'We owe it to them': PM Imran Khan urges D-8 countries to join hands in empowering their 550m youth

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday urged members of the Developing Eight (D8) countries to join hands and facilitate the young population to not only "optimise our opportunities, but also overcome our common challenges".

The D-8 Organisation for Economic Cooperation is a group that aims to enhance development cooperation. Aside from Pakistan, other member countries are Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Egypt, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

The theme for this year's conference was “Partnership for a Transformative World: Harnessing the Power of Youth and Technology.”

While virtually addressing the 10th D8 summit in Dhaka, he said harnessing technology, promoting innovation and investing in the education, skills and training of the youth was an urgent task that must be prioritised by all member countries.

"Today, the world boasts the largest number of young people in history. Even before the pandemic struck, around one-fifth of the global youth was unemployed and did not have the education and the skills to equip them for the 21st century," said PM Imran Khan.

He said the D8 countries "owe it to our youth" to turn this around, noting that the youth population in these countries numbers 550 million.

"Our youth has not only the potential to optimise our opportunities, but also overcome our common challenges," the premier said.

"They are entrepreneurs, business innovators, technology pioneers, educators, activists, artists, and journalists.

"We must create new opportunities for this predominant component of our population," the prime minister added.

Speaking of Pakistan's efforts in this regard, the prime minister said that through programmes such as Kamyab Jawan, Hunarmand Pakistan, a Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme, and Digital Pakistan, the country aims to facilitate its youth.

'Partnerships essential in a rapidly transforming world'

The prime minister noted that the rate of change in the world has intensified over time.

"Information and technology breakthroughs are fast transforming science fiction of yesterday into today’s reality," he said.

Under such circumstances, no single country can address the complexities of a changing world in isolation, PM Imran Khan underscored.

"Partnerships are essential. I am happy that, in D-8, we have a platform to work together for mutual benefit and win-win solutions," the prime minister said.

The prime minister said that the D-8 would do well to prioritise the following three areas while dealing with the rapidly transforming world:

Emphasising efficiency and productivity

Firstly, as net producers of primary global commodities, the D-8 must conceive projects that harness technology for supply-side improvements, with special emphasis on efficiency and productivity.

With costs of transportation and communications improving due to innovations, the D-8 members must partner to keep pace with logistics and global supply chains.

Jointly tackling disruptions in labour markets due to technology

Secondly, the D-8 should brainstorm ideas to insulate its members from disruptions in labour markets due to technology and innovations.

As automation substitutes for labour across the world, the labour-intensive economies of D-8 face challenges of unemployment and social disruption.

Push back against 'vaccine nationalism'

Thirdly, the D-8 should call for COVID vaccine to be treated as a global public good, ensure equity, affordability, enhanced production and timely supply to save lives.

"We must push back against vaccine nationalism and undue export restrictions. The global vaccine manufacturing companies must either speed up production or share their technology and expertise with developing countries for adequate vaccine supply," said the prime minister.

The prime minister also proposed a five-pronged roadmap to realise the vision of D-8 countries:

Resource mobilisation

Mobilising financing and resources to recover robustly from the economic and health crises induced by the COVID pandemic, is of utmost importance, said the prime minister.

"To address the unique economic and financial challenges faced by developing countries as a result of the pandemic, I have already suggested a 5-point plan. This includes: debt relief; creation and redistribution of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs); mobilization of climate finance; eliminating illicit financial flows; and return of stolen assets to developing countries.

"It was in this context that I called for a “Global Initiative on Debt Relief” last April," PM Imran Khan said.

He invited the D-8 members to consider these five points and join in advocacy for COVID related relief measures.

Expansion of trade

PM Imran Khan said the D-8 countries must take concrete actions to achieve the target of expanding intra D-8 trade from currently around US$100 billion to US$ 500 billion by 2030.

"It should include measures like simplification of border procedures, enhancing institutional linkages, and operationalising new initiatives. We welcome ideas like the D-8 Payment Card which would enable transactions in local currencies," said the premier.

Youth engagement strategy

The D-8 should develop a “Youth Engagement Strategy” focused on promoting cultural, educational, and scientific and business exchanges. Linkages should be established between educational institutions through scholarships, skills development, trainings, fellowships, joint research, and exchange programmes for the youth, particularly in the field of science, technology and innovation.

Technological development

The prime minister said that technological development is a gateway to economic prosperity, particularly in the post-pandemic period when reliance on technology would be greater than ever before in human history.

"To remain competitive, we must promote knowledge-based economies, increase expenditure on research and development, and focus on rapid digitalisation," said PM Imran Khan.

He reminded the audience Pakistan recently hosted the inaugural meeting of the D-8 Network of Pioneers for Research and Innovation (NPRI).

Making D-8 more relevant to citizens' lives

The premier said the member countries should make D-8 more relevant to the lives of our citizens "by promoting food security, enhancing cooperation in health, holding joint sports events and helping each other during natural disasters".

"To achieve these goals, we need high level of commitment and mobilisation of financial resources by both developed and developing economies," PM Imran Khan noted.

He said therefore, partnerships between governments, international financial institutions, businesses and civil society are essential to leverage technology, innovation and skills to enable every young person to have all opportunities to realise their full potential.

"I am confident that our collective wisdom and commitment will bring a new vigour to D-8," the prime minister concluded by saying.

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FIA issues notice to sugar mill owned by federal minister Khusro Bakhtiar's brother

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday issued a notice to the sugar mill of Makhdoom Shehryar, the brother of the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Khusro Bakhtiar, for allegedly selling sugar through the practice of satta (price-fixing through collusion).

According to the notice, Makhdoom Shehryar has been summoned at the FIA's office on April 15, 2021, and he has been ordered to bring the documents related to the selling of sugar through satta.

Makhdoom has also been asked to submit the explanation of the procedure adopted by his sugar mill to sell and book sugar through satta.

Per the notice, the administration and shareholders have been accused of being involved with the satta mafia, adding that the latter is minting illegal money with the help of sugar mill owners.

As the matter surfaced, Minister Khusro Bakhtiar said that he previously had shares in the company but does not have them anymore.

Last month, the Commercial Banking Circle of the FIA had arrested seven people allegedly involved with the sugar satta mafia which persistently increased sugar prices by creating an artificial shortage of the commodity.

The FIA had recently launched a crackdown against the sugar satta mafia for its involvement in money laundering. The suspects, who were arrested, allegedly colluded with the sugar mill owners to create the situation. During an operation, three brokers — identified as Dayal Das, Santosh Kumar, and Raj Kumar — were arrested first.

In the second operation, four more people were taken into custody for their alleged involvement in the sugar scandal.

According to the FIA, the accused had created different social media forums and fake bank accounts to carry out illegal activities.

Sources at the FIA said that the accused were involved in creating an artificial shortage of sugar because of which the price of the commodity had skyrocketed.

Currently, there are two cases registered against the accused at the Karachi branch of the FIA which were filed in accordance with the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

To carry out further investigations, the FIA has also obtained a remand for the arrested individuals from the court.

The FIA had also exposed the sugar mafia's involvement in monetary fraud, speculative trade, and money laundering after obtaining strong evidence.

The sugar mafia earned Rs110 billion in a year by increasing the sugar prices from Rs70 to Rs90 via satta and stashed the illegally-earned money in fake and secret accounts, the FIA said.

Almost all the major sugar-producing groups — some of which belong to major political parties — including Sharif Group, Tareen Group, Alliance Group, Almoiz Thal Group and Hamza Group, were found to be involved in satta, the agency added.

FIA Director Lahore Dr Muhammad Rizwan, while talking to the media on Thursday about the operations against the sugar mafia, said that solid evidence has come to light in the operations via data retrieved from 32 digital devices belonging to the sugar mafia.

He said owing to the sheer volume of the data gathered, "thousands of books" can be printed.

Rizwan said that 10 cases have been registered against the sugar mafia while 40 people have been identified who "were all in touch with each other".

The FIA had decided to investigate and scrutinise the accounts of prominent members of the sugar satta mafia, and then arrest them after registration of cases under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, said the director.

Rizwan said of the "satta" mafia groups, 10 are from Lahore, while others are located in Multan, Hasilpur, Khanewal, and Bahawalpur.

It was also revealed that the sugar mafia conspired to further increase sugar prices through satta in the month of Ramazan.

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Coronavirus vaccination registration to open for all citizens after Eid: Asad

Head of the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) — the body that is leading Pakistan's fight against coronavirus — Asad Umar, on Thursday said that COVID-19 vaccination registration will be open to all citizens after Eid.

The Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives was speaking to senior journalists when he announced the development.

"Vaccinating the population has always been a priority. We began a phased-wise approach in the beginning [and are now expanding it]," Umar said.

He said that vaccination of people aged 50 will begin "in a few days".

The minister also spoke of Pakistan getting in touch with Russia to procure its Sputnik V vaccine on a government level. "We are waiting for a response from them," he said.

Umar termed the coming five to six weeks "critical" in Pakistan's battle against the ongoing third coronavirus wave.

Speaking of vaccinations carried out so far, he said that 1.1 million people had been inoculated via the government's vaccination programme, whereas 14,000 people had received a jab through the private sector.

He said that China is the "primary source" of the vaccines Pakistan has been getting, and now after Sinopharm, the CanSino vaccine will also be available after Eid.

"We will be able to vaccinate more than 125,000 people per day after Eid," Umar said.

The minister, expressed concern over the rising number of patients requiring critical care, which he said number even more than those reported in the first coronavirus wave.

"Strict enforcement of SOPs (standard operating procedures) can bring down the rising rate of infection," he stressed.

Registrations are currently open for all those aged 50 and above, besides healthcare workers. The government has also decided to offer Islamabad and Punjab citizens over 80 to get vaccinated at home.

Pakistan reported 5,329 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours. In the same period, 98 people lost their lives to COVID-19.

The number of infections is the highest witnessed this year and the second highest since June 20, 2020 last year 6,604 cases were recorded.

The national positivity ratio stands at 10.7%.

 

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Palace crisis over, Jordan’s king tells nation

Jordan’s King Abdullah broke his silence on Wednesday to tell his nation that the worst political crisis in decades sparked by an alleged plot involving his half-brother Prince Hamzah was over.

The government had accused Hamzah — a former crown prince who was sidelined as heir to the throne in 2004 — of involvement in a conspiracy to “destabilise the kingdom’s security” and arrested at least 16 people.

But Abdullah said on Wednesday that Hamzah, who has signed a letter pledging his loyalty to the king following mediation by an uncle, was safe in his palace under his “protection”.

“I assure you, that the sedition has been nipped in the bud,” Abdullah said in an address read out in his name on state television, a day after an official news blackout on the affair.

“The challenge of these last days was not the most dangerous for the stability of the country — but it was the most painful for me because the parties involved in this sedition were from home and from outside,” he said.

It was not clear whether the king was referring to actors external to the royal family or to the kingdom.

Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Sunday had charged that the plotters had linked up with foreign parties, but had declined to identify them.

Hamzah was appointed crown prince in 1999 in line with his father’s wishes, but Abdullah stripped him of the title in 2004 and named his eldest son in Hamzah’s place.

After claiming he was put under house arrest on Saturday, Hamzah had made extensive use of traditional and social media to lash out against his situation.

He accused Jordan’s rulers of corruption and ineptitude in a video message published by the BBC on Saturday.

But after a statement voicing his loyalty to the king on Monday, Abdullah said on Wednesday that Hamzah had offered his support for the monarchy.

“Hamzah is now with his family in his palace under my protection,” Abdullah said in the address.

“He has committed before the (Hashemite) family to follow the path of his parents and grandparents, to be faithful to their message, and to place the interest of Jordan, its constitution and its laws above all other considerations.”

Jordan borders Israel and the occupied West Bank, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It hosts US troops and is home to millions of exiled Palestinians and more than half a million Syrian refugees.

The monarchy ruling Jordan — a country long regarded as a pro-Western anchor of stability in a turbulent region — declared it was settling the matter “within the framework of the Hashemite family”.

The king’s speech followed orders issued on Tuesday by Amman prosecutor Hassan al-Abdallat that banned the publication of any information about the alleged plot in order to keep the security services’ investigation secret.

Jordan’s media was told to wait for official statements before publishing anything about those arrested.

Newspaper front pages on Monday morning were dominated by the visit of Saudi Foreign Minister Faysal Bin Farhan with a message from King Salman and developments in the coronavirus outbreak ravaging the country.

Mustafa al-Riyalat, editor-in-chief of pro-government newspaper Addustour, said Jordanians “all feel reassured, because it’s as if nothing happened.”

In the streets, Jordanians voiced relief. “When the crisis erupted on Saturday, there was no one in the streets. People were afraid,” said Shady, 41, who owns a clothing store in the capital Amman.

“But thank God, it was resolved within the royal palace.”

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'We owe it to them': PM Imran Khan urges D-8 countries to join hands in empowering their 550m youth

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday urged members of the Developing Eight (D8) countries to join hands and facilitate the young population to not only "optimise our opportunities, but also overcome our common challenges".

The D-8 Organisation for Economic Cooperation is a group that aims to enhance development cooperation. Aside from Pakistan, other member countries are Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Egypt, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

The theme for this year's conference was “Partnership for a Transformative World: Harnessing the Power of Youth and Technology.”

While virtually addressing the 10th D8 summit in Dhaka, he said harnessing technology, promoting innovation and investing in the education, skills and training of the youth was an urgent task that must be prioritised by all member countries.

"Today, the world boasts the largest number of young people in history. Even before the pandemic struck, around one-fifth of the global youth was unemployed and did not have the education and the skills to equip them for the 21st century," said PM Imran Khan.

He said the D8 countries "owe it to our youth" to turn this around, noting that the youth population in these countries numbers 550 million.

"Our youth has not only the potential to optimise our opportunities, but also overcome our common challenges," the premier said.

"They are entrepreneurs, business innovators, technology pioneers, educators, activists, artists, and journalists.

"We must create new opportunities for this predominant component of our population," the prime minister added.

Speaking of Pakistan's efforts in this regard, the prime minister said that through programmes such as Kamyab Jawan, Hunarmand Pakistan, a Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme, and Digital Pakistan, the country aims to facilitate its youth.

'Partnerships essential in a rapidly transforming world'

The prime minister noted that the rate of change in the world has intensified over time.

"Information and technology breakthroughs are fast transforming science fiction of yesterday into today’s reality," he said.

Under such circumstances, no single country can address the complexities of a changing world in isolation, PM Imran Khan underscored.

"Partnerships are essential. I am happy that, in D-8, we have a platform to work together for mutual benefit and win-win solutions," the prime minister said.

The prime minister said that the D-8 would do well to prioritise the following three areas while dealing with the rapidly transforming world:

Emphasising efficiency and productivity

Firstly, as net producers of primary global commodities, the D-8 must conceive projects that harness technology for supply-side improvements, with special emphasis on efficiency and productivity.

With costs of transportation and communications improving due to innovations, the D-8 members must partner to keep pace with logistics and global supply chains.

Jointly tackling disruptions in labour markets due to technology

Secondly, the D-8 should brainstorm ideas to insulate its members from disruptions in labour markets due to technology and innovations.

As automation substitutes for labour across the world, the labour-intensive economies of D-8 face challenges of unemployment and social disruption.

Push back against 'vaccine nationalism'

Thirdly, the D-8 should call for COVID vaccine to be treated as a global public good, ensure equity, affordability, enhanced production and timely supply to save lives.

"We must push back against vaccine nationalism and undue export restrictions. The global vaccine manufacturing companies must either speed up production or share their technology and expertise with developing countries for adequate vaccine supply," said the prime minister.

The prime minister also proposed a five-pronged roadmap to realise the vision of D-8 countries:

Resource mobilisation

Mobilising financing and resources to recover robustly from the economic and health crises induced by the COVID pandemic, is of utmost importance, said the prime minister.

"To address the unique economic and financial challenges faced by developing countries as a result of the pandemic, I have already suggested a 5-point plan. This includes: debt relief; creation and redistribution of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs); mobilization of climate finance; eliminating illicit financial flows; and return of stolen assets to developing countries.

"It was in this context that I called for a “Global Initiative on Debt Relief” last April," PM Imran Khan said.

He invited the D-8 members to consider these five points and join in advocacy for COVID related relief measures.

Expansion of trade

PM Imran Khan said the D-8 countries must take concrete actions to achieve the target of expanding intra D-8 trade from currently around US$100 billion to US$ 500 billion by 2030.

"It should include measures like simplification of border procedures, enhancing institutional linkages, and operationalising new initiatives. We welcome ideas like the D-8 Payment Card which would enable transactions in local currencies," said the premier.

Youth engagement strategy

The D-8 should develop a “Youth Engagement Strategy” focused on promoting cultural, educational, and scientific and business exchanges. Linkages should be established between educational institutions through scholarships, skills development, trainings, fellowships, joint research, and exchange programmes for the youth, particularly in the field of science, technology and innovation.

Technological development

The prime minister said that technological development is a gateway to economic prosperity, particularly in the post-pandemic period when reliance on technology would be greater than ever before in human history.

"To remain competitive, we must promote knowledge-based economies, increase expenditure on research and development, and focus on rapid digitalisation," said PM Imran Khan.

He reminded the audience Pakistan recently hosted the inaugural meeting of the D-8 Network of Pioneers for Research and Innovation (NPRI).

Making D-8 more relevant to citizens' lives

The premier said the member countries should make D-8 more relevant to the lives of our citizens "by promoting food security, enhancing cooperation in health, holding joint sports events and helping each other during natural disasters".

"To achieve these goals, we need high level of commitment and mobilisation of financial resources by both developed and developing economies," PM Imran Khan noted.

He said therefore, partnerships between governments, international financial institutions, businesses and civil society are essential to leverage technology, innovation and skills to enable every young person to have all opportunities to realise their full potential.

"I am confident that our collective wisdom and commitment will bring a new vigour to D-8," the prime minister concluded by saying.

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FIA issues notice to sugar mill owned by federal minister Khusro Bakhtiar's brother

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday issued a notice to the sugar mill of Makhdoom Shehryar, the brother of the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Khusro Bakhtiar, for allegedly selling sugar through the practice of satta (price-fixing through collusion).

According to the notice, Makhdoom Shehryar has been summoned at the FIA's office on April 15, 2021, and he has been ordered to bring the documents related to the selling of sugar through satta.

Makhdoom has also been asked to submit the explanation of the procedure adopted by his sugar mill to sell and book sugar through satta.

Per the notice, the administration and shareholders have been accused of being involved with the satta mafia, adding that the latter is minting illegal money with the help of sugar mill owners.

As the matter surfaced, Minister Khusro Bakhtiar said that he previously had shares in the company but does not have them anymore.

Last month, the Commercial Banking Circle of the FIA had arrested seven people allegedly involved with the sugar satta mafia which persistently increased sugar prices by creating an artificial shortage of the commodity.

The FIA had recently launched a crackdown against the sugar satta mafia for its involvement in money laundering. The suspects, who were arrested, allegedly colluded with the sugar mill owners to create the situation. During an operation, three brokers — identified as Dayal Das, Santosh Kumar, and Raj Kumar — were arrested first.

In the second operation, four more people were taken into custody for their alleged involvement in the sugar scandal.

According to the FIA, the accused had created different social media forums and fake bank accounts to carry out illegal activities.

Sources at the FIA said that the accused were involved in creating an artificial shortage of sugar because of which the price of the commodity had skyrocketed.

Currently, there are two cases registered against the accused at the Karachi branch of the FIA which were filed in accordance with the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

To carry out further investigations, the FIA has also obtained a remand for the arrested individuals from the court.

The FIA had also exposed the sugar mafia's involvement in monetary fraud, speculative trade, and money laundering after obtaining strong evidence.

The sugar mafia earned Rs110 billion in a year by increasing the sugar prices from Rs70 to Rs90 via satta and stashed the illegally-earned money in fake and secret accounts, the FIA said.

Almost all the major sugar-producing groups — some of which belong to major political parties — including Sharif Group, Tareen Group, Alliance Group, Almoiz Thal Group and Hamza Group, were found to be involved in satta, the agency added.

FIA Director Lahore Dr Muhammad Rizwan, while talking to the media on Thursday about the operations against the sugar mafia, said that solid evidence has come to light in the operations via data retrieved from 32 digital devices belonging to the sugar mafia.

He said owing to the sheer volume of the data gathered, "thousands of books" can be printed.

Rizwan said that 10 cases have been registered against the sugar mafia while 40 people have been identified who "were all in touch with each other".

The FIA had decided to investigate and scrutinise the accounts of prominent members of the sugar satta mafia, and then arrest them after registration of cases under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, said the director.

Rizwan said of the "satta" mafia groups, 10 are from Lahore, while others are located in Multan, Hasilpur, Khanewal, and Bahawalpur.

It was also revealed that the sugar mafia conspired to further increase sugar prices through satta in the month of Ramazan.

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Coronavirus vaccination registration to open for all citizens after Eid: Asad

Head of the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) — the body that is leading Pakistan's fight against coronavirus — Asad Umar, on Thursday said that COVID-19 vaccination registration will be open to all citizens after Eid.

The Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives was speaking to senior journalists when he announced the development.

"Vaccinating the population has always been a priority. We began a phased-wise approach in the beginning [and are now expanding it]," Umar said.

He said that vaccination of people aged 50 will begin "in a few days".

The minister also spoke of Pakistan getting in touch with Russia to procure its Sputnik V vaccine on a government level. "We are waiting for a response from them," he said.

Umar termed the coming five to six weeks "critical" in Pakistan's battle against the ongoing third coronavirus wave.

Speaking of vaccinations carried out so far, he said that 1.1 million people had been inoculated via the government's vaccination programme, whereas 14,000 people had received a jab through the private sector.

He said that China is the "primary source" of the vaccines Pakistan has been getting, and now after Sinopharm, the CanSino vaccine will also be available after Eid.

"We will be able to vaccinate more than 125,000 people per day after Eid," Umar said.

The minister, expressed concern over the rising number of patients requiring critical care, which he said number even more than those reported in the first coronavirus wave.

"Strict enforcement of SOPs (standard operating procedures) can bring down the rising rate of infection," he stressed.

Registrations are currently open for all those aged 50 and above, besides healthcare workers. The government has also decided to offer Islamabad and Punjab citizens over 80 to get vaccinated at home.

Pakistan reported 5,329 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours. In the same period, 98 people lost their lives to COVID-19.

The number of infections is the highest witnessed this year and the second highest since June 20, 2020 last year 6,604 cases were recorded.

The national positivity ratio stands at 10.7%.

 

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