ISLAMABAD: Saudi Arabia’s green-lighting of a new residency scheme for expatriates is a game-changer for 2.7 million Pakistanis living in the Kingdom, business officials and experts said, and might finally give expatriates who can pay a required fee the right to live, work and own business and property in the Kingdom.
The new residency scheme, officially known as a “Privileged Iqama” and commonly referred to as the Saudi “green card,” was first mentioned by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman nearly three years ago. Those eligible will be able to choose between an annual renewable option or permanent residency, with indefinite leave to remain in exchange for a higher, one-off fee. Saudi government officials have told Arab News that the scheme now awaits cabinet approval. “This is a very positive and long-awaited step,” Sehr Kamran, President of the Center for Pakistan and Gulf Studies, told Arab News. “It will give confidence to the expatriate community, especially the investors, since many people had been losing their businesses to Kafeels (Saudi sponsors).”
Once approved, this new system will end the need for expatriates to have a local sponsor, or “kafeel.” For those who already bend the rules by constantly renewing limited visitor visas, there will no longer be “visa runs” every few months. It will also eliminate long queues at embassies.
Without a Kafeel, a foreigner cannot do business in Saudi Arabia, and a local sponsor has controlling share over businesses, often leading to disputes.
“The biggest benefit [of the new scheme] is that Pakistanis who have been living there are aware of their language, and they can invest in small and medium size businesses and employ other Pakistanis without relying on local partners,” Rizwan-ul-Haq, former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia told Arab News.
“If mid-to-large scale businesses are assured of legal rights and a conducive environment, they would definitely move to Saudi Arabia. The educational and hospitality sector can boom,” he added.
Pakistan’s bilateral trade with Saudi Arabia stood at $1.871 billion in 2017-18 with exports amounting to $170 million and imports at $1.7 billion. Since 1971, Pakistanis have contributed toward building the Kingdom’s infrastructure. They remit nearly $6 billion from Saudi Arabia every year.
In order to be eligible for the new green card scheme, expatriates must meet several criteria including having a valid passport, clean criminal record, financial solvency, and authentic credit and health reports.
Farhan Ahmed, the CEO of an Islamabad-based travel and tourism company, said Riyadh’s decision was encouraging for Pakistan’s business community.
“This is a very positive and encouraging move. It gives hope to the business community to go and invest there without concerns over the protection of their investment,” Ahmed said, adding that he would definitely consider availing the opportunity “after proper consideration.”
Over 2.7 million Pakistanis living in Saudi Arabia to benefit from new green card
Over 2.7 million Pakistanis living in Saudi Arabia to benefit from new green card
- “Privileged Iqama” scheme first mentioned by Saudi Crown Prince Salman nearly three years ago
- Once approved, new system will end the need for expatriates to have a local sponsor, or “kafeel”
‘Suffs’ musical with Malala, Hillary as producers has timing on its side
- ‘Suffs’ is a Broadway musical that focuses on the American women’s suffrage movement
- Pakistani Nobel laureate says musical helped her see her activism from a “new lens“
NEW YORK: Shaina Taub was in the audience at “Suffs,” her buzzy and timely new musical about women’s suffrage, when she spied something that delighted her.
It was intermission, and Taub, both creator and star, had been watching her understudy perform at a matinee preview last week. Suddenly, she saw audience members searching the Wikipedia pages of key figures portrayed in the show: women like Ida B. Wells, Inez Milholland and Alice Paul, who not only spearheaded the suffrage fight but also wrote the Equal Rights Amendment ( still not law, but that’s a whole other story).
“I was like, that’s my goal, exactly that!” Taub, who plays Paul, said from her dressing room later. “Do everything I can to make you fall in love with these women, root for them, care about them. So that was a really satisfying moment to witness.”
Satisfying but sobering, too. Fact is, few audience members know much about the American suffrage movement. So the all-female creative team behind “Suffs,” which had a high-profile off-Broadway run and opens Thursday on Broadway with extensive revisions, knows they’re starting from zero.
It’s an opportunity, says Taub, who studied social movements — but not suffrage — at New York University. But it’s also a huge challenge: How do you educate but also entertain?
One member of the “Suffs” team has an especially poignant connection to the material. That would be producer Hillary Clinton.
She was, of course, the first woman to win the US presidential nomination of a major party, and the first to win the popular vote. But Clinton says she never studied the suffrage movement in school, even at Wellesley. Only later in life did she fill in the gap, including a visit as first lady to Seneca Falls, home to the first American women’s rights convention some 70 years before the 19th Amendment gave women the vote.
“I became very interested in women’s history through my own work, and writing and reading,” Clinton told The Associated Press. And so, seeing “Suffs” off-Broadway, “I was thrilled because it just helps to fill a big gap in our awareness of the long, many-decades struggle for suffrage.”
It was Taub who wrote Clinton, asking her to come on board. “I thought about it for a nanosecond,” Clinton says, “and decided absolutely, I wanted to help lift up this production.” A known theater lover, Clinton describes traveling often to New York as a college student and angling for discounts, often seeing only the second act, when she could get in for free. “For years, I’d only seen the second act of ‘Hair,’” she quips.
Clinton then reached out to Malala Yousafzai, whom Taub also hoped to engage as a producer. As secretary of state, Clinton had gotten to know the Pakistani education activist who was shot by a Taliban gunman at age 15. Clinton wanted Yousafzai to know she was involved and hoped the Nobel Peace Prize winner would be, too.
“I’m thrilled,” Clinton says of Yousafzai’s involvement, “because yes, this is an American story, but the pushback against women’s rights going on at this moment in history is global.”
Yousafzai had also seen the show, directed by Leigh Silverman, and loved it. She, too, has been a longtime fan of musicals, though she notes her own acting career began and ended with a school skit in Pakistan, playing a not-very-nice male boss. Her own education about suffrage was limited to “one or two pages in a history book that talked about the suffrage movement in the UK,” where she’d moved for medical treatment.
“I still had no idea about the US side of the story,” Yousafzai told the AP. It was a struggle among conflicting personalities, and a clash over priorities between older and younger activists but also between white suffragists and those of color — something the show addresses with the searing “Wait My Turn,” sung by Nikki M. James as Wells, the Black activist and journalist.
“This musical has really helped me see activism from a different lens,” says Yousafzai. “I was able to take a deep breath and realize that yes, we’re all humans and it requires resilience and determination, conversation, open-mindedness … and along the way you need to show you’re listening to the right perspectives and including everyone in your activism.”
When asked for feedback by the “Suffs” team, Yousafzai says she replied that she loved the show just as it was. (She recently paid a visit to the cast, and toured backstage.) Clinton, who has attended rehearsals, quips: “I sent notes, because I was told that’s what producers do.”
Clinton adds: “I love the changes. It takes a lot of work to get the storytelling right — to decide what should be sung versus spoken, how to make sure it’s not just telling a piece of history, but is entertaining.”
Indeed, the off-Broadway version was criticized by some as feeling too much like a history lesson. The new version feels faster and lighter, with a greater emphasis on humor — even in a show that details hunger strikes and forced feedings.
One moment where the humor shines through: a new song titled “Great American Bitch” that begins with a suffragist noting a man had called her, well, a bitch. The song reclaims the word with joy and laughter. Taub says this moment — and another where an effigy of President Woodrow Wilson (played by Grace McLean, in a cast that’s all female or nonbinary) is burned — has been a hit with audiences.
“As much as the show has changed,” she says, “the spine of it is the same. A lot of what I got rid of was just like clearing brush.”
Most of the original cast has returned. Jenn Colella plays Carrie Chapman Catt, an old-guard suffragist who clashed with the younger Paul over tactics and timing. James returns as Wells, while Milholland, played by Phillipa Soo off-Broadway, is now played by Hannah Cruz.
Given its parallels to a certain Lin-Manuel Miranda blockbuster about the Founding Fathers, it’s perhaps not a surprise that the show has been dubbed “Hermilton” by some.
“I have to say,” Clinton says of Taub, “I think she’s doing for this part of American history what Lin did for our founders — making it alive, approachable, understandable. I’m hoping ‘Suffs’ has the same impact ‘Hamilton’ had.”
That may seem a tall order, but producers have been buoyed by audience reaction. “They’re laughing even more than we thought they would at the parts we think are funny, and cheering at other parts,” Clinton says.
A particular cheer comes at the end, when Paul proposes the ERA.
“A cast member said, ‘Who’d have ever thought the Equal Rights Amendment would get cheers in a Broadway theater?’” Clinton recalls.
One clear advantage the show surely has: timeliness. During the off-Broadway run, news emerged the Supreme Court was preparing to overturn Roe vs. Wade, fueling a palpable sense of urgency in the audience. The Broadway run begins as abortion rights are again in the news — and a key issue in the presidential election only months away.
Taub takes the long view. She’s been working on the show for a decade, and says something’s always happening to make it timely.
“I think,” she muses, “it just shows the time is always right to learn about women’s history.”
Pakistan Army says seven militants trying to infiltrate border from Afghanistan killed
- Large quantity of weapons, ammunition and explosives were seized from the slain “terrorists,” says army
- Urges Afghanistan to deny the use of its soil to “terrorists” for carrying out attacks against Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Army said on Wednesday that seven militants attempting to infiltrate the Pakistan-Afghanistan border from the neighboring country a day earlier had been killed, urging Kabul to effectively manage its border and deny the use of its soil to “terrorists.”
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said seven “terrorists” attempting to infiltrate the Pakistan-Afghanistan border were detected by security forces in the Spinkai area of North Waziristan on Tuesday.
“The infiltrators were surrounded, effectively engaged and after an intense fire exchange, all seven terrorists were sent to hell,” the ISPR said.
“A large quantity of weapons, ammunition and explosives was also recovered from the killed terrorists.”
The army said Pakistan has consistently been asking the Afghan government to ensure effective border management on their side of the border.
“Interim Afghan Government is expected to fulfill its obligations and deny the use of Afghan soil by terrorists for perpetuating acts of terrorism against Pakistan,” the army’s media wing said.
It said Pakistan’s security forces are committed to securing its borders and eliminating militancy from the country.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have traded blame in recent months over who is responsible for a recent spate of militant attacks in Pakistan. Islamabad says the attacks are launched mostly from safe havens in Afghanistan. Kabul’s ruling Taliban deny this and blame Islamabad for not being able to handle its own security challenges.
Tensions skyrocketed when last month Pakistan conducted airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Khost and Paktika provinces against what it said were militant targets. The Afghan Taliban said the strikes killed eight, all of them women and children, prompting them to fire heavy weapons at Pakistani forces along the border.
Relations between the two countries had taken a hit earlier in November 2023 when Pakistan kicked off a deportation drive that has seen around half a million so-called undocumented Afghan refugees expelled from the country.
Pakistan to make ‘no compromise’ on security of Chinese workers, says PM
- A deadly suicide bombing last month in northwestern Pakistan left five Chinese citizens dead
- PM Sharif meets Shanghai Electric delegation, assures Chinese investors would be facilitated
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government will make “no compromise” on the security of Chinese workers in the country, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday, as the South Asian country grapples with militancy that has often resulted in attacks on foreigners.
A suicide bomber last month rammed his vehicle into a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a hydropower project at the northwestern Dasu town in Pakistan. Five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver were killed in the attack.
The attack was the third major one in a little over a week on China’s interests in the South Asian nation, where Beijing has invested over $65 billion in energy, infrastructure and other projects as part of its wider Belt and Road initiative.
Following the attack, Pakistan’s government said it has taken steps to enhance Chinese citizens’ security in the country.
“Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday assured that the government would make no compromise on the security of the Chinese workers in Pakistan,” the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
The premier was speaking to a delegation of the Shanghai Electric Group, APP said. Sharif told the delegation that the government would ensure all possible facilitation to Chinese investors to further expand ongoing projects between the two countries.
“Citing cordial and time-tested ties with China, Prime Minister Shehbaz said that Pakistan desired to further promote its friendly ties and strengthen economic partnership with the country,” the state-run media said.
Pakistan is home to an insurgency launched by ethnic Baloch separatists who seek secession from the central government in the country, blaming it for the inequitable division of natural resources in the southwestern Balochistan province. The government denies this.
Chinese interests in Balochistan have also been under attack primarily by the militants, who seek to push Beijing out of mineral-rich Balochistan.
Saudi FM’s visit to lead to investment worth billions of dollars in Pakistan — PM Sharif
- Saudi foreign minister arrived in Pakistan on Monday for a two-day visit to discuss economic cooperation, investment deals
- Pakistan’s information minister describes Saudi FM’s visit as “positive,” says discussions on investment be implemented
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday that the recent visit of a high-powered Saudi delegation, led by the Kingdom’s foreign minister, will lead to investment worth billions of dollars to Pakistan, state-run media reported.
Prince Faisal arrived in Pakistan on Monday on a two-day visit aimed at enhancing bilateral economic cooperation and pushing forward previously agreed investment deals. His trip came a little over a week after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Makkah and reaffirmed the Kingdom’s commitment to expedite investments worth $5 billion.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia enjoy strong trade, defense and cultural ties. The Kingdom is home to over 2.7 million Pakistani expatriates and the top source of remittances to the cash-strapped South Asian country.
“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has expressed the confidence that the visit of Saudi delegation will lead to investment worth billions of dollars in Pakistan,” Radio Pakistan said in a report.
The comments were made by Sharif during a meeting of the federal cabinet he chaired. Sharif thanked Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the delegation’s visit and praised members of the Pakistani federal cabinet and authorities for making the visit a success.
Sharif stressed that the same dedication from officials was needed to ensure the arrival of the Saudi investment in Pakistan and the completion of the projects.
Separately, Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said the Saudi delegation had expressed “seriousness” about investing in Pakistan.
“Several matters were discussed with them regarding investments in refineries, natural resources and tourism sector, which are being implemented,” Tarar told reporters during a news conference.
“This was a very positive and successful visit.”
He said another high-level delegation from the Kingdom would visit Pakistan to sign important agreements and ensure these projects are implemented.
Tarar said another delegation of Saudi investors from the private sector would “soon” visit Pakistan. He said both Islamabad and Riyadh would play their role to facilitate the Saudi investors’ delegation’s visit.
Social media platform X blocked in Pakistan over national security, ministry says
- Millions of users have reportedly faced problems using X in Pakistan since mid-February
- Decision to ban X done to maintain public order, preserve nation’s integrity, says ministry
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s interior ministry said on Wednesday it blocked access to social media platform X around the time of February’s election on national security concerns, confirming a long-suspected shutdown.
Users have reported problems using X, formerly known as Twitter, in Pakistan since mid-February, but the government has made no official announcements.
The interior ministry mentioned the shutdown in a written court submission on Wednesday.
“It is very pertinent to mention here that the failure of Twitter/X to adhere to the lawful directives of the government of Pakistan and address concerns regarding the misuse of its platform necessitated the imposition of a ban,” said the report, seen by Reuters.
It said X had been reluctant to resolve the issue. X did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Wednesday.
“The decision to impose a ban on Twitter/X in Pakistan was made in the interest of upholding national security, maintaining public order, and preserving the integrity of our nation,” the report said.
Access to X has remained limited since the Feb. 8 national election, which the party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan says was rigged.
Among Pakistan’s political parties, Khan’s party is the most prolific user of social media platforms, particularly after the country’s traditional media began censoring news about the ex-cricket star and his party ahead of the polls. Khan has over 20 million followers on X, making him the most followed Pakistani.
Khan says Pakistan’s military was behind his ouster as prime minister in 2022 and that it helped his opponents form the current government, despite candidates backed by his party winning most seats in February’s polls. The military denies this charge.
He remains in jail on a number of convictions, most of which came days before the election.
Many government officials in Pakistan, notably Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, continue to use X — most likely through VPN software that bypasses the blocks.
The decision to temporarily block X was taken after considering confidential reports from Pakistan’s intelligence and security agencies, the report said.
It said “hostile elements operating on Twitter/X have nefarious intentions to create an environment of chaos and instability, with the ultimate goal of destabilising the country and plunging it into some form of anarchy.”