Pakistan is celebrating its Independence Day today with patriotic zeal and fervor. The day began with special prayers for peace and progress in the country, and a 31-gun salute in the federal capital, Islamabad.
Early in the morning, the national flag was hoisted at all important public and private buildings. The day-long festivities include special seminars, documentaries, music and painting exhibitions.
The nation also paid homage and respect to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, by visiting his mausoleum in Karachi.
To spice up the festivities, vendors have set up stalls across the country to sell the country’s green and white flags, shirts, badges and balloons. The young and elderly alike are buying these things to show their patriotism.
“We are excited to celebrate our independence day and hope the incoming government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf will do something extraordinary to make us a proud nation,” Zulfiqar Ali, 53, told Arab News while buying national flags from a stall in Islamabad.
He said Pakistan’s forefathers sacrificed their lives for a “great mission of independence from British rule” and it is now time to work hard to make it more strong and invincible.
Shazia Qambar, a teacher in an upscale area of the federal capital who is illuminating classrooms with national flags and posters with messages about the importance of independence, said schools try each year to educate their students through fun and games about significance of the independence day.
“This year we are arranging a national songs competition among our students on the school’s premises, besides screening some documentaries about the struggle of our ancestors to get the separate homeland,” she told Arab News.
On Independence Day, all important public and private buildings in Islamabad and all four provincial capitals are also illuminated in different colors and lights.
Pakistan’s Parliament is also being illuminated to mark the country’s 71st year of independence, where 329 newly elected lawmakers took the oath of their office on Monday and vowed to work for the betterment of the country.
“This day reminds us the unforgettable struggle and sacrifices made by our forefathers for next generations to live in freedom,” outgoing Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq said after administering the oath to the legislators.
He said that this is a proud day for the Pakistani nation that is celebrated with great devotion and enthusiasm. “Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah entrusted us with a sacred trust to transform Pakistan into a citadel of peace and a model for all other nations,” he said.
“We should rethink our plans, our actions and their outcomes for forging synergies in the best interest of our country and raising Pakistan to new heights of development,” he added.
Intellectuals and political analysts opine that Pakistan can emerge as a developed nation on the world map only if all the countrymen work together for the development of the downtrodden and poor.
“The key to progress of any country is quality education and rule of law,” Professor Tahir Malik, political analyst and academic, told Arab News.
He said the incoming government should utilize all available resources on human development and promotion of science and technology to turn Pakistan into a knowledge economy.
“On this important day, we should also commemorate the sacrifices of our valiant soldiers and countrymen who laid down their lives to defend the motherland,” he added.
Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, political analyst, said that Pakistan enjoys a unique geographical location in the region and has played a positive role in peace and stability of the world.
“The entire nation is now looking up to the forthcoming democratic government for political and economic prosperity in the country,” he told Arab News, “We should also pledge on this independence day to fight social evils prevailing in the country.”
Pakistan celebrates 71st Independence Day with zeal and fervor
Pakistan celebrates 71st Independence Day with zeal and fervor
- The day was marked by a 31-gun salute in the federal capital with special prayers for peace and progress in the country
- National flag is hoisted at all important public and private buildings across the country
Germany’s president dissolves parliament, sets national election for Feb. 23
Scholz lost a confidence vote on Dec. 16 and leads a minority government after his unpopular and notoriously rancorous three-party coalition collapsed on Nov. 6 when he fired his finance minister in a dispute over how to revitalize Germany’s stagnant economy.
Steinmeier said he made the decision because it was clear after consultation with party leaders that there was no agreement among Germany’s political parties on a majority for a new government in the current parliament.
“It is precisely in difficult times like these that stability requires a government capable of taking action and a reliable majority in parliament,” he said as he made the announcement in Berlin.
“Therefore I am convinced that for the good of our country new elections are the right way.”
Since the post-World War II constitution doesn’t allow the Bundestag to dissolve itself, it was up to Steinmeier to decide whether to dissolve parliament and call an election. He had 21 days to make that decision. Once parliament is dissolved, the election must be held within 60 days. Leaders of several major parties agreed earlier on the election date of Feb. 23, seven months earlier than originally planned.
Steinmeier warned about outside interference in the poll, saying it is “a danger to democracy, whether it is covert, as was evidently the case recently in the Romanian elections, or open and blatant, as is currently being practiced particularly intensively on platform X.”
A top Romanian court annulled the first round of the country’s presidential election, days after allegations emerged that Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider who won the first round.
The campaign is already well underway. Polls show Scholz’s party trailing the conservative opposition Union bloc led by Friedrich Merz. Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the environmentalist Greens, the remaining partner in Scholz’s government, is also bidding for the top job — though his party is further back. If recent polls hold up, the likely next government would be led by Merz as chancellor in coalition with at least one other party.
Key issues include immigration, how to get the sluggish economy going, and how best to aid Ukraine in its struggle against Russia.
The populist, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which is polling strongly, has nominated Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor but has no chance of taking the job because other parties refuse to work with it.
Germany’s electoral system traditionally produces coalitions, and polls show no party anywhere near an absolute majority on its own. The election is expected to be followed by weeks of negotiations to form a new government.
It’s only the fourth time that the Bundestag has been dissolved ahead of schedule under Germany’s post-World War II constitution. It happened under Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1972, Helmut Kohl in 1982 and Gerhard Schroeder in 2005. Schroeder used the confidence vote to engineer an early election narrowly won by center-right challenger Angela Merkel.
Kremlin says no comment on Azerbaijani plane crash until investigation completed
- Pro-government website Caliber cites unnamed officials as saying they believed a Russian missile fired from a Pantsir-S air defense system downed the plane
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said Friday that it would not comment on the deadly crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane until an inquiry was completed, after reports the jet was targeted by a Russian air defense missile.
The Azerbaijan Airlines jet crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau, an oil and gas hub, on Wednesday after going off course for undetermined reasons.
Thirty-eight of the 67 people on board died.
“An investigation is underway, and until the conclusions of the investigation, we do not consider we have the right to make any comments and we will not do so,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The Embraer 190 aircraft was supposed to fly northwest from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia, but instead diverted far off course across the Caspian Sea.
An investigation is underway, with the pro-government Azerbaijani website Caliber citing unnamed officials as saying they believed a Russian missile fired from a Pantsir-S air defense system downed the plane.
Azerbaijan Airlines said Friday that it was suspending flights to a total of seven Russian cities, “taking into account flight safety risks,” after earlier saying it had stopped flights to Grozny and to Makhachkala in Dagestan, which neighbors Chechnya.
Rasim Musabekov, an Azeri lawmaker, urged Russia to apologize for the incident.
“They have to accept this, punish those to blame, promise that such a thing will not happen again, express regrets and readiness to pay compensation,” Musabekov said in an interview. “We are waiting for Russia to do this.”
He said the plane “was damaged in the sky over Grozny and asked to make an emergency landing.”
“According to all the rules of aviation, they should have allowed this and organized it.”
Instead the plane was not allowed to land at Grozny or nearby Russian airports and was “sent far away” across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan with “GPS switched off,” Musabekov said.
If air defenses were operating near Grozny airport, “they should have closed the air space. The plane should have been turned around as it approached Grozny. Why wasn’t this done?” he added.
Some aviation and military experts said the plane might have been accidentally shot by Russian air defense systems because it was flying in an area where Ukrainian drone activity had been reported.
Ukraine sends food aid to Syria, says Zelensky
KYIV: Ukraine, a global producer and exporter of grain and oilseeds, has sent its first batch of food aid to Syria, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday.
Zelensky said that 500 metric tons of wheat flour were already on their way to Syria as part of Ukraine’s humanitarian “Grain from Ukraine” initiative in cooperation with the United Nations World Food Programme.
“The wheat flour is planned to be distributed to 33,250 families or 167,000 people, in the coming weeks,” Zelensky said on X, adding: “Each package weighs 15 kilograms and can feed a family of five for one month.”
After the ouster of Bashar Assad, a close Russian ally, Ukraine has said it wants to restore relations with Syria.
Kyiv traditionally exports wheat and corn to countries in the Middle East, but not to Syria.
During Assad’s era, Syria imported food from Russia. But Russian wheat supplies to Syria have been suspended because of uncertainty, Russian and Syrian sources said earlier this month.
Ukraine’s exports were disrupted by Russia’s February 2022 invasion, which severely reduced shipments via the Black Sea. Ukraine has since broken a de facto sea blockade and revived exports from its southern port of Odesa.
Desertions spark panic, and pardons, in Ukraine’s army
- Manpower problems present a critical hurdle for Ukraine, which is losing territory to Russia at the fastest rate since the early days of the February 2022 invasion
UNDISCLOSED, Ukraine: Oleksandr deserted from the front line in eastern Ukraine after watching his fellow servicemen being pulverized by Russian bombardments for six months. Then, those remaining were ordered to counterattack.
It was the final straw for Oleksandr, 45, who had been holding the line in the embattled Lugansk region in the early months of the war. Even his commanding officer was reluctant to send his men back toward what looked like certain death.
So when Oleksandr saw an opening to save his life, he did.
“We wanted to live. We had no combat experience. We were just ordinary working people from villages,” the soft-spoken serviceman, who declined to give his last name, said.
His decision is just one of many cases plaguing the Ukrainian military, which has already suffered at least 43,000 losses in nearly three years of fighting, President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed this month.
The government is also struggling to recruit new troops.
Together, these manpower problems present a critical hurdle for Ukraine, which is losing territory to Russia at the fastest rate since the early days of the February 2022 invasion.
The issue was put under the spotlight in September when 24-year-old serviceman Sergiy Gnezdilov announced in a scathing social media post that he was leaving his unit in protest over indefinite service.
“From today, I am going AWOL with five years of impeccable soldiering behind me, until clear terms of service are established or until my 25th birthday,” he wrote.
The state investigation service described his statement as “immoral” and said it played into Russia’s hands. He was detained and faces up to 12 years in prison.
Figures published by the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office show that more than 90,000 cases have been opened into instances of soldiers going absent without leave or deserting since Russia invaded in 2022, with a sharp increase over the past year.
Oleksandr said that after leaving the frontline, he remembered little from the year he spent at home in the Lviv region owing to concussions he suffered while deployed.
He recounted “mostly drinking” to process the horrors he witnessed but his guilt was mounting at the same time.
He ultimately decided to return after seeing young Ukrainians enlist or wounded troops return to battle — despite pleas from his family.
His brother was beaten during the historic Maidan protests in 2013 that toppled Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin leader, and later died.
His sister was desperate. “They’re going to kill you. I would rather bring you food to prison than flowers to your grave,” he recounted his sister telling him during a visit from Poland.
It was guilt, too, that motivated Buch, who identified himself by a military nickname, to return to battle.
The 29-year-old deserted after being wounded in fierce fighting in southern Ukraine in late 2022 during the liberation of Kherson city.
“Just staying under constant shelling gradually damages your mental state. You go crazy step by step. You are all the time under stress, huge stress,” he said of his initial decision to abscond.
In an effort to address manpower shortages, Ukrainian lawmakers in August approved an amnesty for first-time offenders who voluntarily returned to their units.
Both the 47th and 53rd brigades in December announced they would welcome back servicemen who had left the front without permission, saying: “We all make mistakes.”
Prosecutors said in early December that 8,000 servicemen that went absent without leave or deserted had returned in November alone.
Still, Siver, commander of the 1st Separate Assault Battalion, known as Da Vinci, who also identified himself by his military nickname, said the number of Ukrainian troops fleeing the fighting without permission was growing.
That is partly because many of the most motivated fighters have already been killed or wounded.
“Not many people are made for war,” said Siver, describing how his perceptions of bravery had been reshaped by seeing those who stood their ground, and those who fled.
“There are more and more people who are forced to go,” he said, referring to a large-scale and divisive army mobilization campaign.
But other servicemen interviewed by AFP suggested that systemic changes in military culture — and leadership — could help deter desertions.
Buch said his military and medical training as well as the attitudes of his superiors had improved compared to his first deployment, when some officers “didn’t treat us like people.”
Siver suggested that better psychological support could help troops prepare for the hardships and stress of battle.
“Some people think it’s going to be like in a movie. Everything will be great, I’ll shoot, I’ll run,” he said.
“But it’s different. You sit in a trench for weeks. Some of them are knee-deep in mud, cold and hungry.”
He said there was no easy solution to discouraging desertion, and predicted the trend would worsen.
“How do you reduce the numbers? I don’t even know how. We just have to end the war,” he said.
South Korea’s parliament impeaches acting president Han Duck-soo
- The motion led by opposition parties passed with 192 of the 300 votes amid rowdy scenes by ruling People Power Party members
SEOUL: South Korea’s parliament impeached acting President Han Duck-soo on Friday over a short-lived martial law, plunging the country deeper into political chaos, as the Constitutional Court said it would swiftly trial suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The impeachment of Han, who has been acting president since Yoon was impeached on Dec. 14 for declaring martial law on Dec. 3, has thrown South Korea’s once-vibrant democratic success story into uncharted territory.
The motion led by opposition parties passed with 192 of the 300 votes amid rowdy scenes by ruling People Power Party members who surrounded the speaker’s podium chanting the vote was invalid and parliament had committed “tyranny.”
Ahead of the parliamentary session, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung said his Democratic Party, which has majority control of parliament, will go ahead with the plan to impeach the acting president, accusing Han of “acting for insurrection.”
“The only way to normalize the country is to swiftly root out all the insurrection forces,” Lee said in a fiery speech, adding the party was acting on the public order to eradicate those who have put the country at risk.
There has been overwhelming public support for Yoon’s removal, according to opinion polls conducted after his martial law attempt.
The plan for a vote to impeach Han was unveiled on Thursday by the main opposition Democratic Party after he declined to immediately appoint three justices to fill vacancies at the Constitutional Court, saying it would exceed his acting role.
Until just before voting began, it was unclear how many votes were needed to impeach Han as acting leader. The threshold for a prime minister is a simple majority, while a two-thirds majority is needed for a president.
Speaker Woo Won-shik declared a simple majority would constitute parliamentary approval.
Han said in a statement after the vote that he would step aside to avoid more chaos and will await a Constitutional Court ruling on his impeachment.
By law Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok will assume the acting presidency.
Choi earlier pleaded with parliament to withdraw the plan to impeach Han, saying it would do serious damage to the country’s economy.
The South Korean won retreated to 1,475.4 per dollar, down 0.53 percent at 0707 GMT ahead of the parliamentary vote.
The vote to determine Han’s fate comes on the same day the Constitutional Court held its first hearing in a case reviewing whether to overturn the impeachment and reinstate Yoon or remove him permanently from office. It has 180 days to reach a decision.
