Liars cannot lead Pakistanis, PM Sharif blasts PTI leaders

“Liars cannot lead a nation,” Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told a charged crowd in Kahuta on Friday, days after the Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) planned ‘lockdown’ of Islamabad on Nov. 2 turned into a ‘thanksgiving’ rally, DawnNews reported. “Someone who lies to you continuously cannot represent you,” he said.
“They say ‘Pakistan is progressing’,” he said in a veiled reference to the opposition. “They know that gas and electricity are coming to these areas, that a two-lane expressway is being built. That’s why they are posing obstacles, so that progress is halted and Pakistan is taken back to 50 years ago.”
“The ones who hold rallies, their agenda is not one of success ... The ones who try to stop progress, you will not let their designs succeed. You have halted their designs. You have shown them their true reflection. You already saw what happened a few days ago,” he said.
Separately, a Pakistani minister said on Friday that Islamabad will not attend a global tobacco control conference in India next week, the latest fallout of strained diplomatic ties between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
India is hosting the biennial conference of the only global treaty aimed at deterring tobacco use, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Delegates from about 180 nations are expected to attend the conference.
“It’s a very important meeting on tobacco, but our visit doesn’t appear feasible due to ongoing tensions,” Saira Afzal Tarar, Pakistan’s junior minister of health services regulation and coordination, told Reuters. Relations between Pakistan and India have soured in recent weeks after New Delhi said it had launched retaliatory “surgical strikes” against Islamist militants in Pakistan in the wake of a raid on an Indian army camp that left 19 soldiers dead.
Pakistan says the claim is false and the episode was normal shelling by its neighbor. Artillery duels and skirmishes on the border dividing the disputed Kashmir region have surged since.
Pakistani Health Ministry officials had not yet secured visas to attend the conference, Tarar said.
“One or two officials of the Health Ministry had applied for visa to attend the conference, but I think they are facing issues in getting it.”

‘Green-eyed Afghan Girl’ to be deported
A Pakistani judge on Friday ordered the deportation of Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed “Afghan Girl” whose 1985 photo in National Geographic became a symbol of her country’s wars, after finding her guilty of illegally obtaining a Pakistani identity card.
Gula, now in her 40s, was also sentenced to 15 days in jail and fined about 100,000 rupees ($955.11)
She had been living in northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar for years with her husband and children. Her family has said her husband died a few years ago.
Gula is likely to be freed in three days, as she has already spent more than 10 days in prison since her arrest, said an Afghan Consulate official.

Source: Arab News