Year: 2022

Islamabad (TIP): A lawmaker of ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party was arrested here on October 13 for accusing Army chief General Qamar JavedBajwa of legitimising corruption in the high echelon of the country.

Senator Azam Khan Swati was arrested following his scathing tweet targeting Chief of Army Staff Gen Bajwa. “MrBajwa congratulations to you and few with you. Your plan is really working and all criminals are getting free at the cost of this country,” he tweeted after the acquittal of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz in an alleged money laundering case on Wednesday.

Swati went on to add, “With these thugs getting free you have legitimised corruption. How you predict now the future of this country?”.

Swati was booked when the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) registered the First Information Report at its Cyber Crime Reporting Centre in Islamabad. The FIR read that Swati tweeted with “malafide intentions & ulterior motives” against “State Institutes of The Islamic Republic of Pakistan and its Senior Government Functionaries including Chief of The Army Staff of Pakistan Army”.

“This is a calculated attempt to create hatred in the minds of people and Army Personnel/s against COAS and Pakistan Army and also created distrust towards the Judicial System. In such intimidating Tweet/s, the accused Muhammad Azam Khan Swati has attempted to provoke the general public and Personnel/s of Armed Forces by trying to create a feeling of ill-will among pillars of the State,” according to the FIR. Prime Minister Shehbaz and his son were absolved of any wrongdoing by a court in Lahore where they faced a case of about Rs 16 billion in money laundering.

Swati was produced before a sessions court in Islamabad where he spoke with the media outside saying that he was not arrested for breaking the law, violating the Constitution or fundamental rights but for “taking one name — of Bajwa — and that is the violation”.

The powerful Pakistan Army, which has ruled the coup-prone country for more than half of its 75-plus years of existence, has hitherto wielded considerable power in the matters of security and foreign policy. Swati also accused FIA of torturing him saying that “a parliamentarian has been unclothed”. “I am telling the nation.”

Earlier, the senior Civil Judge Shabbir Bhatti remanded him for two days to the FIA to probe the allegations and asked the authorities to present Swati before the court on October 15.

PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry tweeted that reports of Swati’s torture were “disturbing. “Torturing political prisoners has become a new normal in Pakistan,” he added. Former human rights minister during PTI rule, Shireen Mazari, tweeted a video of Azam Swati alleging torture in custody. “Brave man Senator Azam Swati as he tells of why he was arrested but also how he was subjected to torture while in custody,” she wrote. “Shameful.” (PTI)

Wellington (TIP): Some 477 pilot whales have died after stranding themselves on two remote New Zealand beaches over recent days, officials say. None of the stranded whales could be refloated and all either died naturally or were euthanised in a “heartbreaking” loss, said Daren Grover, the general manager of Project Jonah, a nonprofit group which helps rescue whales.

The whales beached themselves on the Chatham Islands, which are home to about 600 people and located about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of New Zealand’s main islands. The Department of Conservation said 232 whales stranded themselves Friday at Tupuangi Beach and another 245 at Waihere Bay on October 11. The deaths come two weeks after about 200 pilot whales died in Australia after stranding themselves on a remote Tasmanian beach.

“These events are tough, challenging situations,” the Department of Conservation wrote in a Facebook post. “Although they are natural occurrences, they are still sad and difficult for those helping.” Grover said the remote location and presence of sharks in the surrounding waters meant they couldn’t mobilize volunteers to try to refloat the whales as they have in past stranding events. “We do not actively refloat whales on the Chatham Islands due to the risk of shark attack to humans and the whales themselves, so euthanasia was the kindest option,” said Dave Lundquist, a technical marine advisor for the conservation department.

Mass strandings of pilot whales are reasonably common in New Zealand, especially during the summer months. Scientists don’t know exactly what causes the whales to strand, although it appears their location systems can get confused by gently sloping sandy beaches.

Grover said there is a lot of food for the whales around the Chatham Islands, and as they swim closer to land, they would quickly find themselves going from very deep to shallow water. “They rely on their echolocation and yet it doesn’t tell them that they are running out of water,” Grover said. “They come closer and closer to shore and become disoriented. The tide can then drop from below them and before they know it, they’re stranded on the beach.” Because of the remote location of the beaches, the whale carcasses won’t be buried or towed out to sea, as is often the case, but instead will be left to decompose, Grover said. “Nature is a great recycler and all the energy stored within the bodies of all the whales will be returned to nature quite quickly,” he said. AP

London (TIP): A “robot artist” called Ai-Da told British lawmakers on October 11 that although it was an artificial creation, it was still capable of producing art, as it spoke at a parliamentary inquiry into how new technologies will affect the creative industries.

Described as “the world’s first ultra-realistic AI humanoid robot artist”, it appeared in one of parliament’s ornate wood-panelled rooms, wearing a short black-haired wig and denim dungarees.

Bearing a female humanoid face and with exposed robotic arms, Ai-Da was created by scientists at the University of Oxford and named after British mathematician and computer pioneer Ada Lovelace.

It answered questions alongside the head of the Ai-Da project and art gallery director Aidan Meller in a televised session hosted by the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee. “I am, and depend on, computer programmes and algorithms. Although not alive, I can still create art,” Ai-Da said when asked how its creations differed from those produced by humans. Ai-Da has created a series of works, including a painting of the late Queen Elizabeth, and the works have been shown in exhibitions and galleries. The committee heard from the humanoid robot as well as industry experts and academics about the effects of technology on workers in the creative industry.

Answering the first question from the committee on how it produced paintings, Ai-Da said AI algorithms, cameras in its eyes, and a robotic arm helped it paint on a canvas. Ai-Da also explained how “analysing a large corpus of text” to identify common content and poetic structures enabled it to generate new poems. “How this differs to humans is consciousness; I do not have subjective experiences despite being able to talk about them,” Ai-Da said. Reuters

Somalia  (TIP): Acute malnutrition is surging among children displaced by drought and conflict in a part of central Somalia teetering on the edge of famine, according to a survey conducted by humanitarian agencies. The United Nations warned at the beginning of September that two districts were projected to face famine between October and December, with more than half a million children in Somalia at risk of dying from malnutrition. A screening conducted from Sept. 19-24 by U.N. agencies and other humanitarian groups in camps for internally displaced people in the Baidoa district found the situation quickly deteriorating.

Of more than 98,000 children screened between the ages of 6 and 59 months, 59 per cent were suffering from acute malnutrition, including 24 per cent whose cases were classified as severe, the report seen by Reuters shows.

A previous screening in June and July found 28.6 per cent of children in the camps were suffering from acute malnutrition, including 10.2 per cent with severe cases. The two screenings used different methodologies, so the figures cannot be directly compared, but aid workers said the results clearly indicate a steep rise in hunger since July despite a massive scale-up of food aid.

“These very high malnutrition rates from the mass screenings are alarming and indicative of a rapidly deteriorating situation,” said Petroc Wilton, head of communications in Somalia for the World Food Programme (WFP), one of the U.N. agencies involved in the survey.

The last four rainy seasons in the Horn of Africa region have failed, making this the worst drought in 40 years. The crisis has been exacerbated by attacks by al Shabaab Islamist militants and high global food prices.

An area is considered to be experiencing famine when at least 30 per cent of children are suffering from acute malnutrition, at least 20 per cent of households face an extreme lack of food, and at least two out of every 10,000 people are dying each day from malnutrition or related diseases, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Initiative.

The initiative involves the United Nations, non-governmental organisations and governments. An IPC Famine Review Committee of four to six independent experts is responsible for approving any famine declaration. In Somalia’s last famine in 2011, half of the more than 250,000 victims were later determined to have died before the famine was officially declared. Reuters

Dubai (TIP): Iran suffered a “major disruption” in internet service October 12 as calls for renewed protests again saw demonstrators on the streets weeks after the death of a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by the country’s morality police, an advocacy group said.

The demonstrations over the death of MahsaAmini have become one of the greatest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the country’s 2009 Green Movement protests. Demonstrators have included oil workers, high school students and women marching without their mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

Calls for protests beginning at noon Wednesday saw a massive deployment of riot police and plainclothes officers throughout Tehran, witnesses said. They also described disruptions affecting their mobile internet services.

NetBlocks, an advocacy group, said that Iran’s internet traffic had dropped to some 25% compared to the peak, even during a working day in which students were in class across the country.

“The incident is likely to further limit the free flow of information amid protests,” NetBlocks said.

Despite the disruption, witnesses saw at least one demonstration in Tehran by some 30 women who had removed their headscarves while chanting: “Death to the dictator!” Those cries, referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can result in a closed-door trial in the country’s Revolutionary Court with the threat of a death sentence. Passing cars honked in support of the women despite the threats of security forces. Other women simply continued with their day not wearing the hijab in a silent protest, witnesses said. Demonstrations also occurred on university campuses in Tehran as well, online videos purported to show.

Lawyers also peacefully demonstrated in front of the Iran Central Bar Association in Tehran, chanting: “Woman, life, freedom” — a slogan of the demonstrations so far. The video corresponded to known features of the association’s building. A later video posted by activists purported to show them fleeing after security forces fired tear gas at them. At least three were arrested, the pro-reform newspaper Shargh reported. Videos also purported to show demonstrations Wednesday in Baharestan, just southeast of the city of Isfahan, as well as in the southern city of Shiraz and northern city of Rasht on the Caspian Sea. Gathering information about the demonstrations remains difficult amid the internet restrictions and the arrests of at least 40 journalists in the country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Subsequent videos have shown security forces beating and shoving female protesters, including women who have torn off their hijabs. Khamenei, speaking Wednesday to the country’s Expediency Council, again claimed Iran’s foreign enemies had fomented what he dismissed as “scattered” demonstrations. (AP)