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
Indonesia’s Supreme Court reverses acquittal of former official in slavery case
Condemned internationally and at home, the senior official in the provincial government in North Sumatra, Terbit Rencana Perangin-angin, had been accused of human trafficking, torture, forced labor, and slavery.
Prosecutors launched an appeal after a lower court acquitted him of the charges in July.
Indonesia’s Supreme Court said he would serve four years in jail, without specifying reasons, in a ruling dated Nov. 15 and seen on the court’s website on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court and prosecutors did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters has sought comment from Terbit’s lawyer.
The macabre case came to light in 2022, when a police corruption investigation into Terbit found people detained in cages on his property, drawing condemnation from rights groups.
A police investigation found 665 people had been held in cells on his property since 2010, court documents showed.
Terbit, who was jailed for nine years for corruption in 2022, had previously claimed the detained individuals were participating in a drug rehabilitation program.
Prosecutors said they had been tortured and forced to work on his plantation. Six had died in captivity, Indonesia’s rights body found.
Four Pakistan security forces killed as ex-PM Khan supporters flood capital
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani protesters demanding the release of ex-prime minister Imran Khan on Tuesday killed four members of the nation’s security forces, the government said, as the crowds defied police and closed in on the capital’s center.
More than ten thousand protesters armed with sticks and slingshots took on police in central Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon, AFP journalists saw, less than three kilometers (two miles) from the government enclave they aim to occupy.
Khan was barred from standing in February elections that were marred by allegations of rigging, sidelined by dozens of legal cases that he claims were confected to prevent his comeback.
But his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has defied a government crackdown with regular rallies. Tuesday’s is the largest in the capital since Khan was jailed in August 2023.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said “miscreants” involved in the march had killed four members of the paramilitary Rangers force on a city highway leading toward the government sector.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the men had been “run over by a vehicle.”
“These disruptive elements do not seek revolution but bloodshed,” he said in a statement. “This is not a peaceful protest, it is extremism.”
The government said Monday that one police officer had also been killed and nine more were critically wounded by demonstrators who set out toward Islamabad on Sunday.
The capital has been locked down since late Saturday, with mobile Internet sporadically cut and more than 20,000 police flooding the streets, many armed with riot shields and batons.
The government has accused protesters of attempting to derail a state visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived for a three-day visit on Monday.
Last week, the Islamabad city administration announced a two-month ban on public gatherings.
But PTI convoys traveled from their power base in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the most populous province of Punjab, hauling aside roadblocks of stacked shipping containers.
“We are deeply frustrated with the government, they do not know how to function,” 56-year-old protester Kalat Khan told AFP on Monday. “The treatment we are receiving is unjust and cruel.”
The government cited “security concerns” for the mobile Internet outages, while Islamabad’s schools and universities were also ordered shut on Monday and Tuesday.
“Those who will come here will be arrested,” Interior Minister Naqvi told reporters late Monday at D-Chowk, the public square outside Islamabad’s government buildings that PTI aims to occupy.
PTI’s chief demand is the release of Khan, the 72-year-old charismatic former cricket star who served as premier from 2018 to 2022 and is the lodestar of their party.
They are also protesting alleged tampering in the February polls and a recent government-backed constitutional amendment giving it more power over the courts, where Khan is tangled in dozens of cases.
Sharif’s government has come under increasing criticism for deploying heavy-handed measures to quash PTI’s protests.
“It speaks of a siege mentality on the part of the government and establishment — a state in which they see themselves in constant danger and fearful all the time of being overwhelmed by opponents,” read one opinion piece in the English-language Dawn newspaper published Monday.
“This urges them to take strong-arm measures, not occasionally but incessantly.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said “blocking access to the capital, with motorway and highway closures across Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has effectively penalized ordinary citizens.”
The US State Department appealed for protesters to refrain from violence, while also urging authorities to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to ensure respect for Pakistan’s laws and constitution as they work to maintain law and order.”
Khan was ousted by a no-confidence vote after falling out with the kingmaking military establishment, which analysts say engineers the rise and fall of Pakistan’s politicians.
But as opposition leader, he led an unprecedented campaign of defiance, with PTI street protests boiling over into unrest that the government cited as the reason for its crackdown.
PTI won more seats than any other party in this year’s election but a coalition of parties considered more pliable to military influence shut them out of power.
Russia’s Medvedev warns West over discussing nuclear weapons for Ukraine
MOSCOW: Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.
The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested that US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons, though there were fears such a step would have serious implications.
“American politicians and journalists are seriously discussing the consequences of the transfer of nuclear weapons to Kyiv,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, said on Telegram.
Medvedev said that even the threat of such a transfer of nuclear weapons could be considered as preparation for a nuclear war against Russia.
“The actual transfer of such weapons can be equated to the fait accompli of an attack on our country,” under Russia’s newly updated nuclear doctrine, he said.
China sends naval, air forces to shadow US plane over Taiwan Strait
- The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait
BEIJING: China’s military said on Tuesday it deployed naval and air forces to monitor and warn a US Navy patrol aircraft that flew through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, denouncing the United States for trying to “mislead” the international community.
Around once a month, US military ships or aircraft pass through or above the waterway that separates democratically governed Taiwan from China — missions that always anger Beijing.
China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and says it has jurisdiction over the strait. Taiwan and the United States dispute that, saying the strait is an international waterway.
The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait “in international airspace,” adding that the flight demonstrated the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.
“By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations,” it said in a statement.
China’s military criticized the flight as “public hype,” adding that it monitored the US aircraft throughout its transit and “effectively” responded to the situation.
“The relevant remarks by the US distort legal principles, confuse public opinion and mislead international perceptions,” the military’s Eastern Theatre Command said in a statement.
“We urge the US side to stop distorting and hyping up and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.”
In April, China’s military said it sent fighter jets to monitor and warn a US Navy Poseidon in the Taiwan Strait, a mission that took place just hours after a call between the Chinese and US defense chiefs. (Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting and writing by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Ukraine says Russia launched ‘record’ 188 drones overnight
KYIV: Russia staged a record number of drone attacks overnight over Ukraine, damaging buildings and “critical infrastructure” in several regions, the air force said Tuesday.
“During the night attack, the enemy launched a record number of Shahed strike unmanned aerial vehicles and unidentified drones,” the air force said, referring to Iranian-designed drones and putting the figure at 188.
