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September 30, 2019: National Current Affairs
1. Pakistan offers tax holiday for foreign investment in tourism sector
• The government of Pakistan is offering tax holiday for foreign investments in tourism sector in a bid to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
• The government has planned to invite foreign investment into the country for establishing tourism zones in potential Northern Areas, Swat, Galiat and Hazara region and Gilgit Baltistan and other tourism zones, Board of Investment (BOI) Chairman, Zubair Gilani told APP.
• Gilani said huge foreign investment was expected in tourism sector as government was focusing on building this sector on priority basis.
2. Number of voters may jump to 113m, says ECP official
• As the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has asked the provincial election commissioners to update voters` lists, the number of registered voters is likely to increase from the existing 109 million to 113m, it emerged on September 29, 2019.
• Provisional electoral rolls would be published and displayed at the union council level in November to invite objections in view of the upcoming local government polls in the provinces. He said he expected an increase of four million voters in the updated lists. The voters, he added, would be given three weeks to check the provisional lists for corrections.
• The official said the term of local bodies in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had expired on Jan 27 and Aug 28, respectively.
• The KP Assembly had enacted a new local government law and was in the process of making rules. He said that after the issuance of a notification in this regard, the process of delimitation would commence in the province. Likewise, he added, Punjab had passed a new law and rules were being framed.
3. Tourist traffic witnesses sharp increase in five years
• Tourist traffic at cultural sites in Pakistan has seen a massive increase of 317 per cent over the past five years with Punjab`s contribution being nearly 95pc, according to a report.
• The report Cultural Heritage and Museum Visits in Pakistan by Gallup Pakistan, a research organisation affiliated with Gallup International Association, indicates that tourism could be a potential game changer that could revitalise the struggling economy of the country.
• According to data presented in the report, available with Dawn, tourism at cultural sites has experienced a massive increase since 2014. From approximately 1.6 million visits in 2014, the tourist traffic at cultural sites rose to 6.6m visits in 2018, a 317 per cent increase in a span of five years. Punjab, as the largest and most populated province, contributed approximately 95pc whereas tourist traffic in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa fluctuated over the years.
4. First phase of Kachhi Canal completed
• The first phase of Kachhi Canal has been completed and work on the second phase is under way.
• Presiding over a meeting, Chief Secretary Fazeel Asghar said that Balochistan would see a new era of development after the completion of the Kachhi Canal project.
• He said farm production would increase after completion of this project, which in turn would boost economy and improve quality of life in the province.
• The meeting was informed that after completion of the first phase of Kachhi Canal, 102,000 acres of land would come under cultivation.
September 30, 2019: International Current Affairs
5. Saudi king`s bodyguard killed in shooting
• A prominent bodyguard of Saudi Arabia`s King Salman has been shot and killed at a friend`s house in what has been described as a personal dispute, according to state media.
• Maj Gen Abdelaziz alFagham`s death triggered an outpouring of emotions on Twitter, with some condemning the killing of the Saudi ruler`s` guardian angel`.
• Maj Gen Fagham, who was frequently seen by the king`s side, died on Saturday evening in the western city of Jeddah, police in Makkah said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
6. Conservatives win Austrian election as far-right tumbles
• Austrian conservatives won the most seats in snap elections on September 29, 2019, putting their 33-year-old leader Sebastian Kurz on track to retake power but forcing him into tough coalition negotiations after a corruption scandal sent his far-right former allies tumbling.
• Kurz’s People’s Party (OeVP) won 37 percent, up almost six percentage points from the last election two years ago, but not enough to form a government on its own, according to projections based on partial results.
• The Greens were also big winners as climate change rose to the top of voters’ concerns, securing around 14 percent of the vote.
• That means they will be viable coalition partners for a new government, but Green leader Werner Kogler said on Sunday evening that the party would need to see “radical change” from the right-wing policies pursued by the previous coalition.
7. Afghan election sees `big drop` in voter numbers
• Afghanistan`s presidential election turnout is estimated at just over two million people or about 20 per cent of registered voters, amid concern that low participation could mar the vote.
• Roughly 7m turned out to vote in the last presidential election in 2014.
• Tight security ensured the election took place on September 28, 2019 in relative calm, but low turnout and complaints about the voting system heightened concerns that an unclear result could drive the war turn country into further chaos.
• `Turnout appears to have been dampened not just by Taliban threats, but also voter disinterest, wrote Thomas Ruttig and Jelena Bjelica of the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN).
8. Russia rolls out the red carpet for Huawei over 5G
• While the US banned Huawei for alleged espionage and asked its allies to do the same, Moscow has rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese tech company, letting it develop 5G networks in Russia.
• Analysts say the move is as much a show of solidarity with Beijing against the US as itis a drive to bring ultra high-speed internet to Russian tech users.
• This month, Huawei opened its first 5G test zone in Moscow in partnership Russian operator MT S, with a view to rolling out the service to the rest of the capital. Moscow authorities say the network will become part of the city`s normal infrastructure within the next few years. A pioneer in telecoms networks compared to many Western countries, Russia plans to deploy 5G in all of its main cities by 2024.
9. Musk unveils SpaceX rocket designed to get to Mars and back
• Elon Musk has unveiled a SpaceX spacecraft designed to carry a crew and cargo to the moon, Mars or anywhere else in the solar system and land back on Earth perpendicularly.
• In a livestreamed speech from SpaceX`s launch facility near the southern tip of Texas, Musk said Saturday that the space venture`s Starship is expected to take off for the first time in about one or two months and reach 65,000 feet (19,800 meters)before landing back on Earth.
• A crowd watched as Musk spoke from a stage in front of the large spacecraf t, which has a reflective, metal exterior.
10. NASA’s space telescopes see black hole shredding star
• The U.S. space agency NASA’s planet-hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have observed the rarely-seen aftermath of a star that was violently ripped apart by a supermassive black hole.
• The study published in this week’s Astrophysical Journal described the tidal disruption event around 375 million light-years away. The event tends to occur when a star gets too close to a supermassive black hole and the black hole’s forces overwhelm the star’s gravity and tear it to shreds.
• Some of its material gets flung out into space and the rest falls back into the black hole, forming a disk of hot, bright gas as it is consumed, according to the researchers.
