Pakistan News Channel Gets First Sikh Anchor

Canberra, May 21: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, are looking forward to deepening the countries' strategic relationship, with both sides expected to sign a range of pacts from defence to trade in strategic sectors amid heightened tensions with China over Beijing's response to coronavirus pandemic.

During a virtual summit, scheduled to take place on June 4, both leaders are expected to ramp up efforts to diversify Australia's export markets and find trusted suppliers of vital products and components, a local newspaper, The Australian reported on Tuesday.

The new agreements will focus on reliable supply chains in key strategic sectors, including medical goods, technology and critical minerals, amid heightened tensions with China over Beijing's response to coronavirus pandemic.

The leaders will seal a new defence agreement allowing reciprocal access to bases and co-operation on military technology projects, while a new education partnership will be on the table to help overcome Australian university reliance on Chinese students.

The talks in terms of strategic convergence, now have greater significance as COVID-19 exacerbates the strategic contest between the US and China, and forces like-minded countries to seek out reliable partners.

Australian farmers could also benefit, with talks underway on expanding agricultural exports to India, including barley, as China throws up new trade barriers, media reports stated.

The virtual summit follows the cancellation of Morrison's planned state visit to India in January due to the bushfires.

Morrison said last year, ahead of his planned visit, that India was "a natural partner for Australia", referring to the countries' "shared values" -- a point of differentiation with China.

Former Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Peter Varghese, who wrote a landmark report on the bilateral relationship in 2018, was quoted by the newspaper as saying that India would be even more important to Australia in the post-COVID world. "If one of the lessons from COVID is that countries need to spread their risk, then finding new markets or building up existing markets is a crucial part of that," he added.

Varghese noted that India, a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue along with Australia, Japan and the US, was a vital strategic partner to Australia in helping "constrain China's ambitions to be the predominant power".

"That shared objective between Australia and India of not wanting to see the region dominated by China is a key component of building up our geopolitical relationship," he told The Australian.

The summit also follows recent talks between Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the pandemic response and Australia's call for an independent inquiry, which was overwhelmingly backed at the World Health Assembly on Tuesday.

Australia wants to support India to develop a domestic critical minerals processing industry, which would provide Western nations with an alternative to sourcing the materials from China.

Meanwhile, India has strong expertise as a manufacturer of drugs and medical equipment, while Australia is a centre of biomedical research, opening the possibility for closer co-operation in the key sector, the media reported further.

Washington, Apr 24: President Donald Trump has favoured a phased reopening of the US economy, devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed nearly 50,000 lives and infected over eight lakh people in the country.

More than 95 per cent of the country's 330 million people are under stay-at-home order as a result of the social mitigation measures, including social distancing, being enforced till May 1.

Trump on Thursday indicated that the stay-at-home order might be extended beyond May 1, but vehemently advocated the need to gradually open up the economy.

In the past few weeks, more than 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits and the figure is soon likely to cross 40 million.

Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have projected a negative growth in the US in 2020.

To keep America gaining momentum, every citizen needs to maintain the vigilance, and we all understand that very well we've gone over it many, many times this includes practising good hygiene, maintaining social distance, and the voluntary use of face covering, Trump said.

Safe and phased reopening of our economy -- it's very exciting, but it does not mean that we are letting down our guard at all in any way; on the contrary, continued diligence is an essential part of our strategy to get our country back to work to take our country back, he told reporters at his daily White House news conference on coronavirus.

The data and facts on the ground suggest that the US is making great progress, he said.

In 23 states, new cases have declined. In the peak week, 40 per cent of the American counties have seen a rapid decline in new cases. As many as 46 states report a drop in patients showing coronavirus-like symptoms, he said.

Trump said the US is very close to finding a vaccine for COVID-19.

We are very close to testing... when testing starts it takes a period of time but we will get it done, he said.

According to Vice President Mike Pence, data continues to show promising signs of progress in the New York Metro area, New Jersey, Connecticut, Detroit and New Orleans. All appear to be passed their peak and we are seeing consistent declines in hospitalisation and cases in regions across the country, he said.

Islamabad, Feb 29: A coalition comprising digital media giants Facebook, Google and Twitter (among others) have spoken out against the new regulations approved by the Pakistani government for social media, threatening to suspend services in the country if the rules were not revised, it was reported.

In a letter to Prime Minster Imran Khan earlier this month, the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) called on his government to revise the new sets of rules and regulations for social media, The News International reported on Friday.

"The rules as currently written would make it extremely difficult for AIC Members to make their services available to Pakistani users and businesses," reads the letter, referring to the Citizens Protection Rules (Against Online Harm).

The new set of regulations makes it compulsory for social media companies to open offices in Islamabad, build data servers to store information and take down content upon identification by authorities.

Failure to comply with the authorities in Pakistan will result in heavy fines and possible termination of services.

It said that the regulations were causing "international companies to re-evaluate their view of the regulatory environment in Pakistan, and their willingness to operate in the country".

Referring to the rules as "vague and arbitrary in nature", the AIC said that it was forcing them to go against established norms of user privacy and freedom of expression.

"We are not against regulation of social media, and we acknowledge that Pakistan already has an extensive legislative framework governing online content. However, these Rules fail to address crucial issues such as internationally recognized rights to individual expression and privacy," The News International quoted the letter as saying.

According to the law, authorities will be able to take action against Pakistanis found guilty of targeting state institutions at home and abroad on social media.

The law will also help the law enforcement authorities obtain access to data of accounts found involved in suspicious activities.

It would be the said authority's prerogative to identify objectionable content to the social media platforms to be taken down.

In case of failure to comply within 15 days, it would have the power to suspend their services or impose a fine worth up to 500 million Pakistani rupees ($3 million).