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465 charge nurses appointed
PESHAWAR, Oct 21: The provincial government has appointed 465 charge nurses with immediate effect to overcome shortage of paramedical staff in the health facilities of the province.
With the recruitment of fresh charge nurses, 80 per cent shortage of nurses will removed in the hospitals of the province, an official handout said on Tuesday.
It said that the Health Department will shortly advertise for the remaining 20 per cent posts. The fresh charge nurses will be posted in teachings hospitals, DHQ hospitals and tehsil headquarters hospitals.
It is worth mentioning that nurses play vital role in healthcare delivery system. According to the international standard, four nurses required to assist a single doctor. Unfortunately, in our country this ratio is not up to the standard.
The Health Department has directed the newly appointed charge nurses to report to their station of duty within 15 days.
Upload Date:
2008-10-22
Cross-LoC trade begins amid high hopes
CHAKOTHI, Oct 21: Trading across the Line of Control in Kashmir began for the first time in six decades on Tuesday, raising hopes of a drop in tension in the disputed Himalayan region.
The decision, taken only last month, to allow limited trade across the Line of Control symbolises attempts to solve the bitter dispute over the Himalayan region by creating “soft borders” allowing the free movement of goods and people. “I’am quite confident that this beginning will lead us to proper and regular trade and commerce,” Azad Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan, told reporters in Chakothi, while waiting for Indian trucks to arrive.
“All these steps, cross-LoC trade, communication, people-to-people contacts, talks, all these things slowly and gradually they are most generally contributing factors towards the ultimate resolution,” Khan said.
Occupied Kashmir Governor, N.N. Vohra, said the trade link was a major step in a slow-moving peace process: “Today is a historic day…The trade volume will increase.
“I’m completely hopeful that this will remove a lot of difficulties and create an atmosphere of friendship on the two sides,” the governor said.
A largely symbolic crossing shortly after midday was the first time vehicles were allowed to cross Aman Setu or Peace Bridge on the Line of Control since India and Pakistan fought a war over the region in 1947.
“Vehicles from both the sides have crossed over making history,” senior Indian industries official Pawan Kotwai said at Kaman Post, just near the Peace Bridge, as reporters from both sides waved at each other.
Kashmiri truckers from both sides said they were delighted about the resumption of trade.
“I’m very happy to be part of this historic moment,” said Ghulam Hassan Baba, a driver from Srinagar.
“Never in my dreams I had imagined that one day I would drive my truck and go to the other side,” said Mazhar Hussain, the driver of the first Pakistani truck, said before crossing the Line of Control.
Hussain, whose lorry carried a huge Pakistani flag, wept on arriving in occupied Kashmir.
“This is the day I have lived for,” he said, as tears rolled down his cheeks after people embraced him and posed for photographs with him. There was also huge excitement among the people who had lined up to welcome the truckers on both sides of the Line of Control.
“I was 12 years old when I last saw baskets of fruits being packed to be sent to Rawalpindi,” said Haji Abdul Ahad Bhat, a 74-year-old apple farmer from the Indian side.
Dozens of schoolchildren lined the road in Salmabad, a town in the Indian side near the Line of Control, where a specially designed trading post has been set up with warehouses and security checks for the goods.
The Indian trucks were decorated with flags and banners reading “Long live trade across the two sides”.
The head of a fruit growers’ association in occupied Kashmir said he hoped the renewed trade would transform the relationship between Indian and Pakistan to a more friendly one and extend trade opportunities for all.
“I hope our products will not just be sent to the other side, but eventually to Central Asia and the Gulf,” Ghulam Rasool said.
On the Pakistani side more than a dozen trucks carrying rock salt, garments and raisins made the crossing.
Schoolchildren and people on Pakistan side raised banners bearing the slogans “Kashmir will become Pakistan,” and “Long Live Kashmir freedom movement”.
For now, the route remains largely symbolic. After the inaugural exchange on Tuesday, only four trucks will be allowed across from each side once a week.
Freedom fighters on the Indian side, who have stepped up demands for a trade route between Indian and Pakistani-controlled sections of Kashmir during recent mass protests against Indian rule, hailed Tuesday’s trade opening as a victory.
“This is the first step toward achieving economic independence for Kashmir,” said All Parties Hurriyet Conference chief Mirwaiz Omer Farooq.
Upload Date:
2008-10-22
IMF offers $6bn package
WASHINGTON, Oct 21: The United States has repeated its offer to help rescue Pakistan from the current financial crisis as diplomatic sources in Washington say the International Monetary Fund has agreed to provide $6 billion to the country to boost up its ailing economy.
“It’s hard for me to speculate,” said State Department’s deputy spokesman Robert Wood when asked if the IMF had agreed to offer a rescue package to Pakistan. But “we obviously will try to see what we can do to help Pakistan get through its financial crisis”.
Pakistan had “no choice but to seek help from the IMF,” said another State Department official. The official, who was not identified, was quoted in the US media as saying that Pakistani officials knew it would not be a popular decision in Pakistan but they had to go to the IMF.
“It won’t be popular with the public and it sends a lot of negative signals about Pakistan’s financial situation, its creditworthiness. But it’s a decision the Pakistanis are going to have to make,” he said.
The country’s inflation is running at around 25 per cent, and its foreign currency reserves are rapidly depleting, forcing the government to seek emergency cash advance from friendly countries and international financial institutions.
Pakistan is reportedly discussing a $10 billion to $15 billion support package with the IMF and other bodies.
Diplomatic sources in Washington have told Dawn that the IMF has agreed to provide $6 billion to Pakistan to stabilise its economy and to help avoid defaulting on foreign debt repayments due next year.
The money will be available at 5 to 6 per cent interest while Pakistan also has agreed to readjust its monetary policies to qualify for the loan.
The country has already withdrawn subsidies on oil and oil products, a major IMF demand that may hurt millions of ordinary consumers across Pakistan.
“Since Pakistan had already taken some of the most difficult and painful measures, the IMF is willing to help,” said a diplomatic source involved in negotiations between Pakistan and the IMF.
Diplomatic sources said the United States is playing a key role in persuading international financial institutions to help Pakistan but it is also urging Islamabad to undertake serious economic reforms.
Some of Pakistan’s key allies, such as China, also have urged Pakistan to go to the international community with concrete economic plans for seeking assistance instead of “going door-to-door, asking for money,” said Shahid Javed Burki, a former finance minister and vice president of the World Bank.
At the State Department briefing, Mr Wood refused to disclose US plans for helping Pakistan but assured Islamabad that Washington was considering various options.
“It would be premature for me to get ahead of what we may decide to do back here from Washington … but obviously, the situation there is of great concern, not just to us, but obviously to the Pakistanis,” he said.
“And so we will look at ways we can try to help Pakistan, you know, get through this crisis. But beyond that, I don’t have any specifics for you.”
Pakistan’s front-line role in fighting terrorism persuades Washington to help prevent an economic collapse. Policy planners in Washington fear that an economic meltdown will leave this nuclear-armed country of 160 million at the mercy of extremist groups like Al Qaeda and Washington wants to avoid this.
Other Western and Middle Eastern nations also have similar fears and are willing to help.
Upload Date:
2008-10-22
Law on women’s rights urged
DADU, Oct 19: A large number of women from four districts of Sindh took out a rally here on Sunday, demanding equal political, economic and social rights for women.
The rally was organised by Village Shadabad Organisation in collaboration with Action Aid Pakistan and was attended by women from Tharparkar, Dadu, Qambar-Shahadad Kot and Karachi districts.
The president of the organization Akbar Lashari, representatives of Action Aid Pakistan, Aqsa Khan, Shabana Shaikh, Afshan Jiskani, local social workers Mir Zadi Birhamani, Samina Solangi led the rally.
Speaking at the rally, Aqsa Khan said that according to Article 23 of the Constitution every citizen had the right to purchase and sale property in Pakistan but practically women were deprived of this right. She demanded effective measures to follow the constitution of the country and equal rights to women in property matters.
Shabana Shaikh urged the lawmakers to introduce a new law to ensure women’s right on property issues. She said that separate courts for women and a separate wing for women in Revenue Department to facilitate women to get information about property be also established.
Afshan Jiskani said that influential landlords were killing women to occupy their property and the government was not taking action against them.
Akbar Lashari said that equal rights should be given to women.
Upload Date:
2008-10-20
Employees protest as VC resumes charge
HYDERABAD, OCT 13: Dr Basheer Ahmed Shaikh resumed the charge of the Vice-Chancellor of Sindh Agriculture University on Monday. The varsity employees went on strike and staged a sit-in outside the vice chancellor’s block. They raised slogans against the vice-chancellor.
Leaders of the SAU employees Raza Mohammad Durrani, Mohammad Bux Rajpar, Nusrat Hussain Channa, Hussain Bux Veesar and others said that employees will observe indefinite strike.
The University Employees’ Federation announced that employees of all universities of Sindh will go on strike on Thursday. They were demanding the removal of vice-chancellor.
The JSSF activists also staged a protest demonstration against the vice chancellor.
BILL: Members of the National Assembly should pass child protection bill in the best interest of children, said speakers at the media consultative meeting organised by the Society for Projection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) in collaboration with Save the Children.
The meeting was organised at the press club here on Monday to mark the international day against corporal punishment in schools.
MPA Farheen Mughal, Sparc Protection Manager Kashif Bajeer and SPO Regional Director Mustafa Baloch said that incidents of gender violence and torturing of children were on the increase in schools, juvenile prisons and even in homes
Upload Date:
2008-10-14
Major banks partly nationalised in UK
LONDON, Oct 13: The UK government continued the process of part nationalisation of major private banks that began midway last week and pumped as much as £37 billion into the banking sector on Monday in return for a major say in the policy management of the banks receiving the bailout money.
The immediate and major beneficiaries of the bailout package are Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS. All were facing imminent meltdown.
In return for the help of £20 billion from the taxpayers’ money the government will take a controlling stake of up to 60 per cent in RBS. Also Chief Executive Sir Fred Goodwin and Chairman Sir Tom McKillop have been forced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to step down.
The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, said that Goodwin and McKillop had waived their contractual entitlements to payoffs.
Lloyds will receive up to £17 billion and in return the government will get up to 43.5 per cent of the group, including HBOS, with Lloyds’ shareholders owning 36.5 per cent and HBOS’s investors just 20 per cent.
The government could also face a £6.5 billion cash call from Barclays.
The Guardian on Monday said that in return for providing fresh liquidity, the government had secured a series of concessions. RBS and Lloyds have both agreed not to pay a dividend this year — and possibly for several more — and to help people who are struggling to pay their mortgages. They will not pay any cash bonuses this year, and have agreed to let the government appoint several board members.
Chancellor Darling said it was appropriate for the government to take seats on the boards of both companies, but insisted that they would continue to operate commercially at arms length from the government.
“Ministers aren’t going to get involved in the day-to-day running,” he said.
The government has also insisted that bank directors will no longer walk away with large payoffs. Prime Minister Brown told a press conference that the government would no longer tolerate “rewards for failure”.
Both RBS and Lloyds said on Monday that directors who were dismissed would receive “a severance package which is reasonable and perceived as fair”.
The Financial Services Authority added its weight behind the clampdown on executive pay. It wrote to the heads of the UK banks on Monday, warning that “bad” remuneration policies were not acceptable in the current climate and urging them to review their pay policies.
With the UK economy facing a protracted slowdown, the Unite urged the government to avoid any compulsory job losses as part of the rescue.
“The government has shown strong leadership and decisiveness in a time of great uncertainty. The measures announced on Monday must be bound to undertakings by the banks of no job losses, no repossessions and an end to the bonus culture,” said Derek Simpson, the joint general secretary of Unite.
“Thatcher buried Keynesian economics and the current crisis shows just how wrong she was. Government intervention is not only necessary in the financial services but intervention on a wider scale is necessary to protect jobs and the economy in a recession,” he added.
Upload Date:
2008-10-14
Pakistan to press India for ‘stolen’ water
LAHORE, Oct 13: Pakistan would neither drop its claim nor sell the Chenab water which India ‘stole’ in September this year, Indus Commissioner Syed Jamaat Ali Shah said here on Monday.
Talking to newsmen at the International Congress on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID), he said a delegation would leave for India on the 18th and re-emphasise its demand for 200,000 acre feet of water that India used to fill Baglihar dam.
“India will have to compensate Pakistan during the coming Rabi season. Otherwise, Islamabad will resort to other treaty mechanisms to get its due share,” he insisted.
Pakistan has no objection now to the design of the dam, which was changed by India on recommendations of a neutral expert. But it also had to observe the filling criteria, which was not part of the treaty, he said.
“If India insists on its rights under the treaty it also has to observe its duties that exclude tampering with the Chenab flows. It is under treaty obligation to release 55,000 cusecs even when filling the lake,” he said
Upload Date:
2008-10-14
85,000 children to get polio vaccination
ISLAMABAD, Oct 12: The capital administration has set a target to administer anti-polio dose to over 85,000 children in Islamabad during its three-day drive that kicks off from Monday.
Arrangements for the drive were reviewed in a meeting presided over by Deputy Commissioner Amer Ali Ahmad on Sunday, says an official announcement.
The meeting was attended by the district health officer and officials of all rural health centres, basic health units and supervisors of mobile heath teams.
The number of polio patients has increased in the country in the last two years despite claims of the health authorities and United Nations that Pakistan will soon become a polio-free country.
The deputy commissioner directed the health department of the local administration to use all available resources to make the drive successful in the rural area and ensure that 100 per cent target of administering police dose would be met.
The meeting was informed by the DHO that arrangements had been made for 100 per cent coverage of the children against the crippling disease in the rural areas of Islamabad.
He said a total of 85,454 children would be immunised against polio in the rural area of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
The meeting was informed that 218 mobile teams had been activated in the rural area which would visit door-to-door in the far-flung areas to administer anti-polio drops to children below the age of five.
Moreover 12 union councils of Islamabad have been divided into seven zones and zonal supervisors and health officers of 41 areas have been assigned the special task to achieve the target of immunisation against polio.
Besides, 30 static centres and nine transit points have also been established in the rural areas of Islamabad. Health teams would daily submit the progress and achievement report to Chief Commissioner Islamabad Kamran Lashari and the deputy commissioner.
Meanwhile, the chief commissioner and deputy commissioner have directed the district health authorities and the mobile teams to ensure that the campaign against polio is successful.
Islamabads Local Government and Rural Development Department was directed to extend full cooperation to the mobile teams for the vaccination of children.
Upload Date:
2008-10-13
Kidnapping of labour leader condemned
HYDERABAD, Oct 9: The Sindh chapter of Pakistan Workers Federation has warned of a countrywide protest movement against the UBL administration if action against one of its regional presidents was not taken.
In a joint statement issued here on Thursday, Regional President of the Federation, Mir Khan Baloch, Secretary Abdul Latif Nizamani, Chairman Afzal Ahmed Shah and others condemning the kidnapping said that Tufail Ahmed Hyderi was not an ordinary worker but the President UBL Sindh, Balochistan Workmen Union.
They alleged that the Regional Operational Head of the UBL was involved in his kidnapping and attack. They warned the UBL administration of the consequences in case if they failed to take any action.
Upload Date:
2008-10-10
NGOs resolve to strive against Bonded Labour.
HYDERABAD, Oct 9: Expressing concern over the differences between two civil society groups working for the cause of bonded labour, one supporting Mannu Bheel and the other his opponents, leaders of different non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have decided to strive for the elimination of bonded labour together.
Speaking at a joint news conference here on Thursday, Karamat Ali of Piler, Suleman G. Abro of SAWFCO, Hussain Bux Thebo, Zulfiqar Shah of South Asia Partnership, Zulfiqar Halepoto of SDF and others said that some time back a liberated Hari woman, Meena Kolhi, had accused Mannu Bheel of assaulting her and kidnapping her daughter.
Besides staging protest demonstration and hunger strikes, Ms Meena Kolhi had also filed a case against Mannu Bheel, they said.
They said that some civil society organisations working against bonded labour also became involved and while one group supported Mannu Bheel, the other sided with Ms Meena Kolhi.
They said that due to this confrontation between the two groups working for the same cause, leaders of civil society organisations convened a meeting at the PILER’s office Karachi on Aug 17.
The meeting was also attended by Comrade Ghulam Hussain who was supporting Mannu Bheel and Dr Ghulam Haider who had taken up the cause of Meena Kolhi.
They said that the matter was thoroughly discussed and the two parties agreed to desist from staging protest demonstrations or issuing statements against each other and also to withdraw counter cases.
In order to investigate the matter, the meeting appointed a two-member committee comprising Comrade Hussain Bux Thebo and Punhal Sario, they said.
The speakers said that according to the report of the committee, no evidence was found against Mannu Bheel while Ms Meena Kolhi did not cooperate with the committee.
They said that the committee was of the opinion that those people who had kidnapped the family members of Mannu Bheel were likely to have instigated Ms Meena Kolhi against Mannu Bheel to undermine the struggle against bonded labour.
