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We see the consequences of the pandemic in the form of massive learning lapses. We have a youth mental health crisis now deemed a national emergency, but COVID emergency funds approved for education back in 2021 are still sitting unspent. Not to mention, we're in the midst of a nationwide teacher shortage. We know the struggles, but what about the solution?CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
A man casts his vote at a polling station in Pakistan. — AFP/File
KARACHI: The voting for the by-poll on Karachi's crucial NA-245 constituency began at 8am on Sunday morning, with 15 candidates in the run for the seat that fell vacant due to PTI MNA Aamir Liaquat Hussain's death earlier this year. Balloting will continue till 5pm.
The contesting candidates include MQM-P's Mueed Anwar, the PTI's Mehmood Maulvi, the Pak Sarzameen Party's (PSP) Syed Hafeezud Din, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan'S (TLP) Muhammed Ahmed Raza and MQM Bahali Committee's Farooq Sattar as an independent candidate.
A tough contest is expected between PTI, MQM-P and Sattar and MQM-P seems to have an edge as the PPP and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) announced their support for its candidate while withdrawing their own contenders.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said it finalised arrangements to hold the NA-245 by-polls in Karachi amid strict security.
The electoral body said 263 polling stations have been set up, of which 60 have been declared sensitive and 203 most sensitive.
The by-poll in the constituency was scheduled for July 27, however, the ECP postponed the election owing to heavy rains in the metropolis.
No gunmen allowed
A strict security plan has been chalked out to maintain law and order during polling, according to the ECP.
Additional Inspector General of Police Karachi Javed Alam Odho said that paratroopers are standing guard at the polling stations besides the police.
The police official said no political leader will be allowed to have a private gunman. There are CCTV cameras at highly sensitive polling stations, he said.
CEC directs authorities to ensure transparent, peaceful election
Urging the people to exercise their democratic right without any fear, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja directed authorities to ensure transparency and maintain peace at all costs during the polling process.
“Riots and interference in the polling process will not be tolerated,” the CEC said and warned of swift action against violation of the law.
He directed the police and law enforcement agencies to remain alert and apprehend those who try to create unrest inside the polling station.
Indiscriminate and swift action would be taken against every violation of the law, he vowed.
The CEC urged the people not to believe in rumours and contact the ECP’s provincial and central control rooms for verified information and for lodging their complaints.
All legislators will need to be tested twice every four-year term and any positive results will be made public, in an effort to raise transparency standards in parliamentary work.
Legislators who refuse to take tests could be referred to the House Ethics Committee.
(AP Archive)
Chilean legislators will begin random drug testing in the next few days after a proposal making it compulsory was approved last month, despite criticism from some lawmakers.
The first 78 Chilean deputies to be tested were randomly drawn this week, and will now have their first series of drug tests, in an effort to raise the standards of transparency in parliamentary work.
The new proposal states that all legislators will need to be tested twice every four-year term, and any positive results will be made public.
"There is nothing more important than giving people transparency, that their parliamentarians are not consumers," right-wing Deputy Juan Antonio Coloma told the country's public TV channel on Thursday.
'Unacceptable show'
It comes as the Finish prime minister said she would do a voluntary drug test after being filmed on a night out.
The Chilean proposal, however, has divided lawmakers along party lines in a country that is in the process of voting on a new constitution, looking to overhaul national politics.
"I do not agree with the procedure," independent legislator Marcela Riquelme told TV Nacional de Chile, with others calling the measure an "unacceptable show".
Legislators who refuse to take tests could be referred to the House Ethics Committee.
Top court begins hearing ex-PM Najib Razak's appeal to overturn his jail sentence in a case linked to multibillion-dollar 1MDB financial scandal.
Prosecutors say more than $1 billion in 1MDB funds made their way into Najib's personal accounts.
(AFP)
Malaysia's top court has begun hearing ex-PM Najib Razak's appeal to overturn his jail sentence for corruption in a high-stakes legal gambit that could see him locked up or potentially launching a political comeback.
The Federal Court on Tuesday dismissed the former prime minister's plea for a retrial, clearing the way for the hearings which will be held until August 26.
Najib, 69, has pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges over the alleged theft of $4.5 billion from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (or 1MDB), a state fund he co-founded as premier in 2009.
The scandal has ensnared high-ranking officials and financial institutions around the world.
Prosecutors say more than $1 billion in 1MDB funds made its way into Najib's personal accounts.
In July 2020, he was convicted in the first of several trials of criminal breach of trust, abuse of power and money laundering, for illegally receiving about $10 million from SRC International, a former 1MDB unit.
Beijing launches its largest manoeuvres aimed at the island state in more than a quarter of a century following senior US politician Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to Taipei.
Global Times says, citing military analysts, the exercises were "unprecedented" and that missiles would fly over Taiwan for the first time.
(AFP)
China's largest-ever military exercises encircling Taiwan have kicked off, in a show of force straddling vital international shipping lanes after a controversial visit to the island state by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The exercises, including those involving live fire, began on Thursday afternoon and will be the biggest aimed at Taiwan since 1995 when China fired missiles in a large-scale exercise to show its displeasure over a visit by then-Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui to the US.
Nationalist state-run tabloid Global Times said, citing military analysts, that the exercises were "unprecedented" and that missiles would fly over Taiwan for the first time.
"This is the first time the PLA will launch live long-range artillery across" the Taiwan Strait, the newspaper said using the Chinese military's formal name, the People's Liberation Army.
China's Taiwan affairs office said the punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards and external forces was reasonable and lawful.
Taiwan is not a "regional" issue but China's internal affair, the Beijing-based Taiwan affairs office added.
The drills come as Group of Seven leaders urged Beijing to show restraint while the ASEAN foreign ministers also warned the situation "could destabilise the region and eventually could lead to miscalculation, serious confrontation and unpredictable consequences among major powers."
The senior US politician left Taiwan on Wednesday morning, having defied a series of increasingly stark warnings from Beijing.
After Pelosi's departure, Taiwan's Defence Ministry announced that 27 Chinese warplanes had entered the island's air defence identification zone (ADIZ).
CCTV showed military planes taking off, naval warships on patrol, military vehicles and missile weapons participating in drills.
The exercises are aimed to "shock and deter against the major escalation of the United States' recent negative actions on the Taiwan issue, and a serious warning to the Taiwan independence forces," said the spokesperson of Eastern Theatre Command, Shi Yi.
CCTV news broadcast features a map of locations around Taiwan where China will conduct military exercises and training activities.
(Reuters)
Drills in preparation for 'actual combat'
Thursday's drills will include "long-range live ammunition shooting" in the Taiwan Strait. The zone of Chinese exercises will be within 20 kilometres of Taiwan's shoreline at some points, according to coordinates released by the Chinese military.
Taiwan's Defence Ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang said that some of the areas of China's drills "breach into ... (Taiwan's) territorial waters".
But a source with the Chinese military told the AFP news agency that the exercises would be staged "in preparation for actual combat".
"If the Taiwanese forces come into contact with the PLA on purpose and accidentally fire a gun, the PLA will take stern countermeasures, and all the consequences will be borne by the Taiwanese side," the source warned.
Pelosi, second in line to the presidency, is the highest-profile elected US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
Before leaving Taiwan, Pelosi also met with several dissidents who have previously been in the crosshairs of China's wrath – including Tiananmen protest student leader Wu'er Kaixi.
Pelosi's trip heightened US-China tensions more than visits by other members of Congress because of her position as leader of the House of Representatives.
The last House speaker to visit Taiwan was Newt Gingrich in 1997.
Beijing considers Taiwan as an inseparable part of itself, but the latter has maintained its self-rule since 1949 and enjoys diplomatic ties with at least 14 countries.
Interactions between Washington and Taipei have grown significantly since the tenure of former US president Donald Trump, with former and sitting lawmakers making trips to the island, home to more than 25 million people.
The US formally recognised China in 1979 and shifted diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing, and accepted Taiwan as part of the mainland under Washington's One China policy.
DALLAS -- A man who evaded arrest for more than 12 years after being accused of fatally shooting his two teenage daughters in a taxi parked near a Dallas-area hotel was “obsessed with possession and control,” a prosecutor said Tuesday during opening statements of his capital murder trial.
“He controlled what they did, who they talked to, who they could be friends with, if they and who they could date," prosecutor Lauren Black said. "And he controlled everything in his household."
Yaser Said, 65, is accused of killing 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said on New Year’s Day in 2008. Said, who entered a not guilty plea Tuesday, faces an automatic life sentence if convicted.
About a week before the sisters were killed, they and their mother fled their home in the Dallas suburb of Lewisville to Oklahoma to get away from Yaser Said, who worked as a taxi driver, Black said. The sisters had become “very scared for their lives,” and the decision to leave was made after Said “put a gun to Amina's head and threatened to kill her,” the prosecutor said.
But, Black said, in another act of “control” and “manipulation” by Said, he told them he had changed and convinced them to return home. The evening the sisters were shot, their father wanted to take just the two of them to a restaurant, she said.
In a letter written to the judge overseeing the case, Said said he was not happy with his kids’ “dating activity” but denied killing his daughters. Defense attorney Joseph Patton said in opening statements that the evidence would not support a conviction, that police were too quick to focus on Said and suggested that anti-Muslim sentiment played into that focus. Said was born in Egypt.
Before the sisters were found shot to death in a taxi parked near a hotel in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Sarah Said had managed to call 911 using a cellphone, telling the operator that her father shot her and that she was dying.
Black said Sarah Said was shot nine times and Amina Said was shot twice.
In moments of extreme trauma, like being shot multiple times, people can have hallucinations, Patton said.
In an email to her Lewisville High School history teacher a few days before she and her sister were killed, Amina Said said that she and Sarah did not want to live by their father’s culture and marry men from the Middle East, “especially men we don’t know or love.” So they were running away from their father's home, she said in the email prosecutors read into evidence.
“I know that he will search until he finds us, and he will without any drama nor doubt kill us,” the email read.
After the sisters were found fatally shot in the taxi, police contacted the taxi's registered owner, who said Yaser Said had been driving the taxi for the past 10 days, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant.
Said, who had been sought on a capital murder warrant since the slayings, was placed on the FBI's most-wanted list. He was finally arrested in August 2020 in Justin, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) northwest of Dallas. His son, Islam Said, and his brother, Yassim Said, were subsequently convicted of helping him evade arrest.
Black said the sisters, both high school students in Lewisville, dreamed of becoming doctors, and that Yaser Said grew “angrier” as they grew up and became more educated and independent.
“When they had more independence, that was less control for him,” Black said.
Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari. — Facebook/File
LAHORE: Voting on the no-confidence motion against Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari begins in Punjab Assembly on Friday.
The no-trust motion was tabled against the deputy speaker by PTI following his worsening ties with the party.
Mazari was criticised by PTI Chief Imran Khan and other party leaders for his ruling against the current Chief Minister of Punjab Pervez Elahi. The ruling rejected 10 votes cast by the PML-Q, depriving Elahi of becoming the CM and instated Hamza Shahbaz as the province’s CM.
However, the setback was momentary as the Supreme Court annulled Mazari's ruling and instated the Khan-backed candidate, Elahi, as the CM.
Prior to the voting, empty ballot boxes were displayed in the House.
Meanwhile, PTI’s Sibtain Khan was elected as Punjab Assembly’s speaker today. He was contending against PML-N’s Saif ul Malook Khokhar, nominated as the Opposition's joint candidate
