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May 01, 2020: National / International Current Affairs
1. PIA gets US permission to repatriate stranded citizens
• The United States Department of Transportation has granted permission to Pakistan International Airlines to operate 12 round-trip or one way chartered flights to evacuate citizens stranded in both countries, only by using Boeing 777-240LR aircraft.
• PIA spokesman Abdullah Hafeez said this was the first time the national flag carrier would be operating direct flights to the US as PIA planes did not have the capacity to fly directly to the US before the 9/11 attacks.
• However, after the attacks, US authorities refused permission for direct flights because of security reasons up until now, the spokesman said
2. SC allows govt to hold polls in GB under Election Act 2017
• The Supreme Court on April 30, 2020 allowed the federal government to conduct the coming general elections in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) under the Election Act 2017 and amend the related law to install a caretaker government for conducting polls.
• The five-year term of the incumbent government of GB is due to expire in the last week of June whereas next general elections in the region will become due within 60 days after the expiry of the GB Legislative Assembly.
• `After hearing the parties we allowed the federal government`s application with consensus, the reasons of which will be recorded later,` Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed said.As explained by Attorney General for Pakistan Khalid Jawed Khan, the amendments will be made by promulgating a presidential order
3. 2pc seats for minority students in higher education
• The Punjab Cabinet on April 30, 2 020 approved allocation of two per cent seats for minorities for admission to the public sector higher education institutions across the province.
• The decision has been made under the Punjab Minority Empowerment Package.
• Following the cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Usman Buzdar tweeted that the youth belonging to the minorities had been facing issues in getting `high end jobs` under five per cent quota because of lack of highly educated candidates.
4. Disputed Tiger Force becomes operational next week
• The controversial one million-strong Corona Relief Tiger Force of volunteers will formally become operational in the country`s three provinces Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan -next week after a formal address to the CRTF members by Prime Minister Imran Khan expected in a couple of days.
• The announcement that the CRTF would become operational only in the provinces ruled by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and its allies was made by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Youth Affairs Usman Dar during a news conference.
• One the one hand, Mr Dar appealed to Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and urged the governments of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan to allow the CRTF to carry out relief activities in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic within their respective jurisdictions and, on the other, he warned that if the federal government did not receive positive response by Monday, the prime minister would himself make a decision on how services of the CRTF members would be used in these three regions
5. Islamabad most dangerous place for journalists, says report
• A report released on April 30, 2020 to mark the World Press Freedom on May 3 has suggested that not only is violence common against Pakistani journalists but that violent incidents happen more commonly in the federal capital than other areas.
• The report said that Islamabad, with 34 per cent of all violent attacks in the country, comes out as its most dangerous and riskiest region for journalists.
• The Pakistan Press Freedom Report 2019-20, titled `Murders, harassment and assault: The tough wages of journalism in Pakistan`, said that 31 of the 91 cases reported between May last year and April this year were reported in Islamabad, followed by 24 cases in Sindh, 20 in Punjab, 13 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and only three in Balochistan.
• The report launched by the Freedom Network a media rights watchdog cited 91 violent incidents, including seven murders of journalists and a blogger, and attacks and other offences against media and its practitioners.
6. NA speaker tests positive for Covid-19
• National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser has become the latest high-profile government personality to have tested positive for the novel coronavirus (Covid-19).
• This was disclosed by the speaker himself through his official social media account on Twitter on April 30,2020.
• `My coronavirus test has been declared positive. I have quarantined myself in my house,` Mr Qaiser stated in a tweet.
7. US, China block UN resolution in WHO spat
• The United States and China remained at loggerheads on April 30, 2020 over a UN Security Council draft resolution calling for a 90-day humanitarian pause in conflicts worldwide in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
• The stalemate over a mention of the World Health Organisation (WHO) leaves little hope of a quick vote as the Security Council struggles to find a response to the global crisis, remaining largely mute since the once-in-a-century pandemic began killing tens of thousands of people and shutting down economies across the world.
• `It`s a major stalemate, nobody`s moving,` one diplomat said.
8. High-risk countries approach China for debt relief
• Following in the footsteps of Pakistan, many high-risk countries who are part of the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have approached China for debt relief, the Financial Times reported.
• Last month, Pakistan requested China for ease in payment obligations of over $30 billion of about 12,000-megawatt power projects under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to minimise its financial and economic difficulties, the newspaper reported. This was part of government efforts to secure discounts and savings on power purchases from independent power producers (IPPs) as circular debt liabilities cross Rs2 trillion.
• Early this week, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet authorised the Economic Affairs Ministry to negotiate debt relief with 11 bilateral lenders, including China, under a G20 initiative to suspend for about a year the payment of debt and its interest. Pakistan has to pay about $615 million to China between May 2020 and June 2021under bilateral debt. The Chinese ambassador to Pakistan has since held a couple of meetings with Economic Af fairs Minister Khusro Bakhtiar and Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Dr Hafeez Shaikh.
9. Danish poet Yahya Hassan dies at 24
• Danish-Palestinian badboy poet Yahya Hassan, who stormed on to Denmark`s literary scene in 2013 and quickly became a household name, died aged just 24 on April 29, 2020.
• The exact cause of his death was not made public, but police said on Thursday they did not believe it was a criminal act.
• `Twenty-four years. That`s nothing, this is a catastrophe,` Simon Pasternak, head of publisher Gyldendal, said in an Instagram post.
• Police in Aarhus, the country`s second largest city where Hassan lived, told local media that they had responded to reports of the death of a man in his mid-20s.
10. In double trouble for Indian cinema, Rishi dies at 67
• In a double whammy to Indian cinema, loved actor Rishi Kapoor succumbed to cancer in a Mumbai hospital on April 30, 2020. He was 67. The death came a day after Irrfan Khan, his younger colleague by 10 years, died after his battle with cancer.
• The actor`s last rites were performed at Chandanwadi Crematorium in Kalbadevi, Mumbai.
• Rishi Kapoor began his acting career with a memorable role as a child artist in Mera Naam Joker, his father Raj Kapoor`s magnum opus.
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