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FATF grey list: Announcement on Pakistan status expected at 7pm

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  • Islamabad needs votes of Turkey, China, and Malaysia to get off FATF grey list.
  • All three countries have assured Pakistan of full support.
  • Hina Rabbani Khar leading Pakistani delegation at FATF meeting.

All eyes are on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) plenary meeting concluding today (Friday), with Pakistan having high hopes to secure an ‘onsite visit’ which may lead Islamabad a step closer to get out of the grey list.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar Friday advised against prejudging and speculative reporting on the FATF meeting’s outcome.

Taking to Twitter, the minister said that the plenary meetings are underway and the FATF will issue a public statement after concluding the meetings tonight.

She further stated that the government has arranged a media briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday.

“The FATF Plenary Meetings are continuing in Berlin. FATF will issue a Public Statement after conclusion of the meetings tonight. Prejudging the outcome or speculative reporting could and should be avoided. Government of Pakistan has arranged a media briefing at MOFA on Saturday morning on this issue,” Khar wrote.

He said that the consent and consolation of other countries in the meeting is also significant.

However, he said that matters will take seven to eight months to settle even if Pakistan makes its way out of the watch list as the FATF team will visit Pakistan for an inspection.

Sources said that the FATF had directed Pakistan to fulfil 34 conditions in two stages, which Pakistan accomplished. The country fulfilled 32 out of 34 conditions in the last FATF meeting and completed the remaining two in this meeting.

They said that the final decision could be delayed till the next FATF meeting scheduled to take place in Paris in October.

Pakistan had launched a massive diplomatic effort to get off the FATF grey list. Khar, who is also the chair of Pakistan’s National FATF Coordination Committee, is leading the Pakistan delegation at the plenary meeting that started on June 14.

Pakistan needs the votes of Turkey, China, and Malaysia to get off the list, and all three countries have assured the Pakistani authorities of full support. That’s why there are now bright chances that Pakistan may finally exit the FATF grey list after its current meeting being held in Berlin, Germany.

Germany, the US, and other countries have also expressed partial support for Pakistan’s demand for exclusion from the FATF grey list.

According to sources, during the recent visits of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar to different countries, important discussions took place regarding FATF. In all these meetings, a soft attitude towards Pakistan was expressed by important countries.

Pakistan has implemented almost all points of the FATF Action Plan, except for the penalties, and Pakistan has made prosecutions and all relevant legal amendments.

Pakistan was placed on the FATF list of countries under increased monitoring in June, 2018. 

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Nawaz Sharif departs for a five-day personal visit to China.

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Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and a former prime minister, departed for China on Monday night for a five-day private visit.

Nawaz Sharif is visiting China, escorted by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.

Nawaz Sharif reportedly planned to see Chinese company owners as well as discuss the Punjab province’s development projects. During his visit in China, he will also have a medical examination.

In addition, the fact that Nawaz and his party chose China for his first overseas trip after he returned to Pakistan in October of last year shows how much weight the Asian superpower holds.

Eight other Chinese companies were reportedly prepared to start working right away, while 16 Chinese companies had expressed interest in the Nawaz Sharif IT City, which is the brainchild of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, who has plans for similar projects in all of the province’s major cities.

Remarkably, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s scheduled visit to China ahead of his anticipated talks with Chinese authorities next month coincides with the elder Sharif’s visit.

Dar’s presence alongside Nawaz simultaneously underscores the party leadership’s confidence in him and serves as a reminder of why he was chosen to be foreign minister.

The fact that this visit was organized in the wake of the recent terror assault in Shangla on Chinese engineers involved in the Dasu hydroelectric Project, however, may provide some insight into the significance of this visit.

That was followed by Pakistan’s resolute pledge to deal harshly with those groups that have been attacking Chinese citizens in an effort to undermine the cordial relations between the two countries.

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The president of Iran’s wife, Dr. Jamileh, claims that knowledge without ethics is worthless.

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The Iranian President’s wife, Dr. Jamileh-Sadat Alamolhoda, claimed on Monday that Islam had illuminated the globe 1400 years ago by emphasizing the value of knowledge.

She said, “Knowledge without ethics has no value,” during her speech at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML).

Dr. Jamileh earlier today opened the university’s cultural festival. She visited a number of foreign and national booths exhibiting distinct cultures and customs.

Attendees included academic members, a sizable student body, Director General Brig Shahzad Munir, Rector NUML Major General (retd) Shahid Mahmood Kayani, and many others.

Speaking to the pupils, Dr. Jamileh added that religious leaders in Iran and this area were crucial in keeping the nations unified during the colonial era.

She was impressed by Muhammad Iqbal, the Poet of the East, for his contribution to the dissemination of Islamic norms and knowledge via his poetry.

She also gave a speech at the launch of her own book, “The Art of Living Femininely,” adding that it was also being translated into Urdu.

She expressed gratitude for NUML’s contribution to the creation and sharing of knowledge and expressed a willingness to investigate the potential for reciprocal scholarly cooperation in the fields of languages and science and technology.

Thanking the NUML administration for welcoming her and giving her a chance to engage with the teachers and students, Dr. Jamileh expressed her gratitude.

In his remarks at the event, the Rector NUML stated that profound people-to-people links as well as bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran are historical, fraternal, and mutually trustworthy.

The honorable guest accepted an honorary doctorate in educational sciences from the NUML Rector.

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To discuss the judges’ letter, the IHC CJ calls for a full court meeting.

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A full court conference has been called by the chief justice of the Islamabad High Court for this Tuesday in order to consider the matter of the letter of six IHC judges.

The full court session is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. All judges, including district and session court judges, have been asked for comments by the chief justice’s office of the Islamabad High Court.

The development follows accusations made by six judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) against the nation’s intelligence services for meddling in judicial matters.

Judges Babar Sattar, Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, Arbab Muhammad Tahir, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, and Justice Rafat Imtiaz are the six judges.

In response to the letter, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa had intimated on March 27 that the Supreme Court would convene as a full court.

The Supreme Court’s Justice Yahya Afridi has withdrawn from the suo moto case involving the letter authored by six judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

Prior to this, the Islamabad High Court Bar Association petitioned the Supreme Court under the Constitution, asking for an open and impartial inquiry into the six judges’ letter that purportedly involved meddling in judicial matters.

The petitioner begged the supreme court to prosecute individuals who were found to have influenced the legal system.

The petition claimed that the judges had brought up a serious matter. “If the apex court deems it necessary, it should refer the matter to the Supreme Judicial Council for review,” it requested.

The petitioner argued that the only source of justice and defender of the Constitution was an independent judiciary. Under no circumstances can the judiciary’s independence be compromised.

How it started

A letter against the “interference of intelligence agencies in judicial matters” was sent to the Supreme Judicial Council on March 25 by six justices of the Islamabad High Court.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court took suo moto notice and made hints about forming a full court to consider the case. Prior to that, the federal government established a one-man inquiry commission, but Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, the former chief justice, refused to allow the body to begin any proceedings.

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