‘Chopper ride cheaper than car’: Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s air commute draws ridicule

Agencies
September 18, 2018

Islamabad, Sept 18: Even as the Pakistan government is trying to generate revenue through means such as auctioning luxury cars, prime minister Imran Khan has been mocked for taking a helicopter into Islamabad most days, after declaring he would eschew luxury perks.

Information Minister Chaudhry argued that the helicopter uses less fuel than a motorcade, saying at one point it cost only 50 rupees (40 cents) per kilometre.

That calculation provoked ridicule.

“Why don’t you stop metro bus service and instead let people enjoy the cheap helicopter rides?” quipped a TV host.

In fact, Khan’s helicopter costs about 200,000 rupees ($1,633) per hour factoring in fuel, crew, maintenance and inspections, Syed Naseem Ahmad, president of the Society of Air Safety Investigation Pakistan said.

Khan has promised to cut costs, including trimming motorcades of government officials and selling public land.

“It is a change of mindset,” he said in a speech on Friday. “I will be counting every single rupee I have to spend on me.”

Khan’s campaign, however, has been somewhat undercut by his near-daily helicopter commute from his home in the hills surrounding Islamabad.

Optics aside, analysts say Pakistan will have to take more painful policy cuts in government spending to truly reduce the deficit. The new government on Monday did raise gas prices by 10 to 20 percent.

The luxury cars’ auction on Monday raised about 200 million rupees ($1.6 million), government official Mohammad Asif told local Geo TV. That is just one-tenth of the amount he had predicted, and only 61 of just over 100 vehicles were sold.

The event had been billed as part of Khan’s drive to give “the nation’s wealth to its rightful owners”. Critics say most of the measures so far are more symbolism than significant savings.

Critics say the cost-cutting so far has been mostly cosmetic. “There is nothing new in the current austerity drive,” said political commentator Raza Rumi.

Auctions of ageing government vehicles, for example, have taken place for years, with less publicity.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Colombo, Aug 7: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's party and its allies won an overwhelming two-thirds majority in a parliament election, results showed on Friday, giving him the power to enact sweeping changes to the constitution.

The governing Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and its allies had won 150 seats in the 225-member parliament, according to the tally published by the election commission from Wednesday's vote.

Rajapaksa had sought a two-thirds majority in parliament to be able to restore full executive powers to the presidency, which he says are necessary to implement his agenda to make the tiny island economically and militarily secure.

He is likely to install his older brother and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the next prime minister. The brothers are best known for crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils during the elder Rajapaksa's presidency in 2009.

On a congratulatory phone call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, which is keen to check Chinese influence on its southern neighbour, Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed to deepen ties between the two countries.

"With the strong support of the people of Sri Lanka, I look forward to working with you closely to further enhance the long-standing cooperation between our two countries," he told Modi. "Sri Lanka and India are friends and relations."

The tourism-dependent nation of 21 million people has been struggling economically since deadly Islamist militant attacks on hotels and churches last year followed by lockdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus. 

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News Network
July 5,2020

Washington, Jul 5: US President Donald Trump on Saturday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his wishes on America's 244th Independence Day.

On Saturday, PM Modi tweeted: "I congratulate @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and the people of the USA on the 244th Independence Day of the USA. As the world's largest democracies, we cherish freedom and human enterprise that this day celebrates. @WhiteHouse"

While replying to PM Modi's wishes, Mr Trump tweeted: "Thank you my friend. America loves India!"

The US President also attended the July 4 American Independence Day celebrations in South Dakota.

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Agencies
June 7,2020

Boston, Jun 7: Dozens of scientists doing research funded by Mark Zuckerberg say Facebook should not be letting President Donald Trump use of the social media platform to spread both misinformation and incendiary statements.

The researchers, including 60 professors at leading US research institutions, wrote a letter to the Facebook CEO on Saturday asking that he consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language that harms people," especially during the current turmoil over racial injustice.

The letter calls the spread of deliberate misinformation and divisive language the researchers' goal of using technology to prevent and eradicate disease, improving childhood education and reform the criminal justice system.

The researchers' mission "is antithetical to some of the stances that Facebook has been taking, so we're encouraging them to be more on the side of truth and on the right side of history as we've said in the letter, said Debora Marks of Harvard Medical School, one of three professors who organized the letter.

The other organisers are Martin Kampmann of the University of California-San Francisco and Jason Shepherd of the University of Utah.

All have grants from a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative program working to prevent, cure and treat neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The initiative is run by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

They said the letter had more than 160 signatories. Shepherd said about 10% are employees of Chan Zuckerberg foundations.

The letter objects specifically to Zuckerberg's decision not to at least flag as a violation of Facebook's community standards Trump's post that stated when the looting starts, the shooting starts after unrest in Minneapolis over the videotaped killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer.

The letter's authors called the post a clear statement of inciting violence.

Twitter had both flagged and demoted a Trump tweet using the same language.

The Associated Press emailed the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative press office for comment. It did not immediately respond.

Some Facebook employees have publicly objected to Zuckerberg's refusal to take down or label misleading or incendiary posts by Trump or other politicians. But Zuckerberg who controls a majority of voting shares in the company has so far refused.

On Friday, Zuckerberg said in a post that he would review potential options for handling violating or partially-violating content aside from the binary leave-it-up or take-it-down decisions I know many of you think we should have labeled the President's posts in some way last week, he wrote.

"Our current policy is that if content is actually inciting violence, then the right mitigation is to take that content down not let people continue seeing it behind a flag. There is no exception to this policy for politicians or newsworthiness.

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