ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary panel on Tuesday recommended a judge who was third on the seniority list of a panel of judges to head the Supreme Court of Pakistan, government officials said, a move which virtually blocked the elevation of the senior-most judge and is likely to further deepen a lingering political crisis.
Under the constitution, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government overnight sent a summary to President Asif Ali Zardari, who approved the appointment of Yahya Afridi as the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Afridi’s name was third on the list of a three-judge panel that was considered by a committee.
The government issued no clarification for ignoring two other judges, Mansoor Ali Shah and Munib Akhtar, for the office of the chief justice.
Azam Nazeer Tarar, the minister for Law and Justice, told reporters that the committee has sent the name of Afridi “with a two-third majority” to the premier.
The party of Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, which is part of the parliamentary committee, boycotted Tuesday’s meeting that was held in Islamabad to pick the top judge.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, was in favor of Shah’s appointment as the chief justice.
Tuesday’s government move comes days before the Chief Justice Qazi Faez Esa retires after completing his term. It also came a day after the parliament approved controversial changes to the constitution, empowering a 12-member parliamentary panel to pick a senior judge to replace the outgoing chief justice.
The new amendments to the government have been criticized by Khan’s popular opposition party and many lawyers, who have in recent days had vowed that they would protest if Shah wasn’t appointed as the chief justice.
Ahsan Iqbal, a Cabinet minister who is part of the parliamentary committee that finally picked Afridi, defended the decision. He said the parliamentary committee with a majority vote had decided to appoint Afridi as the chief justice.
But Afridi’s appointment is expected to further deepen a political turmoil, which began in 2022 after Khan was ousted from the power through a no-confidence vote in parliament.
He has been behind bars since 2023 after his conviction in a graft case.
Khan has so far been embroiled in more than 150 cases and has been sentenced in several, including to three years, 10 years, 14 years and seven years to be served concurrently under Pakistani law. Khan’s convictions were later overturned in appeals, but he can’t be freed because of other pending cases against him.
Pakistani parliamentary panel picks a judge third on seniority list to head Supreme Court
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Pakistani parliamentary panel picks a judge third on seniority list to head Supreme Court
- Under the constitution, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government overnight sent a summary to President Asif Ali Zardari
Greece imposes restrictions to contain spread of pox among sheep, goats
- Authorities are investigating the initial source of the outbreak and tests are being conducted in the wider area where the cases were first detected, in line with EU rules, it said
The measures are precautionary and are aimed at containing the spread of the virus, which does not affect humans, the ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday.
So far, 104 cases have been detected, most of them in the northern area of Evros. About 17,500 animals have been culled.
Authorities are investigating the initial source of the outbreak and tests are being conducted in the wider area where the cases were first detected, in line with EU rules, it said.
Greece is home to the largest number of goats in Europe, the ministry has said. Their milk, used in Greece’s trademark feta cheese, is a major economic driver.
“Starting today, we announce a complete ban on the movement of sheep and goats for breeding, fattening, grazing and slaughter, throughout the Greek territory for 10 days,” Agriculture Minister Costas Tsiaras said.
In June, Greece imposed similar restrictions to contain a viral infection known as “goat plague.”
In South Africa, water shortages are the new reality
- “It’s been going on for five days,” she said, lamenting shortages affecting South Africa’s largest city where temperatures are rising with the beginning of summer
JOHANNESBURG: Joyce Lakela runs a nursery in Tembisa, a Johannesburg township, but these days she spends most of her time trying to find water.
“It’s been going on for five days,” she said, lamenting shortages affecting South Africa’s largest city where temperatures are rising with the beginning of summer.
“This is a big challenge,” the elderly woman said, after filling up a large bin with water from a tanker. “The kids have to wash their hands, we have to flush the toilets, and we also have to wash the kids.”
The crisis is the result of daily restrictions imposed by the city to stop what they say is over-consumption and to allow maintenance work.
While there is enough water in the country’s reserves, for individuals like Lakela, who already faced months of electricity shortages last year, the reality is that taps are going dry for hours and sometimes days.
Last week, residents of Westbury and Westdene, suburbs to the west of the central business district, blocked the streets in protest against water outages. They burned tires and blocked a road with rocks and debris.
Businesses and services have also been affected, including at least one hospital in northern Gauteng, the province of 16 million people which includes Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria.
This comes after Rand Water, the water supplier for Gauteng, this month warned over high water consumption and instructed municipalities to impose daily limits.
“Water storage could soon be depleted if municipalities do not implement our recommendations. It is essential to act now to prevent the impending disaster,” Rand Water said in a statement on October 12.
The water company is not just worried about consumers leaving taps on. There are also leaks and “illegal connections,” or theft by individuals who divert pipelines and do not pay bills.
“We are losing an average of over 40 percent (of our water) if you look at it in Gauteng,” Makenosi Maroo, a spokeswoman for the utility, told AFP.
Municipalities often cite leaks as a reason for maintenance-related outages.
“We’re not replacing anywhere near as much infrastructure as we should be,” said Craig Sheridan, director of the Center in Water Research and Development at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
For Chris Herold, another water expert, “one of the main problems is that they (the municipalities) are incompetently run, and there’s also a lot of corruption which is hindering the efficient running of water systems.”
Municipalities insist that they are doing what they can with the resources they have. According to at least one city in the province, Ekurhuleni, it is the utility that is not providing enough water and leaving the reservoirs empty.
But Rand Water is only licensed to withdraw a fixed amount approved by the Department of Water and Sanitation.
Already back in 2009, it was clear that more was needed as Gauteng’s population was rapidly expanding. The government made a deal with neighboring Lesotho to expand the bulk water supply to Rand Water.
The project initially meant for 2018 has been delayed until 2028 and as a result, sporadic restrictions to reduce demand are likely to continue.
The rules could become more severe if South Africans do not change their habits, authorities have warned, adding that there could also be “financial implications.”
The country is already considered water scarce, with an average annual precipitation of 495mm compared to the global average of around 990mm per year, and a warming planet will exacerbate the issue.
Under a moderate climate change scenario, in which global emissions peak around 2040 and then decline, the amount of precipitation could fall by as much as 25 percent in South Africa by the end of the century.
The estimates were released in a report published this month by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.
“There’s definitely a sense of urgency,” said Sheridan, who is particularly concerned by the health risks linked to turning water systems on and off, which has been South Africa’s short term solution.
“When a pipe is full of water, the water leaks out of it. If the pipe is empty, then a leaking sewer next to it can potentially contaminate the supply.”
US embassy warns of attack threat in Sri Lanka
- The embassy said it had “received credible information warning of an attack targeting popular tourist locations” in eastern Arugam Bay
COLOMBO:The US embassy in Sri Lanka issued a travel warning Wednesday to citizens visiting a popular surfing resort in a rare notice of a possible attack.
The embassy said it had “received credible information warning of an attack targeting popular tourist locations” in eastern Arugam Bay.
The warning comes after social media posts called for a boycott of Israeli-owned businesses in the area.
Protests by local Muslim groups against Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon have drawn support from the wider community in the predominantly Buddhist South Asian nation.
There was no immediate reaction from Sri Lankan authorities, but police have stepped up security in the area.
There have been no attacks in Sri Lanka since the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreign nationals.
The coordinated attack against three hotels and three churches was blamed on a local jihadi group.
Tourism has been recovering since the island’s economic collapse in 2022, with some 1.48 million tourists visiting so far this year.
Thousands flee homes as fierce tropical storm batters Philippines
- Families driven from their homes in Bicol were staying at around 2,500 evacuation centers scattered across the region
- About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Philippines or its surrounding waters each year
MANILA: Philippine rescuers waded through chest-deep floodwaters Wednesday to reach residents trapped by Tropical Storm Trami, which has forced thousands to evacuate as it barrels toward the country’s east coast.
Torrential rains driven by the storm have turned streets into rivers, submerged entire villages and buried some vehicles up to their door handles in volcanic sediment knocked loose by the downpour.
At least 32,000 people had fled their homes in the northern Philippines, police said, as the storm edged closer to the Southeast Asian country’s main island of Luzon.
In the Bicol region, about 400 kilometers (249 miles) southeast of the capital Manila, “unexpectedly high” flooding was complicating rescue efforts, said police.
“We sent police rescue teams but they struggled to enter some areas because the flooding was high and the current was so strong,” regional police spokeswoman Luisa Calubaquib said.
Trami’s center was 310 kilometers east of Aurora province with maximum sustained winds of 85 kilometers per hour as of 8:00 a.m. (0000 GMT), the national weather agency said.
Photos verified by AFP showed streets submerged by muddy floodwaters in Camarines Sur province’s Bato municipality, with only the roofs of houses and convenience stores visible.
“It’s getting dangerous. We’re waiting for rescuers,” resident Karen Tabagan said.
In Naga city, about 40 kilometers from Bato, half of the 600 villages were fully submerged by flooding.
At an emergency meeting of government agencies Wednesday morning, President Ferdinand Marcos said that “the worst is yet to come.”
“I’m feeling a little helpless here because... all we can do is sit tight, wait, hope and pray that there is not too much damage, that there are no casualties.”
Families driven from their homes in Bicol were staying at around 2,500 evacuation centers scattered across the region.
“There was also a lahar flow in Albay due to the rains,” Calubaquib, the Bicol police spokeswoman said, referring to the volcanic sediment flowing from the Philippines’ famous Mayon volcano.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Philippines or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure and killing dozens of people.
EU chief due in Balkans to discuss enlargement
- Von der Leyen’s fourth visit to the region is an “important signal” that European Union enlargement is being discussed again, Heather Grabbe, an expert at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, told AFP
BELGRADE: EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday starts a tour of six Balkan nations aspiring to join the bloc amid signs that enlargement is back on the Brussels agenda.
Von der Leyen’s fourth visit to the region is an “important signal” that European Union enlargement is being discussed again, Heather Grabbe, an expert at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, told AFP.
“The fact that she is going early in the second term and going frequently is a strong political signal of commitment and interest,” Grabbe said.
Her predecessor as European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said on becoming head of the EU executive that there would be no enlargement during his term, Grabbe underlined.
For Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, von der Leyen’s visit is an opportunity to show that they are serious about the reforms needed to hope to join the 27-nation bloc.
EU’s enlargement to the region of slightly less than 18 million people is a 20-year-old debate.
In some countries public support for EU membership and the political will to implement reforms fell during that period. But the mood changed with Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, that “re-energised the whole process,” Grabbe said.
“The geopolitical urgency around Ukraine and Moldova ... that has helped them along,” she said referring to the Balkan EU hopefuls.
Von der Leyen’s four-day tour, that starts in Albania, will have a “rather optimistic tone since another mechanism has been launched to move the entire region closer to the EU,” said Jelica Minic, vice president of the European Movement in Serbia, an NGO.
She was referring to the bloc’s growth plan for the Western Balkans adopted in November 2023.
To counter the economic influence of China and Russia in the region, the EU has proposed a six billion euro ($6.5 billion) initiative aimed at doubling the region’s economic capacity.
The plan is based on integration with EU’s single market, a regional common market, acceleration of reforms and increased financial assistance.
But payments will be strictly linked to reforms, notably alignment with the EU’s common foreign and security policy.
Thus, during von der Leyen’s visit the diplomatic alignment that EU candidates must carry out will be likely discussed, notably in Serbia.
Serbia has maintained friendly ties with Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine and refused to impose sanctions.
President Aleksandar Vucic thanked Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, in phone talks on Sunday, for ensuring that Serbia will have enough natural gas this winter.
“There is an interest in what she (von der Leyen) will be saying and doing in Serbia,” said Lukas Macek, a researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute.
“Because she was sometimes criticized, like other EU leaders ... that maybe they are not clear enough in telling Vucic, what are the limits, what the EU can accept in terms on internal politics developments in terms of illiberal tendencies.”
Vucic, who has maintained a delicate diplomatic balance between East and West, on Monday declined Putin’s invitation to attend the BRICS summit this week, citing important visits to Serbia as the reason.
Another hot issue that could come up during von der Leyen’s visit is the enlargement timetable, with some countries having been candidates for two decades.
Montenegro is the most advanced on the EU path, but Macek said he did not believe the tiny country’s full membership was possible before 2030.
“It is possible for some countries like Montenegro, and maybe others, to make sure that by the end of the commission’s mandate, negotiations are closed.”
