ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s five major religio-political parties have joined hands to form an electoral alliance under the banner of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) for the upcoming general elections.
“We will take part in the general elections with one election symbol and one manifesto,” Liaqat Baloch, secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami, told Arab News.
He said that all parties had agreed to the alliance and the names of its office-bearers and members of the working committee would be announced within a month.
He said that registration of two of the member parties of the alliance — Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan and Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith — was in progress with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and would hopefully be completed next week.
“We will formally apply to the Election Commission for registration of the alliance and the election symbol within weeks,” he said, adding that they were also consulting their legal team to fulfill all other legal requirements for registration of the alliance.
“We will contest the election from all over Pakistan and we are also open to seat adjustments with other political parties as well."
Baloch said that it was a difficult task to bring all religio-political parties which follow different schools of thoughts to one table but that the leadership of all the parties had decided to work together for the betterment of the country and people.
“Our electoral alliance will give people an opportunity to elect honest and noble candidates for Parliament,” he said. “Nobody will be able to raise a finger concerning the character and honesty of our candidates.”
The MMA — United Council of Action — was first formed in 2002 to contest the general election in opposition to the policies of the then military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who had announced support for the US in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan at the time.
The alliance emerged victorious in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan provinces in the wake of the elections and formed its governments in those provinces.
The parties, however, contested the 2008 and 2013 general elections independently from their own platforms.
Now the five parties that have agreed on the alliance include Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F), Islami Tehreek, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan and Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith.
JUI-F member Maulana Mohammed Khan Sherani told Arab News that they were trying to provide an alternative platform for the people to elect their representatives in the general election.
“Our sole aim is to serve the people and rid the society of social evils like usury,” he said, claiming that the majority of Pakistanis support the electoral alliance of the religious parties and would vote for it.
“We will contest elections from all four provinces but our major focus will be Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan,” he said, adding the alliance would contest the election under its previous election symbol.
Rasul Bukhsh Rais, a political analyst, believes the electoral alliance of the religious parties is only to counter the popularity of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“The alliance will try to capture the religious vote bank in KPK, but it is premature to predict its success,” he said. “The victory of MMA in 2002 was due to the political environment at that time as people wanted to vent their anger against Gen. Musharraf by voting for it.”
Pakistan's 5 key religious parties form electoral alliance
Pakistan's 5 key religious parties form electoral alliance
Russia detains suspect in general’s killing: investigators
MOSCOW: Russia said on Wednesday it had detained a citizen of Uzbekistan who had confessed to planting a bomb which killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov in Moscow a day earlier on the instructions of Ukraine’s security service.
Kirillov, who was chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed outside his apartment building along with his assistant when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter went off.
He was the most senior Russian military officer to be assassinated inside Russia by Ukraine. Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service, which accused Kirillov of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops, something Moscow denies, took responsibility for the killing.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said in a statement on Wednesday that the unnamed suspect had told them during questioning that he had come to Moscow where he had received an improvised explosive device for the hit.
The statement said he had described how he had placed the device on an electric scooter which he had parked outside the entrance of the apartment block where Kirillov lived.
Investigators cited him as saying that he had set up a surveillance camera in a hire car nearby and that the organizers of the assassination, who he said had been based in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, had used the camera to track Kirillov and remotely detonated the device when he had left the building.
The statement said the suspect, who was born in 1995, had been offered $100,000 for his role in the murder and residency in a European country.
Investigators said they were identifying other people involved in the hit and the daily Kommersant newspaper reported that one other suspect had been detained. Reuters could not independently confirm that.
Malaysia foreign minister to be fined for smoking at eatery
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s foreign minister will be issued a fine for puffing a cigarette in a non-smoking area, the country’s health minister said Wednesday.
Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad earlier this week reposted a photo of Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan smoking at a street-side eatery in the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan.
Smoking in all eateries and restaurants was declared illegal in Malaysia in 2019 and further strict measures were introduced in October this year.
“The Foreign Minister’s office has been informed of this matter,” Dzulkefly said on social media platform X on Wednesday, adding that the foreign minister himself wanted to be issued a fine for the offense.
Under Malaysian law, people caught smoking in prohibited areas can face a fine of up to 5,000 ringgit ($1,120).
Mohamad apologized on Wednesday and said he had received a violation notice from health authorities but that the fine amount was not yet determined.
“If it has become a concern and an issue among the public, I would like to sincerely tender my apology,” he was quoted as saying in The Star newspaper.
“I will pay the fine, and I hope it will not be too high.”
The photo of Mohamad smoking at the eatery had sparked outrage online this week.
“Whether you’re a minister... or a VVIP, wrong is still wrong. No one is above the law,” said one X user.
Another said: “Lawmakers and (law) enforcement authorities who break laws should be punished more severely than the public.”
Filipino on Indonesia death row arrives home to ‘new life’
MANILA: A Filipino who spent nearly 15 years on Indonesia’s death row tearfully reunited with family members Wednesday after arriving in Manila, where she now awaits a hoped-for pardon in a women’s prison.
Mother of two Mary Jane Veloso landed at daybreak, then was immediately transferred to prison following a repatriation deal between the two countries over a decade in the making.
Technically still serving a life sentence, how long she remains behind bars is now in the hands of President Ferdinand Marcos.
The 39-year-old was arrested and sentenced to death in 2010 after the suitcase she was carrying was found to be lined with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin, in a case that sparked uproar in the Philippines.
Veloso wept as she hugged one of her sons and her parents Wednesday inside the Correctional Institution for Women in Manila, where she is being detained under the terms of a transfer agreement with Indonesia that removed the possibility of execution.
She flew home without handcuffs alongside Filipino correctional officials on an overnight commercial flight after a Jakarta ceremony marking “the end of a harrowing chapter in Veloso’s life,” the corrections bureau said in a statement.
“I hope our president (Ferdinand Marcos) will give me clemency so I can go back to my family. I had been in jail in Indonesia for 15 years over something I did not commit,” Veloso, her voice breaking, told reporters after undergoing a medical examination at the Manila prison.
“We call on our president to grant Mary Jane clemency soon. We hope he will do this as a Christmas gift to us,” her mother Celia Veloso added.
In a Wednesday statement, Marcos thanked Indonesia for turning over custody, but made no mention of a pardon or clemency.
Under the agreement, Veloso’s life sentence now falls under the Philippines’ purview, “including the authority to grant clemency, remission, amnesty and similar measures.”
“Definitely, that’s on the table,” Justice Undersecretary Raul Vasquez told reporters on Wednesday, adding Veloso’s clemency bid would be “seriously studied.”
She will serve out her life sentence if not pardoned, Vasquez added.
Indonesia’s government has said it will respect any decision made by Manila.
After her scheduled 2015 execution by firing squad was stayed at the last minute, Veloso became a poster child for her country’s 10 million-strong economic diaspora, many of whom take jobs as domestic workers abroad to escape poverty at home.
Marcos said last month that Veloso’s tale resonated in the Philippines as “a mother trapped by the grip of poverty, who made one desperate choice that altered the course of her life.”
The reprieve was granted after a woman suspected of recruiting her was arrested on human trafficking charges and Veloso was named as a prosecution witness.
The Veloso deal includes a “reciprocity” provision. “If Indonesia requests similar assistance in the future, the Philippines shall fulfill such a request,” the agreement states.
There has been intense press speculation that Jakarta would seek custody of Gregor Johann Haas, an Australian detained on drug charges in the Philippines earlier this year.
He is also being sought by Jakarta over drug smuggling, which could land him the death penalty.
Vasquez said Wednesday that Haas’ transfer was “not on the table,” but that were it requested, Indonesia’s decision to transfer Veloso would “be considered with great weight.”
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past, but new President Prabowo Subianto has agreed to fulfil some requests to hand back prisoners.
Indonesia last week transferred home the five remaining members of Australia’s “Bali Nine,” a group of drug-trafficking convicts, two of whom were executed.
It is also in talks with France over the release of Serge Atlaoui, jailed in the archipelago nation since his 2005 arrest.
Before leaving Jakarta, Veloso sang the Indonesian national anthem and proclaimed her love for the country, though she is now banned from ever returning.
“This is a new life for me, and I will have a new beginning in the Philippines,” a tearful Veloso told reporters.
“I have to go home because I have a family there, I have my children waiting for me,” she said, adding she wanted to spend Christmas with them.
“I am very happy today, but to be honest I am a little sad, because Indonesia has been my second family,” Veloso added.
In her first interview since the repatriation agreement, Veloso told AFP on Friday that her release was a “miracle.”
According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Immigration and Corrections, 96 foreigners were on death row, all on drug charges, as of early November.
NATO takes over coordination of military aid to Kyiv from US, source says
- The headquarters of NATO’s new Ukraine mission, dubbed NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), is located at Clay Barracks, a US base in the German town of Wiesbaden
BERLIN: NATO has taken over coordination of Western military aid to Ukraine from the US as planned, a source said on Tuesday, in a move widely seen as aiming to safeguard the support mechanism against NATO skeptic US President-elect Donald Trump.
The step, coming after a delay of several months, gives NATO a more direct role in the war against Russia’s invasion while stopping well short of committing its own forces.
Diplomats, however, acknowledge that the handover to NATO may have a limited effect given that the US under Trump could still deal a major setback to Ukraine by slashing its support, as it is the alliance’s dominant power and provides the majority of arms to Kyiv.
Trump, who will take office in January, has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine swiftly but not how he aims to do so. He has long criticized the scale of US financial and military aid to Ukraine.
The headquarters of NATO’s new Ukraine mission, dubbed NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), is located at Clay Barracks, a US base in the German town of Wiesbaden.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters it was now fully operational. No public reason has been given for the delays.
NATO’s military headquarters SHAPE said its Ukraine mission was beginning to assume responsibilities from the US and international organizations.
“The work of NSATU ... is designed to place Ukraine in a position of strength, which puts NATO in a position of strength to keep safe and prosperous its one billion people in both Europe and North America,” said US Army General Christopher G. Cavoli, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
“This is a good day for Ukraine and a good day for NATO.”
In the past, the US-led Ramstein group, an ad hoc coalition of some 50 nations named after a US air base in Germany where it first met, has coordinated Western military supplies to Kyiv.
Trump threatened to quit NATO during his first term as president and demanded allies must spend 3 percent of national GDP on their militaries, compared with NATO’s target of 2 percent.
Meanwhile, the outgoing Biden administration in Washington is scrambling to ship as many weapons as possible to Kyiv amid fears that Trump may cut deliveries of military hardware to Ukraine.
NSATU is set to have a total strength of about 700 personnel, including troops stationed at NATO’s military headquarters SHAPE in Belgium and at logistics hubs in Poland and Romania.
Russia has condemned increases in Western military aid to Ukraine as risking a wider war.
Cyclone Chido kills at least 34 people in Mozambique
MAPUTO: Cyclone Chido claimed at least 34 lives after sweeping across Mozambique, the National Institute of Risk and Disaster Management announced Tuesday.
The cyclone first hit the country on Sunday at the Cabo Delgado province, where 28 people were killed, the center said, releasing its latest information as of Monday evening. Three other people died in Nampula province and three in Niassa, further inland, it said.
Another 319 people were reported injured by the cyclone, which brought winds of around 260 kilometers (160 miles) an hour and heavy rainfall of around 250 millimeters (10 inches) in 24 hours, the center said.
Nearly 23,600 homes and 170 fishing boats were destroyed and 175,000 people affected by the storm, it added.
Chido struck a part of northern Mozambique that is regularly battered by cyclones and is already vulnerable because of conflict and underdevelopment.
The cyclone landed in Mozambique after hitting the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, where it is feared to have killed hundreds of people.
It moved to Malawi on Monday and was expected to dissipate Tuesday near Zimbabwe, which had also been on alert for heavy rains caused by the storm.
