QUETTA: Two policemen were martyred when Deputy Superintendent of Police Hameedullah Dasti’s car came under under heavy firing by unknown assailants on Sumungli Road in Quetta early Wednesday morning.

“DSP Dasti remained safe in the attack,” confirmed Balochistan police.

The deceased were identified as Muhammad Thair and Ayoub shah.
Chief Minister Balochistan Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo strongly condemned the attack and ordered an immediate inquiry into it.

“Terrorists don’t deserve any leniency,” the CM stated as he expressed his sorrow and grief with the bereaved families.

Last month, a customs official was killed in a firing incident early in the outskirts of Quetta.

The customs officials were travelling in a car when unknown assailants opened fire at the vehicle near Sheikh Zayed Hospital at Link road resulting in the death of Muhammad Fasim.

However reason of the attack remained unclear.

DUBAI: Pakistan Super League T20 tournament is in full swing in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. At the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Pakistani teams alongside other esteemed international stars and players have come together to play against each other for the third year of the league. As the brand PSL grows bigger and stronger, different teams have brought on mainstream television and movie stars to take on the role of their brand ambassadors.

This year’s brand ambassador for Peshawar Zalmi is none other Mahira Khan, who is one of Pakistan’s most popular and beloved actors. Mahira tweeted earlier last week that she had joined Peshawar Zalmi as brand ambassador and appeared in Peshawar Zalmi’s music video alongside Hamza Ali Abbasi who is also the team’s brand ambassador. The music video, where Mahira looks fierce and does a customary Pakhtun dance is shot very much with the team members of Peshawar Zalmi and Hamza Ali Abbasi. The video and the anthem is perhaps the best out of all the anthems this year in PSL.

But the video is not the only exciting part about Zalmi fans, Mahira and Hamza’s fandom knows no bounds – be it on social media or in the stadium. Fans and media mobbed Mahira Khan for the chance of interviews and selfies with her. The Express Tribune caught up with Mahira Khan amidst all the excitement and madness of Pakistan Super League 2018 to talk about Peshawar Zalmi, cricket memories and more.

How does she like it, this PSL madness, I ask the Verna star. Has she ever been a part of something like this? “Never,” she responds looking around with her distinctive childlike candour. “I’ve never been a part of something like this – the last time I remembered that I was in a stadium when I was in Karachi when I was fifteen years old. We’d packed our bags and we were in a little box. It was all quite exciting.”

Is there any déjà vu she feels? “A little,” she replies thinking briefly. She shakes her head immediately afterwards and begins to say something else when there is suddenly a huge noise outside the press box, where the match is happening. The audience has gone wild. Has Zalmi scored? “This is something else though,” she remarks, perhaps denoting the electric atmosphere. “I love being here, I love rooting for the team.”

A lot of people criticised the PSL beginning in Dubai and having most of its matches here. While its final was played in Lahore last year and this year it would be played in Karachi, it continues to garner criticism for being held mostly in Dubai. Does Mahira agree? “It should definitely happen in Pakistan,” she nods. “There’ll be nothing better than PSL coming home,” Mahira says warmly. “Our stadiums getting full. Nothing better than that. If you’re asking me if I’d rather have it at home, yes. I would. But in a way, what is happening here in Dubai is amazing too. All cricket lovers from all over the world are coming here and watching this tournament happen. Which is also a great thing, I think.”

When we talked about the sense of betrayal Karachiites felt (I simply had to ask) as Mahira, a Karachiite herself, supports Peshawar’s team. Did Mahira face any backlash for going to Zalmi’s side? When I ask her this, she bursts out laughing. “Absolutely, I’ve got whatsapp groups going insane.” She pushes her hair back and gears up for a suitable explanation for this. “See, for me, if we win, my team wins, if your team wins, it’s a win-win situation.” She does have a point.

“You know the cool part is though,” the Humsafar actor says, “when the match is happening, till the time the match is going on, you’re like uurgghh (she makes a little angry warrior gesture) but when it’s over, everyone’s friends again!”

Mahira Khan is also the brand ambassador of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and was recently in Dubai at one of their fundraisers as well. Peshawar Zalmi had flown in some children from the hospital to attend one of the matches. Mahira had not had the chance to interact with them but she speaks just as passionately about them.

“I couldn’t get the chance to meet them, by the time I arrived in here, it was too late, otherwise I would have met them because it is one my absolute favourite things to do. To interact with them. And I recommend it to everyone. Next time you’re in Lahore, you must visit them. Take your kids. It’s a very special place to be.”

Mahira Khan will be seen soon in a film opposite Sheheryaar Munawar called Saat Din Muhabbat In and in another film opposite her Zalmi brand ambassador friend, Hamza Ali Abbasi, in Maula Jatt 2.

YANGON: Facebook has removed the page of a Myanmar monk once dubbed the “Buddhist Bin Laden” for his incendiary posts about Muslims, the company confirmed, as it faces pressure to clamp down on hate speech.

Wirathu, a prominent face of Myanmar’s Buddhist ultra-nationalist movement, had amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on the network, using it as a platform to attack Muslims, singling out the stateless Rohingya minority.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since last August following a military crackdown in Rakhine state that has been likened to ethnic cleansing by the US and the UN, but which has been applauded by Myanmar nationalists online.
A Facebook spokesperson told AFP late Monday that Wirathu’s page had been removed.

“Our Community Standards prohibit organisations and people dedicated to promoting hatred and violence against others”, a Facebook spokesperson said in an email.

“If a person consistently shares content promoting hate, we may take a range of actions such as temporarily suspending their ability to post and ultimately, removal of their account.”

The page was taken down in late January. Wirathu could not be reached for comment, but he said in a video last year that his account had been temporarily banned for 30 days because “Facebook is occupied by the Muslims.”

Facebook use has grown exponentially in Myanmar since a quasi-civilian government opened up the telecoms sector in 2013, making it easier for people to access the internet in the largely Buddhist country.

Hardline monks like Wirathu took to the platform as well, gaining notoriety for fanning anti-Muslim hatred through inflammatory posts.
His tirades have been blamed for stoking sectarian violence, which has plagued Myanmar’s transition to democracy.

After Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi came to power in 2016, the government dissolved the Ma Ba Tha group to which Wirathu belonged, and slapped the monk with a one-year speaking ban.

But the man who once appeared on the cover of Time magazine as the “face of Buddhist terror” remains influential.

The social media giant has faced calls to rein in hate speech on its Myanmar accounts for years, with pressure mounting during the Rohingya crisis.

Thet Swe Win, a Yangon-based interfaith activist, said Facebook’s move sent a symbolic message about not tolerating hate speech.
But getting rid of the page will not resolve the problem, he warned.

“They remove his account but not his videos, and his religious hate speeches, they are still on Facebook and his followers are spreading it,” he said.

KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Monday arrested Axact Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shoaib Ahmed Sheikh after the Sindh High Court (SHC) set aside his acquittal in a money-laundering case and rejected his application for pre-arrest bail.

FIA personnel took the IT company’s head into custody from outside the SHC building where he spent hours in an attempt to get a pre-arrest bail after a two-judge bench annulled his acquittal.

The bench, comprising Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto and Justice Shamsuddin Abbasi, set aside the order passed by the District and Sessions Judge-V, Karachi on August 24, 2016, that acquitted Sheikh.

Allowing the appeal filed by the federal government through the FIA against Sheikh’s acquittal, the bench directed the trial court to hear the case afresh and decide the same within three months.

Sheikh and co-accused were told to appear before the trial court on March 3, when fresh trial will begin.

The Axact CEO was accused of having illegally transferred Rs170.17 million to a Dubai-based firm, Chanda Exchange Company, in April 2014. Chanda Exchange Company’s directors – Mohammad Younis and Mohammad Junaid – were named co-accused in the case, which was registered under Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947 with First-Information Report (FIR) 51/15.

Arguing on behalf of the federal government on Monday, Additional Attorney General Salman Talibuddin said that Shaikh exercised the authority to operate Axact’s bank accounts and to run its offices.

An amount of Rs170 million was drawn from the bank accounts of the company through 116 cheques. No one questioned from where Rs170 million were earned and where the same was spent, he said, adding that Axact’s employees had testified that these bank accounts were operated on the directives of the accused.

The additional attorney-general told the court that the accused persons had sold fake degrees all over the world and stashed money in foreign bank accounts operated from Dubai.

Challenging the merits of Axact CEO Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh’s acquittal order, the federal law officer argued that the trial court had not passed the order on merit. He admitted that the prosecution’s witnesses were available, but the charge could not be framed against the accused persons.

Defence lawyer Shaukat Hayat contended that the additional attorney general was making arguments in relation to fake degrees instead of the matter at hand that was related to money-laundering.

He argued that the case relating to fraud and forgery was pending before the district and sessions court. He further argued that in no case, it had been established that the Axact CEO was involved in the sale of fake degrees.

Hayat argued that there was no evidence to establish that the illegal method of transferring money called ‘Hawala’ was adopted in making transactions through 116 cheques. The prosecution failed to mention a single date when the alleged illegal transfers were made, he added.

Hayat argued that the trial court had thoroughly examined the entire evidence brought by the FIA on record. In its appeal, the FIA had not mentioned as to what evidence the trial court had not considered, he added.

After hearing arguments from the additional attorney-general and the defence lawyer, the SHC allowed FIA’s appeal, setting aside the acquittal of the Axact CEO and others.

Following nullification of his acquittal, Shaikh tried to leave the court, but returned as FIA officials were present outside the court building to arrest him since he had not obtained a pre-arrest bail.

His lawyer moved an application seeking grant of three-day protective bail to his client to avoid his arrest.

On his request, SHC Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M Sheikh constituted a single bench, headed by Justice Phulpoto, to hear the bail plea. However, the judge after hearing arguments rejected the plea. Finding no other alternate legal remedy, Shaikh on the advice of his lawyers surrendered to the FIA staff.

In 2015 New York Times investigation into fake degrees alleged that Axact was making hundreds of millions of dollars selling phoney academic credentials to thousands of people around the world.

The NYT report and subsequent FIA investigations said that Axact used a series of shell companies to manage its illegal affairs, including the webpages for dozens of non-existent universities, high schools, and accreditation bodies, banking affairs, and possible money laundering. The company was also accused of extortion, the claims that were repeated in 2018 stories appearing in the BBC and Gulf News.

Former FBI agent Allen Ezell told the BBC that Axact had continued to launch new online universities and was also involved in extortion and blackmail.

Approximately 2.1 million blank bogus degrees and certificates of universities and schools were recovered from the administrative process management department of Axact in Karachi, which took 15 days just to count. These details were included in the challan submitted to the courts.

DOUMA: Russia called a daily “humanitarian pause” in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta, bowing to pressure to halt the carnage in the rebel-held enclave where bombardments eased late on Monday after hours of deadly raids.

A UN Security Council resolution for a 30-day truce had remained a dead letter since it was passed on Saturday, and Moscow, the Damascus regime’s main backer, ended up setting its own terms to stem one of the worst episodes of bloodletting in Syria’s seven-year-old conflict.

The United Nations, France and Germany had made pressing appeals for Russian President Vladimir Putin to demand its Damascus ally enforce a ceasefire, including in Eastern Ghouta where more than 500 civilians were killed last week.
Putin agreed to a five-hour daily window that would allow residents of the battered enclave east of the capital to emerge from their underground shelters.

“On the instructions of the Russian president, with the goal of avoiding civilian casualties in Eastern Ghouta, from February 27 — tomorrow — from 9:00 to 14:00 there will be a humanitarian pause,” said Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

According to a statement sent to AFP, he said there should be similar pauses in the southern Al-Tanf border region and Rukban, near the Jordanian border.

Shoigu said “humanitarian corridors” would be opened to allow civilians to leave.

The public would be informed with leaflets and text messages, and buses and ambulances would be waiting at a crossing to evacuate the sick and wounded, Moscow said.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said “five hours is better than no hours, but we would like to see an end to all hostilities extended by 30 days, as stipulated by the Security Council”.

“We will do our best… to deploy our trucks and humanitarian workers in this area,” he added.

Russia’s defence ministry warned the situation in Eastern Ghouta was “continuing to escalate”.

The intensity of the bombardment on Eastern Ghouta had eased somewhat in the past 48 hours but deadly strikes and shelling never stopped.

On Monday, at least 22 civilians, including seven children, were killed in new raids and artillery fire by the regime, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

Nine were members of the same family killed when their home collapsed on them in Douma, the main town in the enclave.

“The shelling of Ghouta stopped at 4:00 pm, before resuming in the early evening in a limited way,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

“But artillery fire continued against the Al-Marj area” where clashes were ongoing between pro-regime forces and Jaish al-Islam rebels, he added.

An AFP correspondent in Douma said the bombardment had been very heavy overnight and impeded rescuers in their work.

The regime intensified its air campaign against Eastern Ghouta, which has been outside government control since 2012, at the beginning of the month.

On February 18, the Syrian government further turned up the heat on the territory controlled by Islamists and jihadists.

More than 550 civilians, almost a quarter of them children, have since been killed and extensive destruction wrought on the enclave’s towns.

The hospitals and clinics that were not destroyed by strikes have struggled to treat the more than 2,000 people wounded over the same period.

The United Nations said 76 percent of private housing in Eastern Ghouta has been damaged.

Residents trapped in the wreckage of their own homes have bled to death as rescuers were targeted even as they tried to save lives.

Much of the nearly 400,000-strong population of Eastern Ghouta has moved underground, with families pitching tents in basements and venturing out only to assess damage to their property and buy food.

On Sunday, a child died and 13 others suffered breathing difficulties and showed symptoms consistent with a chlorine attack after a regime air raid struck the town of Al-Shifuniyah, the Observatory and a medic said.

Russia dismissed reports of a chemical attack as “bogus stories”.

The regime has reinforced its deployment around the enclave in the past month, raising fears of a ground offensive that aid groups have warned could cause even greater suffering.

With the Islamic State group’s once sprawling “caliphate” now wiped off the map, the regime has looked bent on completing its reconquest and Eastern Ghouta is a key target.

The jihadists only control an estimated three percent of Syria territory, small pockets which various anti-IS forces continue to flush out.

Another flashpoint in Syria has been the northern region of Afrin, where Kurdish forces have come under attack from neighbouring Turkey since January 20.

Turkey has warned it did not consider that the UN ceasefire resolution, which is not limited to Eastern Ghouta but whose wording excludes operations against terror groups, should affect its offensive on Afrin.

Macron on Monday called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who considers the Syrian Kurdish militia to be “terrorist”, to stress the truce should apply there too.