US declares JuD, 3 other organizations ‘terrorist’

WASHINGTON: The U.S. State Department has named a self-proclaimed Pakistani charity as a "foreign terrorist organization", a status that freezes any assets it has under U.S. jurisdiction.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) calls itself a humanitarian charity but is widely seen as a front organization for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistan-based group accused of orchestrating attacks in India, including the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people.

British media quoted U.S. State Department and reported that all the four organizations, JuD, Infaal Trust, Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool and Tehreek-e-Tahafuzz-e-Qibla-e-Awwal were different names of outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba and changing names to avoid sanctions.

The designation comes as NATO troops in Afghanistan are drawing down, and regional rivals Pakistan and India compete with each other for influence with Kabul.

Some fear the competition may spill into open conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations, who have fought three wars since independence.

Historically, Pakistan has used militant groups like LET to mount covert attacks on Indian soil, something the current government has vowed will not happen again.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa's listing will prohibit U.S. entities or citizens from dealing with the organisation, but will probably have little practical effect on its operations or fund raising.

The United Nations said in 2008 that Jamaat-ud-Dawa was a front for LeT and Pakistani authorities vowed to crack down.

IHC declares regularisation of daily wage, contract employees void

 

ISLAMABAD: Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday declared null and void recommendations of the former PPP government’s cabinet subcommittee, headed by Syed Khursheed Shah, for the regularisation of daily wage and contract employees of the federal government.
Justice Siddiqui, in his decision, observed that the recommendations regarding the employees who were appointed without following rules and competitive process carry no weight. He directed all the institutions/organisations of the federal government to properly examine and verify the record of the regularised employees and only endorse regularisation of those employees who fulfil the criteria in respect of educational qualification, experience, age and domicile.

The petition was filed in the court by the senior employees of National Highways Authority (NHA), seeking de-regularisation of contractual and daily wage employees who were regularised by the former government’s cabinet subcommittee.

Counsel for the NHA employees Tariq Mehmood Jehangiri argued before the court that all these employees were first appointed at nepotism basis in complete disregard to educational qualification, age, experience, domicile and vacant posts. These employees were inducted without any test or interview, and later the cabinet’s subcommittee recommended their regularisation. The committee’s decision has been affecting the seniority of previous employees.

Jehangiri produced a list of around 350 employees before the court and told the court around 90 people in this list belong to Multan, 60 to Sukkur and the rest to the electoral constituencies of some other MNAs of the former PPP government.

Jehngiri further told the court that the NHA has been paying Rs12 billion per annum on account of salaries to these persons. The Rs12 billion is taken from the amount that the NHA had to spend for road development.

Referring to a Supreme Court judgment, Jehangiri said that the Supreme Court, in the case of Employee Old Age Benefits on March 17 this year, had declared the appointments of 238 employees as null and void. For the recently regularised employees, no posts were created before their induction.

The defence counsel counter argued that if the cabinet subcommittee’s recommendations were declared null and void, thousands of workers would get unemployed. Justice Siddiqui remarked that we have buried the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ and everything should be done on merit.

PEMRA declares re-positioning of Geo channels illegal

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has declared the re-positioning of Geo TV channels illegal and has summoned the administration of ARY News, Express News and Dunya News over the audiences’ complain for broadcasting the objectionable content repeatedly, Geo News reported on Friday.

The spokesperson of PEMRA said that pushing the Geo TV channels to the later numbers by the cable operators is the violation of PEMRA rules. Therefore, PEMRA has issued notice to the cable operators to seek their response.

Also, the Complaint Council of PEMRA has summoned the administrative authorities of ARY News, Express News and Dunya News over telecasting the objectionable content multiple times on their respective channels.

The spokesman said that the decision to summon the authorities of the mentioned channels was taken on the complaints received by the people.

It may also be mentioned here that the government has decided to take action against three members of PEMRA and has issued show cause notices to Israr Abbasi, Mian Shams and Fareeha Ikhtiar.

These officials had, without any authority, announced recently to suspend Geo's three licenses after a meeting that was declared illegal soon afterwards by the PEMRA spokesman.

The sources said that the notice was issued to the members for maligning PEMRA by leveling baseless accusations.

WHO declares polio ‘public health emergency’

GENEVA: The World Health Organization warned Monday that the crippling disease polio has reemerged as a public health emergency, after new cases surfaced in a range of countries.
"The conditions for a public health emergency of international concern have been met," WHO assistant director general Bruce Aylward told reporters in Geneva following crisis talks on the crippling and potentially fatal viral disease that mainly affects children under the age of five. (AFP)