Diplomatic Cross

President Ashraf Ghani  Image: DOD/US Air Force Staff Sgt. Jette Carr Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani declared a provisional three-month ceasefire with the Taliban in a televised broadcast. Kabul-Anticipation had been mounting ahead of Ghani’s speech following mixed signals from the presidential palace over whether the government would offer a fresh truce – following a brief ceasefire in June. Pakistan Fully support, recent peace initiatives in Afghanistan “The conditional ceasefire will start tomorrow and it will continue as long as the Taliban preserves and respects it,” Ghani said on Sunday, August 19, Reuters reported. Ghani said the ceasefire, which begins on the Eid al-Adha holiday, would continue until the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday which Afghanistan celebrates on November 21, AFP reported. Ghani said his administration removed “all obstacles” to peace with the announcement following consultations with religious scholars, political parties and...

Pakistan is transitioning from an agriculture economy to industrial economy. The country spends most of its budget on national security and infrastructure, a very low proportion of budget is allocated for social services such as education and health.  With the increasing poverty in the world, the ratio of Out of School children is increasing day by day. According to the UNESCO, almost 264 million children do not go to the school. Globally, 1 in 5 adolescents is not in school compared to almost 1 in 10 primary school-age children. This show that as the child grows the ratio of his/her drop out is increasing. Pakistan is one of the topmost countries where more than 22.84 million children are out of school and this number is increasing day by day. This is the very alarming situation for the underdeveloped country, government and authorities should take serious steps on the emergency basis to counter the situation. Article 25-A of the constitution of Pakist...

Voting for the presidential election will be held in the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies from 10am to 4pm on September 4 DiplomaticCross: The Pakistan Tehree-e-Insaf (PTI) has nominated Dr Arif Alvi as the presidential candidate. According to the source, PTI chairman Imran Khan has approved Dr. Arif Alvi’s name for the president of the country. There have earlier been reports to nominate Dr Arif Alvi as president. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf on Saturday confirmed the nomination of party leader Dr. Arif Alvi for the post of president. The nomination was confirmed by party spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry on Twitter. Dr. Arif Alvi was elected MNA from NA-247 Karachi by securing 90,907 votes. PTI leader Imran Ismail had also revealed that Dr. Alvi was being considered for the position of new President of Pakistan. Alvi ran for the seat of Provincial Assembly of Sindh as a candidate of PTI from constituency PS-114 (Karachi) in Pakistani general electio...

DiplomaticCross -Kofi Annan, the first black African to lead the United Nations, has died at age 80. He served as Secretary-General at a time when worries about the Cold War were replaced by threats of global terrorism, and his efforts to combat those threats and secure a more peaceful world brought him the Nobel Peace Prize. Annan, who was born in Ghana in 1938, served as the seventh UN Secretary-General, from 1997 to 2006, and was the first to rise from within the ranks of the United Nations staff. He had also been a member, since 2007, of The Elders, a humanitarian group of a dozen leaders and activists of worldwide stature formed by Nelson Mandela. In 2013, Annan became its chairman. The Kofi Annan Foundation confirmed his death with "immense sadness" in a statement posted on Twitter. It is with immense sadness that the Annan family and the Kofi Annan Foundation announce that Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations and Nobel P...

Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is likely to nominate its elected member of Punjab assembly from southern Punjab Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht — the younger brother of Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar — as Punjab chief minister, Morning Mail report. Hashim Bakht is foreign graduate and younger brother of Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, their father has also remained member National Assembly. However, PTI chairman Imran Khan will make the announcement in this regard later. The sources said that Makhdoom Hashim is a strong candidate for the post of chief minister Punjab and he has acquired the support of the majority of senior leaders in the PTI. Khsro Bakhtyar Elder Brother Of Hashim Bakht Hashim Jawan is the younger brother of Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar and he was elected from Rahim Yar Khan. Jahan has worked in the banking sector and he was vice president of the corporate sector of the City Bank. Jawan did his B.Com from McGill Universi...

Iran’s supreme leader said Monday there would be neither war nor negotiations with the United States, and that the country’s problems were the result of government mismanagement more than renewed sanctions. Tehran-Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments add to the pressure on President Hassan Rouhani following a collapse in the currency and widespread protests over high prices and corruption. They also appeared to rule out any hope of fresh talks with Washington, which US President Donald Trump had proposed after walking out of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal and reimposing sanctions. “Beside sanctions, they are talking about war and negotiations… let me say a few words to the people: THERE WILL BE NO WAR, NOR WILL WE NEGOTIATE WITH THE U.S.,” Khamenei said via his official Twitter account in English. There was also a show of military resolve as Defence Minister Amir Hatami unveiled a next-generation short-range ballistic missile and vowed to further boost the country’s ...

Salahuddin Salarzai Afghan Frist Vice President Dostum  The ambassadors of European Union (EU) and Norway in Kabul said in a joint statement on Monday that the case of the First Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum should be concluded through legal channels since he has returned to Afghanistan. Kabul-The statement said they expect the conclusion of legal proceedings against Dostum who has been accused of sexual assault against Ahmad Eschi, the former governor of Jawzjan province.  According to the statement, as Dostum has returned home from Turkey, the issues around his case should be cleared up. The EU and Norway said they expect the law to follow its course.  The statement said no one should be above the law and that it is important that all Afghans work for peace, stability, and democracy in light of the law.  The statement says “Nobody should be above the law.  It is important that all Afghans co...

Salahuddin Salarzai Islamabad-Two Candidate running for NA speakership, PTI has nominated Asad Qaiser to be the candidate for the Speaker of the National Assembly. Syed Khursheed Shah former Opposition Leader nominated by Grand Opposition Alliance after multi-Party conference on Thursday , The grand opposition alliance had decided at a multi-party conference (MPC) on Thursday to field joint candidates for the offices of prime minister, NA speaker and deputy speaker against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) nominees Briefing reporters about the decisions taken by the MPC, PPP leader Sherry Rehman said that her party would nominate its candidate for the office of speaker, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) for deputy speaker and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) would contest for the office of prime minister. The grand opposition alliance had decided at a multi-party conference (MPC) on Thursday to field joint candidates for the offices of prime minister, NA speaker ...

A major earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok Sunday killed at least 19 people, injured dozens and damaged buildings, officials said. Jakarta-(AFP)-The seven-magnitude tremor struck just 10 kilometers (six miles) underground, according to the US Geological Survey. It was followed by two light to moderate secondary quakes and nearly two dozen aftershocks. “The latest data we have is 19 people are dead at Tanjung Hospital (North Lombok),” Agus Hendra Sanjaya, Mataram search and rescue spokesman, told AFP. Many buildings are thought to have been damaged by the quake in Lombok's main city of Mataram, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency. “They are mostly buildings with weak construction material,” Nugroho said. Residents in Mataram described a strong jolt that sent people scrambling out of buildings. “Everyone immediately ran out of their homes, everyone is panicking,” Iman, who like many Indo...

China has rejected a US demand to cut Iranian oil imports despite Washington’s attempts to bring down the Islamic Republic's oil sales to zero, Bloomberg reports. Bejing-The financial news provider quoted informed officials on Friday as saying that the US had been unable to persuade China to cut Iranian oil imports and that Beijing's purchases from Tehran last month remained unchanged.  This is a blow to US President Donald Trump’s efforts to isolate Iran after his withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal with the country, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), they said.  Beijing, however, agreed not to increase purchases of Iranian crude, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the multilateral deal with Iran in May and announced plans to reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic, that would eliminate Tehran's oil revenues.  China - the world’s top crude buyer...