ISLAMABAD: Militant attacks in Pakistan killed nearly 2,500 people in 2013, up 20 percent from the year before, according to a think-tank which said the government’s “appeasement approach” had let the Taleban make a comeback.
The rise ended a three-year fall in casualties that began in 2010, as insurgents carried out scores of attacks in the run-up to the May 2013 general election and sustained the level of violence until the end of the year.
A total of 2,451 people were killed in acts of terror, said the annual security report from the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), up from 2,050 in 2012.
PIPS director Muhammad Amir Rana said the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which won power in last year’s polls promising to restart dialogue with the Pakistani Taleban, had taken a softer line on militancy.
“There was a major focus on talks which has created ambiguity on part of law enforcement agencies,” he said, adding the same was true of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s party, which won power in the worst-hit province, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the northwest.
In the general election, Rana said, militants targeted major secular parties but not Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N. This gave Sharif’s subsequent government confidence it would not be targeted, he said.
“They tried to expand the appeasement approach on the federal level,” he added.
The government has not yet been able to bring Pakistani Taleban leaders to the negotiating table, with the militant group taking a harder stance following the killing of their leader Hakimullah Mehsud by a US drone strike in November.
Sectarian attacks saw a 22 percent rise in fatalities to 687.
But casualty levels dropped 33 percent in the country’s lawless tribal districts, which border Afghanistan, according to the report, with Rana crediting US drone strikes on key militant targets for the fall.
The report made several recommendations including the formation of a national security policy and strengthening the criminal justice system. But Rana said he was not optimistic in the short term.
“The government’s whole focus is on the peace talks — they still believe they can deliver on that front and this will help reduce overall insecurity. We do not believe this is the case,” he said.
PIPS, an independent think tank, compiled the data for the report from officials and media reports.
Blast kills 10
At least 10 people were killed and another nine wounded Monday in an explosion at the home of a tribal leader in a restive area of northwest Pakistan, officials said.
The blast came in a remote village in Khyber tribal district, close to the Afghan border in Tirah Valley, which last year saw fierce fighting between the Pakistani military and Taleban militants.
“The initial information suggests that the blast triggered by explosives killed at least 10 people including three children and wounded nine others,” a senior local administration official, Nasir Khan, said.
He said the explosion occurred in the reception area of the home of a local tribal elder identified as Hakim Khan.
“We are trying to ascertain the exact nature of the blast,” Khan said but added that it appeared to be triggered accidentally, as most homes in the tribal belt store arms and explosives inside.
“There were explosives and mortars in Hakim Khan’s house which exploded and caused the damage and casualties and it is not clear if he had any affiliation with any militant group,” Khan said.
“Three children were also among the dead, but we do not know their ages yet and two seriously wounded men are being moved to Peshawar for treatment,” he added.
Another local administration official confirmed the incident and casualties.
In another incident, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a government school in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing a teenage boy, officials said.
The incident happened in the Shiite-dominated Ibrahimzai area of Hangu district and has not yet been claimed by any group.
“A suicide bomber blew himself up near the main gate of a government boys school, killing a young student aged 14,” district police chief Iftikhar Ahmad said He said the boy sustained serious injuries and was rushed to hospital where he died. A local intelligence official also confirmed the incident.
Pakistan terror casualties up 20 percent
Pakistan terror casualties up 20 percent
President Donald Trump appeals his New York hush money conviction
- Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn his conviction
- Trump’s lawyers will have an opportunity to expand on their grievances in subsequent court filings
NEW YORK: President Donald Trump has appealed his hush money conviction, seeking to erase the verdict that made him the first person with a criminal record to win the office.
Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn his conviction last May on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The case, involving an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during Trump’s 2016 Republican campaign, was the only one of his criminal cases to go to trial.
A notice of appeal starts the appeals process in New York. Trump’s lawyers will have an opportunity to expand on their grievances in subsequent court filings.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, will have a chance to respond in court papers. A message seeking comment was left with the office Wednesday.
Trump hired a new legal team from the firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP to handle the appeal, spearheaded by the firm’s co-chair Robert J. Giuffra Jr.
Giuffra and four other lawyers from his firm stepped in after the president tabbed his two main defense lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, for top positions in his administration’s Justice Department.
“President Donald J. Trump’s appeal is important for the rule of law, New York’s reputation as a global business, financial and legal center, as well as for the presidency and all public officials,” Giuffra said in a statement provided by a Trump spokesperson.
Norwegian mass murderer Breivik loses prison condition case
- “The Court of Appeal considers that the restrictions are sufficiently justified,” the three judges said in their ruling
- They also said that the prison authorities have put in place sufficient measures to compensate for his relative isolation in prison
OSLO: A Norwegian court on Wednesday rejected an appeal brought by right-wing extremist and mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, who claims his prison conditions are a violation of human rights.
Breivik, who killed 77 people in July 2011, has regularly complained about his prison conditions, despite them including three private cells, two Guinea pigs, a flat-screen television and a video game console.
Claiming that he has been “treated like an animal,” Breivik has sued the Norwegian state on several occasions in a bid to get improvements to compensate for his relative isolation.
He has argued that this isolation constitutes a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prohibits “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
His case was struck down by a district court in February, after which he appealed.
“The Court of Appeal considers that the restrictions are sufficiently justified by the risk of violence that persists,” the three judges said in their ruling Wednesday.
They also said that the prison authorities have put in place sufficient measures to compensate for his relative isolation in prison.
The court also dismissed Breivik’s appeal for an easing of the filtering of his mail, for which he also invoked the ECHR on the right to correspondence.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik set off a bomb near government offices in Oslo, killing eight people, before gunning down 69 others, mostly teens, at a Labour Party youth wing summer camp on the island of Utoya.
He said he had killed his victims because they embraced multiculturalism.
He was sentenced in 2012 to 21 years in prison, which can be extended as long as he is considered a threat.
More Indians losing hope of improved quality of life under Modi, survey shows
- More than 37% respondents in pre-budget survey said they expect overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over next year
- Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said inflation had remained unchecked and prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister
NEW DELHI: More Indians are becoming less hopeful about their quality of life as stagnant wages and higher living costs cloud future prospects, a survey showed, in disappointing news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of this week’s annual budget.
More than 37 percent of respondents in a pre-budget survey said they expect the overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over the next year, the highest such percentage since 2013, findings released by polling agency C-Voter showed on Wednesday. Modi has been prime minister since 2014.
C-Voter said it polled 5,269 adults across Indian states for this survey. Persistent eye-watering food inflation has squeezed Indian household budgets and crimped spending power, and the world’s fifth-largest economy is expected to post its slowest pace of growth in four years.
Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said inflation had remained unchecked and that prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister, while more than half said the rate of inflation had “adversely” affected their quality of life.
Modi, in the nation’s annual budget this week, is expected to announce measures to shore up faltering economic growth, lift disposable incomes and placate a stretched middle class.
Nearly half of respondents said their personal income had remained the same over the last year while expenses rose, while nearly two-thirds said rising expenses had become difficult to manage, the survey showed.
Despite world-beating economic growth, India’s job market offers insufficient opportunities for its large youthful population to earn regular wages.
In the last budget, India earmarked nearly $24 billion to be spent over five years on various schemes to create jobs but those programs have not yet been implemented as discussions on the details drag on.
German government says criticism of Musk does not mean exit from X
- “It has no repercussions,” said the spokesperson
BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s sharp criticism of Elon Musk’s backing of right-wing parties in the European Union does not influence how the German government uses his social media platform X, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
“It has no repercussions. Our statement still holds that we are looking at and weighing up what is happening there case by case,” said the spokesperson in a press conference, adding there was no pre-defined “red line.”
Scholz on Tuesday described Musk’s backing of right-wing parties in the EU as “really disgusting,” saying it was hindering democracy in the bloc.
UN refugee agency taking ‘precautionary measures’ amid US aid freeze
- The UNHCR said it did not yet have “specific information” about how the Trump administration’s decision would impact the agency
- The spokesperson said the precautionary measures being implemented “touch upon travel, workshops, supply procurement and the hiring of new colleagues“
GENEVA: The UN refugee agency said Wednesday that it was taking a string of temporary measures as it faces “funding uncertainty” following a US decision to freeze virtually all foreign aid.
“We have taken note of the decision by the new US administration to pause allocation of funds to foreign assistance programs,” a UNHCR spokesperson told AFP in an email.
“While we are still assessing the impact of the new US administration’s decision, including possible exceptions, we are implementing a series of temporary precautionary measures to mitigate the impact of this funding uncertainty.”
President Donald Trump on returning TO office last week ordered a 90-day pause to review assistance by the United States, the world’s largest foreign aid donor in dollar terms.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed up by freezing virtually all funding, though he specified exemptions for emergency food, as well as military assistance to Israel and Egypt.
In a follow-up memo on Tuesday after an outcry from aid groups, Rubio clarified that other “humanitarian assistance” besides food would also be exempt during the review period.
The UNHCR said it did not yet have “specific information” about how the Trump administration’s decision would impact the agency, which has long counted the United States as by far its biggest donor.
In 2024, the United States contributed $2.05 billion to the UNHCR’s total budget of over $10.6 billion.
The spokesperson said the precautionary measures being implemented “touch upon travel, workshops, supply procurement and the hiring of new colleagues.”
The UNHCR noted that it had “worked closely with the United States for decades.”
“We are looking forward to engaging actively and constructively with the US government as a trusted partner,” the spokesperson said.
“Our focus is to maximize the impact, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency of our operations around the globe, with the aim of saving lives, protecting families fleeing war and persecution, fostering stability in unstable places, advancing self-reliance, and reducing dependency on humanitarian aid.”
UNHCR is not the only UN agency feeling the burn.
The World Health Organization said last week that it was reviewing its priorities after Trump ordered the full withdrawal of the United States, traditionally the agency’s largest donor.
WHO was “freezing recruitment, except in the most critical areas” and was dramatically cutting back on travel expenditures, the organization’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a letter sent to staff on Thursday.
Tedros said the UN health agency hoped the new administration would reconsider its decision, noting that it was open to dialogue on preserving the relationship.
