LAHORE, Pakistan: A Pakistani province declared a health emergency Friday due to smog and imposed a shutdown in two major cities.
Smog has choked Punjab for weeks, sickening nearly 2 million people and shrouding vast swathes of the province in a toxic haze.
A senior provincial minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, declared the health emergency at a press conference and announced measures to combat the growing crisis.
Time off for medical staff is canceled, all education institutions are shut until further notice, restaurants are closing at 4 p.m. while takeaway is available up until 8 p.m. Authorities are imposing a lockdown in the cities of Multan and Lahore and halting construction work in those two places.
“Smog is currently a national disaster,” Aurangzeb said. “It will not all be over in a month or a year. We will evaluate the situation after three days and then announce a further strategy.”
Average air quality index readings in parts of Lahore, a city of 11 million, exceeded 600 on Friday. Anything over 300 is considered hazardous to health.
The dangerous smog is a byproduct of large numbers of vehicles, construction and industrial work as well as burning crops at the start of the winter wheat-planting season, experts say.
Pakistan’s national weather center said rain and wind were forecast for the coming days, helping smoggy conditions to subside and air quality to improve in parts of Punjab.
Dr. Muhammad Ashraf, a professor at Jinnah Hospital Lahore and Allama Iqbal Medical College, said the government must take preventative measures well before smog becomes prevalent.
“It is more of an emergency than COVID-19 because every patient is suffering from respiratory tract infections and disease is prevailing at a mass level,” he said earlier this week.
Pakistani province declares health emergency due to smog and locks down two cities
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Pakistani province declares health emergency due to smog and locks down two cities
- Smog has choked Punjab for weeks, sickening nearly 2 million people and shrouding vast swathes of the province in a toxic haze
- Average air quality index readings in parts of Lahore exceeded 600 on Friday
Macron navigates rocky path to recognizing Palestinian state
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron is leaning toward recognizing a Palestinian state, but diplomats and experts say such a move may prove a premature and ineffective way to pressure Israel into moving toward a peace deal with the Palestinians.
They say it could deepen Western splits, not only within the already-divided European Union, but also with the US, Israel’s staunchest ally, and would need to be accompanied by other measures such as sanctions and trade bans if recognition were to be anything more than a symbolic gesture.
French officials are weighing up the move ahead of a United Nations conference, which France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting between June 17-20, to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel’s security.
“Only a political solution will make it possible to restore peace and build for the long term,” Macron said on Wednesday during a visit to Indonesia.
“Together with Saudi Arabia, we will soon be organizing a conference on Gaza in New York to give fresh impetus to the recognition of a Palestinian state and the recognition of the State of Israel and its right to live in peace and security in this region,” added Macron.
If Macron does go ahead, France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities, would become the first Western heavyweight to recognize a Palestinian state, potentially giving greater momentum to a movement hitherto dominated by smaller nations that are generally more critical of Israel.
Macron’s stance has shifted amid Israel’s intensified Gaza offensive and escalating violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and there is a growing sense of urgency in Paris to act now before the idea of a two-state solution vanishes forever.
Any US-Iran deal should include ‘robust’ IAEA inspections: Grossi
- Tehran says may allow American inspectors from nuclear watchdog if an agreement is reached
VIENNA: Any deal between Iran and the US that would impose fresh nuclear curbs on Iran should include “very robust” inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday.
The two countries are holding talks meant to rein in Iranian nuclear activities that have rapidly accelerated since President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of a 2015 deal between Iran and major powers that strictly limited those activities.
As that deal has unraveled, Iran has increased the purity to which it is enriching uranium to up to 60 percent, close to the roughly 90 percent of nuclear arms-grade, from 3.67 percent under the deal. It has also scrapped the extra IAEA oversight imposed by the 2015 pact.
“My impression is that if you have that type of agreement, a solid, very robust inspection by the IAEA ... should be a prerequisite, and I’m sure it will be, because it would imply a very, very serious commitment on the part of Iran, which must be verified,” Grossi said.
He stopped short, however, of saying Iran should resume implementation of the Additional Protocol, an agreement between the IAEA and member states that broadens the range of IAEA oversight to include snap inspections of undeclared sites.
Iran implemented it under the 2015 deal, until the US exit in 2018.
Asked if he meant the protocol should be applied, Grossi said “I’m very practical,” adding that this was not a subject in the talks. While the IAEA is not part of the talks, he said he was in touch with both sides, including US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“I don’t think they are discussing it in these terms. I don’t see the discussion as being a discussion on legal norms to be applied or not. I tend to see this as more of an ad hoc approach,” said Grossi.
Iran, meanwhile, said it may consider allowing US inspectors with the IAEA to inspect its facilities if a deal is reached with the US.
“Countries that were hostile to us and behaved unprincipledly over the years — we have always tried not to accept inspectors from those countries,” Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami said, referring to staff from the IAEA. Tehran “will reconsider accepting American inspectors through the agency” if “an agreement is reached, and Iran’s demands are taken into account,” he added.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said that “consultations are ongoing regarding the time and location of the next round of talks, and once finalized, they will be announced by Oman.”
Eslami said: “The enrichment percentage depends on the type of use. When highly enriched uranium is produced, it does not necessarily mean military use,” he said.
Baqaei meanwhile said: “The continuation of enrichment in Iran is an inseparable part of the country’s nuclear industry and a fundamental principle for the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
“Any proposal or initiative that contradicts this principle or undermines this right is unacceptable.”
Convicted head of human smuggling plot gets 10 years after Indian family dies on US-Canada border
- Federal prosecutors had recommended nearly 20 years for Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel
- The judge handed down the sentences at the federal courthouse in the northwestern Minnesota
MINNESOTTA, USA: More than three years after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to enter the US along a remote stretch of the Canadian border in a blizzard, the alleged ringleader of an international human smuggling plot was sentenced in Minnesota on Wednesday to 10 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors had recommended nearly 20 years for Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, and nearly 11 years for the driver who was supposed to pick them up, Steve Anthony Shand. Shand also was to be sentenced Wednesday.
The two men appeared before US District Judge John Tunheim, who declined last month to set aside the guilty verdicts, writing, “This was not a close case.”
The judge handed down the sentences at the federal courthouse in the northwestern Minnesota city of Fergus Falls, where the two men were tried and convicted on four counts apiece last November.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Patel, an Indian national who they say went by the alias “Dirty Harry,” and Shand, a US citizen from Florida, were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that brought dozens of people from India to Canada on student visas and then smuggled them across the US border.
They said the victims, Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son, Dharmik, froze to death. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found their bodies just north of the border between Manitoba and Minnesota on Jan. 19, 2022.
The family was from Dingucha, a village in the western Indian state of Gujarat, as was Harshkumar Patel. Patel is a common Indian surname, and the victims were not related to the defendant. The couple were schoolteachers, local news reports said. So many villagers have gone overseas in hopes of better lives — legally and otherwise — that many homes there stand vacant.
The father died while trying to shield Dharmik’s face from a “blistering wind” with a frozen glove, prosecutor Michael McBride wrote. Vihangi was wearing “ill-fitting boots and gloves.” Their mother “died slumped against a chain-link fence she must have thought salvation lay behind,” McBride wrote.
A nearby weather station recorded the wind chill that morning at -36 Fahrenheit (-38 Celsius).
Seven other members of their group survived the foot crossing, but only two made it to Shand’s van, which was stuck in the snow on the Minnesota side. One woman who survived had to be flown to a hospital with severe frostbite and hypothermia. Another survivor testified he had never seen snow before arriving in Canada. Their inadequate winter clothes were only what the smugglers provided, the survivor told the jury.
“Mr. Patel has never shown an ounce of remorse. Even today, he continues to deny he is the ‘Dirty Harry’ that worked with Mr. Shand on this smuggling venture — despite substantial evidence to the contrary and counsel for his co-defendant identifying him as such at trial,” McBride wrote.
Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 19 years and 7 months for Patel, at the top end of the recommended range under federal sentencing guidelines for his actions. They asked for Shand’s sentence to be 10 years and 10 months, in the middle of his separate guidelines range.
“Even as this family wandered through the blizzard at 1:00 AM, searching for Mr. Shand’s van, Mr. Shand was focused on one thing, which he texted Mr. Patel: ‘we not losing any money,’” McBride wrote. “Worse, when Customs and Border Patrol arrested Mr. Shand sitting in a mostly unoccupied 15-passenger van, he denied others were out in the snow — leaving them to freeze without aid.”
Patel’s attorneys, who have argued that the evidence was insufficient, did request a government-paid attorney for his planned appeal. Patel has been jailed since his arrest at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago in February 2024 and claimed in the filing to have no income and no assets.
Shand has been free pending sentencing. His attorney called the government’s requested sentence “unduly punitive” and requested just 27 months. The attorney, federal defender Aaron Morrison, acknowledged that Shand has “a level of culpability” but argued that his role was limited — that he was just a taxi driver who needed money to support his wife and six children.
“Mr. Shand was on the outside of the conspiracy, he did not plan the smuggling operation, he did not have decision making authority, and he did not reap the huge financial benefits as the real conspirators did,” Morrison wrote.
Board of Deputies of British Jews member resigns over stance on Gaza
- Daniel Grossman, 21, said the UK’s largest Jewish body ‘failed to act morally’ over Israel’s war
- Grossman among 36 elected members to sign letter to the BoD demanding it respect ‘Jewish values’ and ‘speak out’ about the war
LONDON: A member of the UK’s Board of Deputies of British Jews, the largest official Jewish organization in the country, has resigned over its position on Gaza.
Daniel Grossman, 21, is among 36 elected members of the BoD who signed an open letter last month saying “Jewish values compel us to stand up and to speak out” about Israel’s war on the Palestinian territory, adding: “Israel’s soul is being ripped out.”
Grossman, a student at Bristol University, subsequently left the organization, and said that the BoD had “failed to act morally and failed to represent the increasing diversity of opinion within the British Jewish community” on the issue, adding it was trying to “stifle dissent.”
He told The Guardian: “It’s very simple. They (the BoD) are refusing to explicitly and publicly condemn Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza and to criticize the (Israeli) government for abandoning the hostages, who have been in captivity for far too long.
“Increasing numbers of people are recognizing that Israel’s actions in Gaza cannot be justified as purely self-defense. They seemingly want to declare a perpetual war against Palestinian civilians with the goal of ethnically cleansing them from the Gaza Strip.”
Following the publication of the letter, the BoD, which has 300 elected representatives, began disciplinary proceedings against the 36 signatories. An investigation into their conduct is expected to conclude in the coming weeks.
Grossman, who said that he grew up in a normal Jewish community in the UK, described the months since the attack on southern Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, as “a journey for me,” adding it had become “increasingly clear that the way the Israeli government is acting is not acceptable by any measure.”
Following his resignation from the BoD, he told the Guardian: “More people were sympathetic than I expected, and it has genuinely astonished me. Lots of these people may not feel able to speak out themselves, they might find it difficult with friends or family. But people have reached out to me.
“A huge shift is happening. The diversity of opinion in the Jewish community is becoming increasingly clear,” he said.
“My 89-year-old grandmother, who was a refugee during the Holocaust, said I had done the right thing and she is proud of me for speaking up.”
A BoD spokesperson told The Guardian: “Daniel’s term as a deputy was due to end in a few weeks with him having been replaced by another representative from the Union of Jewish Students. We wish him well with his future endeavours.”
Merz says Germany will ‘do everything’ to prevent Nord Stream restart
- “We will continue to increase the pressure on Russia,” Merz said
- “We will do everything in this context to ensure that Nord Stream 2 cannot be put back into operation“
BERLIN: Germany will “do everything” to make sure the damaged Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia will not resume deliveries of natural gas to Europe, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday.
“We will continue to increase the pressure on Russia,” Merz said at a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin.
“We will do everything in this context to ensure that Nord Stream 2 cannot be put back into operation.”
The Nord Stream 2 gas link connecting Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea was damaged in September 2022 by huge underwater explosions, said to be an act of sabotage.
The explosions destroyed one of the two pipes of Nord Stream 2 and both branches of its controversial sister pipeline, Nord Stream 1.
While Nord Stream 2 never went into operation, Nord Stream 1 for years shipped cheap Russian gas to Europe via Germany.
Critics have argued the existence of the pipeline left Germany and the rest of Europe overly reliant on fossil fuel deliveries from Moscow.
German and British media have recently reported that Washington and Moscow had discussed the idea of reviving the Nord Stream 2 project during talks on ending the war in Ukraine.
Senior political figures in Merz’s own party had also expressed tentative support for restarting gas deliveries via the pipeline from Russia before the chancellor definitively ruled out the possibility.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said earlier this month the bloc was working on a new set of sanctions that would include measures against Nord Stream 1 and 2, pre-empting a restart.
Explaining the measures, EU spokeswoman Paula Pinho said, “the idea is to dissuade any interest, and notably interest from investors, in pursuing any activity on Nord Stream, also in the future.”
