation and the force of Saturday’s explosion. The death toll overtook a 2006 accident that left 41 miners dead at another ArcelorMittal site. It also came just two months after another incident killed five miners. ArcelorMittal, led by Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal, operates some 15 factories and mines in the centre of the former ...

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has received a record 1,324 objections (representations) to the preliminary delimitations of the constituencies published on September 27 for the upcoming general elections. According to the data released by the ECP on Saturday, the commission received a total of 672 representations concerning the delimitation of constituencies in Punjab, followed by 293 for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh (228), Balochistan (124), and seven for Islamabad. The ECP had invited objections from registered voters after publishing the list of preliminary delimitations on September 27 after rearranging electoral districts across the country in light of the 2023 digital census. It had set Oct 27 as the deadline for receiving representations, announcing that it would take decisions on these representations after hearing the positions of the respective parties and set one-month time to decide the representations. The ECP has already constituted two benches...

LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) will investigate how dozens of people impersonating lawyers managed to slip into Europe after securing visas through ‘unauthorised’ use of letterheads of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) of Pakistan. The SCBA has filed a complaint with the FIA director-general, seeking a comprehensive investigation into the unauthorised use of its letterheads for the illegal transportation of ‘non-lawyers’ and non-members of SCBA abroad (Europe) through fraudulent acquisition of visas. According to the SCBA, an unsigned letter was issued to the Austrian embassy, fraudulently usi­ng its letterheads to facilitate the entry of 39 individuals into Europe under the impression of being advocates and SCBA members in June last year. “Upon taking the charge of the SCBAP in Nov 2022, the 25th executive commi­ttee was informed regarding the grave crime of human smuggling that took place during the tenure of its predecessors (24th executive committee of SCB...

Matthew Perry, one of the stars of smash hit TV sitcom “Friends,” was found dead at his home on Saturday, US media reported. He was 54. First responders found Perry unconscious in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home and were unable to revive him, law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times . The LA Times and TMZ , which first reported the news, both said there were no signs of foul play, citing anonymous sources. Perry was best known for his portrayal of the wise-cracking Chandler Bing on NBC’s wildly popular “Friends,” which ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004. Perry had battled for years with addiction to painkillers and alcohol, and attended rehabilitation clinics on multiple occasions. In his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing , published last year, Perry described going through detox 65 times, spending some $9 million in attempts to get sober. Perry experienced health problems including a burst colon in 2018 due to his drug usage, which required a se...

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden met China’s foreign minister at the White House on Friday to prepare for a possible visit by President Xi Jinping to the United States, as the two biggest economies try to ease tensions. Biden has invited Xi to San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit next month, but he has also stood firm on China in the run-up, keeping up sanctions and backing US allies in disputes with Beijing. The US president told China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi that Washington and Beijing must “manage competition in the relationship responsibly and maintain open lines of communication,” the White House stated. With the Israel-Hamas conflict raging in the Middle East, Biden also “underscored that the United States and China must work together to address global challenges,” it added. While journalists were not allowed to cover the meeting, at which Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan were also present, the W...

QUETTA / LAHORE / PESHAWAR: As the government-ordained deadline for the deportation of illegal immigrants — mostly Afghans — draws near, authorities have intensified their efforts by setting up ‘holding centres’, and opening additional border crossing points to speed up the repatriation process. To expedite the repatriation of undocumented foreigners to Afgha­nistan and Iran, the Balochistan government is opening three more crossing points. “These crossing points are being opened in Qila Saifullah, Qameruddin Karez and Baracha Noor Wahab in Chagai district to help Afghan and Iranian Baloch immigrants to meet the deadline of Oct 31,” said Balochistan Information Minister Jan Achakzai at a press conference on Friday. Similarly, foreigners found in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa without proper documents would be repatriated from KP crossing points, he added. After the deadline, he asserted, the government would implement its plan with full force, involving all relevant institutions in expelling i...

KURRAM: An armed conflict between two religious groups in Kurram claimed seven more lives on Friday, as officials said efforts to overcome the situation were underway. The clashes between the two sects, which erupted after a controversial video went viral on social media a few days ago, have so far claimed 15 lives. Although the contents of the video were strongly condemned by both sides, sporadic violence erupted in the area. Officials told Dawn that five people were killed in clashes between the two armed groups in the Boshara area, while two others lost their lives in Khar Kalay and Baleech Khel areas, on Friday. Officials said that at least 23 people, including 10 hurt in Friday’s clashes, had been injured in the four days of armed conflict that has swept through the region. Cellular networks remain suspended and all routes in and out of the district are closed for traffic, officials said, adding that locals were stranded and many others, who arrived from other parts of the c...

ISLAMABAD: The Sup­reme Judicial Council (SJC) has decided to issue a show-cause notice to Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi over complaints of alleged misconduct and assets beyond means. In a 3-2 decision, the council, which met on Friday, directed the judge to submit a reply within two weeks. SJC is a constitutional body that probes allegations of misconduct against the judges of Supreme and high courts. It comprises the chief justice, two senior-most SC judges and two senior-most high courts’ chief justices. Currently, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa; Supreme Court justices Sardar Tariq Masood and Ijazul Ahsan; and top judges of Lahore and Balochistan High Courts Mohammad Ameer Bhatti and Naeem Akhtar Afghan, respectively, are SJC members. CJP Isa, Justice Masood and CJ Afghan voted to issue the notice, while Justice Ahsan and CJ Bhatti requested more time to consider the complaints. After the decision, the copies of 10 complaints were sent to Justice Naqvi f...

ISLAMABAD: Social media platform TikTok has removed 14.14 million videos in Pakistan for violating community guidelines in April-June 2023. According to its Comm­unity Guidelines Enfo­rce­ment Report for April-June 2023, TikTok removed 106.47m videos globally, or around 0.7pc of all videos uploaded to TikTok. Of them, 66,440,775 videos were removed through automated systems, while 6,750,002 videos were restored after review. Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2023 from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/lyOiCdj

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: While asking the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to announce election date, the PPP has said the lopsidedness of caretaker governments is becoming evident with each passing day as it is giving ‘special treatment’ to PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and reminded the commission that the result of general elections without Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in the run will not be acceptable to anyone. According to an earlier ECP announcement, elections are ‘likely’ to take place in the last week of January 2024 . However, no official schedule has been given till date amid growing uncertainty over the issue in relevant quarters. PPP Secretary General Nayyar Bukhari stated: “The Election Commission is answerable to the nation and the apex court for not giving the election date.” It was known to all that caretakers were providing special treatment to a party, he said. “Questions will be raised on the results of the elections if level playing field is not given to all,” he said. He ...

• Number of refugees worldwide jumps 1.2m in just six months • Record 114m people displaced globally by end of September ISLAMABAD: The number of Afghan refugees globally increased from 5.7 million to 6.1 million, mostly reflecting new population estimates reported by the Pakistan government, the United Nations said on Wednesday. Together, Iran (3.4m) and Pakistan (2.1m) hosted 90 per cent of all Afghan refugees, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said in a new report. “By the end of June, there were an estimated 35.8m refugees globally, most of whom have been in displacement for many years,” it said in its Mid-Year Trends Report , which analyses forced displacement during the first six months of 2023. This figure has doubled within seven years. The global total includes 5.5m people in refugee-like situations and 5.3m other people in need of international protection. Similarly, the number of people displaced by war, persecution, violence and human rights violations globally jumpe...

ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet has approved the telecom infrastructure-sharing framework and green-lighted the formation of a committee to auction the spectrum for the next-generation 5G wireless network, Caretaker IT Minister Dr Umar Saif said on Wednesday. The infrastructure-sharing framework aims to help telecom companies jointly use resources, including towers, antennas and cable ducts, optimise resource consumption and possibly cut operational costs. The minister hoped the framework’s adoption would also open doors for new companies to enter the domestic telecom space. As for the 5G auction, he said the new panel — to be headed by Caretaker Finance Minister Sham­shad Akhtar — would play a key role in rolling out the faster network. The committee would also include the ministers for IT, science and technology, industries and production, the secretaries of relevant ministries, and Federal Board of Revenue officials. Dr Saif said the committee’s primary task would be to asse...

Senior PML-N leader Senator Ishaq Dar on Wednesday said he expected a meeting between party supremo Nawaz Sharif and PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari would “hopefully” take place, after weeks of enduring withering criticism from the PPP. Speaking in an interview on Dawn News show Live with Adil Shahzeb , the senator was questioned about mounting criticism from the PPP ahead of Nawaz’s return and on whether there was a possibility of a meeting between the party heads. “There is no restriction on a meeting; it should happen and will hopefully take place in the near future.” Dar said Nawaz was busy with his legal issues after returning to Pakistan. On criticism from the PPP, he said the PML-N had had a “very good working relationship” with the party. Dar added he felt it “inappropriate” to respond to critical statements from PPP leaders since the two parties had a relationship which would continue into the future. He said he personally wished that all major political parties shou...

QUETTA: Women are often seen as the gentler gender, with some thinking they can’t do everything men can. But when you look at Hameeda and Saira, two sisters who’ve devoted their lives to battling polio, it challenges that viewpoint. The power duo is completely dedicated to vaccinate the underprivileged kids in the neighbourhood. They have been working as health volunteers for a few years now and their spirit remains stronger than ever. With the first light of the day, Hameeda starts her daily routine. She takes care of her household tasks, like cleaning the house and looking after their animals, all in preparation for her important job. Her eyes show determination, and she wears a calm smile as she gets ready to vaccinate the less fortunate kids in the neighborhood. As a community health volunteer, Hameeda doesn’t just see her work as a duty; she finds it to be a dedicated and satisfying effort, majorly because her community openly accepts the concept of vaccinations. “We do no...

ISLAMABAD: At a time when caretaker governments are in place in the centre and all four provinces, the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) has raised questions over their utility and purpose. When the Constitution has vested the responsibility of holding transparent elections with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), what was the purpose of interim governments, asked CJP Qazi Faez Isa on Tuesday. The court was hearing a petition moved by Sardar Kashif Khan for simultaneous elections to the national and all four provincial assemblies on the same date. The CJP wondered what the concept behind caretaker governments was and asked the counsel who proposed this system of governance. Regrets SC has become arbiter of political disputes It was introduced by ex-president Gen Ziaul Haq through the Revival of Constitution Order in 1985, said Senator Farooq H. Naek, who was representing PPP. “But he [Gen Haq] did not implement it after introducing the concept when he removed the governmen...

CHENNAI: Afghanistan’s captain Hashmatullah Shahidi shakes hands with his Pakistani counterpart Babar Azam after the former led his team to a resounding victory, on Monday.—AFP CHENNAI: This time, Babar Azam had nowhere to hide. The Pakistan captain usually manages to skip post-match press conferences, especially when the team loses a match. But on Monday, he couldn’t. He shouldn’t have, in fact, after Pakistan fell to their first-ever loss to Afghanistan in a one-day international. To Babar’s horror, it came during the World Cup; his charges falling to a third successive defeat in the tournament, their odds of finishing in the top four narrowing with each game. There was no avoiding questions, probing ones, that needed answers. “This loss was very hard as a team,” said Babar, his voice shaking as he spoke, no wide smiles on his face to falsely depict all is well. It must have been hard. Afghanistan hadn’t merely scraped their way to a historic win, they quite clinically bul...

ISLAMABAD: Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Iesco) has recovered Rs474.63 million from 28,866 customers during an ongoing campaign which was initiated on Sept 1. According to a statement, Iesco carried out indiscriminate and intensive operations against electricity thieves and defaulters in all the regions including Islamabad, Rawalpindi City, Rawalpindi Cantt, Attock, Chakwal and Jhelum Region. Chief Executive Iesco Dr Mohammad Amjad Khan stated that the recovery of electricity dues from the defaulters was being ensured in every case and no one had the right to use electricity without paying the bill. He said this during a review meeting on the performance of the ongoing campaign regarding recovery and anti-power theft. He further said that best results were being achieved during the campaign to clean the Iesco region from the scourge of electricity theft. According to data, Iesco’s recovery teams have collected Rs220.72 million from 20,167 running defaulters, as well as Rs253....

RAWALPINDI: Head of the Polio Eradication Programme in Punjab Khizer Afzaal on Monday took pride in highlighting the fact that the country’s biggest province had been free of polio cases for nearly three years since October 2020, terming it “an achievement of the programme”, but cautioned that, as evident from the genomic sampling of viruses in Lahore and Rawalpindi environmental samples, Punjab was at risk of virus importation. “The Punjab has been free of polio cases for the last three years, but as long as polio exists anywhere, it is a threat to children everywhere”, Mr Khizer said in a statement on the eve of ‘World Polio Day’ to be observed on Tuesday (today). The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), Punjab, has organised several ceremonies to mark the day all over the province. “To end polio, we must reach every child in this challenging last mile of eradication, which is within our grasp. The government and health department are fully committed to winning this decisive round t...

KARACHI: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which has been consistently vocal against attempts to delay the polls beyond the January timeline set by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), on Sunday took issue with the demand — coming from the PML-N and JUI-F — to postpone the elections even further. In a statement, PPP leader and former deputy NA speaker Faisal Karim Kundi said the ECP was bound by the Constitution and could not delay polls on the wishes of two political parties. He expressed concern that postponing elections could be construed as an attempt to ‘steal the election’ and expressed disappointment over the ECP’s delay in announcing a final election date. “The ECP is legally bound and is not operating according to the orders of two personalities, hence elections cannot be delayed,” he said. “It is about time we put an end to the ‘selection’ process, and head towards elections,” he added. Kundi says ECP not supposed to operate on ‘orders of two figures’, dubs Nawaz’...