WORLD IN FOCUS  (August ‘September 2013)

News From National & International Press 

National

Aug 16: The Punjab Industrial Estates Development and Management Company (PIEDMC) decided to establish a mega city on 20,000 acres in the province with the cooperation of leading Chinese companies. The project includes an industrial estate, housing colonies and other related facilities.

Aug 17: An exhibition organised by the Mumbai based International Creative Art Centre (Icac) and Islamabad’s Gallery-6 in Ahmedabad was vandalised by members of an extremist Hindu group.

Aug 17: A blasphemy case, in which a minor Christian girl was arrested but later acquitted, formally ended after Khalid Jadoon who accused her of blasphemy was also acquitted.

Aug 18: Three brothers, all British Pakistanis, have made outstanding gains in their respective educational areas. Husham Ahmad, 17, received a scholarship at the ‘Nottingham High School’. His other brother was declared a maths ‘maestro’

Aug 19: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, during his address to the nation, offered dialogue to ‘armed militants’ in an attempt to root out terrorism.

Aug 19: The Sindh Assembly passed into law a new local government bill amid fierce opposition by the MQM. Senior Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro tabled the bill.

Aug 20: Pakistan and Thailand agreed to expand bilateral relations by strengthening economic and trade ties.

Aug 20: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar claimed to have convinced the World Bank to finance the $14 billion Diamer Bhasha dam.

Aug 21: The country’s biggest-ever by-elections in 41 national and provincial assembly constituencies were held.

Aug 21: The Supreme Court set aside a Musharraf-era (2006) leasehold agreement between Wapda and the Associated Group (AG) to run a sick power plant for 20 years.

Aug 21: The Baloch National Movement (BNM) appealed to the United Nations and international organisations to take notice of human rights violations being committed allegedly by security forces in Balochistan.

Aug 21: Malala Yousufzai was awarded a prestigious peace prize, the Tipperary International Peace Award, for her courage and determination.

Aug 21: Pakistan and Thailand agreed to enhance defence cooperation, a joint statement issued by the two countries at the end of Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s visit to Islamabad said.

Aug 21: An Egyptian court ordered ex-president Hosni Mubarak freed while he stands trial for corruption and killing protesters.

Aug 21: Punjab Ombudsman Javed Mahmood placed Punjab Board of Technical Education Examinations Controller Tariq Malik under suspension for allegedly distributing two question papers in three hours during matriculation tech exams.

Aug 21: The Establishment Division announced the selection of 218 candidates for appointments against BS-17 of the occupational groups/Services.

Aug 23: Senator Raza Rabbani resigned from the parliamentary committee on appointment of judges. He was replaced by Farooq H. Naek.

Aug 23: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) formed Shariah Advisory Board (SAB), which will be responsible to harmonise the shariah interpretations and strengthen the regulatory and supervisory oversight of the Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) and Islamic capital markets (ICMs) in Pakistan.

Aug 23: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a ban on recruitment in the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the civilian agency of the country.

Aug 24: The government appointed Nasir Mahmood Khosa as executive director at the World Bank in Washington. He will replace Raja Azeemul Haq, son-in-law of former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.

Aug 24: The World Bank (WB) will provide $1.5 billion soft credit line to Pakistan over next 10 months including assisting Islamabad to connect power supply from neighbouring India to overcome shortages.

Aug 25: The raised Mangla Dam became the country’s biggest reservoir when water storage in its lake rose to 6.65 million acre feet, surpassing 6.58MAF, the maximum live storage capacity of Tarbela Dam.

Aug 25: Floods and heavy monsoon rains killed 178 people and affected 1.5 million across the country in three weeks. The rains wounded 855 people, affected 5,615 villages and destroyed 20,312 houses.

Aug 26: The Quetta Express (23-Up/24Down) was named after Nawab Akbar Bugti to acknowledge the services rendered by the slain chief of Jamhoori Watan Party. Railways Minister Saad Rafiq inaugurated Akbar Express.

Aug 26: The visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought Pakistan’s help in arranging dialogue with the Taliban during a meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who assured him of his government’s full support for a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan.

Aug 26: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Lt Gen Maqsood Ahmad of Pakistan Army as the Military Advisor for Peacekeeping Operations. Lt Gen Ahmad replaces Senegal’s Lt Gen Babacar Gaye, whose tour of duty ended on July 8, 2013.

Aug 27: Malala Yousufzai won the prestigious International Children’s Peace Prize, Kids Rights announced.

Aug 27: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inducted reputed retired bureaucrat Khawaja Zaheer as his special assistant. He is an expert par excellence on constitutional, legal and service matters.

Aug 28: Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani reached Moscow for the first strategic dialogue between Russia and Pakistan.

Aug 28: Imran Khan was absolved of committing the contempt by a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Aug 28: The federal cabinet approved signing of the Council of Europe Convention on the transfer of sentenced persons in order to pave the way for repatriation of Dr Aafia Siddiqui from the US.

Aug 29: Setting aside the conviction and sentence of 33 years awarded by an assistant political agent last year to Dr Shakil Afridi, suspected of helping American CIA in tracking down Osama bin Laden, the appellate court of the Frontier Crimes Regulation’s commissioner remanded his case to the Khyber tribal agency’s political agent for retrial on charges of having links with a banned outfit.

Aug 30: Pakistan and Russia wrapped up their first strategic dialogue with a commitment to remaining engaged and maintaining the momentum in the relationship.

Aug 30: The much-awaited dialogue process between Pakistan and Taliban  started.

Aug 30: The lawmakers unanimously passed Balochistan Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2013 and Balochistan Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill 2013.

Aug 31: A Pakistani student, Haroon Tariq, broke the current world record by securing a total of 47 As in his International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) O Level and A Level exams from the University of Cambridge International Examinations.

His subjects spanned both the humanities and sciences including Human and Social Biology, Islamic Religion and Culture, Physics, Chemistry and Global Development. In the O Levels, the previous world record was 28 As which was also held by a Pakistani student Zohaib Asad. However, Haroon Tariq obtained 38 As in O levels and a total of 47As in his O and A level exams.

Sep 02: World Wide Fund for Nature Pakistan in collaboration with the Wildlife Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa fixed Global Positioning System (GPS) collar to a male common leopard in Galyat area of Abbottabad district for the first time.

Sep 02: A two-day meeting of Developing-8 Commission, known as D-8, started to review progress achieved in the intra-D-8 cooperation in different areas.
Inaugurating the event, Prime Minister’s Advisor on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz highlighted the importance of expanding cooperation among member countries.

Sep 04: The federal cabinet empowered Rangers to lead a targeted operation in Karachi immediately with the support of police against criminals already identified by federal military and civilian agencies.

Sep 04: The World Hijab Day was observed across the country with a pledge to promote Allah’s commandment for women to cover their heads and faces, and to counter repressive legislations against Hijab by European countries besides negative propaganda against Hijab and modesty by Western media and secular quarters in the country.

Sep 04: Two Pakistani students Shehzor Ali of Lahore and Muhammad Husnain of Peshawar grabbed the most numbers throughout the world in ACCA papers F4 (Corporate and Business Law) and F9 (Financial Management) respectively.

Sep 05: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hosted a farewell lunch for outgoing President Asif Ali Zardari.

Sep 05: The United States rejected reports claiming that 19,000 containers of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) had gone missing from the Karachi port.

Sep 05: The Federal Ombudsman turned down an appeal on a rejected Freedom of Information request about parliamentarians’ attendance record, saying it involves ‘personal privacy’ of public representatives.

Sep 06: Malala Yousufzai vowed to intensify her struggle for ‘a world where everyone can go to school’. She was speaking at a ceremony in The Hague where she was awarded the 2013 International Children’s Peace Prize.

Sep 06: International Vulture Awareness Day 2013 was celebrated at the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences. The event was organised by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan).

Sep 09: An All Parties Conference was held in Islamabad where the ruling PML-N managed to garner across-the-board support from political parties represented in parliament for talks with militants. The military leadership made it clear that dialogue was possible only with ‘our people’ and not foreign elements active in tribal areas of the country.

Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam briefed politicians on the military’s engagements in the lawless tribal region.

Sep 09: Mamnoon Hussain of the PML-N was sworn in as the 12th elected president of the country. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry administered the oath.

Sep 09: The long-standing demand of tribal people was met as the powers of federal ombudsman were extended to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). The notification to this effect was issued by the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (Safron).

Sep 09: The University of Health Sciences (UHS) awarded PhD degree to Dr Nadeem Afzal in the subject of immunology. It is the first PhD degree in immunology awarded by the university.

Sep 09: The family of Shahzaib Khan, the boy murdered in Karachi’s DHA Phase-V on December 25, 2012, pardoned all convicts in the case after a purported monetary settlement.

Sep 10: The Khaplu Palace in Baltistan was given the ‘Award of Distinction’ under the 2013 Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation announced by Unesco.

Sep 10: Punjab Ombudsman Javed Mahmood stopped salaries of all officers and staff of the Punjab Small Industries Corporation, ’till the clearance of pension and liabilities of the retired employees’.

Sep 11: The provinces agreed to change the decades-old water distribution mechanism and accepted a new arrangement under which Punjab’s maximum requirement will be met by Mangla Dam and that of three other provinces by Tarbela.

The change is significant since a water apportionment accord signed by the provinces and the federal government in 1991 had fixed provincial water shares on the basis of anticipated annual water availability of 114MAF (million acre feet).

Sep 11: Security forces and the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) swapped prisoners in South Waziristan in what has been described as a confidence building measure ahead of formal peace negotiations.

Sep 11: On the direction of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the CDA started working on an estimated US$12 billion ‘dream project’ that includes building a twin capital across the Margalla Hills, connecting the twins with a tunnel and copying Dubai’s Shaikh Zayed Avenue, a major business and tourist attraction.

Sep 11: Interior Minister Ch. Nisar cancelled the recruitment process in the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) and sought an explanation from its chief about the gross irregularities during the assessment test and interviews.

Sep 12: Minister for Water and Power Khwaja Muhammad Asif inaugurated the Gomal Zam Dam in South Waziristan’s militancy-ravaged Khajori Katch area.

Sep 12: The government decided to privatise the Pakistan International Airlines, beginning with 26 per cent shares. Presiding over a meeting on the PIA, Prime Minister directed the ministry of privatisation and civil aviation division to initiate the process of privatisation.

Sep 12: Chief Minister Pervez Khattak established the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zakat and Ushr Council for a term of three years with immediate effect.

The council will comprise Justice (retd) Mohyuddin as chairman, while Dr Maulana Attaur Rehman, Maulana Inamullah, Sultan Hassain, Engineer Amanullah Khan, Javed Afsar, Mst Bilqees Murad, Mst Seema Sabah, secretary to the government of KP finance department, secretary to health department, secretary to Zakat, Ushr, social welfare and women development department will be the members and chief administrator, Zakat and Ushr, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be member/secretary of the council.

Sep 14: Seven of the eight workers of the Gomal Zam dam project, who were kidnapped by Pakistani Taliban two years ago, were set free.

Sep 14: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government announced that withdrawal of troops from Malakand division would begin in October and the civil administration would take over control of the area.

INTERNATIONAL

Aug 16: Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, set out key elements for a development agenda beyond 2015. In a progress report to the UN general assembly on the millennium development goals (MDGs), Ban expressed concern at the drop in ODA which comes under MDG8, the global partnership over the past two years.

Aug 17: British police started examining recent information relating to the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales. London’s Metropolitan police said it was checking the credibility of new information about the deaths of the princess and her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed. They were killed in a car crash in Paris in the early hours of August 31, 1997, along with their driver, Henri Paul.

Aug 18: The rebel leader, Michel Djotodia, whose fighters toppled the government of Central African Republic earlier this year, was sworn-in as president.

Aug 19: The United States stopped funding for Aid Afghanistan for Education (AAE), which provides schools for girls and women excluded from government classrooms, despite a pledge to spend $200m on ‘women’s empowerment’.

Aug 20: Sandra Avila Beltran, a Mexican woman known as the ‘Queen of the Pacific’ for her links to drug trafficking, is to face money laundering charges after the United States had deported her.

Aug 20: Egypt’s military authorities detained the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader, Mohamed Badie, signalling their determination to crush the group and silence the prodemocracy protests against the overthrowing of elected President Mohamed Morsi.

Aug 20: In its first action against an entire religious seminary, the United States designated a Pakistani madressah namely Jamia Taleemul-Quran-wal-Hadith, Peshawar, as a foreign terrorist outfit for training Al Qaeda, Lashkare-Taiba and the Taliban terrorists.

Aug 21: US soldier Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years of imprisonment for passing on sensitive official documents to a whistleblowers’ site, WikiLeaks. The sentence is the longest handed down in a case involving the leak of US government documents.

Aug 21: Japan issued its strongest warning about the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant since the crisis began in 2011, as it struggled to seal a tank that has leaked 300 tonnes of radioactive water. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said some of the water might have flown into the Pacific Ocean. Nuclear regulators said the leak represented a level three ‘serious incident’ on the UN’s seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), which measures radiation accidents.

Aug 24: A 42-year-old US Army officer, Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people in a rampage on a Texas military base, was found guilty of premeditated murder after a US military jury handed down a verdict against him.

Aug 24: The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed April 6 as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. The President of General Assembly, Vuk Jeremic, hailed the decision a ‘historic’ step in recognising the power of sport to erase cultural barriers and mobilise people around the world.

Aug 27: Iran named Reza Najafi, a disarmament expert, as its envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog, extending a reshuffle of top officials dealing with its disputed atomic programme since new President Hassan Rouhani took office.

Aug 27: Around 35 per cent of food is lost between harvest and distribution across the Asia-Pacific region, depriving millions of nutrition, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said. Poor production planning, a lack of storage, weak transport systems, crop disease and parasites cause some 30 per cent of cereals and 42 per cent of fruit and vegetables to be lost before reaching consumers.

Aug 28: Thousands of marchers gathered on Washington’s national mall to commemorate civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech 50 years ago as activists said his goal of racial harmony remains elusive.

Aug 28: A military jury sentenced Maj Nidal Hasan to death for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, delivering the only punishment the Army believed fit for an attack on fellow unarmed soldiers.

Aug 28: The New York Police Department secretly labelled entire mosques as terrorist organisations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Designating a mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who offers prayer there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.

Aug 28: Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was voted the 2013 winner of the Chatham House Prize by the think-tank for her work in promoting ‘a new era of US diplomatic engagement’.

Aug 29: Iran’s foreign ministry appointed, Marzieh Afkham, a career diplomat with nearly three decades at the ministry, as its first-ever spokeswoman.

Aug 29: Saudi Arabia adopted a law criminalising domestic violence, usually targeting women and children.
The law approved by the cabinet, is aimed at protecting people from ‘all forms of abuse’ and offering them shelter as well as ‘social, psychological, and medical aid.’ Violators face penalties of one month to one year in prison and / or a 5,000 riyal to 50,000 riyal ($1,330-13,300) fine.

Aug 30: The US commando raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad was guided from space by a fleet of satellites, The Washington Post and Time magazine revealed. The satellites remained focused on Pakistan for some time even after the Al Qaeda leader was killed.

Aug 30: British Prime Minister David Cameron counted the cost after a humiliating rejection by parliament of his call for military action on Syria, a defeat which dealt a severe blow to the ‘special relationship’ with the United States. Mr Cameron suffered the worst setback of his three years in office.

Aug 31: US President Barack Obama announced that he would take military action against Syria but would do so only with congressional authorisation.

Aug 31: The Israeli military deployed an ‘Iron Dome’ missile defence battery in the Tel Aviv area.

Aug 31: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa apologised to the visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), Navanethem Pillay, for the ‘deeply offensive remarks’ made against her by some ministers and others.

Sep 01: Pope Francis called for the world to unite in a day of fasting and prayer for Syria and said ‘God and history’ would judge anyone using chemical weapons.

Sep 01: The US Navy deployed an amphibious transport ship to the Mediterranean, where five destroyers are already in place for possible missile strikes on Syria.

Sep 01: Arab League foreign ministers urged the United Nations and the international community to take ‘deterrent’ action against the Syrian regime over an alleged chemical attack.

Sep 01: Senegal’s President Macky Sall fired Prime Minister Abdoul Mbaye just over a year after naming the former banker to head the government.

Sep 02: The US National Security Agency spied on the communications of the Brazilian and Mexican presidents, accessing the Mexico leader’s emails before he was elected, Brazil’s Globo television reported.

Sep 04: On a complaint by a Sikh group, a US federal court issued summons against congress party president Sonia Gandhi for shielding party officials allegedly involved in inciting attacks on Sikhs in November 1984 after the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi.

Sep 04: Mali’s new president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was sworn into office.

Sep 04: A key committee of the US Senate authorised President Barack Obama to use limited force against Syria, after adopting amendments that also called for changing ‘the military equation on the battlefield’ in favour of the Syrian opposition. The resolution would limit the expected military action to 60 or 90 days, narrow the conflict to Syria’s borders and prohibit US troops on Syrian soil.

Sep 05: Kenyan lawmakers backed a motion to pull out of the International Criminal Court, an angry snub to The Hague-based tribunal before next week’s trial of Vice President William Ruto. Kenya is the first country to hold such a vote to leave the world court.

Sep 05: Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted leaders of top emerging economies for a mini summit ahead of the G-20, in a demonstration of their importance despite worries about developing economies.

Sep 06: In a setback for US efforts to tighten sanctions against Iran, a top European Union court threw out penalties imposed on several Iranian businesses for their alleged ties to the country’s nuclear programme.

Sep 07: Conservative challenger Tony Abbott declared Australia ‘under new management’ as voters ended six years of tumultuous Labour rule, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd conceding election defeat and vacating his party’s leadership.

Sep 07: Celebrated conductor Zubin Mehta led the Bavarian State Orchestra in a classical music concert in Srinagar despite objections from Kashmiri leaders.
The heavily guarded event was staged in the sprawling Mughal-era Shalimar Gardens on the banks of picturesque Dal Lake.

Sep 08: The Arab League nations agreed that Syria’s President Bashar al Assad had used chemical weapons and that it crossed an internationally recognised red line, but none publicly endorsed the US proposal for punitive air strikes against the Assad regime.

Sep 08: Former presidential candidate and opposition leader Amr Moussa was elected head of Egypt’s 50-member panel that has been tasked with drawing up a new constitution.

Sep 09: The US and Russia clashed at the UN atomic agency over Moscow’s request for an IAEA probe into the risks posed by US airstrikes hitting a small Syrian reactor.

Sep 09: Two scientists, who illuminated how brain cells communicate, three researchers who developed implants that let deaf people hear and philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates have won prestigious Laker Awards for medical research and contribution to public health. The Albert and Mary Laker Foundation announced the recipients of the $250,000 prizes.

Sep 10: The world’s largest solar-powered boat docked on the banks of the Seine River, its final port of call after a three-month voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to study how the Gulf Stream and climate change could influence each other.

Sep 10: An Indian court convicted four men of the gang rape and ‘cold-blooded’ murder of a student on a New Delhi bus in a crime that sickened the nation and led to new laws to tackle endemic sex crime.

Sep 10: Syria signed major contracts with its main regional ally Iran to provide the war-torn country with food and medical supplies.

The regime of President Bashar al Assad is suffering an unprecedented financial crisis as a result of a 30-month conflict that has killed more than 110,000 people.

Sep 10: Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo became the first black African woman to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, for her tale of a 10-year-old girl who escapes poverty at home only to find new problems in the United States. Bulawayo was nominated for her novel ‘We Need New Names’, which follows the girl’s decision to leave a shanty town in Zimbabwe and move to live with an aunt in the US.

Sep 10: The United States came out on top in a list of international university rankings, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University leading the way. MIT came top of the QS World University Rankings for the second year running, while Harvard displaced Britain’s Cambridge University to take second spot in the 2013 table.

Sep 11: Russia gave the US a plan to put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control, raising hopes of a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

The move came a day after threatened US-led strikes against President Bashar al Assad’s regime were put on ice in response to Russia’s offer to oversee Syria giving up its arsenal after Washington accused Damascus of using deadly sarin gas against its own people.

Sep 11: A new United Nations report revealed that both sides in the Syrian civil war committed grave crimes in violation of international law.

Sep 11: Green and left-wing lawmakers nominated US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden for the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize.

Sep 11: The food the world wastes accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than any country except for China and the United States, the United Nations said in a report. In a report titled ‘The Food Wastage Footprint,’ the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that the carbon footprint of wasted food was equivalent to 3.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

Sep 13: Iran wants to end the standoff with global powers over its nuclear programme swiftly but will not sacrifice its rights or interests for the sake of a solution, President Hassan Rouhani said.

Sep 13: A 24-year-old woman from Iran made history in London when, she became the first Iranian female triathlete to take part in a world championship under the green, white and red tricolour of the Islamic republic’s flag.

Sep 13: Birmingham Metropolitan College, one of Britain’s biggest colleges, dropped a ban on Muslim face veils after thousands of people signed a petition against the rule.

Sep 13: India’s main opposition party named hardline Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for elections due next year.

Sep 13: The Dalai Lama said he believed China was being ‘more realistic’ about Tibet after decades of what he termed failed hardline policy.

Beijing has long accused Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader of encouraging separatism and violence, but the Nobel Peace laureate said he is only seeking ‘meaningful autonomy’ for Tibetans within China and accepts Chinese rule.

Sep 13: The United States decided to keep 20,000 US and NATO troops and 100,000 US contractors at different bases in Afghanistan for its strategic interest and a security agreement between the US and Afghanistan will be inked soon.

Sep 14: Washington and Moscow agreed on a deal to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, US Secretary of State John Kerry said after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Sep 15: Japan began switching off its last operating nuclear reactor for an inspection, with no date scheduled for a restart amid strong public hostility towards atomic power. The move will leave the world’s third largest economy without atomic energy for the second time since the Fukushima nuclear crisis erupted in March 2011.

Sep 15: Saudi Arabia, where cinemas are banned, is going to compete for an Oscar for the first time next year with feminist film ‘Wadjda’ directed by Haifaa al-Mansour.

Sep 15: India successfully test-fired, for a second time, a long-range missile ‘Agni V’ capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, marking another advance in its military capabilities.

SPORTS

Aug 17: Pakistan’s campaign in the football event at the Asian Youth Games came to an end after they lost their final Group ‘D’ match to Vietnam 2-0 in the Chinese city of Nanjing.

Aug 17: Usain Bolt underlined his amazing sprinting prowess by powering to a third successive world 200m title at the World Athletics Championships for his seventh world gold medal. The 26-year-old Jamaican destroyed the field to finish in 19.66 seconds.

Aug 19: The Spaniard Rafael Nadal won his first Cincinnati title.

Aug 23: Former world champion shooter Ronjan Sodhi was named winner of India’s highest sports award, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna.

Aug 24: Ahmed Shehzad hit 98 runs, the highest Twenty20 International score by a Pakistani, to lead his country to a second win in two days over Zimbabwe at the Harare Sports Club.

Aug 25: India thrashed Pakistan in the final of the ACC Emerging Teams Cup tournament.

Aug 26: England won a home Ashes series after the test match at The Oval was drawn.

Aug 27: Defending champion Asjad Iqbal beat the reigning world amateur snooker champion Mohammad Asif by 8-7 frames in the epic final at the National Bank’s Sports Complex.

Aug 27: Young Japanese judoka Naohisa Takato won his country’s first gold medal of the Judo World Championships in Rio de Janeiro.

Aug 28: Former European 100m hurdles champion Nevin Yanit was handed a two year suspension by the Turkish Athletics Federation (TAF) after testing positive for banned substances.

Aug 30: Record-breaking Australian batsman Aaron Finch smashed 156 runs off 63 balls to help Australia beat England in a Twenty20 match at the Rose Bowl, bettering the previous international record of 123 scored by New Zealander Brendon McCullum.

Aug 30: Pakistan suffered a huge setback when for the first time in their history they failed to qualify for the hockey World Cup.
The Green shirts will not be featuring in the mega event for the first time since the introduction of the global contest in 1971.

Aug 31: Pakistan defeated Zimbabwe by 108 runs in the final One-day International to clinch the three-match series 2-1.

Sep 03: Japan’s Daiki Kameda beat Rodrigo Guerrero of Mexico to secure the vacant International Boxing Federation super-flyweight title.
The 24-year-old’s victory meant the Kamedas became the first trio of brothers to hold world boxing titles at the same time.

Sep 03: Group Captain Aamir Nawaz was elected the new secretary Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF).

Sep 04: Pakistan has been awarded the second Asian Team Event and third 6-Redball championship 2014 by the Asian Confederation of Billiards Sports (ACBS) during its meeting at Doha.

Sep 05: Germany goalkeeper Nadine Angerer, who led her side to victory at Euro 2013, scooped the debut award for Europe’s top women’s player.

Sep 06: Prominent businessman Mehtabuddin Chawla was elected as the new president of the Karachi Olympic Association (KOA).

Sep 07: Tokyo was awarded the 2020 Olympics, capitalising on its reputation as a ‘safe pair of hands’ and defying concerns about the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Tokyo defeated Istanbul 60-36 in the final round of secret voting by the International Olympic Committee.

Sep 08: Former Olympian Nova Peris became the first Aboriginal woman elected to Australia’s national parliament.

Sep 08: Wrestling reclaimed its spot in the 2020 Olympic Games after beating bids from rivals squash and baseball/softball.

Sep 09: World number one Serena Williams captured her fifth US Open title, and second in a row, by outlasting second-ranked Victoria Azarenka to claim her 17th career Grand Slam crown.

Sep 10: Rafael Nadal crowned defeated world number one Novak Djokovic to win the US Open title and earn his 13th Grand Slam singles crown.

Sep 11: Afghanistan broke India’s stranglehold on the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) title with an impressive 2-0 win over the two-time defending champions.

Sep 13: Indian bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, and his accomplice Ankeet Chavan were banned from cricket for life after being found guilty of spot-fixing during the Indian Premier League.

Sep 14: MotoGP Championship leader Marc Marquez set a new lap record at Misano as he recorded a time of one minute 32.915 seconds to break Casey Stoner’s two-year record at the course.

ECONOMY

Aug 16: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif approved the alignment of the proposed Pak-China Trade Corridor from Kashgar to Khunjerab and Gwadar, and asked the Planning Commission to evaluate the proposal in terms of time and cost efficiency.

Aug 17: The Australian government permitted Pakistani mangoes on its soil after ‘hot water treatment’ by a designated company.

Aug 22: China approved an ‘experimental’ free trade zone in its commercial hub Shanghai as it tries to promote economic reforms.

Aug 24: A US appeals court ordered Argentina to pay $1.47 billion to hedge funds holding its defaulted bonds, quashing an appeal by Buenos Aires against the initial 2012 judgement.

Aug 26: The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) cleared a total of 13 projects in the power sector having an estimated cost of Rs103 billion, including a feasibility study for setting up a 6,600MW power corridor at Gadani.

Aug 26: The state-owned Trading Company of Iran cancelled an export contract under a barter trade agreement with Pakistan.

Aug 27: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Secretariat was formally inaugurated at the Planning Division with an aim to ‘transform the strongest political relations into economic relations’. The secretariat was jointly inaugurated by Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal and Zhang Xiaoqiang, the vice chairman of National Development and Reforms Commission (NDRC), China.

Aug 27: China became the last of the G-20 nations to sign up to an international pact to help crack down on tax evasion by stepping up the automatic data exchange.

Aug 28: The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) approved 16 projects with a total estimated cost of Rs. 132 billion, most of them for transmission of electricity from power plants to the distribution system. Of the approved projects, 12 relate to the energy sector, amounting to Rs. 96.48bn, including the Rs. 7.51bn 31.17MW Koto hydropower project. Three projects of Rs41.39bn were approved for Sindh, two costing Rs. 9.81bn for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, seven of Rs. 43.6bn for Punjab along with a Rs. 11.8bn project for the province’s southern region and a Rs. 8.73bn scheme for Balochistan. A
Rs. 22.58bn project was approved for Azad Jammu and Kashmir and one of Rs. 2.63bn for Islamabad.

Aug 28: The Indian rupee slumped to a record low near 69 to the dollar on growing worries that foreign investors will continue to sell out of a country facing stiff economic challenges and volatile global markets. The pummelling in markets sent the rupee reeling 3.7 per cent to an all-time low of 68.85.

Aug 31: After eight years at the helm of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy handed over the charge to Roberto Azevedo of Brazil.
Lamy, a former European Union trade commissioner, has since 2005 overseen a big expansion of the world trade body to count 159 member countries 11 more than eight years ago.

Sep 03: Mobile phone pioneer Nokia announced the sale of its sinking handset business to software giant Microsoft, which is fighting to catch up with rivals Apple and Google in the fierce smart phone market.

Sep 04: Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Turkmen host launched production from the world’s second largest gas field in Turkmenistan.

Sep 04: The US. Ambassador to Pakistan signed a $95 million ten-year loan agreement to build a 50-megawatt (MW) wind power plant in the Ghoro-Keti Bandar wind corridor near Jhimpir in Sindh.

Sep 06: Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) Abdul Rauf Chaudhry said that the issue of zero rating for five export-oriented industries would be taken up with the finance minister and chairman, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

Sep 06: G-20 leaders warned that global economic recovery is too weak, with the risk of a further slowdown and some emerging markets showing particular fragility. And they backed a ‘Saint Petersburg action plan’ to boost growth and employment.

Sep 07: The Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet approved a much-awaited Rs2.9 billion bailout package for Pakistan Steel Mills and also gave the go-ahead to export of 500,000 tonnes of sugar.

Sep 07: Chinese President Xi Jinping struck a deal with Kazakhstan giving China a stake in its giant Kashagan oil project, a highlight of his tour of Central Asia to secure hydrocarbons for the world’s largest energy consumer.

Sep 07: IMF released the first instalment of loan worth 540 million dollars to Pakistan. The IMF had approved a $6.7 billion loan for Pakistan in an effort to help the strategic country stave off an economic crisis.

Sep 09: The government signed an implementation agreement with a South Korean consortium to set up a 100MW power project in Azad Kashmir.

Sep 09: Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov and Chinese Xi Jinping, signed agreements worth $15 billion in key sectors, including the exploitation of oil, gas and uranium fields in the Central Asian state.

Sep 10: Brazilian Embassy formally issued first five-year multiple entry visas to leading Pakistani businessmen to further promote bilateral trade and economic activities.

Sep 10: The government appointed seasoned banker Muneer Kamal as chairman of the National Bank of Pakistan’s (NBP) board of directors.

Sep 10: The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) instructed all tax employees not to entertain tax-related matters already taken up and decided by the FTO under the Federal Ombudsmen Institutional Reforms Act, 2013 (FOIRA).

Sep 11: The number of migrants around the world rose above 230 million in 2013 with the United States, Western Europe and the Gulf oil states the biggest draws.

Sep 11: Apple unveiled two new iPhones, fielding a slick new top-end model along with one aimed at budget-conscious smartphone shoppers around the world.

Sep 11: The number of dollar billionaires in mainland China has passed 300 for the first time, an annual ranking of wealth in the world’s second-largest economy showed. The Hurun Report, a luxury magazine publisher, named property tycoon Wang Jianlin as China’s new richest person, saying he had more than doubled his worth to $22 billion. There were a total of 315 dollar billionaires in the country, it said, up 64 from a year ago.

Sep 13: Advisor on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz and Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid agreed to a meeting of prime ministers of the two countries in New York. The two sides also agreed to respect the Line of Control ceasefire accord. Mr Aziz and Mr Khurshid met in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.

Sep 13: The State Bank increased the policy interest rate by 50 basis points to 9.5 per cent and insisted that the move would not have any negative effect on growth. The Bank also reported a three percent increase in inflation rate, which will go further up in the future.

EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Aug 20: US researchers discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet that orbits its host star in the time it takes you to complete a single workday, or get a full night’s sleep. Located about 700 light-years away, the exoplanet named Kepler 78b is extremely close to its star.

Aug 23: US scientists built the world’s most precise clock, whose ticking rate varies less than two parts in one quintillion, or 10 times better than any other.

Aug 28: Scientists achieved the first human-to-human mind meld, with one researcher sending a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motion of a colleague sitting across the Seattle campus of the University of Washington.

Aug 28: Scientists created a microscopic sphere and set it awhirl at a blistering 600 million rotations per minute. The sphere, which rotates 500,000 times faster than the average washing machine, is the fastest-spinning object ever made.

Aug 29: A new study suggested that all life on Earth actually began on the red planet. An element believed to be crucial to the origin of life would only have been available on the surface of Mars, they reported. Geochemist Professor Steven Benner argues that the ‘seeds’ of life probably arrived on Earth in meteorites blasted off Mars by impacts or volcanic eruptions.

Aug 30: A new species of shark that ‘walks’ along the seabed using its fins as tiny legs was discovered in eastern Indonesia. The brown and white bamboo shark pushes itself along the ocean floor as it forages for small fish and crustaceans at night, said Conservation International, whose scientists were involved in its discovery.

Sep 5: At the IFA tradeshow in Berlin, Samsung announced Galaxy Gear:  a smartwatch that can’t make calls on its own, but connects wirelessly with the owner’s nearby smartphone.

Sep 6:  The world’s largest volcano lurks beneath the Pacific Ocean, researchers announced. Called the Tamu Massif, the enormous mound dwarfs the previous record holder, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, and is only 25 per cent smaller than Olympus Mons on Mars, the biggest volcano in Earth’s solar system, said William Sager, lead study author and a geologist at the University of Houston.

Sep 12: A new record for the world’s thinnest sheet of glass was set, and it comes in at just two atoms thick. The ultra-thin glass, now recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, was an accidental discovery by scientists at Cornell University and Germany’s University of Ulm.

Sep 14: Japan’s new solid-fuel rocket successfully blasted off carrying a telescope for remote observation of planets in a launch coordinated from a laptop computer-based command centre. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Epsilon rocket from the Uchinoura Space Centre in Kagoshima, south-western Japan.

OBITUARIES

Aug 21: Elmore Leonard, the prolific crime novelist whose louche characters, deadpan dialogue and immaculate prose style in novels like ‘Get Shorty’, ‘Freaky Deaky’ and ‘Glitz’ established him as a modern master of American genre writing, died. He was 87.

Aug 25: Famed poet Prof Taha Khan died of multiple medical conditions. He was 85.

Aug 26: Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdul Samad Abdullah died in a Singapore hospital. He was 67.

Aug 26: Muriel Siebert, who became a legend on Wall Street as the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first woman to head one of the exchange’s member firms, died at 84.

Aug 27: Abdul Hameed Butt, an uncle of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, died.

Aug 30: Seamus Heaney, one of the world’s best-known poets and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, died at the age of 74.
His works include the 1966 debut ‘Death of a Naturalist’, ‘The Spirit Level’, ‘District and Circle’ and an acclaimed translation of the old English epic poem ‘Beowulf’.

Sep 01: The 74-year-old journalist, Sir David Frost, the journalist and broadcaster whose lengthy career covered everything from cutting-edge 60s satire to heavyweight interviews and celebrity game shows, died. His programmes included That Was The Week That Was and The Frost Report.
Sep 03: Ronald Coase, the Britain-born US economist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1991, died. He was 102. He was famed for his 1960 article, ‘The Problem of Social Cost’

Sep 11: Noted spiritual figure Mian Jamil Ahmad Sharaqpuri died of a cardiac arrest at the age of 85.

PEOPLE IN NEWS

Ariel Castro
Convicted kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro who was handed down a sentence of life without parole plus 1,000 years in prison, was found dead on 02 Sep.
He pleaded guilty to 937 counts, including murder and kidnapping, in exchange for the death penalty being taken off the table.

Diana Nyad
A 64-year-old American woman Diana Nyad completed a historic 110-mile swim between Cuba and Florida becoming the first person to have accomplished this feat without fins or a shark cage.

Shokofa Salehi
A 22-year-old Afghan girl, Shokofa Salehi, worked in the money transfer division at the headquarters of Azizi Bank, a major Afghan lender in Kabul. She disappeared after transferring some $1.1 million out of the bank’s coffers to accounts of relatives.

Robert Fernandes
Robert Fernandes, came to the news when he paid the township tax bill of $7,143.54 in single dollar bills. And, just to make sure that he made his point, he posted the whole thing on YouTube.

Mohammad Javad Zarif
Iran’s foreign minister. He came in the news when he posted a message on Facebook which reads: “We condemn the massacre of Jews by the Nazis, and we condemn the massacre of Palestinians by the Zionists”. This is in stark contrast to Holocaust denials by former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Terry Jones
Anti-Islam pastor Terry Jones was arrested on a felony charge in Florida after announcing plans to burn nearly 3,000 copies of the Koran on a barbecue grill.

Major Nidal Hassan
Malik Hasan Nadal was an Army psychiatrist who opened fire on dozens of soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas. He was found guilty of murdering 13 people, taking him one step closer to becoming the first active-duty soldier to be executed in more than 50 years.

Malala Yousufzai
Malala Yousufzai was awarded a prestigious peace prize, the Tipperary International Peace Award, for her courage and determination, on August 21 while on August 27, she won the prestigious International Children’s Peace Prize as well.

Khalid Jadoon
He got the attention of media and the world when he accused of blasphemy a Christian girl Rimsha Masih, who later proved innocent. Due to ‘lack of evidence’, Mr jadoon was also acquitted by the court.

PLACES IN NEWS

Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan)
The Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Orgaisation (SCO) was held at Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Advisor to prime minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz met with Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on the sidelines of the summit.

Walkie-Talkie Tower, London
A 37-storey skyscraper, also known as 20 Fenchurch Street, came in the news because it was blamed for melting cars, setting carpet ablaze, and blotching paint on buildings. It is said that when the sun reaches a certain position in the sky and hits the tower at a particular angle, the reflected beam of sunlight is intense and causes such incidents.

Bay Bridge
The new, $6.4 billion eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was opened to traffic on Sept 2, 2013.

St. Petersburg, Russia
The Group of 20 leading world economies Summit took place in St. Petersburg, Russia on 5-6 Sep where US President Barack Obama faced growing pressure from Russia’s Vladimir Putin and other world leaders to decide against launching military strikes in Syria.

US Congress
The Senate foreign relations committee voted in favour of military authorization to launch punitive strikes against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The influential committee voted by 10 votes to seven in favour of granting the formal military authorisation requested by Barack Obama.

Chile
The National Association of Magistrates of the Judiciary, the body representing judges in Chile, made an unprecedented apology for the actions of its members under military rule in the 1970s and 1980s. The statement came a week before the 40th anniversary of the coup that brought General Pinochet to power.

Oradour-sur-Glane
For the first time since World War II, a German leader joined French officials in commemorating the worst atrocity committed by the Nazis in France. President Joachim Gauck of Germany and his French counterpart, Franois Hollande, joined hands in a quiet ceremony commemorating the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane, in central France, where Nazi troops killed 642 villagers in 1944.

Japan
AirAsia’s Japanese arm, now wholly owned by ANA, rebranded itself as Vanilla Air. The name was selected from a field of 200 possible titles.

Wallops Island, Virginia
NASA began a new trek to the moon  with a dazzling launch from Virginia that sent a spacecraft soaring toward Earth’s nearest neighbor to probe the thin lunar atmosphere and, just maybe, solve a 40-year space mystery.
The spacecraft, called the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE for short), launched into space Friday, Sept. 6, at 11:27 p.m. EDT (0327 Sept. 7 GMT) atop a Minotaur V rocket.

United Arab Emirates
The UAE was ranked the happiest Arab country and the 14th happiest in the world in the second World Happiness Report.
A safe and secure environment is one of the main reasons that the UAE has been voted the ‘happiest country’ in the Arab region, according to its residents, who said the UAE is ‘an amazing place to live in’.

Google & DU
With the intention of making business communications more effective, du announced its strategic partnership with Google. The alliance makes the telecom a premier small and medium business (SMB) partner of Google’s AdWords advertising programme in the UAE.
The partnership will allow du to provide new products and solutions to the SMB market in the UAE starting with the launch of its newest mobile plan, Business Super 600-G.

Buenos Aires, Argentina
At the 125th Session of the International Olympic Committee, it was announced that the 2020 Olympic Games will be held in Tokyo, Japan.
Istanbul and Tokyo were the final two competitors for the honor. Madrid was eliminated in the first round of balloting.
The 2016 Summer Olympics will be in Brazil. The Winter Olympics will be held in Russia in 2014 and South Korea in 2018.

Portland, Oregon
Siblings in Portland, Oregon were recently united with a long-lost half-brother they never knew existed. Anthony Leonard’s search for his 3 brothers and 1 sister began decades ago and with the help of professional agencies he was able to find the family he was searching for. From his home in England, Anthony emailed and Skyped with his siblings and eventually made his way to Portland for an emotional union.

Israel
A town dating back more than 2,000 years has been discovered on the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee, in Israel’s Ginosar valley.
The ancient town may be Dalmanutha (also spelled Dalmanoutha), described in the Gospel of Mark as the place Jesus sailed to after miraculously feeding 4,000 people by multiplying a few fish and loaves of bread.

INTERESTING NEWS

Aug 27: A few words which seem to be straight out of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s slang bag have actually been around for the past couple of centuries. The word ‘unfriend’, an option to dump a friend on social networking website Facebook by clicking a button, was first used as a noun as far back as 1275. Its usage as a verb dates back to 1659.

Aug 31: The humble tuk-tuk, a fixture in Asian cities from Bangkok to Bangalore, is rapidly becoming a common sight in the touristy parts of Paris’ and the bane of traffic police.
The three-wheeled auto rickshaws, as well as human-powered pedicabs, first appeared in the French capital in 2011, and their numbers have since risen to around 50, lining up at landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, or the Place de la Concorde.

Sep 04: More than 200 languages have vanished in India over the last 50 years, a new study says, blaming urban migration and fear among nomadic tribes of speaking their traditional tongues.

Sep 05: Over 100 vehicles were involved in a collision in thick fog on a bridge in southeast England, leaving eight people seriously injured and 60 with minor injuries. Eyewitnesses at the scene described a mass of tangled trucks, cars, and a car transporter, while police said it was ‘miraculous’ that no one died.

Sep 05: The United Arab Emirates has the ‘vainest’ skyscrapers in the world, a report measuring the extent of spires and other height-boosting additions to the top of buildings said. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) said unusable space at the top of the UAE’s 19 tallest buildings was an average 19 percent of their total height, a measure it called the ‘vanity height’.

Sep 06: Traditionally, Japanese bow when greeting others. They do not trend to shake hands. But millions of them have starting shaking their smartphones.
They do it to activate Line, a two-year-old messaging application that lets people exchange information, send silly stickers and play games with their friends. It already has 230 million monthly users ‘a milestone that Facebook did not reach until it was five years old.
And it has not even penetrated the United States yet. Most Americans have NHN Corp., of South Korea.

Sep 09: Hong Kong’s first battery-powered public bus took to the streets as part of a drive against the city’s choking pollution. Chief executive Leung Chunying has pledged to make pollution one of his top priorities during his five-year term.

Sep 16: Begum Raana Liaquat Ali Khan, wife of first Prime Minister of the country Liaquat Ali Khan, died in 1990, but she inaugurated an office in 1994, according to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board textbooks taught to the grade 6 students.

Sep 16: Workers clearing rubble in a flood-devastated town in the Indian Himalayas have discovered 19 million rupees ($303,000) in a safe which had been swept away by floodwaters.

Sep 17: Thieves in northern Italy broke into a prison and made off with a safe containing thousands of euros.