14 killed as heavy rains lash KP's Hazara and Malakand divisions

At least 14 people, including women and children, died on Sunday morning after a cloudburst caused heavy rains across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Hazara and Malakand divisions.

A majority of the casualties occurred when lightning struck a trio of houses located in a remote area named Jhatka within Judba tehsil in Torghar, according to the region's Assistant Commissioner Azhar Zahoor.

The houses collapsed after being hit by lightning, burying 13 people under their rubble, he said. A dozen dead bodies have been recovered from the debris so far as rescue work remains ongoing.

“I am personally supervising the rescue operation and the injured have been moved to the hospital and roads are also cleared for traffic. The affected families will be facilitated, and tents and foods will be provided to them,” the assistant commissioner said.

Zahoor said that a cattle pen was also damaged due to the heavy rain, while a tractor slipped, killing its driver.

Furthermore, the rain caused landslides and road closures.

Meanwhile, the roof of a house collapsed in Abbottabad's Kakul area and buried seven members of a family underneath its rubble. Three bodies have been recovered and two injured retrieved from the debris as the rescue operation continues.

According to Rescue 1122, the house's roof collapsed due to heavy rain. The bodies and the injured were moved to Ayub Medical Complex in Abbottabad.

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Manufacturers refuse to cut prices of edible oil, ghee

Prices of edible oil and ghee are less likely to come down not only because of technical reasons but also due to lack of regulatory oversight.

The Pakistan Vanaspati Ghee and Oil Manufacturers Asso­ciation (PVMA) has through a letter to the ministries of industries and finance informed that ghee and edible oil prices cannot be reduced because of high palm oil prices and the continuous depreciation of the rupee.

However, the PVMA suggested to the government to reduce the new taxes imposed on ghee and oil in the 2021-22 budget and enforce its regulatory authority on the retailers who were fleecing the consumers.

Prices of edible oil the international market closed at $1,225 per tonne on Friday, with an increase of around $50 against the previous month.

“Besides, around $40 per tonne was incurred as freight charges, etc, while the Pakistani currency has declined to around Rs168 against the dollar,” PVMA chairman Sheikh Abdul Waheed said while talking to media here on Saturday.

He said the government had promised to take back the additional duties imposed on ghee and oil in the current financial year’s budget but that promise had yet to be honoured.

An additional sales tax of 3 per cent was imposed in the 2021-22 budget on the sale of ghee and cooking oil to unregistered buyers, including wholesalers and retailers, while 0.1pc and 0.5pc withholding tax, along with input sales tax adjustment of up to 90pc had also been levied.

Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin had directed the PVMA last month to reduce the prices of branded and unbranded ghee/cooking oil to around Rs270-300 per kg, but different brands of these commodities are selling currently in the range of Rs330 to Rs400.

The PVMA maintains that the average monthly consumption of ghee and oil in Pakistan was around 400,000 tonnes and 350,000 tonnes was produced in the organised sector mainly through imported raw material and the remaining demand is filled by locally-grown oil seeds and the unorganised sector.

The demand for palm oil and palm olein was increasing in the international market, as it has several applications, including cooking, lubricants, candle-making, cosmetics and even for making biofuel.

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Mars rocks collected by rover boost case for ancient life

NASA’s Perse­ve­rance Mars rover has now collected two rock samples with signs that they were in contact with water for a long period of time, boosting the case for ancient life on the Red Planet.

“It looks like our first rocks reveal a potentially habitable sustained environment,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for the mission, in a statement on Friday.

“It’s a big deal that the water was there for a long time.” The six-wheeled robot collected its first sample, dubbed “Montdenier” on September 6, and its second, “Montagnac” from the same rock on September 8.

Both samples, slightly wider than a pencil in diameter and about six centimetres long, are now stored in sealed tubes in the rover’s interior.

A first attempt at collecting a sample in early August failed after the rock proved too crumbly to withstand Perseverance’s drill.

The rover has been operating in a region known as the Jezero Crater, just north of the equator and home to a lake 3.5 billion years ago, when conditions on Mars were much warmer and wetter than today.

The rock that provided the first samples was found to be basaltic in composition and likely the product of lava flows.

Volcanic rocks contain crystalline minerals that are helpful in radiometric dating.

This in turn could help scientists build up a picture of the area’s geological history, such as when the crater formed, when the lake appeared and disappeared, and how climate changed over time.

“An interesting thing about these rocks as well is that they show signs for sustained interaction with groundwater,” NASA geologist Katie Stack Morgan told a press conference.

The scientists already knew the crater was home to a lake, but couldn’t rule out the possibility that it had been a “flash in the pan” with floodwaters filling up the crater for as little as 50 years. Now they are more certain groundwater was present for much longer.

“If these rocks experienced water for long periods of time, there may be habitable niches within these rocks that could have supported ancient microbial life,” added Stack Morgan.

The salt minerals in the rock cores may have trapped tiny bubbles of ancient Martian water.

“Salts are great minerals for preserving signs of ancient life here on Earth, and we expect the same may be true for rocks on Mars,” added Stack Morgan.

NASA is hoping to return the samples to Earth for in-depth lab analysis in a joint mission with the European Space Agency sometime in the 2030s.

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Biden again defends Afghanistan pullout on 9/11

President Joe Biden, speaking unexpectedly during a visit to the Pennsylvania site of one of the 9/11 plane crashes, again defended the widely criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying the US could not "invade" every country where Al-Qaeda is present.

"Could Al-Qaeda come back (in Afghanistan)?" he asked in an exchange with reporters outside a Shanksville fire station. "Yeah. But guess what, it's already back other places.

"What's the strategy? Every place where Al-Qaeda is, we're going to invade and have troops stay in? C'mon."

Biden said it had always been a mistake to think Afghanistan could be meaningfully united.

Biden said American forces had achieved their central mission when a special forces team killed Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011 in a compound in Pakistan.

The US intervention in Afghanistan began after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, eventually drawing the US -- joined by key allies -- into its longest war.

Biden had begun his day Saturday in Manhattan, attending a televised ceremony marking the September 11 attacks there.

He had not been scheduled to make public remarks. But asked by a reporter about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and a subsequent drop in his poll numbers, he shrugged it off.

"I'm a big boy," Biden said. "I've been doing this a long time."

But he also alluded clearly to one source of that criticism, former President Donald Trump.

Referring to "the stuff that's coming out of Florida," he mentioned a recent statement that if General Robert E. Lee -- who led the troops of the pro-slavery Confederacy during the Civil War -- "had been in Afghanistan, we would have won."

The assertion about Lee came in a statement from Trump, who now lives in Florida.

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New Zealand cricket team arrives in Pakistan after 18 years

The New Zealand cricket team arrived in Pakistan on Saturday for the first time in 18 years to play three One-day Internationals and five Twenty20 Internationals.

The Kiwis landed at the Islamabad airport and headed to a hotel where they will undergo a mandatory isolation for three days before commencing a two-day practice session on Sept 15, according to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

The ODI series against New Zealand will be played at the Rawalpindi Stadium, with matches scheduled for Sept 17, 19, and 21, while the Gaddafi Stadium will host five T20s scheduled to take place from Sept 25 to Oct 3.

Meanwhile, the PCB and the New Zealand Cricket have mutually agreed to change the status of the ODI series to a bilateral series from the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League fixtures due to the non-availability of the Decision Review System (DRS) — a requirement in the event playing conditions, a PCB press release said.

As New Zealand will return to Pakistan in the 2022-23 season to play two Tests and three ODIs, the two boards have agreed that these 50-over matches will now count towards the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 qualification.

Schedule

Sept 11 – Arrival in Islamabad

Sept 12-14 – Room isolation

Sept 15-16 – Training/practice/intra-squad match

Sept 17 – 1st ODI, Rawalpindi

Sept 19 – 2nd ODI, Rawalpindi

Sept 21 – 3rd ODI, Rawalpindi

Sept 25 – 1st T20I, Lahore

Sept 26 – 2nd T20I, Lahore

Sept 29 – 3rd T20I, Lahore

Oct 01 – 4th T20I, Lahore

Oct 03 – 5th T20I, Lahore

A number of former cricketers and players of current men's and women's teams expressed their contentment on the arrival of the Kiwis on a "historic tour", PCB said in a statement.

"It is a great news for passionate cricket fans that New Zealand is arriving in Pakistan after a long gap. I still remember a match between Pakistan and New Zealand in Karachi when Shoaib Akhtar bowled really fast and took six wickets," recalled Rashid Latif, former wicket-keeper of the Pakistan team.

Women’s team all-rounder Nida Dar is hopeful of an "excited series" between the two sides.

“I am looking forward to what promises to be exciting series. My well-wishes are with the men in green and I am sure they will do well," she said.

Former Test cricketer and now national U19 coach Ijaz Ahmed said the tour of New Zealand was another step forward towards the complete resumption of the international cricket in Pakistan. "After New Zealand, England are due to visit next month here, which is fantastic for the cricket fans," he said.

New Zealand are the first side to visit Pakistan in what will be an action-packed 2021-22 season for the local cricket fans. Following the tour by Black Caps, England’s men and women sides will play T20 Internationals fixtures in Karachi before West Indies are expected to arrive in the port city in December for three ODIs and three T20 Internationals.

Australia are then scheduled to undertake a full tour in February/March 2022 in what would be their first trip to Pakistan since 1998.

A bomb blast outside the New Zealand team’s hotel in Karachi in 2002 had cut short the Black Caps’ last Test tour of Pakistan, but they visited again for an ODI series the following year.

Since the 2003 ODI series, Pakistan have thrice hosted New Zealand for ODIs in the United Arab Emirates with the Black Caps winning the 2019-10 and 2014-15 series and drawing the 2018-19 rubber.

However, Pakistan won the 2009-10 and 2018-19 T20I series while the 2014-15 series was shared.

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2023 general election will be held under new census: Asad Umar

Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar announced on Saturday that the 2023 general elections will be held under a new census.

Criticising the Sindh government, Umar said: "The Sindh government had collected all the census data themselves, however, they still protested."

The minister stated that for the "first time in [Pakistan's] history, the census would be conducted using technology". The census would begin in September and would be conducted during a period of 18 months.

He said that the federal government has provided vaccines worth more than Rs10 billion for Karachi, however, the provincial government has so far failed to provide a single dose of the vaccine.

Announcing good news for Karachiites, the federal minister revealed that the Green Line will be opened for the people next month.

In April, the federal government approved the official release of the Census-2017 results which had been withheld for the last couple of years.

Umar had said: "Since elections are held based on the census, we will begin preparations for the next census in September or October this year."

"We will complete the new census by March 23," Umar had announced. "The government will also form constituencies based on the new census data before the general elections of 2023."

While Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had insisted on releasing the census data, Sindh demanded the census be held anew in the province so that the consolidated data could be released together.

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Polling underway for cantonment board elections across Pakistan

Voting is underway in 41 cantonment boards across Pakistan, with 1,560 candidates contesting against each other in 206 wards.

The polling began at 8am and will continue until 5pm without any interruptions.

Seven candidates have been elected unopposed so far. The election will not take place in Kamra Cantonment Board, whiile polls have been postponed in one ward each in Rawalpindi and Pano Aqil.

Most of the candidates — 684 — are independent, while as many as 876 belong to different political parties. The ruling PTI has fielded the most candidates — 183.

Similarly, the PML-N has fielded 144, PPP 113, JI 104, the outlawed TLP 83, MQM-P 42, PSP 35, PML-Q 34, and JUI-F 25 candidates.

Meanwhile, in 20 of Punjab's cantonment boards, four candidates — two each from Multan and Attock — have been elected unopposed, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said.

Mohammad Salman Iqbal, Saima Aashiq, Mohammad Yaqub Nasir, and Mohammad Sadiq have been elected unopposed as councilors, the ECP said.

Therefore, of the 114 of Punjab's cantonment boards, polling will take place in 110, the Election Commission said.

Meanwhile, in Kamra Cantonment Board, no candidate has filed nomination papers in all four of the wards and therefore, polling will not take place there.

It is pertinent to mention here that not a single woman candidate is contesting elections in Lahore. However, 357 polling stations have been set up for 606,628 voters in the city. 269 candidates are contesting elections for 20 wards in Lahore. Out of the total, 241 polling stations have been declared sensitive and 44 most sensitive.

As many as 923 candidates will take part in elections across Punjab.

In Quetta, 35 candidates are contesting for five wards. 31 polling stations have been sut up for 28,945 voters. In total, 15,346 male and 13,599 female voters will exercise their democratic right in the city today.

In Karachi, pollling is underway across 42 wards of six cantonment boards. A total 350 candidates are contesting elections in the metropolis. The administration has set up 288 polling statlions for the polling process in the city.

Meanwhile, elections are underway in 10 wards each in Gujranwala, Hyderabad, Sargodha and Abbottabad and seven wards of Multan and in other cities.

Just two days before the elections, tension prevailed in the Gulistan-e-Jauhar area of Karachi after members of two political parties — the PTI and the PSP — clashed Friday night.

The incident took place when workers of the PTI and the PSP were held rallies ahead of the upcoming elections.

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