Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Imran Khan

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Friday, June 16, 2023

16: Pakistan



a href="https://www.ratopati.com/story/368704" target="_blank">भारतले ३० अमेरिकी ड्रोन किन्ने, पनडुब्बीलाई समेत निशाना बनाउने क्षमता
क्यानले सोध्यो मेयर बालेनलाई ७ दिने स्पष्टीकरण
बजेट ल्याइएको होइन लुटिएको हो : सिके राउत उनले बैंक लुटे जसरी चार यारहरुले बजेट लुटेको र अध्याँरो कोठामा गएर भागबण्डा गरेको बताए । ...... वैशाखमा बारामा मत पेटिका लुटे । जेठमा आएर बजेट लुट्ने काम सरकारले गर्दै आएको छ ।

रेशम चौधरीले सिके राउतलाई भेटे अगामी दिनमा कसरी मिलेर जाने भन्ने विषयमा यसपछिका भेटमा छलफल हुने बताउँदै उनले परिवर्तनका लागि वैकल्पिक शक्तिहरु मिल्नुपर्नेमा जोड दिए ।

गगनले देउवाबाट मार्ग प्रशस्त खोज्दा शेखरको ‘काउन्टर’!
‘जानकी भारतकी छोरी’ हुन् भन्ने संवादप्रति चलचित्र विकास बोर्डको कडा आपत्ति

मधेसमा विश्वासको मत दिएपछि कोशीका लागि एमाले विश्वस्त



Africa Needs Grain Imports, Key States Say Ahead of Putin Talks Putin also complained that under the deal "almost nothing goes to African countries" and said Moscow is ready to supply grain for free to the world's poorest countries. ....... He added that Uganda would have no qualms about accepting free grain from Russia.

Adipurush first reactions are here and fans call it Prabhas' best film yet, say Saif Ali Khan as Ravana is 'terrific'
AI-GENERATED JUNK IS FLOODING ETSY Coloring books, stickers, mugs, and T-shirts are being pumped out by AI-assisted hustlers. .
Ukraine's Counteroffensive Pushes in Three Directions–Kyiv
21-year-old flies 600 miles a week to avoid paying $3,500-a-month New York rent—here’s how much she saves
As Blinken Heads to China, a Wall of Suspicion Awaits Him Even as Beijing prepares for a visit by the secretary of state, China’s leader has made clear his expectations of more hostile superpower competition. .

Adipurush’s Nepal release stalled amid protests against ‘Sita is daughter of India’ dialogue, mayor threatens to ban Hindi films After Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah's threat to ban all Hindi films in the region if a line of dialogue isn't removed from Adipurush, the mythological epic's release in Nepal remains up in the air. .

100 Ways ChatGPT Can Help A Software Developer
100 Ways ChatGPT Can Help A Registered Nurse
100 Ways ChatGPT Can Help A Line Supervisor
100 Ways ChatGPT Can Help An Operations Manager
100 Ways ChatGPT Can Help An Office Clerk
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Thursday, June 15, 2023

15: Imran Khan

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Thursday, May 11, 2023

11: Imran Khan

Arrest of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was illegal, top court rules
"A Black Chapter": Pak Army On Violent Protests Over Imran Khan's Arrest Imran Khan Arrest: In a strongly-worded statement, the Pakistan military asserted that no one will be allowed to take the law into their own hands. .
Pakistan government, Imran Khan’s PTI agree on simultaneous polls Late-night talks between the ruling alliance and Khan’s party, however, end without any agreement on an election date. .
Satellite Images Show Massive Protests In Pak Over Imran Khan's Arrest Imran Khan appeared in court yesterday amid the violent nationwide protests over his arrest. .

Imran Khan says Pakistan’s economic crisis requires ‘surgery’ Former prime minister warns debt burden on low-income countries is unmanageable ........ the debt burden on low- and middle-income economies is becoming unmanageable. ....... “Whatever we do, when we look ahead, the debt is growing, our economy is slowly shrinking” ....... “From my party’s point of view, we’ve started thinking that we’re stuck.” ........ “We have to conduct surgery in Pakistan in the way we run our government.” ........ at the same time, our economy should not be choked so that our ability to pay debt goes down.” ........ Pakistan is an extreme example of the debt burden saddling low- and middle-income countries. Campaign group Debt Justice warned this week that poor countries were facing their highest bills for debt servicing in 25 years. Pakistan’s scheduled repayments on foreign public debts are equivalent to 47 per cent of government revenues in 2023 ......... “Once you start borrowing in dollars and you have to service your debt in dollars, if your dollar income doesn’t improve or increase, how are you going to then pay your debts? ......... “Unless we increase our dollar earnings to exports, I don’t see how we would be able to service any debts in Pakistan, whether it’s Chinese or Paris Club or commercial debts.” ........ Inflation rose to a historic high of 35 per cent in March, and the dwindling foreign reserves have created shortages of essential goods including medicine. ....... Even if Khan prevails, many analysts are sceptical he will have the political strength to overhaul Pakistan’s flagging economy. ...... “We have an economic structure which is globally uncompetitive,” said Abid Hasan, a former World Bank economist. “Some of it will have to be dismantled . . . You will require huge consensus. The PTI alone will not be able to do it.” .

Imran Khan on His Plan to Return to Power Political leaders often boast of inner steel. Imran Khan can point to three bullets dug out of his right leg. It was in November that a lone gunman opened fire on Khan during a rally, wounding the 70-year-old as well as several supporters, one fatally. “One bullet damaged a nerve so my foot is still recovering,” says the former Pakistani Prime Minister and onetime cricket icon. “I have a problem walking for too long.” ........ Although an avowed religious fanatic was arrested for the shooting, Khan continues to accuse an assortment of rival politicians of pulling the strings: incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif—brother of Khan’s longtime nemesis, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif—as well as Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and Major General Faisal Naseer. (All have denied the accusation.) ........ In addition to bullets, Khan has also been hit by charges—143 over the past 11 months, by his count, including corruption, sedition, blasphemy, and terrorism—which he claims have been concocted in an attempt to disqualify him from politics. After Sharif’s cabinet declared on March 20 that the PTI was “a gang of militants” whose “enmity against the state” could not be tolerated, police arrested hundreds of Khan supporters in raids. ........ “Either Imran Khan exists or we do,” Interior Minister Sanaullah said on March 26. ....... Pakistan sometimes seems to reside on a precipice. Its current political instability comes amid devastating floods, runaway inflation, and resurgent cross-border terrorist attacks from neighboring Afghanistan that together threaten the fabric of the nation of 230 million. It’s a country where rape and corruption are rife, and the economy hinges on unlocking a stalled IMF bailout, Pakistan’s 22nd since independence in 1947. Inflation soared in March to 47% year-over-year; the prices of staples such as onions rose by 228%, wheat by 120%, and cooking gas by 108%. Over the same period, the rupee has plummeted by 54%. ............. “If they default, and they can’t get oil, companies go bust, and people don’t have jobs, you would say this is a country ripe for a Bolshevik revolution,” says Cameron Munter, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. ........ “Our economy has gone into a tailspin,” says Khan. “We now have the worst economic indicators in our history.” The situation threatens to send the nuclear-armed country deeper into China’s orbit. Yet sympathy is slim in a West put off by Khan’s years of anti-American bluster and cozying up to autocrats and extremists, including the Taliban. He calls autocratic Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “my brother” and visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on the eve of the Ukraine invasion, remarking on “so much excitement.” Khan can both repeatedly declare Osama bin Laden a “martyr” and praise Beijing’s confinement of China’s Uighur Muslim minority. He has obsessed on Joe Biden’s failure to call him after entering the White House. “He’s someone that is imbued with this incredibly strong sense of grievance,” says Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. ........... “His popularity has skyrocketed,” says Samina Yasmeen, director of the Centre for Muslim States and Societies at the University of Western Australia. “No matter what he says, even if it’s irrational, the reality is that people are angry and taken by his message.” ......... “Imran Khan is the best bet we have right now,” says Osama Rehman, 50, a telecommunications engineer in Islamabad. “If [he] is arrested or disqualified, people will come out onto the street.” ........ The state appears to flirt with the idea. Police raids on Khan’s home in the Punjab province capital of Lahore in early March left him choking on tear gas, he says, as supporters brandishing sticks battled police in riot gear before makeshift barricades of sandbags and iron rods. “This sort of crackdown has never taken place in Pakistan,” says Khan. “I don’t know even if it was as bad under martial law.” ......... Prime Minister Sharif has rejected Khan’s demand for a snap election, saying polls would be held as scheduled in the fall. ......... On March 22, Pakistan’s Election Commission delayed local balloting in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, from April 30 until Oct. 8. ....... “Political stability in Pakistan comes through elections,” Khan points out. “That is the starting point for economic recovery.” From the U.S. perspective, he may be far from the ideal choice to helm an impoverished, insurgency-racked Islamic state. But is he the only person that can hold the country together? ......... “Never has one man scared the establishment … as much as right now,” says Khan. “They worry about how to keep me out; the people how to get me back in.” ........ It’s indicative of Pakistan’s malaise that its most popular politician in decades sits barricaded at home. But the nation has always been beyond comparison—a wedge of South Asia that begins in the shimmering Arabian Gulf and ascends to its Himalayan heights. It’s the world’s largest Islamic state, though governed for half its history by men in olive-green uniforms, who continue to act as ultimate arbiters of power. ........... The only boy of five children, Khan was born Oct. 5, 1952 to an affluent Pashtun family in Lahore. He studied politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford University, and it was in the U.K. that he first played cricket for Pakistan, at age 18. Britain’s sodden terrain also provided the backdrop to his political awakening. ......... “When I arrived in England our country had been ruled by a military dictator for 10 years; the powerful had one law, the others were basically not free human beings,” he says. “Rule of law actually liberates human beings, liberates potential. This was what I discovered.” .......... On the cricket pitch, Khan was a talisman who knitted together mercurial talents and journeymen into a cohesive whole, a team that overcame extraordinary odds to famously lift the Cricket World Cup in 1992. There were glimpses of these qualities when Khan rose to become Prime Minister: running on an anti-graft ticket, he fused a disparate band of students and workers, Islamic hard-liners, and the nation’s powerful military to derail the Sharif political juggernaut. His crowning achievement remains the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in Lahore, which he opened in 1994 in memory of his mother, who succumbed to the disease. It is the largest cancer hospital serving Pakistan’s impoverished, boosting Khan’s administrative credentials. ........ Opposition is easier than government, and Khan found himself bereft of ideas and besieged by unsavory partners, even kowtowing to the now-banned far-right party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan despite its support for the extrajudicial killing of alleged blasphemers. There were some successes: Pakistan received praise for its handling of the pandemic, with deaths per capita just a third that of neighboring India. His “Ten Billion Tree Tsunami” reforestation drive was popular, as was the 2019 return of international test cricket, the most prestigious form of the game, following a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team and a decade-long hiatus. ......... He provoked outrage when in August 2021 he said the Taliban had “broken the shackles of slavery” by taking back power (he insists to TIME he was “taken out of context”) and has made various comments criticized as misogynistic. When asked about the drivers of sexual violence in Pakistan, he said, “If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men, unless they’re robots.” Khan has refused to condemn Putin’s invasion, insisting, like China, on remaining “neutral” and deflecting uncomfortable questions onto supposed double standards regarding India’s inroads into disputed Kashmir. “Morality in foreign policy is reserved for powerful countries,” he says with a shrug. ........ He claims it was the military’s unwillingness to go after Pakistan’s influential “two families”—those of Sharif and the Bhutto clan of former Prime Ministers Zulfikar and Benazir—for alleged corruption that caused his relationship with the generals to fray. “If the ruling elite plunders your country and siphons off money, and you cannot hold them accountable, then that means there is no rule of law,” he says. ........ it was Khan’s relentless taunting of the U.S. that torpedoed his relationship with the military, which remains much more interested in retaining good relations with Washington. To journalists and supporters, he has accused the U.S. of imposing a “master-slave” relationship on Pakistan and of using it like “tissue paper.” To TIME, he insists that “criticizing U.S. foreign policy does not make you anti-American.” Still, by 2022, the generals no longer had his back ......... He appears to relish in the perceived injustice, the walls closing in. On March 25, Khan addressed thousands of supporters in central Lahore from a bulletproof box above a green-and-red flag with the initials of his PTI emblazoned on a cricket bat—once Khan’s weapon of choice, though now he wields words with similar potency .........

few people pay tax, least of all the feudal landowners who control traditional low-added-value industries like sugar farms, textile mills, and agricultural interests while wielding huge political-patronage networks stemming from their workers’ votes

.......... In 2021, only 2.5 million Pakistanis filed tax returns—less than 1% of the adult population. “People don’t pay tax, especially the rich elite,” says Khan. “They just siphon out money and launder it abroad.” ........ The U.S. funneled nearly $78.3 billion to Pakistan from 1948 to 2016. But in 2018, President Trump ended the $300 million security assistance that the U.S. provided annually. ......... But if Khan recognized the problem, he did little to solve it. After his election in 2018, he was in an uncommonly strong position with the backing of the military and progressives, as well as the tolerance of the Islamists. Now, with all the bad blood and open warfare among these factions, even if he claws his way back, “he’ll be in a weaker position to actually effect any reforms,” says Munter, the former U.S. ambassador, “if he had any reforms to begin with.” ......... When asked for his step-by-step plan to get Pakistan back on track, Khan is light on details. After elections, he says that a “completely new social contract” is required to enshrine power in political institutions, rather than the military. If the army chief “didn’t think corruption was that big a deal, then nothing happened,” Khan complains. “I was helpless.” ........ Asked how he plans to turn his much trumpeted Islamic Welfare State ideal into a reality, Khan talks about Medina under the Prophet and the social conscience of Northern Europeans. “Scandinavia is probably far closer to the Islamic ideal than any of the Muslim countries.” ......... Pakistan recorded the second largest increase in terrorism-related deaths worldwide in 2022, up 120% year-over-year. “It was Khan who was pushing for talks with [the Taliban] at all costs,” says Kugelman, of the Woodrow Wilson Center. “That embrace is now experiencing significant levels of blowback.” ......... The $65 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was supposed to be the crown jewel in President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, linking China via roads, rail and pipeline to the Arabian Sea. But Gwadar Port is rusting and suicide bombers are taking aim at buses filled with Chinese workers. Loans are more regularly defaulted than paid. Today, even Iran looks like a more stable partner. ............. Pakistan secretly invested heavily in the Taliban. “Lots of Americans in Washington say we lost the war in Afghanistan because the Pakistanis stabbed us in the back,” says Munter. ............. Pakistan’s escalating economic, political, and security turmoil may be used as grounds to postpone October’s general election. ........... Khan wields popular protest and the banner of democracy; the government has the courts and security apparatus. Caught between the two, the people flounder. “There are no heroes here,” says Kugelman. “The entire political class and the military are to blame for the very troubled state the country finds itself in now.” ......... “The same people who tried to kill me are still sitting in power,” he says. “And they are petrified that if I got back [in] they would be held accountable. So they’re more dangerous.” .





पाकिस्तानका पूर्वप्रधानमन्त्री इमरान खानलाई रिहा गर्न अदालतको आदेश . .



Pakistan's Generals Want To Muzzle Imran Khan. It May Backfire Khan took to mass, highly-produced rallies for his centrist Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to rail against political opponents, whom he accused of hatching a U.S.-backed coup to unseat him. These demonstrations have only grown larger and more vitriolic in recent weeks as the cricketing icon turned his ire on the military establishment that aided his political rise before deserting him. ........ Things came to a head Sunday when police charged Khan under anti-terror legislation over a speech he gave in Islamabad on Saturday, in which he vowed to sue police officers and a female judge over the arrest and alleged torture of a close aide. .......... “If Khan is actually arrested, all bets would be off and the country could see heightened risks of political violence in major cities,” says Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “Khan enjoys backing from a rabid support base that would not sit quietly.” ............ The controversy centers around Shahbaz Gill, a former Cabinet minister and special assistant to Khan, who earlier this month urged soldiers to disobey “illegal orders” from their military leaders in a televised address. Gill was charged with sedition—a crime which carries the death penalty—and claims he was tortured under interrogation. ......... Pakistan’s judiciary subsequently deemed those comments—and threats to sue the police and the judge—an explicit threat and filed charges against him. However, the Islamabad High Court granted Khan “protective bail” until Thursday, which blocks his potential arrest for now. .......... Khan’s speeches have been banned from live satellite television broadcasts inside Pakistan after the national regulator accused him of leveling “baseless allegations” against the state and “spreading hate speech.” The order has been met with pushback from across the political divide. “Banishing completely a political leader from the media is not the best policy,” tweeted former Pakistani Senator Farhatullah Babar of the opposition center-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). “It risks making someone bigger than life unwittingly and undeservingly.” .......... Khan has over 17 million followers on Twitter, which is higher than the ratings of many top nightly news shows in Pakistan. On Sunday, access to YouTube was reportedly disrupted across the country in an apparent attempt to restrict a live speech he was giving in the northern city of Rawalpindi. ......... the new government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of the center-right PML-N party—brother of Khan’s longtime nemesis Nawaz Sharif—has made the mistake of allowing Khan to “whip up hysteria” but now faces “even more instability” by clumsily cracking down. “It’s not simply the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear state,” she says. “It’s that this state has a lot of people in it. If there are clashes, then you really don’t know where it’s going to go.” ......... he’s dialed up attacks against the military, which he sardonically dubbed “neutrals” in response to statements from brass hats insisting they don’t meddle in politics. ........ The charges against Khan have in particular galvanized his supporters’ enmity against Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who they believe was a big driver of the 69-year-old Khan’s ouster. “Bajwa’s transformation in the eyes of Khan’s supporters from revered to reviled … is one of the most striking takeaways from this ongoing saga,” says Kugelman. ......... Khan’s path to power was possible because the military backed him and then he lost power when they withdrew their support. ......... When six senior army officers including a top general died in a helicopter crash in early August, the overwhelming reaction on social media was far from sympathetic, with many mockingly expressing condolences for the aircraft rather than the lives lost........ Pakistani society has rarely been so polarized, with half the country treating Khan as a savior and half as the devil incarnate. “Effectively, what he’s done is divided the country,” says Yasmeen. “It’s very much like Trump [in the U.S.]. And if the United States hasn’t fully recovered yet, how can a country like Pakistan recover?” ........... Pakistan’s military has willingly seized power when they thought things were spiraling out of control, most recently in 1999. But the generals worked out that they preferred to pull the strings from the shadows. The question is whether this view has changed. “I can’t see the military taking over,” says Yasmeen, “But then part of me thinks, it’s gone so bad, could there be some [in the army] who think it would be the right thing?” .

Deepika Padukone Is Bringing the World to Bollywood As the most popular actress in the world’s most populous country, she’s often asked if she’s going to move to Hollywood. “My mission has always been to make a global impact while still being rooted in my country,” she says on her home turf in Mumbai ........ She has appeared in more than 30 films, won numerous awards, and generated nearly $350 million in global box-office revenues. Today, she is the highest-paid actress in India. Among her legions of fans and nearly 74 million followers on Instagram, Padukone is fondly called the Queen of Bollywood. ........ “Indian cinema has transcended borders and Indians are everywhere, so the fame goes wherever you go,” she says. ..... Netflix and Amazon are also eager to create content that caters to a vast South Asian viewership of nearly 2 billion people around the world. ........ Vijay Subramaniam, Padukone’s agent, says she represents the “typical Bangalore girl”—someone with the world at their fingertips. In Padukone, we see a quiet trailblazer who makes her own rules, all the while embodying the feminine ideal that Bollywood wants to romance. She has emerged from the hopes and dreams of modern Indian women: someone with the utmost freedom to choose how she lives, works, and rests. ........ Earlier this year, she charmed audiences at the 95th Academy Awards by introducing “Naatu Naatu,” the Oscar winner for Best Original Song from the movie RRR, as a “total banger”; she served on the exclusive jury for the 75th Cannes Film Festival; and she became the first Indian brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton and Cartier. She regularly makes fashion waves during her appearances at global events like the Met Gala and red carpets......... She’s surrounded by four bodyguards, two agents, two personal photographers, a stylist, makeup and hair artists, and a few more assistants. She poses effortlessly in front of the camera while her personally curated playlist blasts in the background, before her husband—the larger-than-life Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh—stops by the studio to surprise her. He’s interrupting her while she’s at work, but she giggles as the two hold hands for a brief moment. ....... “This is India’s moment,” she says. “So how can I marry the best of the East and the West?” ........ Khan, who co-produced the film, concedes that when he first met Padukone, he wasn’t sure if she could pull off the role. Still, there was a sense that she was on the verge of becoming a star. “Everybody knew it,” he says. ....... She was born in Denmark to Ujjala Padukone, a travel agent, and Prakash Padukone, a world-champion badminton player widely credited with putting India on the map in the sport. ....... She played badminton herself on a national level, before leaving home at 16 to pursue modeling on the runways of Mumbai. “From my story so far, there’s nothing that indicates that I would have anything to do with the movies,” she says. “The weird thing is that the few times a year my family watched a movie, I felt a connection. Like that’s where I’m going to be one day.” ......... “We speak in English all the time, but to act in English for the first time was so weird,” she reflects. ....... In 2020, Padukone was spotted standing silently at a student protest against an anti-Muslim citizenship law at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. Bollywood stars don’t traditionally speak up or protest, so what Padukone did was a rare—and risky—example of a public figure calling out the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. ......... A long pause follows when she is asked about the constant political backlash. Padukone then says, carefully, “I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel something about it. But the truth is, I don’t feel anything about it.” ....... the perception that South Indian movies have, of late, better captured the zeitgeist than those being made in Mumbai. ......... In 2015, she became one of the few Bollywood actors to come out publicly about her struggle with depression. It surprised everyone around her, especially since she was at the peak of her career, having delivered three hits in a single year. In a country where the stigma around mental health hangs heavy and resources for treatment remain scarce, the admission had every potential to end her career. “But when I spoke about it, it just felt extremely liberating,” she says. .......... And then there’s her husband Singh, who ripples through Bollywood wearing quirky outfits in public, playing pranks on his co-stars, occasionally posing nude for a shoot—and always making Padukone laugh. The two have just returned from a holiday in Bhutan, where they spent their days doing what Padukone enjoys most: going on walks, sightseeing, and eating. With him, she is her “most vulnerable self,” she says........... Being a Sabyasachi bride was a savvy move for a fashion icon like Padukone—even today, the power couple’s nuptials remain one of the most double-tapped posts on Instagram, inspiring the wedding aesthetics of Indian couples who form a $50 billion-strong wedding market. .......... The payoff for dominating Instagram, as Padukone has time and again, is enormous, both for her and the companies that hire her. BoF reported the Bollywood star accounted for seven of Louis Vuitton’s top 10 Instagram posts, generating more than 25% of the brand’s $20.2 million in media impact value during the Cannes Film Festival ......... A single Instagram post of Padukone in a floor-sweeping red Louis Vuitton gown garnered more than 2 million likes and generated more than a million dollars in media impact value. .



Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Is Giving a Once Pacifist Japan a More Assertive Role on the Global Stage In Japan, he has launched a “new model of capitalism” to grow the middle class through redistributive policies. .......... and boosting defense spending by over 50%. Buoyed by a White House eager for influential partners to check China’s growing clout, Kishida has set about turning the world’s No. 3 economy back into a global power with a military presence to match. ........ he lost several relatives to the atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. in 1945. ........ only collective resolve can face down the authoritarian threat of an increasingly belligerent Russia, China, and North Korea. ........ The commitment would raise defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2027, giving Japan the world’s third largest defense budget. ........ while Abe’s hawkish reputation was divisive, Kishida’s dovish persona has enabled him to enact security reform without significant pushback. ....... given that China is Japan’s top trading partner, it’s unclear how Kishida can fund an ambitious domestic agenda while turning the screws on America’s superpower rival, which has proved all too willing to mete out economic retribution. .......... “Today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia.” ...... he spent part of his childhood in the U.S., attending a public school in Queens. Classes were filled with children of myriad cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and Kishida says he found communication “very challenging.” But because of this, “I was reminded of the importance of listening carefully to the views of others,” he says. “As a child, I was inspired by what makes America the United States, which is respect for freedom and an abundance of energy.” ......... In the late 1980s, Japanese people earned more than Americans. Now they earn 40% less on average. .......... Japan remains over 30% less productive than the U.S. .......... Digital Minister Taro Kono tells TIME that he’s discovered 9,000 government regulations that still require handling via antiquated technology, such as faxes, floppy disks, and the hanko—an iconic carved stamp that is obligatory for many official documents......... He also invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to attend as observers. ........ At 8:15 a.m., she glimpsed a bluish-white flash through the window of the wooden building that served as the military headquarters in what today is Hiroshima’s Higashi suburb. The bomb detonated at a temperature of 7,700°C just over a mile away. ......... just as Ukraine is Asia’s problem, Taiwan is Europe’s—rebutting the sentiments of French President Emmanuel Macron, who when asked about Taiwan in April said that Europe must not get “caught up in crises that are not ours.” .

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Tuesday, May 09, 2023

9: Pakistan



इमरान खानमाथि जबरजस्ती गरिएको छैन : गृहमन्त्री
‘इमरान खान जहाँ हुनुपर्थ्यो, त्यहीँ पुगे’
पाकिस्तानका पूर्व प्रधानमन्त्री इमरान खान पक्राउ
इमरान खानलाई पाकिस्तानी सेनाको चेतावनी
इमरान खानले घोषणा गरेको ‘इस्लामाबाद लङ मार्च’ सफल होला ?
इमरान खानको मुद्दामा अब के हुन्छ ? पाकिस्तानका गृहमन्त्रीले दिए जानकारी

ChatGPT Is Powered by Human Contractors Getting Paid $15 Per Hour The well known chatbot is automated, but that automation is guided by low-paid human workers labelling data. ........... “We are grunt workers, but there would be no AI language systems without it,” one worker, Alexej Savreux, told NBC. “You can design all the neural networks you want, you can get all the researchers involved you want, but without labelers, you have no ChatGPT. You have nothing.” ........ In the case of OpenAI’s mod’s, the data labellers receive no benefits and are paid little more than what amounts to minimum wage in some states. Savreux is based in Kansas City, where the minimum wage is $7.25.......... Previously, the company outsourced its work to moderators in Africa, where—due to depressed wages and limited labor laws—it could get away with paying workers as low as $2 per hour. ....... Artificial intelligence may seem like magic—springing to life and responding to user requests as if by incantation—but, in reality, it’s being helped along by droves of invisible human workers who deserve better for their contribution.

Imran Khan, Pakistan's former prime minister, is arrested in Islamabad

Khan's arrest triggered rare pushback against the military, the country's most powerful institution.

.......... the former prime minister's supporters — mostly men, but also some women — appeared to overrun a gate leading into the compound of Pakistan's military headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi. Shouting "Allah Akbar," or God is great, they are seen in the videos using sticks to smash through the first gate that separates the compound from the road beyond. ........ It was the first time many Pakistanis could recall such a brazen move against the military. ........ Khan's supporters have also shared videos showing men clutching sticks and clubs, smashing up a home they identified as belonging to a senior military official in the Pakistani city of Lahore, and setting it on fire. ....... Supporters held demonstrations outside other military compounds, and appeared to take over a historic military fort in the northwestern city of Peshawar. In another video, the sound of what appeared to be the crackle of gunfire erupted as protesters dragged away a bleeding, wounded man. .......... One man who requested anonymity, fearing for his safety, says he filmed dozens of people storming the entrance of Pakistan's military headquarters in Rawalpindi. "It was a scene that was unbelievable to me — that's why I thought, I should film this," he tells NPR. "In Pakistan, protests take place, but you can't imagine a protest taking place in front of a military building, especially military headquarters. Even when I was standing in front of headquarters, I couldn't believe it was happening." ........ The protests began after footage shared by Khan's media team showed khaki-clad men breaking a window with their batons to extricate the former prime minister, who was in a room designated to check biometric details. Khan appeared in the Islamabad courthouse on Tuesday to attend a session of one of the dozens of cases he is embroiled in. ......... "Pakistan's biggest political leader was arrested," said one of Khan's closest allies, Asad Umar, in an Urdu-language tweet. "The world can see there is no law and order in Pakistan anymore." Umar said Khan's party had formed a six-member committee to decide on further actions........... Analysts say the anti-corruption court's powers have been used to hound critics of the military — as has the filing of multiple cases in courts around the country. ....... Khan's detention came after Pakistan's military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Sharif, released an usually sharply worded statement against the former prime minister, warning him not to malign a serving officer. That followed recent allegations made by Khan that a military intelligence official was leading behind a plot to kill him. ........... "ISPR sahib," Khan said in a video statement on Twitter, referring to the military spokesman, "when an institution takes action against black sheep, it improves its own credibility. An institution which catches corrupt people strengthens itself," he said, according to translated remarks reported in the Dawn newspaper. "It is my army, my Pakistan not just yours. It is our army." ......... Pakistan has been mired in a political crisis since then, with Khan and his supporters routinely taking to the streets to demand early elections. Their demand has grown louder since Khan's party swept a series of by-elections last year, suggesting it had only grown in power since the former prime minister's ouster............. the predictability of Pakistan: if you are a popular Pakistani politician, you end up in jail."



China Finally Has a Rival as the World’s Factory Floor Companies look to find a backup for manufacturing and India is making its case ........ Western companies are desperately looking for a backup to China as the world’s factory floor, a strategy widely termed “China plus one.” ...... India is making a concerted push to be the plus one.

SpaceX’s Chinese rivals had a theory about Starship rocket explosion, and Elon Musk has confirmed it Starship’s ‘intelligent control’ appears to have gone offline when it was needed most, according to analysis by Chinese scientists developing similar rocket ...... Chinese team says it relied mostly on video for analysis because SpaceX’s telemetry appeared to be wrong .......... SpaceX’s Starship rocket suffered a catastrophic spin during its first test flight on April 20, exploding and breaking apart just 239 seconds after lift-off. ...... Before SpaceX released an official statement on the cause of the failure, a Chinese rival of the company claimed that the intelligent flight control system of the rocket could have failed when it was needed most....... According to the Beijing Aerospace System Engineering Institute, if the smart thrust vector control system had worked as planned, the Starship rocket could have reached space, even with multiple engine failures. The system is designed to detect and diagnose problems in real time, allowing for faster and more accurate responses to emergencies.

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Sunday, March 19, 2023

19: Pakistan

कसरी भत्कियो तीन दलीय गठबन्धन ? नेताहरु भन्छन्– गठबन्धन अझै कायम
हरियो लसुन खाँदा स्वास्थ्यले पाउँछ थुप्रै फाइदा, धेरै रोग हट्छ
‘महिलामाथि यौन हमला’ को टिप्पणीको मामिलामा राहुल गान्धीको घरमा पुग्यो प्रहरी



जनयुद्धमा मारिएकाहरू सहिद घोषणा (सूचीसहित) राज्यबाट क्षतिपूर्ति, परिपूरण र सम्मान पाउने

He’s the World’s Most Popular Leader. Beware. With approval ratings at home of about 78 percent, Modi is far and away the most popular major leader in the world today ....... Sweden’s V-Dem Institute, in a new report, listed India not as a democracy but as an “electoral autocracy” ranking 108th among 179 countries in its electoral democracy index. ...... India used to be a correspondent’s dream, echoing with the sound and fury of strongly held opinions. But today people often clam up when I ask about Modi. Reporters Without Borders now ranks India a dismal 150th in press freedom among 180 countries worldwide. ....... in 1977, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq seized power and engineered a wave of conservative Muslim nationalism that still tears Pakistan apart. ........ India still has a federal system that gives power to the states, and that constrains Modi. ......... Modi’s extraordinary popularity rests not just on demagogy but also on real accomplishments ....... A national survey in 2020-21 was released this month and found that 21 percent of rural households still had no access to any toilet — but that’s a significant improvement from almost 60 percent having no access in 2012. ........ some 600,000 Indians die annually from this indoor air pollution ........ Modi has pushed a digital identification and payment system that brings villagers into the banking system. ........ he is very good at economic development and infrastructure projects ........ the state of Gujarat. There he was a pro-business leader who oversaw strong economic growth .

Modi’s Final Assault on India’s Press Freedom Has Begun. has already put severe pressure on India’s once-rambunctious press, with journalists surveilled and jailed and the government using strong-arm tactics against media outlets to ensure favorable coverage. But in January, draft amendments to digital media guidelines were introduced that would essentially allow the government to block any content it doesn’t like. ........ In other words, the rest of India may end up looking a lot like Kashmir. ........ Journalists are routinely summoned by the police, interrogated and threatened with charges such as income tax violations or terrorism or separatism. Several prominent journalists have been detained or sentenced to jail terms. ......... In late 2021, I spoke to a young journalist, Sajad Gul, who was being harassed for his reporting. Fearing arrest, he told me that he slept fully dressed each night and kept his shoes at his bedside — unusual in Kashmir, where shoes are customarily removed before entering a home — in case he had to make a quick getaway. He was arrested in January of last year and remains in custody. Many journalists self-censor or have simply quit. Fearing arrest, some have fled into exile overseas. The Indian government has put at least 20 others on no-fly lists to prevent them from leaving the country. ........ At least 19 journalists were killed in Kashmir between 1990 and 2018....... Still, Kashmiri journalism flowered. Newspapers and news websites proliferated, and a new generation of talented young investigative journalists brought a fresh eye to Kashmir’s problems with well-researched public-interest reporting that often boldly took on the government.

Chaos Breaks Out as Imran Khan Makes Court Appearance Supporters of the former prime minister of Pakistan have repeatedly clashed this week with the security forces, keeping the country on edge. “Show you can fight,” he told supporters. ....... The court allowed Mr. Khan, who claimed he could not enter the judicial building because of the chaos outside, to register his appearance from inside his vehicle. ....... is facing dozens of court cases on charges that include terrorism and corruption. Several arrest warrants have been issued against him after he repeatedly refused to appear in court in Islamabad. The court hearing he attempted to join on Saturday involved accusations of illegally profiting from accepting state gifts, and of concealing his assets. ......... angry crowds of Mr. Khan’s supporters that have camped out outside his home and effectively taken on the role of his personal body guards. ........ The political scene has become a game of clashing dynasties that take turns falling in and out of favor with the country’s powerful military establishment, with the victors wielding the country’s justice system against their rivals. ............. the state has brought dozens of court cases against Mr. Khan. He and his supporters have characterized the accusations as a misuse of the justice system by the government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and by the military in order to sideline Mr. Khan from politics.

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Saturday, March 18, 2023

18: Pakistan



The Lessons Not Learned From Iraq Twenty years on, the war still shapes policy—mostly for the worse...... “War is a stern teacher,” Thucydides wrote nearly 2,500 years ago. Since then, great nations have often sought to learn lessons from the wars they waged, especially bad or stupid wars. But the same can’t really be said of the United States, which invaded Iraq 20 years ago as of Sunday. (March 19, 2003, marked the start of the “shock and awe” air war.) ........ Considering its long-term effects, the Iraq invasion amounted to one the most consequential strategic misdirections in U.S. history. Yet there has been very little discussion about why that is—and why what happened two decades ago is not a history lesson at all but rather part of an ongoing class in current events. ........ The hubris and excess of the Iraq invasion—a later iteration of the “reckless audacity” that Thucydides, the Greek historian, ascribed to the warmongering Greeks in the Peloponnesian War—are still with us today, shaping our times. The aftereffects of Iraq dramatically reduced the position of the United States in the Middle East, most recently opening the way to China’s brokering of Iran-Saudi Arabia rapprochement. The unnecessary diversion into Iraq—and the drain on U.S. resources and attention that resulted from it—set the stage for Washington’s 20-year failure in Afghanistan, which left U.S. President Joe Biden humiliated when he precipitously withdrew all U.S. troops, declaring in August 2021 that he was putting an end to U.S. efforts “to remake other countries.” .







सत्ता साझेदारीबारे विश्वासको मतपछि मात्र छलफल हुने
सरकारले ल्याउने विधेयक र विश्वासको मतमा १० दल एकमत रहने
बिहारसँगको ग्रिड प्रयोग गरी भारतका राज्यहरूमा विद्युत् निर्यातका लागि मोडालिटी तय गरिने
बिना तामझाम राष्ट्रपतिको सवारी, सर्वसाधारणले पत्याउनै सकेनन् (फोटोफिचर)
सौर्य मण्डलमा सूर्यभन्दा अघि पानी थियो : वैज्ञानिकले भने – ताराबाट ग्रहमा पानी आयो



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