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Call to eradicate child labour
LAHORE: THE government should allocate more resources for eradication of child labour, and primary education should be made compulsory, said the speakers at a seminar organized by Punjab Labour and Human Resource Department to observe World Day against Child Labour on Sunday.
The speakers highlighted the plight of children engaged in hazardous labour. According to ILO, an estimated 100 million girls are involved in child labour around the world.
Director Child Labour Unit said that out of 3.3 million working children in Pakistan, around two million are in Punjab.
Punjab Labour Secretary Abdul Rauf Khan said the Punjab government had announced a major project for eradicating bonded labour in brick-kilns at a cost of Rs 123 million.
He said around 11,000 children of brick-kiln families would be provided education through this project and the brick-kiln families would be provided interest free small loans to rid them of the debts.
He added that with the ILO support over 70,000 children had been rehabilitated so far in Pakistan in various sectors like carpet weaving and soccer industries.
The government was urged to give importance to the education and skills training needs of young girls.
The seminar was addressed by In-charge Child Labour Unit Saeed Ahmed Awan, Iftikhar Randhawa of Employer Federation and Naila Anjum of ILO.
Upload Date:
2009-06-15
Tobacco use on the rise
Fifty-four percent men and 20% women in Pakistan use tobacco in one form or the other, while more than 1,000 children between the ages of 6-16 take up smoking every day.
Pakistan’s tobacco revenue constitutes 0.7 per cent of the GNP, exactly the same percentage allocated for health.
These data were shared with participants of a World No Tobacco Day awareness seminar held at Shifa International here on Saturday, with Director General Information and Broadcasting Fayyaz Hussain Shah as the chief guest.
“Smoking is the first step towards drug addiction and family destruction. We should, therefore, make special efforts to protect children from tobacco and secondhand smoke,” Fayyaz stated, appreciating ongoing efforts to raise public awareness about the health-related costs of tobacco use.
Upload Date:
2009-05-31
One woman dies every 20 minutes in pregnancy
LAHORE: MINISTER for Population Welfare Punjab Neelam Jabbar Ch has said one woman dies in every 20 minutes in pregnancy in Pakistan because of poverty, lack of knowledge, illiteracy and communication or absence of basic healthcare facilities.
Talking to various delegations on Saturday, she said the government was trying hard to overcome this issue and collective efforts were required to overcome the problem. She said the current situation related to mother and child health in developing countries was deteriorating because of illiteracy and lack of knowledge.
Neelam Jabbar Ch said that a new programme had been launched to establish community midwifery homes at the far-flung areas of the province to provide basic health facilities to child & mother.
As many as129 Mobile Service Units will also be established for the provision of maternal and child healthcare in the province. She said that 116 reproductive health centers, 1483 welfare centers under the supervision of qualified doctors and expert staff were providing standardized medical facilities regarding population welfare as well as general ailment.
Neelam Jabbar Ch has said the PPP is the savior party of the country which will continue its struggle for the welfare of the people and protection of the country. Talking to workers of PPP, Neelam Jabbar Ch appreciated the enthusiasm of party workers that Pakistan Peoples Party would continue the journey of sacrifices which was started by the sacrifice of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
She said the PPP believed in the power of the people and it had brought the national politics out of drawing rooms to the public and the PPP would maintain the supremacy of rule of law as well as the sovereignty of the people. She said the PPP had promoted the real democracy in Pakistan.
Upload Date:
2009-05-31
486 dead, 1,573 injured in suicide attacks since 2007
AT least 486 people, including army, navy and police officials, had lost their lives and 1,573 injured in suicide attacks in Punjab since 2007 to date.
The data collected by The News reveals that around 108 people were killed and 584 injured during suicide attacks across Punjab in 2009, while 274 people were killed and 722 injured in 2008. No less than 107 people were killed and 279 injured in suicide attacks in 2007.
On February 5, 2009, 32 people were killed and 48 others injured when a suspected suicide bomber blew himself amidst a crowd of worshippers outside a mosque in Dera Ghazi Khan. Police said the blast targeted dozens of people converging on the Al Hussainia Mosque after dark, shortly before a religious gathering. Police blamed sectarian extremists for the incident. The explosion occurred just 50 feet short of the mosque. On March 16, 2009, around 15 people were killed and 25 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a busy bus stand at Pirwadhai in Rawalpindi. It was believed that the original target of the bomber could have been the participants of the ‘long march’. The suicide bomber riding a on a motorbike blew himself up outside a restaurant, which was set up close to a cab stand.
On March 23, 2009, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of the headquarters of the Special Branch (SB), an intelligence agency of the Federal Capital Police, in Sitara Market, killing himself and a policeman.
Two police officials were wounded in the attack. Over 120 personnel of the Special Branch lived on the premises of the SB headquarters and most of them were present in their barracks at that time. Police Constable Faisal Khan, deployed at the main gate of the headquarters, reportedly got hold of the suicide bomber when he was advancing towards the barracks. The bomber detonated the bomb, killing both of them.
On April 04, 2009, eight Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel were killed, and seven others injured, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at an FC check post on the Margalla Road in Islamabad. The blast, which took place at 7:35pm, was followed by an exchange of fire between FC personnel and unidentified accomplices of the suicide attacker. The crossfire continued for around 20 minutes. On April 5, 2009, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of an imambargah in Chakwal, killing 24 people, including three children, and injuring 140 others, at a religious gathering.
The target was the gathering of around 800 people in an imambargah in Muhallah Sarpak. The majlis ended at 12:15pm and people were preparing to leave the imambargah when a 15-year old boy, who looked like an Afghan, stormed into the crowd and blew himself up. On May 27, 2009, no less than 27 people, including ISI and police officials wee killed while over 362 injured when an explosive laden vehicle was detonated amidst ISI and Rescue 15 buildings at Fatima Jinnah Road.
As per data of suicide attacks carried out during 2008, on January 10, at least 24 people, including 17 policemen, were killed and 80 others injured in a suicide bomb blast outside the Lahore High Court, minutes before the arrival of an anti-government lawyers’ procession. The blast ripped through GPO Chowk in front of the Lahore High Court as the suicide bomber walked up to around 60 riot police - who had gathered there ahead of a demonstration against President General Pervez Musharraf’s government - and blew himself up. Around 200 lawyers were inside the High Court at the time of the blast, and others were marching from a nearby district court.
On February 4, at least ten people were killed and around 10 others wounded when a suicide bomber crashed his bike into an armed forces bus carrying students and officials of Army Medical College, near the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi. An eyewitness said the suicide bomber hit the 30-seater bus in front of National Logistic Cell offices close to the GHQ, blowing away the roof, windows and doors of the bus. Several other vehicles were also damaged. A van carrying schoolchildren was also partially damaged, but the children remained unhurt.
On February 25, a suicide bomber killed eight people, including the Pakistan Army’s surgeon general, in Rawalpindi - the highest-ranking military official killed since the country joined the US-led war on terror. Lieutenant General Mushtaq Baig, surgeon general and director general of army’s medical services, died after a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up next to a military convoy on a busy road in Rawalpindi. Five civilians were also killed, while 25 others were injured, an army statement said.
On March 4, eight people were killed and 24 others injured when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the parking area of the Pakistan Navy War College in Lahore. The incident occurred at around 1:10pm when classes in the Pakistan Navy War College were in progress. Five Navy officials and two suicide bombers died on the spot while one Navy official succumbed to injuries at a hospital.
On March 11, at least 30 people were killed and more than 200 injured in suicide blasts at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) headquarters and an advertising agency office in Lahore. The first attack was carried out at the FIA regional headquarters on Temple Road, severely damaging the eight-storey establishment and adjacent buildings. The building also housed the offices of a special US-trained unit created to counter terrorism. The second attack was carried out on Bungalow No 83/F in Model Town - the office of an advertising agency. Two children and a gardener died in the bombing and about 12 people were injured.
On June 2, a suspected suicide bomber blew up his car outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, killing at least eight persons and injuring 30 others. The Danish foreign minister said a Pakistani cleaner employed at the embassy and a Danish citizen of Pakistani origin had died and three other local employees were hurt, but the embassy’s four Danish staffers were unharmed.
On July 6, 20 people, including 15 policemen, were killed and more than 40 people injured in a suicide attack near Melody Market area of Islamabad. The suicide bomber targeted policemen deployed at a rally observing the first anniversary of an army raid on the Lal Masjid in Islamabad.
On August 13, a suicide blast in Lahore killed at least nine persons and injured more than 35, targeting policemen standing guard on the eve of the Independence Day. The attack took place at the busy Dubai Chowk in the Allama Iqbal Town area at around 11:34pm, as citizens poured into streets before midnight to celebrate the 61st anniversary of Pakistan’s independence, which falls on August 14. Among the dead were two policemen and a woman.
On August 21, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) in the high security cantonment town of Wah, around 30 kilometres from Islamabad, killing at least 70 persons in what was described as the deadliest attack on a military installation in the country’s history. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack. The POF at Wah is a cluster of around 20 industrial units producing artillery, tank and anti-aircraft ammunition for the Pakistani armed forces. It employs around 25,000 to 30,000 workers.
On September 20, a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives at the Marriott Hotel in capital Islamabad, killing at least 60 people. At least 200 people, including a Pakistan People’s Party legislator, were injured in the explosion, which ruptured a gas pipeline and triggered a huge blaze. A US national was killed and several foreigners were injured. A group calling itself Fedayeen-i-Islam claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.
On October 6, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of people at the house of Rashid Akbar Niwani, a Shia Member of National Assembly from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), in Bhakkar, 260 kilometres southwest of Islamabad, killing 25 people and wounding 60 others, including Niwani.
On October 9, a suspected suicide car bombing destroyed part of an Anti-Terror Squad building and wounded at least six policemen in the heavily guarded Police Lines area in Islamabad.
In 2007, no less than six incidents of suicide attacks were reported in Punjab. On September 4, at least 30 people were killed and 70 others wounded in two suicide attacks at Qasim Market and RA Bazaar in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The first suicide bomber targeted a bus that was carrying around 35 employees of a defence agency to their office near the Qasim Market, killing at least 20 people. Soon after, another blast occurred near the RA Bazaar police station, killing 10 more people.
On October 30, a suicide bomber killed eight people, including three police personnel, and injured at least 18 others, including 14 police personnel, when he blew himself up at a police picket near district courts in the cantonment area of Rawalpindi. President Pervez Musharraf had reportedly been meeting governors and chief ministers at Camp Office less than a kilometre away from the site. The fortified army posts at the checkpoint and the nearby gate to the residence of Joint Chief of Army Staff Chairman General Tariq Majid were reportedly scarred with shrapnel and spattered with blood.
On November 1, a suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) bus, killing seven officers of the PAF and three civilians on the Faisalabad Road in Sargodha. At least 28 people were wounded in the attack. The bus was reportedly carrying PAF staff from the Mushaf Mir Airbase to Kirana Ammunition Depot when the bomber targeted the bus at approximately 6.45am.
On November 24, two suicide bombers simultaneously targeted military personnel and installations at two different places in Rawalpindi, claiming over 32 lives and wounding 55 others. In the first attack that occurred at 7:55am, the suicide bomber while trying to enter the Hamza Camp, the main office of the ISI, hit the staff bus of the agency. The blast, which occurred 200 metres from Faizabad at the Murree Road, killed over 30 personnel in the bus and guards standing at the main gate. At the same time near the GHQ, another suicide bomber blew up his car after hitting an Army check-post when he was intercepted while trying to infiltrate into the high security zone. Two Army personnel were killed while one was injured in the second attack.
On December 10, eight people, including five schoolchildren, were injured when a suicide bomber exploded his car targeting a Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) bus carrying air force employees’ children at a military base at Kamra around 50 kilometres northwest of Islamabad. A suicide bomber exploded his car on the outskirts of the PAC factories on the Qutba-Attock Road on Monday at 7.30am near a PAC school bus carrying children to schools in Attock City.
On December 27, Benazir Bhutto, the chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was assassinated in a gun and suicide attack as she drove away from a campaign rally just minutes after addressing thousands of supporters at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi. At least 30 more people were killed and over 100 others wounded in the attack.
Upload Date:
2009-05-31
Swat operation to end within 2/3 days: Secretary Defence
ISLAMABAD: Secretary Defence, Syed Athar Ali has expressed the hope that Swat underway operation would end within two/three days.
Addressing a defence parley in Singapore, Secretary Defence, Syed Athar Ali said that the operation in Swat had been completed almost ninety percent, while only five to ten percent mopping up was underway.
He expressed the hope that the remaining militants would also be wiped out within two/three days
Upload Date:
2009-05-31
Kingdom of Morocco Embassy Deputy Head visit APFUTU head office.
GUJRAT: yesterday H.E. Mohammed Saidi, 1st Counsellor Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco, Islamabad has visited the head office of the All Pakistan Federation of United Trade Unions (APFUTU)and he donate the health save medicines to Mr. Pirzada Imtiaz Syed, Secretary General of APFUTU as donation for displaced Pakistani's. On this Mr. Pirzada pay his thanks.
Upload Date:
2009-05-26
Teachers demand increase in salaries
LAHORE: LARGE number of college teachers took out a protest rally and staged a sit-in on Thursday to press the government for acceptance of their longstanding demands.
The protest was organised by the Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA) in which college teachers including contract lecturers and honorary teaching assistants participated and expressed resentment over the government’s apathy in connection with problems being faced by teachers.
Earlier, the teachers held a convention at the Government MAO College where the teachers’ representatives including PPLA President Prof Nazim Hasnain criticised the officers concerned for ignoring college teachers’ demands.
Prof Hasnain warned if the government did not fulfil demands by June 2, the college teachers from across the province would set up a hunger strike camp in front of the Punjab Assembly till the acceptance of their demands.
He demanded college teachers be given one step promotion like teachers of universities.
The teachers’ representatives also demanded end to political interference in colleges, increase in salaries and raise in PhD allowance for teachers of social sciences.
Later, the teachers marched towards the Punjab Assembly in the scorching heat and staged a sit-in at Faisal Chowk for about an hour. The protesters, holding placards and wearing black armbands, chanted slogans against the government. They said they were being discriminated as the salaries of police and doctors had been increased and even contract doctors were regularised but teachers’ demands were not being fulfilled.
Traffic mess was also witnessed on The Mall and adjacent roads for quite some time due to the rally and sit-in.
Upload Date:
2009-05-22
Clerks again rally for raise
LAHORE: All Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA) took out a protest rally and staged a hunger strike camp in front of the Lahore Press Club on Thursday.
The rally, led by Punjab APCA president Zafar Ali Khan and General Secretary Syed Tahor Raza Shah, reached the Governor’s House where it was joined by small protest rallies taken out by the clerks from various departments.
Addressing the protest rally, APCA Lahore Division office-bearers including Safdar Hussain, Mukhatr Ahmad Gujjar, Rana Adnan and many others said that employment rate had plummeted to an abysmal low as most of the industrial units and workshops had shut their doors on workers due to load-shedding, adversely affecting production process in the country.
Prices of edible food items had touched their limits making the government employees difficult to keep their body and soul together, they said, adding that people were committing suicides in desperation.
Upload Date:
2009-05-22
CNG-petrol price gap reduced to less than 20pc
KARACHI: Following a further cut in petrol price, the gap with that of the CNG price has shrunk to less than 20 percent.
Petrol-CNG price difference has shrunk to Rs8.21 or 17 percent after the government last night reduced the petrol price from Rs57.66 to Rs56.21 per litre in pursuance of the directive of the Supreme Court.
Reduction in per litre petrol rice since last October cumulatively by about 30 percent has triggered a falling trend in CNG sale. While CNG dealers in a bid to keep their sales stable seen offering CNG even at a discount at different places of the country.
Upload Date:
2009-05-22
Agreement for windmill power plants in Northern areas
ISLAMABAD: Agreement has been reached between UNDP and Alternative Energy Board for installing 103 small windmill power plants at a cost of 9.2 million dollars in Northern areas.
Chief Executive Office of the Alternative Energy Board and country director UNDP signed the agreement here.
These windmill plants will generate 15 megawatts of electricity.
On the occasion Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf said up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity can be produced with the help of small windmill projects.
The government has plans to provide electricity to 100,030 villages, he said.
