Who is giving Shahbaz’s call-recordings to Qadri?

ISLAMABAD: Eyebrows were raised across the country on Sunday when one of the two claimants of bringing a revolution by toppling the present PML-N government this month by using force, Dr Tahirul Qadri, announced that he had some call recordings of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

While there were already many heated conversations on the question as to who was behind the Canada-returned Tahirul Qadri and the recently UK-returned Imran Khan’s announcements of bringing a revolution simply one year after a democratic government started functioning, the Sunday’s announcement of Tahirul Qadri of having the call records of the chief minister of a province kickstarted intense debates across the country on the very question as to who could provide Dr Qadri with such call recordings.

Almost all the investigation reports and testimonies suggest that firing was started by the Minhaj workers on June 17, which led to the tragedy. However, there is an across- the-board consensus and even the PML-N leaders acknowledge that police response was excessive and uncalled for, which even resulted in the killing of women. All political forces agree that strict action must be taken against those who were involved in this horrible episode to avoid such incidents of highhandedness in future.

The Punjab Police are known for their barbaric attitude, harassment, torture and even killing of innocent citizens on the orders of political elite and receiving forceful extortions from the poor and deprived citizens and thus everyone agrees that the incident must be taken to its logical conclusion. However, nothing justifies recording of calls of top office bearers and handing them over to or giving access to private citizens instead of providing the same before a court of law.

But, the basic question remains as to who is behind Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri’s calls of toppling the present democratic dispensation in this month of August, 2014 and giving access to call records of top government functionaries in order to create chaos in the country.

It is unknown what these call records prove but Tahirul Qadri claimed on Sunday that these call records available with him testify the involvement of Shahbaz Sharif. Shahbaz, in his statement before the judicial commission, has said that he came to know about the unfortunate incident through the news channels and he has removed his personal secretary Dr Tauqir Shah for not informing him about the Punjab Police brutalities in time. He has also stated that former law minister Rana Sanaullah was sacked for his inability to avoid the occurrence of such an unfortunate tragedy.

There are also intense debates on the question as to why Tahirul Qadri and Imran Khan are sailing in different directions while the objective of both is the same i.e. toppling the present government within the next 30 to 60 days and coming into power. However, only a few PTI veterans have some satisfactory answers. They reveal that in 2001, the then president promised many leaders of the top-most position of the government. These leaders, according to PTI veterans, include Imran Khan, Tahirul Qadri and some PPP leaders from interior Sindh and Lahore among others. The PTI seniors explain that as many politicians were aspirants of the top slot and everyone was given full assurance, so when things started coming out some leaders realised that they had been deceived and thus they parted their ways with the ex-president. The basic condition that the ex-president’s men set with these aspirants of premiership was not to disclose the same to anyone in any case but later almost all these leaders started telling their friends and family members that they were becoming Pakistan’s next leader after 2002 polls and thus the secret was leaked and everyone became aware of wrong promises made to them. Tahirul Qadri, however, remained hopeful for a long time even after the premiership was handed over to Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali. According to senior PTI leaders, as there were many competitors in 2001 and 2002, so now both Imran and Qadri are struggling separately for the power as the day they become united the first question raised will be as to who will lead the revolution and who will occupy the top-most position in upcoming so-called revolutionary government that would be set up by toppling the incumbent government.

376 killed, 1,300 injured in major China quake

BEIJING: About 376 people were killed, over 1,300 injured and dozens of houses demolished after a strong earthquake hit southwest China’s mountainous Yunnan province on Sunday, state media said.
The quake in Zhaotong prefecture, in the province’s northeast, toppled buildings and left residents frantically searching for survivors beneath the rubble, images on social media showed. “At least 150 people were killed,” the official news agency Xinhua reported.

“Too many buildings were damaged and we are collecting data on deaths and injuries,” Xinhua quoted a local official as saying from the township of Longtoushan, at the epicentre of the quake. China News Service, the country’s second state news agency, said more than 1,300 people had been injured and 12,000 houses had collapsed. The state television broadcast footage of people running from their homes and gathering in the streets, as witnesses described the devastation on social media.

“The walls of several buildings crumbled, and water pipes were ruptured. The electricity was cut off,” wrote a user who said they lived in Ludian county, 23 kilometres from the epicentre, on China’s Twitter-like Weibo. The user’s message was accompanied by images of cracked walls and a pile of bricks strewn across the road.

Another Ludian resident described the scene as resembling a “battlefield after bombardment”, telling Xinhua “I have never felt (such) strong tremors before. What I can see are all ruins.”

Ludian has a population of 265,900, and sits more than 300 kilometres from the provincial capital of Kunming.

Zhaotong City, the capital of the prefecture, dispatched more than 300 police and firefighters to the quake-hit areas. The province also sent 392 rescuers and sniffer dogs. The United States Geological Survey had warned that the population of the region resided in structures “highly vulnerable to earthquake shaking”. The USGS reported the quake at a magnitude of 6.1 and said it struck at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometres at 4:30 pm (0830 GMT).

The Chinese state media put the magnitude at 6.5, citing the China Earthquake Networks Center. Complicating matters, the road leading to Longtoushan was damaged in a landslide before the quake. Southwest China lies where the Eurasian and Indian plates meet and is prone to earthquakes.

In 1974, a 6.8-magnitude quake in the same area killed more than 1,500 people. In September 2012, 80 people were killed when twin earthquakes struck the mountainous border area of Yunnan and Guizhou. In May 2008, an 8.0-magnitude quake rocked Sichuan, which neighbours Yunnan, killing tens of thousands of people and flattening swathes of the province.

 

150 killed as Israel continues to hit Gaza

GAZA: The Israeli military on Sunday bombarded Gaza, killing at least 150 people in 24 hours, medics said.More than 71 people were killed in Rafah alone in the fresh wave of bloodshed.

Shelling exchanges continued on Sunday, pushing the Gaza death toll given by Palestinian officials to 1,708, most of them civilians. Israel has confirmed that 64 soldiers have died in combat, while Palestinian shelling has also killed three civilians in Israel.

At least 30 Palestinians in Rafah were killed by Israeli fire on Sunday, including nine from the same family, hospital officials said.At least 10 people died in a fresh strike on a UN school in Gaza Sunday shortly after Israel confirmed it had begun withdrawing some troops from the war-torn enclave.

The strike on the school sheltering displaced Palestinians in the southern city of Rafah came as Israel pounded the region following the suspected capture of soldier Hadar Goldin by Hamas fighters. It was the third time in 10 days that a UN school had been hit and came four days after Israeli tank shells slammed into a school in the northern town of Jabaliya, killing 16 in an attack furiously denounced by UN chief Ban Ki-moon as “reprehensible”.

The US said it was “appalled” by the shelling of another UN school in Gaza Sunday and called for a “full and prompt” investigation.State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not say which side was responsible for the attack that left at least 10 dead, but stressed that “Israel must do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties.”

The UN expressed outrage at the shelling of one of its schools. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the shelling, calling it “a moral outrage and a criminal act.” “This madness must stop,” he said.

“The bloodshed needs to stop,” said a statement signed by the European Union and the European Commission presidents on behalf of the bloc’s 28 member states.“We deplore the terrible loss of lives, including innocent women and children,” it said, condemning the “intolerable violence” being suffered by Gaza residents.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond demanded an unconditional ceasefire to resolve the “intolerable” situation for civilians.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep up pressure on Hamas even after the army completes its core mission of destroying a tunnel network that extends into Israel.

Israel began its air and naval offensive against Gaza on July 8 following a surge of cross-border rocket salvoes by Hamas and other guerrillas, later escalating into ground incursions.TRUCE EFFORTS: The talks in Cairo, without Israeli participation, were unlikely to produce any breakthrough, as Israel and Hamas’ positions remain far apart. Israel says it must be allowed to act against Hamas’ rocket arsenal and tunnel network in the framework of any long-term truce.

Hamas, sworn to Israel’s destruction, demands Israel withdraw its troops and a lifting of the blockade that has choked Gaza’s economy.Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, a member of Netanyahu’s decision-making security cabinet, said any agreement on the issue was still far off.

“You want to talk about lifting the blockade? Not with us, and not now,” she told the news website Ynet TV. Crowded Gazan towns close to the Israeli border have seen destructive clashes and the flight of tens of thousands of Palestinians as tanks and troops swept in to confront dug-in guerrillas.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said 520,000 people had been displaced by the fighting - more than a quarter of Gaza’s population.With no resolution in sight, a senior Palestinian delegation landed in Cairo for talks Sunday on an Egyptian ceasefire initiative, but Israel said it was not sending a negotiating team.

“Hamas has proven that it breaches any agreement reached right away, as happened five times in previous truces,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzahi HaNegbi said.“It is therefore unclear at this stage what benefit Israel might see for participating in an attempt to reach agreements, based on the Egyptian initiative,” he added.

US Middle East envoy Frank Lowenstein is expected to arrive for talks, along with representatives of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad.The Gaza violence has claimed 1,720 Palestinian lives and displaced up to a quarter of the territory’s population. Goldin’s death brings Israeli army deaths to 64 since the start of hostilities on July 8, its heaviest toll since the 2006 war against the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Earlier on Saturday, Israel pulled back troops from two areas in Gaza in what was initially interpreted as a sign it was winding down its biggest military operation there in decades. The army informed residents of Beit Lahiya and Al-Atatra in the north that it was “safe” to return home.

Troops were also seen pulling out of villages east of Khan Yunis in the south, in the first such moves since the Israeli operation began last month. But there appeared to be little further indication Israel was planning to wrap up its operations, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising that Hamas would pay “an insufferable price” for continued cross-border rocket fire.

“We will take as much time as necessary, and will exert as much force as needed,” he said at a news conference, adding that troops had also dealt a “significant blow” to Hamas´s infrastructure.

Troops would complete their mission to destroy a complex network of tunnels used by militants to infiltrate southern Israel before the next security objectives would be decided, he said, warning that “all options” were on the table.

Exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal insisted that the Palestinian side had not broken the short-lived ceasefire, putting the spotlight on Israel.“A truce is a truce, but the presence of the Israeli forces inside Gaza and destroying the tunnels means it is an aggression,” he told CNN in an interview late Saturday. A spokesman for the Islamist movement mocked Netanyahu’s statements as “confused”, and as testimony of the “real crisis” he was facing.

“We will continue our resistance till we achieve our goals,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP. The Israeli army on Sunday announced the death of Hadar Goldin, a soldier who had been missing in the Gaza Strip, as both sides of the conflict vowed to keep fighting.A special committee led by the army’s chief rabbi said Lieutenant Goldin had been “killed in battle in the Gaza Strip on Friday”, the Israeli armed forces said in a statement.

Facebook Down Today User says

It looks like Facebook is down today, with many users reporting that Facebook is not working in US and UK. However, we can confirm that it looks like Facebook may be down worldwide as we are having problems accessing the website in Asia too.

If you log into Facebook right now, you may be greeted with the Facebook error message which reads “Sorry, something went wrong.” Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any heads up on when Facebook will be back up, so users will have to sit tight and hope for the best.

Unsurprisingly, Facebook down today on June 19 has been met with some humorous feedback, with many social users saying that it is ‘the end of the world’ and that ‘Facebook is down, but Twitter is back anyway.

Have you been able to log into Facebook today, or is still down in your area right now?

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