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Wednesday August 12 , 2020

Zilhaj 21, 1441

KARACHI

Rs 25.0018 Pages

Vol. LXXIV No. 221

Regd. No. SS-022

CORONAVIRUS IN PAKISTAN

as of 0210 hours

CONFIRMED CASES

ACTIVE CASES

285,655

18,289

(482 IN LAST 24 HOURS)

RECOVERED

261,246

PROVINCIAL BREAKDOWN

SINDH PUNJAB

ISLAMABAD BALOCHISTAN

124,556 94,586

15,281 11,956KP

34,755AJK/GB

2,150/2,371

REPORTED DEATHS

6,120(13 IN LAST 24 HOURS)

(639 IN LAST 24 HOURS)

WHO says vaccine still needs a rigorous safety review

MOSCOW: President Vladi-mir Putin on Tuesday declared Russia the fi rst country to approve a coronavirus vaccine, but scientists and the World Health Organisation said it still needed a rigorous safety review.

Putin said the vaccine was safe and that one of his own daughters had been inoculated, though clinical trials were not yet complete and fi nal stage testing involving more than 2,000 people was to start only on Wednesday.

Western scientists were scep-tical, with some warning that moving too quickly on a vaccine could be dangerous, but Russia denounced criticism as an attempt to undermine Moscow’s research.

Putin has pushed hard for Russia to be the fi rst to announce a vaccine and offi cials dubbed it “Sputnik V” after the Soviet-era satellite that was the fi rst launched into space.

“This morning, for the fi rst time in the world, a vaccine against the new coronavirus was registered” with Russia’s health regulator, Putin told a televised video conference call with government ministers.

“I know that it is quite effec-tive, that it gives sustainable

immunity,” he said, adding that one of his two daughters had received the vaccine developed by the Gamaleya research insti-tute in coordination with the Russian defence ministry.

“In this sense she took part in the experiment,” Putin said, adding that she had a slight tem-perature after a second injec-tion and “that is all”.

Reacting to the announce-ment, the WHO’s spokesman in Geneva Tarik Jasarevic said it was in “close contact” with Russian health authorities but that it was too soon for any WHO stamp of approval.

“Pre-qualifi cation of any vac-cine includes the rigorous

Russia claims developing first coronavirus vaccine

Continued on Page 11

By Amir Wasim

ISLAMABAD: Parlia-mentary secretary for national food security and research Ameer Sultan on Tuesday claimed that there was no fault in the fertiliser subsidy scheme, but held the Punjab government of his own Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) responsible for its failure.

Mr Sultan said the Punjab government did not deposit the required amount in the bank account due to which farmers could not get bene-fi t of the subsidy worth bil-lions of rupees.

In response to a calling attention notice moved by fi ve PTI members from Punjab “regarding not reaching of subsidy on ferti-liser and seed to the farm-ers”, the parliamentary sec-retary informed the National Assembly that there was “no technical fault in the token scheme. It failed because the Punjab government had not depos-ited the required amount in the account, which caused the error”.

He was responding to the criticism by his party col-leagues who complained that farmers could not get any benefi t of the huge sub-sidy that the government had announced for them by asking them to get the sub-sidised amount from banks by showing the tokens or scratch cards they got with the purchased bags of

Centre says Punjab govt behind subsidy plan failure

Continued on Page 3

By Baqir Sajjad Syed

ISLAMABAD: Military commanders on Tuesday called for early start of intra-Afghan dialogue by capitalising on the progress made in the peace process.

Military’s public affairs division ISPR in a statement on the 234th Corps Comma-nders’ Conference said: “Forum appreciated the pro-gress of Afghan Reconci-liation Process and hoped for early commencement of intra-Afghan dialogue.”

The meeting attended by corps commanders and principal staff offi cers was chaired by Army Chief Gen Qamar Bajwa.

Prospects of intra-Afghan dialogue brightened after Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani on Monday issued a decree, on the rec-ommendation of the Loya Jirga, to release 400 Taliban prisoners considered ‘dan-gerous’ by the Afghan gov-ernment.

The stakeholders are, however, keeping their fi n-gers crossed till the release

Commanders call for early start of intra-Afghan dialogue

Continued on Page 5

Minister says majority of country’s airports running in loss; indicators point to upward economic trend

By Syed Irfan Raza

ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet on Tuesday decided to carry out the necessary legis-lation in 90 days to outsource all major airports of the coun-try to generate revenue and raise their standard to the international level.

The cabinet meeting,

which was presided over by Prime Minister Imran Khan, was also informed that despite an adverse impact of coronavirus, the economic wheel had started turning and all indicators were show-ing an upward trend.

Although the issue of Pakistan-Saudi Arabia rela-tions was not discussed in the meeting, Information Minister Shibli Faraz, in his post-cabinet meeting press conference, said “Pakistan has to watch its own interests”.

“We have to make the legis-lation to meet legal require-ments as without it we cannot outsource our airports,” Mr Faraz said.

He said out of 27 airports, only Islamabad, Karachi,

Lahore and Multan were run-ning in profi t whereas others were not generating revenue, mainly due to low air traffi c.

“The prime minister has given timelines to carry out reforms in all sectors; 90 days time has been given to amend Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) laws,” the minister said.

The meeting was told that drafts bills had already been prepared for legislation.

Meanwhile, a source said the cabinet had decided to bifurcate CAA — operational and regulatory (for outsourc-ing airports) — which was why legislation was needed.

About the scrutiny of 262 pilots’ licences, the meeting

Cabinet plans legislation to outsource airports

Continued on Page 5

PAKISTAN Muslim League-N leader Maryam Nawaz points to the damaged portion of her vehicle’s windscreen after the fracas in front of the NAB offi ce on Tuesday.—White Star

By Zulqernain Tahir

LAHORE: Violence erupted outside the National Accoun-tability Bureau (NAB) offi ce on Tuesday as heavy police contin-gents and workers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz confronted each other shortly after the arrival of opposition party’s vice presi-dent Maryam Nawaz there in a land acquisition investigation.

Many people, including some offi cials, were injured and around 50 men were rounded up after police fi red tear gas besides hurl-ing back stones at the activists, with each side blaming the other for triggering the clash.

Ms Nawaz claimed the govern-ment had planned to “cause harm” to her through police action, while posting a video of her bulletproof car’s broken wind-shield on her twitter account.

In the late evening hours, the Chung police booked 300 PML-N workers, including Ms Nawaz and 187 other nominated people, for attacking law enforcers and NAB personnel and damaging the anti-graft watchdog’s building.

However, PML-N information

secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said the Chung police were not entertaining their complaint and said the party would have to move the Lahore High Court (LHC) for the registration of an FIR. The party fi led an applica-tion against Prime Minister Imran Khan, NAB chairman Javed Iqbal, PM’s adviser Shahzad Akbar and the Punjab

government for making an attempt on the life of Maryam Nawaz. She said the police attacked innocent PML-N work-ers at the behest of those nomi-nated in the application.

The anti-graft watchdog had summoned her to record her state-ment in the investigation into ille-gal acquisition of 3,500 kanal of land in Raiwind by her, her father Nawaz Sharif, uncle Shahbaz Sharif

Police, PML-N workers clash outside Lahore NAB office

Continued on Page 5

• Maryam, lawmakers among 300 booked, 50 activists held

• PML-N seeks to lodge FIR against PM, NAB chairman

• Anti-graft body lashes out at ‘goons of PML-N’

PML-N workers were paid to create law, order situation, alleges Chohan: Page 2

A predictable clash: Editorial on Page 6