Before coming to power, Prime Minister Imran Khan often railed at the successive governments of Pakistan for failing to exploit the vast potential of tourism.

ISLAMABAD: For cash-strapped Pakistan, struggling to rebuild its economy and image, the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor is an opportunity to project itself as a moderate nation while earning a tidy sum annually from pilgrims.

Before coming to power, Prime Minister Imran Khan often railed at the successive governments of Pakistan for failing to exploit the vast potential of tourism, including revered religious sites, to attract tourists from around the world.

After assuming last year, among the first things he did was to take steps to attract visitors for sight-seeing and pilgrimage.

Addressing a tourism summit organised by his government here in April, Khan said the God has bestowed Pakistan with diverse kind of landscapes.

“We need to give tourists awareness about the scenic beauty of the country,” Khan said.

He also highlighted religious tourism, especially for the followers of Sikhism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

In November last year, he performed the historic groundbreaking of the development work for the opening of the Kartarpur shrine for Sikhs in India and rest of the world.

The construction work has been completed in record time on the corridor.

Khan is set to inaugurate it on Saturday, ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, on November 12.

Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said that 10,000 Sikhs will attend the opening ceremony and then every day at least 5,000 Sikhs from India and an equal number from Pakistan and other places be allowed to visit the shrine.

“The opening of the corridor for the Sikh community will open vast opportunities for religious tourism,” he said.

During the last two decades, Pakistan has suffered due to violence and terrorism.

The country’s economy nosedived and it lost its image as a business-friendly country.

Government estimates show that over USD 126 billion were lost by the end of 2018.

As Khan struggles to rebuild the shattered economy and visage of the country, he desperately needs to offer better options to the outside world.

With Sikhs coming to Pakistan in droves, Khan’s dream is getting close to realisation.

The quick development work at Kartarpur despite tensions with India is being appreciated.

The corridor will connect the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Punjab with Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur, just 4 kilometres from the International Border, located at Narowal district of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

At Darbar Sahib, Guru Nanak had spent the last 18 years of his life.

Notwithstanding a chill in bilateral ties over Kashmir, Pakistan and India after tough negotiations signed a landmark agreement on October 24 to operationalise the corridor to allow Indian pilgrims to visit the holy Darbar Sahib in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s officials are showcasing Kartarpur as the symbol of religious harmony and representative of the teachings of Islam about showing respect towards non-Muslims.

“We are following the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad regarding the provision of facilities to minorities,” Faisal said.

There seems to be a conscious effort to distance from extremism and terrorism which over the years became synonymous with Pakistan.

By showing the other side of Islam, Khan’s government is trying to build a case to divert pressure that Pakistan was not doing enough to eliminate militancy.

The opening of the corridor may prove handy to wriggle out of the Grey List of the Financial Action Task Force that will meet in February to review Pakistan’s performance on combating terror-financing and money laundering.

As far as the rebuilding of the economy is concerned, religious tourism can directly and indirectly help.

For example, Pakistan decided to levy USD 20 as service charge from every pilgrim coming from India.

Officials are hoping to collect a tidy sum annually that will be handy to support the balance of payment and boost foreign reserves.

Pakistan is expected to earn up to Indian Rs 258 crore per annum — about Pakistani Rs 571 crore — from pilgrims visiting Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur.

Last week, a group of 185 Sikhs were flown to Lahore by Pakistan International Airlines from London to attend the 550 birth anniversary rites of Baba Guru Nanak, indirectly helping the cash-starved national flag-carrier.

As Sikhs flock to Pakistan, Buddhists may not remain far behind.

Last month a group of Buddhist from South Korea visited a stupa in Haripur in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province.

It is believed that after the success of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, Pakistan is also aiming to market Taxila and its vast Buddhist heritage to the followers of Buddhism around the world.

Faisal said tourism is an industry that Pakistan was unable to focus on earlier, however, Khan’s government is making a concerted effort to promote this industry in the country.

“One of the facets of the tourism industry is religious tourism. Sikhs/Nanak NaamLevas (followers), Hindus and Buddhist monks etc have various holy sites in Pakistan and we are trying to tap this potential of religious tourism,” he said.

According to a report, 1.75 million tourists visited Pakistan in 2017.

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the direct contribution of travel and tourism to Pakistan’s economy was USD 20,098.9 million in 2019.

Faisal said many initiatives under religious tourism were currently in the pipeline and a great deal of effort was being put in for their fruition.

“The promotion of such initiatives will also help in boosting the economy of Pakistan,” he said.

The migrants, of apparent Afghan origin, were mostly in good condition. Seven of them were given first aid in hospital, the police said.

THESSALONIKI: Forty-one migrants were found alive in a refrigerated truck in northern Greece on Monday, said police, who arrested the driver.

The migrants, of apparent Afghan origin, were mostly in good condition but seven received first aid in hospital, the police said.

“The truck contained men and boys. Identifying their nationality will require a couple of days,” a police source told AFP.

The truck was stopped by police on the Egnatia motorway between the towns of Xanthi and Komotini.

The driver, a man from Georgia, was arrested.

Local media reported that police were also seeking a second man from Turkey in connection with the incident.

The discovery came after 39 people, all believed to be Vietnamese nationals, were found dead in a refrigerated truck in Britain last month, highlighting the risks of illegal migrant routes to Europe, even for those avoiding perilous travel by sea.

Greece is experiencing its highest asylum-seeker arrival figures since 2016, when a controversial deal between the EU and Turkey stemmed previous flows of nearly a million people.

Scores arrive daily, overwhelming camps on Greek islands facing Turkey where over 34,000 people are staying, most of them in deplorable living conditions.

A two-year-old girl from Iraq died Monday when she was hit by a car on the island of Chios, state agency ANA said.

The 6.6-magnitude and 6.5-magnitude quakes hit the island of Mindanao two days apart, destroying buildings and displacing tens of thousands of residents.

MANILA: The death toll in two powerful quakes that struck the southern Philippines in the past week has risen to 21, authorities said Sunday, as survivors struggled to access food and water.

The 6.6-magnitude and 6.5-magnitude quakes hit the island of Mindanao two days apart, destroying buildings and displacing tens of thousands of residents.

Some villagers staying under tents near a highway were begging for help from passing motorists, carrying placards asking for food and water, TV footage showed.

Rescuers had found more bodies, many crushed by falling debris and landslides caused by the violent shaking, the national disaster council said.

The quakes also left 432 residents injured with two people still missing, it added.

Thursday’s big quake was the third since mid-October in the Mindanao region, which makes up a third of the Philippines.

Temporary shelters have been set up to house more than 20,000 displaced individuals — many already there since the first quake struck on October 16, leaving seven people dead.

On Sunday, rescuers continued their evacuation of families whose houses were endangered by landslides, while several residents trapped in mountainous villages had been airlifted to safety.

The government said aid has reached affected communities and instructed people sleeping near the road to go to evacuation centres for help.

The Philippines suffers regular tremors as part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Dhaka also refuted Myanmar’s portrayal of Rohingyas as ‘illegal migrants from Bangladesh from the colonial era.’

DHAKA: Bangladesh on Wednesday accused Myanmar of “a persistent campaign” to mislead the international community on the Rohingyas crisis to avoid its obligations for “sustained repatriation”.

“It is a matter of utter dismay to witness persistent campaign on the part of the Government of Myanmar to mislead the international community with fabricated information, misrepresentation of facts, unsubstantial claims and undue accusations on Bangladesh in order to avoid its obligations for the sustained repatriation and reintegration of the forcibly displaced Rohingyas in safety and dignity,” Bangladesh Foreign Office said in a statement.

Referring to the remark of Myanmar’s Union Minister, U Kyaw Tin at the recent 18th Non-Aligment meeting in Baku where Naypyitaw made a statement in regard to Rohingyas which Bangladesh did not appreciate.

Tin accused Bangladesh of mischaracterising the Rohingya crisis as “religious persecution”, “driving an ethnic group out of the country,” “ethnic cleansing”, “genocide” etc.

Dhaka also refuted Myanmar’s portrayal of Rohingyas as “illegal migrants from Bangladesh from the colonial era.”

Bangladesh Foreign office also reaffirmed to Myanmar that there were no Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) activities at its Rohingyas camps, which Naypyitaw often accused it of.

Dhaka further said, “Myanmar must act decisively to address the real causes that are preventing the displaced Rohingyas from going back voluntarily.”

Bangladesh signed a repatriation deal in November 2017 with Myanmar with a plan to return the refugees within two years.

Bangladesh, with the help of the UN refugee agency, started the repatriation of the refugees in August this year for the second time after a failed attempt in November last year, however, none of the refugees agreed to go back voluntarily.

The ISIS chief blew up his suicide vest and died when he was chased inside a dead-end tunnel during a raid by the US Special Operations forces at his hideout on Saturday.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Monday said he was considering releasing a part of the video footage of the US special operations raid in northwest Syria that resulted in the death of elusive Islamic State leader and world’s most wanted terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The ISIS chief blew up his suicide vest and died when he was chased inside a dead-end tunnel during a raid by the US Special Operations forces at his hideout on Saturday.

“We’re thinking about it. We may.

“The question was: Am I considering releasing video footage of the raid? And we may take certain parts of it and release it, yes,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“We had a great weekend for our country. We captured a man that should’ve been caught a long time ago. Unfortunately, he wasn’t,” Trump said before leaving for Chicago.

“He’s done tremendous damage. But it was an amazing display of intelligence and military power and coordination, and getting along with people. Lots of great things happened.

“So that was a big, big day and a big weekend, and we’re very happy about it,” the US President said.

On Sunday, while announcing the raid and Baghdadi’s death at the White House, Trump said that watching a live feed from the scene of the operation was like watching “a movie.”

Trump announced the success of the raid, saying Baghdadi, who is said to be 48 years old, died “whimpering and crying and screaming”, and “like a dog and a coward”, adding that the ISIS leader and “the losers” under his command “were very frightened puppies”.

Baghdadi came to prominence in 2014, when he announced the creation of a “caliphate” in areas of Iraq and Syria.

ISIS carried out a number of atrocities that resulted in thousands of deaths.

Despite being hunted by the world’s best intelligence agencies and US authorities offering a whopping USD 25 million reward for information leading to his capture, Baghdadi had proved to be incredibly elusive.

The killing of the ISIS leader – the top terrorist leader – comes as a major political victory for President Trump who is facing an impeachment proceeding against him by the opposition Democratic Party, which hold the majority in the House of Representatives.

India and Pakistan on Thursday signed the agreement on the Kartarpur Corridor that will allow Indian pilgrims to undertake a visa-free visit to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib.

WASHINGTON: The US has welcomed India and Pakistan signing a key agreement to operationalise the landmark Kartarpur Corridor next month, saying the building of people-to-people ties between the two neighbours is “good news”.

India and Pakistan on Thursday signed the agreement on the Kartarpur Corridor that will allow Indian pilgrims to undertake a visa-free visit to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, the shrine of the Sikh religion’s founder Guru Nanak Dev in Pakistan, notwithstanding a chill in bilateral ties over Kashmir.

The agreement will allow 5,000 Indian pilgrims daily to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib where Guru Nanak spent last 18 years of his life.

“Welcome news of a finalised agreement that paves the way for a corridor between India and Pakistan, allowing Sikh pilgrims to visit Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib,” Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice G Wells tweeted on Thursday.

Welcome news of a finalized agreement that paves the way for a corridor between India and Pakistan, allowing Sikh pilgrims to visit Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib. We look forward to the formal opening in November. Building people-to-people ties between neighbors is good news.

“We look forward to the formal opening in November. Building people-to-people ties between neighbours is good news,” she said.

The corridor will connect the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Punjab with Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur, just 4 kilometres from the International Border, located at Narowal district of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

The ties touched a new low when India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August following which Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties and expelled the Indian envoy.

Each visitor would be required to pay USD 20 as fee, though India has requested Pakistan not to charge the Indian pilgrims.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to formally inaugurate the Kartarpur Corridor on November 9, ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak on November 12.

Addis Ababa: Violence in Ethiopia that began with protests against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and quickly morphed into ethnic clashes has left 67 people dead in Oromia state, a police official said Friday.

The spike in the death toll came as the high-profile activist at the centre of the violence accused Abiy, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, of acting like a dictator and suggesting he might challenge him in elections planned for next year.

“The total number dead in Oromia is 67,” said Kefyalew Tefera, the regional police chief, adding that five of the dead were police officers.

Violence erupted in Addis Ababa, the capital, and in much of Ethiopia’s Oromia region on Wednesday after the activist, Jawar Mohammed, accused security forces of trying to orchestrate an attack against him — a claim police officials denied.

Kefyalew told AFP that the violence had ended in Oromia but Amnesty International researcher Fisseha Tekle said late Friday that he was still receiving reports of attacks.

The defence ministry said Friday that it was deploying forces to seven hotspots to restore order, according to the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate.

Jawar is credited with promoting protests that swept Abiy to power last year but he has recently become critical of some of the premier’s policies.

In an interview at his residence in Addis Ababa, Jawar told AFP that Abiy — named Nobel Peace laureate two weeks ago — seemed to be taking Ethiopia back to “the old ways” of authoritarian rule.

“He has resorted to the early signs of dictatorship, of trying to intimidate people, even his very close allies who helped him come to power who happen to disagree with some of the policies and positions and ideologies he’s advocating,” Jawar said.

“Intimidation is the start of authoritarian rule.” Both men are members of the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest.

Their feud highlights divisions within Abiy’s Oromo support base that could complicate his bid for a five-year term when Ethiopia votes in elections currently planned for May 2020.

Jawar said that running against Abiy was “one possibility,” though he also said he could be convinced to back Abiy if he changes course.

“I want to have an active role in the coming election. In what capacity I’m not sure but I want to make sure that the influence I have in the country has a positive contribution,” he said.

After two days of violent protests, tensions had cooled Friday in Addis Ababa, although the total damage inflicted by the unrest was still being tallied.

Fisseha of AI said the violence had included instances of security forces opening fire on protesters but was increasingly taking the form of ethnic and religious clashes.

“Some people have lost their lives with sticks, with machetes, some houses have been burned. People have been using even bullets and light arms to kill each other, to fight each other,” he said.

At least six people were killed in the town of Ambo, west of Addis, after security forces opened fire on protesters, Fisseha said. Ethnic and religious violence has been reported in the towns and cities of Dodola, Harar, Balerobe and Adama.

Property belonging to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, which some associate with the Amhara ethnic group, has been targeted in several locations, Fisseha said.

Daniel Bekele, head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, urged public figures to tamp down virulent rhetoric that could contribute to additional unrest.

“It is extremely depressing that public officials and community leaders don’t appreciate the consequences of their actions and words leading to this senseless loss of lives, destruction of property and disruption of ordinary life,” he said.

“As security forces are struggling to calm the crisis, everyone has a responsibility to do their share and cooperate.”

When the teenager was informed that Jeff Bezos owns one of the largest companies in the world, he turned around, saying, ‘Big deal, so what?’

WASHINGTON: Jeff Bezos may be the richest person on Earth, but for a high school student in the US capital, the Amazon CEO is just an ordinary man and there is “no big deal” if he is around on a surprise visit.

In a video which has now gone viral, the Amazon founder and president is seen visiting a company-funded computer science class at Dunbar High School in Washington, DC and interacting with the students.

As Bezos began talking to students about Amazon’s “Future Engineer programme”, which funds many courses around the US, a student was seen asking “Who’s Jeff Bezos?” twice to another student sitting behind him.

When the teenager was informed that Bezos owns one of the largest companies in the world, he turned around, saying, “Big deal, so what?”

A moment later, Bezos was seen talking to the same student who explained to him about his computer project. Bezos told him: “You are a good storyteller. Keep up that skill too”.

At Dunbar High school in DC. Where Amazon is announcing the expansion of the Amazon Future Engineer program now funding tech ed for 2,000 schools in United States.

The video was taken by NBC Washington’s Caroline Tucker at the school on Monday.

“This morning @amazon is at Dunbar High School in DC to announce a milestone in its Future Engineer Program. They had a surprise guest… Jeff Bezos,’ she tweeted.

“The young man in the class ended up being the only one who spoke to Jeff Bezos about how much he has learned about coding. Later on, he told me he wanted to “seize” the opportunity to talk to the CEO,” Tucker added.

Several people reacted on her tweet:

Another tweeted: “People is judging the kid, but he is there to learn and maybe high-tech celebrities are not on his wish list”.

According to the New York Post, the teacher of the class said “only about three” of her 15 students knew who Bezos was when he walked into the classroom.

Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, is the richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $110 billion despite a huge divorce settlement with ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos worth $35.6 billion in Amazon stock — making her one of the top five richest women in the world and one of Amazon’s largest shareholders.

On Sunday, the World Bank in its latest edition of the South Asia Economic Focus said India’s growth rate is projected to fall to 6 per cent in 2019 from 6.9 per cent of 2018.

WASHINGTON: The IMF on Tuesday slashed India’s GDP growth projection for the year 2019 to 6.1 per cent, which is 1.2 per cent down from its April projections.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April said India will grow at 7.3 per cent in 2019.

However, three months later it projected a slower growth rate for India in 2019, a downward revision of 0.3 per cent.

As against India’s real growth rate of 6.8 per cent in 2018, the IMF in its latest World Economic Outlook projected India’s growth rate at 6.1 per cent in 2019 and noted that the Indian economy is expected to pick up the next year at 7.0 per cent in 2020.

On Sunday, the World Bank in its latest edition of the South Asia Economic Focus said India’s growth rate is projected to fall to 6 per cent in 2019 from 6.9 per cent of 2018.

The downward revision relative to the April 2019 WEO of 1.2 percentage points for 2019 and 0.5 percentage point for 2020 reflects a weaker-than-expected outlook for domestic demand, the IMF said.

“Growth will be supported by the lagged effects of monetary policy easing, a reduction in corporate income tax rates, recent measures to address corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty, and government programs to support rural consumption, the IMF said.

China, whose GDP grew at 6.6 per cent in 2018, is now projected to grow at 6.1 per cent in 2019 and 5.8 per cent in 2020, it said.

“India’s economy decelerated further in the second quarter, held back by sector-specific weaknesses in the automobile sector and real estate as well as lingering uncertainty about the health of nonbank financial companies,” said the World Economic Outlook released ahead of the annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank.

In India, growth softened in 2019 as corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty, together with concerns about the health of the nonbank financial sector, weighed on demand, it said.

In its report, the IMF said that in India, monetary policy and broad-based structural reforms should be used to address cyclical weakness and strengthen confidence.

A credible fiscal consolidation path is needed to bring down India’s elevated public debt over the medium term.

This should be supported by subsidy-spending rationalisation and tax-base enhancing measures.

Governance of public sector banks and the efficiency of their credit allocation needs strengthening, and the public sector’s role in the financial system needs to be reduced, it said.

Reforms to hiring and dismissal regulations would help incentivize job creation and absorb the country’s large demographic dividend.

Land reforms should also be enhanced to encourage and expedite infrastructure development, the IMF said.

The central government has deployed around 27,000 soldiers of the Self-Defence Forces (military) to take part in the rescue efforts.

TOKYO: Helicopters, boats and thousands of troops were deployed across Japan to rescue people stranded in flooded homes Sunday, as the death toll from a ferocious typhoon climbed to as high as 33. One woman fell to her death as she was being placed inside a rescue helicopter.

Typhoon Hagibis made landfall south of Tokyo on Saturday evening and battered central and northern Japan with torrents of rain and powerful gusts of wind. The typhoon was downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday. Public broadcaster NHK said 14 rivers across the nation had flooded, some spilling out in more than one spot.

The Tokyo Fire Department said a woman in her 70s was accidentally dropped 40 meters (131 feet) to the ground while being transported into a rescue helicopter in Iwaki city in Fukushima prefecture, a northern area devastated by the typhoon.

Department officials held a news conference to apologize, bowing deeply and long, according to Japanese custom, and acknowledged the woman had not been strapped in properly. The government’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency, which tends to be conservative in its counts, said late Sunday that 14 people died, 11 were missing and 187 were injured as a result of the typhoon.

It said 1,283 homes were flooded and 517 were damaged, partially or totally. Japanese media tallies were higher. Kyodo News agency reported that 33 people died and 19 were missing. “The major typhoon has caused immense damage far and wide in eastern Japan,” government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

News footage showed a rescue helicopter hovering in a flooded area in Nagano prefecture where an embankment of the Chikuma River broke, and streams of water were continuing to spread over residential areas. The chopper plucked those stranded on the second floor of a home submerged in muddy waters.

Aerial footage showed tractors at work trying to control the flooding and several people on a rooftop, with one waving a white cloth to get the attention of a helicopter. Nearby was a child’s school bag.

In another part of Nagano, rows of Japan’s prized bullet trains, parked in a facility, were sitting in a pool of water. A section of the city of Date in Fukushima prefecture was also flooded, with only rooftops of residential homes visible in some areas, and rescuers paddled in boats to get people out. Parts of nearby Miyagi prefecture were also underwater.

The Tama River, which runs by Tokyo, overflowed its banks, flooding homes and other buildings in the area. Among the reported deaths were those whose homes were buried in landslides. Other fatalities included people who got swept away by raging rivers.

Early Sunday, Suga said that some 376,000 homes were without electricity and that 14,000 lacked running water. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said that late Sunday that more than 66,000 homes were still without power.

Tohoku Electric Co. said 5,600 homes still lacked electricity, in the northern prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima. Both utilities said they were working to restore power. Several train services in the Tokyo area resumed early in the morning, while others restarted later.

Ruling party politician Fumio Kishida said the government would do its utmost in rescue operations, including making sure that those who moved to shelters were taken care of.

He acknowledged that Japan’s power grids need to be strengthened so people in disaster areas can rely on timely information. “So many risks remain, and it is a reality that we must stay on guard. We must do our utmost. In these times, a disaster can hit anytime,” Kishida said on news talk show on NHK.

The Rugby World Cup match between Namibia and Canada, scheduled for Sunday in Kamaishi, in northern Japan, was cancelled as a precautionary measure, but Japan played Scotland, to a win, as scheduled Sunday evening. Matches on Saturday had been cancelled. Stores and amusement parks had also closed, and some Tokyo stores remained closed Sunday.

As the typhoon bore down on Saturday with heavy rain and strong winds, the usually crowded train stations and bustling streets of Tokyo were deserted. But life was returning to normal on Sunday, and flights that had been grounded from Tokyo airports were gradually being resumed.

Evacuation centres had been set up in coastal towns, with tens of thousands seeking shelter. Kyodo News agency said evacuation warnings had been issued to more than 6 million people. The typhoon disrupted a three-day weekend in Japan that includes Sports Day on Monday.

The authorities had repeatedly warned that Hagibis was on par with a typhoon that wreaked havoc on the Tokyo region in 1958, but the safety infrastructure that Japan’s modernization has brought was apparent. The typhoon six decades ago left more than 1,200 people dead and half a million houses flooded.