Peace & Pakistan First
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In Brazil, a self-proclaimed “human devil” recently cut off his little finger and nose to be prominent among his colleagues. Michael Farrow do Prado, 44, has already undergone several surgeries at the cost of millions of rupees for the sake of prominence and show devilish getup.
BEIJING, Jul 7 (XINHUA/APP):China”s top legislator Li Zhanshu held talks with Saqr Ghubash, speaker of the Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), via video link on Wednesday, and both sides pledged to enhance exchanges between legislative bodies.
Li, chairman of the National People”s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said China and the UAE, as good friends and good partners, have made every effort to promote bilateral relations, with the deepening of political mutual trust, fruitful results on economic and trade cooperation, and closer people-to-people exchanges.
Cooperation in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic has become a new highlight of bilateral relations, he added.
Li said the construction of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and the UAE has made substantial and significant progress, which not only benefits the two countries and their peoples, but also establishes a model of mutual respect, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation between China and the Arab and Islamic countries.
Li noted that, in accordance with the important consensus reached by the top leaders of the two countries, China and the UAE should continuously enhance strategic communication as well as the synergy of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the UAE”s 50-year national development plan.
The two sides should strengthen mutual political support, firmly support each other”s core interests and major concerns, jointly safeguard the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the basic norms of international relations, and jointly safeguard the fundamental and long-term interests of developing countries.
He called on the two sides to carry out anti-epidemic cooperation, promote vaccine cooperation to benefit more countries, and deepen practical cooperation in other fields.
KABUL: Taliban plan to present a written peace proposal to the Afghan government as soon as next month, a spokesman for the group has said even as its fighters make major territorial gains in the breach left by departing foreign forces.
Hundreds of Afghan security force members have fled into neighbouring Tajikistan in the face of Taliban advances since the United States vacated its main Afghan base, centrepiece of US and NATO might for almost two decades in the country, as part of a plan to withdraw all foreign troops by September 11.
While the transfer of Bagram airbase to the Afghan army added momentum to a Taliban drive to seize control over new districts, Taliban leaders renewed the long-stalled talks with Afghan government envoys in Qatar’s capital Doha last week.
KABUL: The US military left Bagram Airfield – its key base in Afghanistan – in the dead of night without notifying the Afghans, the base’s new commander said.
General Asadullah Kohistani told media that the US left Bagram at 03:00 local time on Friday, and that the Afghan military found out hours later.
Bagram also contains a prison, and there are reportedly up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners left in the facility.
The Taliban have been advancing rapidly in Afghanistan as US troops withdraw.
General Kohistani said that Afghan forces were expecting the Taliban to attack Bagram.
Speaking to reporters at the airbase, he said he was already receiving reports the group was making “movements in rural areas” nearby.
“You know, if we compare ourselves with the Americans, it’s a big difference,” Gen Kohistani said. “But according to our capabilities… we are trying to do the best and as much as possible secure and serve all the people.”
BEIJING: Prime Minister Imran Khan remarks that the Communist Party of China (CPC) has found a unique model of governance and brought enormous developments for the Chinese society in its own way are appreciable, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Monday.
“I have noted the relevant report. Also noted that Prime Minister, Imran Khan said that CPC has found a unique model and brought enormous developments for the Chinese society in its own way beating many Western democracies. We appreciate these remarks,” he said during his regular briefing held here.
He said, lately, many foreign media and people from different social sections have expressed warm congratulations on the CPC centenary.
“They said that the CPC committed to its founding mission has overcome all kinds of difficulties and led the Chinese nation to great achievements in socio economic development,” he added.
The spokesperson said that the century long journey of the CPC has shaken the world and added, as General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at a ceremony marking the CPC centenary, socialism with Chinese characteristics is fundamental achievement of the party and the people forged through innumerable hardships and great sacrifices and it is right path to achieve national rejuvenation.
Wang Wenbin said, “As we have upheld and developed the socialism with Chinese characteristics and driven coordinated progress in material, political, cultural, ethical, social and ecological terms, we have pioneered a new and unique Chinese path of modernization and created a new model for human advancement.
BEIJING: Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and Chinese president, will attend the Communist Party of China (CPC) and World Political Parties summit to be held on Tuesday via video link.
Xi Jinping will deliver a speech at the summit, Hu Zhaoming, spokesperson for the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, made the announcement Monday.
The theme of the summit is “For the People’s Well being: the Responsibility of Political Parties,” Hu said. More than 500 leaders of political parties and political organizations from 160-plus countries, and over 10,000 party representatives will attend the summit.
The summit is an important multilateral diplomatic event held at a time when the CPC marks its centenary, Hu said.
It aims to strengthen exchanges and mutual learning of experience in governance between the CPC and political parties worldwide, jointly respond to challenges brought by changes unseen in a century and the global COVID-19 pandemic, enhance the philosophy and capability of seeking happiness for the people, advance world peace and development and promote the construction of a community with a shared future for humanity, said Hu
BEIJING: Indian people should wake up and stop Indian intelligence agency’s actions in support of terrorism which are not only harmful to India itself but for others. The region and the international community should jointly condemn it.
These views were expressed by Cheng Xizhong, Visiting Professor at Southwest University of Political Science and Law and former military diplomat in South Asian countries in a statement issued here.
The Chinese scholar referred to a statement of National Security Adviser Dr Moeed Yusuf in which he said that evidence gathered during the investigation of the blast in Lahore’s Johar Town last month points to “Indian-sponsored terrorism”.
Dr Moeed Yusuf said that the mastermind of the attack which killed 3 people and left 24 others injured “is an Indian citizen and Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is in touch with him”.
Cheng Xizhong said, this is the “proxy war” and according to his understanding, the “proxy war” means that a country uses extremist and terrorist organizations or extremists and terrorists to carry out extremist and terrorist activities, thus undermining the social stability and economic development of the other country and weakening the strength status of the other country.
He said for many years, the “proxy war” has been an important reason for undermining the relations between India and Pakistan, and also an important factor affecting peace and stability in South Asia.
There is an idiom in China that says that someone lifts a rock only to drop it on his own feet.
India has been used to doing things out of its way, which has encouraged the spread of extremist and terrorist activities in India. From time to time, extremist and terrorist activities have taken place, and the Indian society has been in a state of unrest for a long time,” he added.
Therefore, Indian intelligence agency’s actions in support of terrorism are harmful to both others and themselves. The Indian people should wake up and stop it. The region and the international community should jointly condemn it, he concluded.
COTABATO, Philippines: At least 45 people were killed and dozens others were injured on Sunday when a Philippine military aircraft carrying troops crashed and burst into flames after missing the runway in the country’s south, officials said.
Nearly a hundred people, most of them recent army graduates, were on the C-130 Hercules transport plane which was trying to land on Jolo island in Sulu province around midday.
WASHINGTON: Hindus are more likely than Muslims in India to say the 1947 Partition was good for Hindu-Muslim relations, reveals a US survey released this week.
The surveyors — Pew Research Center survey, Washington — also found that the majority of Hindus “think it is very important to be Hindu and to speak Hindi to be truly Indian”.
The study is based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews in India that Pew conducted in 17 languages between late 2019 and early 2020.
“More than seven decades after [the partition] predominant view among Indian Muslims is that the Partition of the subcontinent was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (48 percent). Only three-in-ten Muslims say it was a good thing,” the study shows.
“Hindus, however, lean in the opposite direction: 43 percent of Hindus say Partition was beneficial for Hindu-Muslim relations, while 37pc say it was harmful.”
Sikhs are even more likely than Muslims to “say the event was bad for Hindu-Muslim relations: Two-thirds of Sikhs (66 percent) take this position”, the report adds.
The surveyors also found that among Hindus, views of national identity go together with politics. Support for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is greater among Hindus who closely associate their religious identity and the Hindi language with being truly Indian.
In the 2019 national elections, 60pc of Hindu voters who think it is particularly important to be Hindu and to speak Hindi to be truly Indian cast their vote for the BJP, compared with 33pc who feel less strongly about both these aspects of national identity. These views also map onto regional support for the BJP, which tends to be much higher in the Northern and Central parts of the country than in the South.
Nearly three-quarters of Hindus (72pc) say a person cannot be Hindu if they eat beef. That is larger than the shares of Hindus who say a person cannot be Hindu if they do not believe in God (49pc) or never go to a temple (48pc).
Similarly, three-quarters of Indian Muslims (77pc) say that a person cannot be Muslim if they eat pork, which is greater than the share who say a person cannot be Muslim if they do not believe in God (60pc) or never attend mosque (61pc).
The surveyors also found that Indians generally stick to their own religious group while making friends. Hindus overwhelmingly say that most or all their close friends are also Hindu. Even among Sikhs and Jains, who each form a sliver of the national population, a large majority say their friends come mainly or entirely from their small religious community.
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is exploring having three Central Asian countries temporarily take in thousands of Afghans who worked with the US forces and face threats from the Taliban now that the US troops are withdrawing after 20 years, three sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. They said Washington was in talks with Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan about letting in the at-risk Afghan citizens. Two of the sources were US officials and all requested anonymity, reports a UK-based international wire agency.
The three sources said an agreement did not appear imminent with any of the countries.
The decision to move at-risk Afghans risks inflaming a sense of crisis in Afghanistan, as fighting between US-backed Afghan forces and the Taliban has surged in recent weeks, with the militants gaining control of large amounts of territory. Thousands of Afghan translators and interpreters face threats from the Taliban after working for two decades alongside the US military. The United States announced plans last week to seek refuge for thousands of vulnerable Afghans in countries outside Afghanistan so their US visa applications could be processed from safety, but Washington did not specify where they would go.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki provided no further details on Friday.
