KARACHI: Pak-Saudi telehealth platform Educast has joined hands with Palestine’s Young Explorer to provide medical support through e-doctors to mothers and children facing Israeli attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, the two companies announced this week.
Startup firm Young Explorer is an online platform created to offer parents of special needs children customized consultations and access to multiple written and video resources, while Educast, a Saudi-Pakistan technology group, is a virtual education platform that runs the eDoctor project, launched in 2019, to re-train and return to the health care industry hundreds of Pakistani women doctors who never joined the profession due to family pressure or stopped practicing once they got married or relocated abroad.
After training them, Educast virtually connects the doctors with female patients around the world.
Under a joint collaboration, Educast will, through Young Explorer, offer the consultation services of more than 100 female doctors living in North America, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan to Palestinian families in need.
“We consider all children facing war and violence as children with special needs,” Ayah Dajani, founder and chief executive officer of Young Explorer, told Arab News from the Palestinian city of Ramallah on Monday.
“That’s why we volunteered to open our platform to families and extend free support to them and their children with the help of our team of therapists, developers and media … Educast will provide us with a big set of experienced doctors to contact the families and give them much needed support.”
“Educast is bringing over 150 Pakistani licensed women doctors from 12 countries for teleconsulting and remote health care diagnostic and mental health counselling to women and children suffering Israeli atrocities,” Abdullah Butt, chief executive officer of Educast, told Arab News.
“Palestine’s Young Explorer organization will funnel our services through its system and redirect it to about 20,000 women currently using its platform who will be able to receive video-based consultation from Pakistani e-doctors,” he said. “We will be providing our services to war-torn areas of Al Quds, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
Young Explorer aims to facilitate Educast in areas where basic health facilities and infrastructure have been destroyed by Israeli forces.
“We are giving our platform for the telehealth campaign,” Dajani said. “All our human resources will work on tech, marketing, social media, design and coordination with doctors. The service is expected to start within a week.”
“In Gaza, access to health is very limited due to the continuous rocket attacks,” she added. “Kids are under intense pressure and fear. In the West Bank, there are medical centers, but we will use the power of social media and the Internet to reach large numbers of people.”
Doctors who have volunteered for the service expressed deep emotions while discussing the opportunity of serving the people of Palestine.
“I will be pleased to utilize my knowledge of medicine to serve Palestinian sisters and children,” Dr. Rehana Din Mohammad, a physician based in Oman, said.
“I have gained experience of handling hundreds of COVID-19 patients in Pakistan,” Dr. Faizah Ayub Khan, a doctor based in the United Arab Emirates, told Arab News. “Now I am determined to provide full support to my Palestinian sisters.”
Dr. Tayeba Khan, a mental health expert based in Canada, said women and children in Palestine were facing traumatic circumstances unleashed by Israeli attacks, saying she “could not wait” to provide the required assistance to these people.
Educast has previously provided similar services to people in Yemen.
“After successfully establishing three maternal child health tele-centers in the war zone of Yemen, we are now launching another timely initiative in Palestine,” Butt said.
Educast and Young Explorers are both winners of the 2019 Islamic Development Bank’s Transform Fund. The funding is part of the bank’s $500 million grant established to improve quality of life in the Muslim world through technological innovation.
Pak-Saudi telehealth platform joins hands with Palestinian startup to aid war-ravaged families
https://arab.news/95z5m
Pak-Saudi telehealth platform joins hands with Palestinian startup to aid war-ravaged families
- Educast will offer Palestinian startup Young Explorer the consultation services of over 100 female doctors to help families in Gaza and West Bank
- About 20,000 women currently using the Young Explorer platform will be able to receive video-based consultation from Pakistani doctors
What is The Resistance Front, designated by US as ‘terrorist’ group?
- US designation follows April attack in Kashmir that killed 26, later claimed by group online
- Indian officials link TRF to Lashkar-e-Taiba, Islamabad denies official complicity in attack
The US government has designated The Resistance Front, also known as the Kashmir Resistance, as a ” foreign terrorist organization” following an April 22 militant attack in Indian Kashmir that killed 26 people. The group initially took responsibility for the attack in Pahalgam before denying it days later. Following are some facts about the group.
WHAT IS TRF?
TRF emerged in 2019 and is considered an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a Delhi-based think tank.
Indian security officials said TRF uses the name Kashmir Resistance on social media and online forums, where it claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack in Indian Kashmir’s Pahalgam area.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States, is the Islamist group accused of plotting attacks in India and in the West, including the three-day assault on Mumbai in November 2008.
“This is basically a front of the LeT. These are groups which have been created over the last years, particularly when Pakistan was under pressure from the Financial Action Task Force and they were trying to create a pattern of denial that they were involved in terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Ajai Sahni, head of the South Asia Terrorism Portal.
HOW HAS THE PROBE ADVANCED?
On June 22, India’s anti-terror National Investigation Agency said it had arrested two men who harbored three militants involved in the Pahalgam attack.
The agency said in a statement that the arrested men had revealed the identities of the attackers, and confirmed they were Pakistani nationals affiliated to the
Lashkar-e-Taiba. Islamabad denies any involvement.
WHAT HAS THE GROUP DONE?
The group has not previously had any large incidents attributed to it, according to Sahni.
“All TRF operations are essentially LeT operations. There will be some measure of operational freedom as to where they hit on the ground, but the sanction would have come from the LeT,” Sahni said.
WHAT DOES INDIA SAY ABOUT TRF?
India’s interior ministry told parliament in 2023 that the group had been involved in the planning of killings of security force personnel and civilians in Jammu and Kashmir.
The group also coordinated the recruitment of militants and the smuggling of weapons and narcotics across the border, the ministry said.
Intelligence officials told Reuters that TRF had also been issuing online threats against pro-India groups for the past two years.
WHAT DOES PAKISTAN SAY?
Pakistan has denied that it supports and funds militants in Kashmir, saying it offers only moral and diplomatic support.
Around 300 Pakistani graduates complete advance agriculture training in China under landmark initiative
- The agriculture sector contributes nearly a quarter of Pakistan’s gross domestic product, employs 37 percent of national labor force
- Pakistan decided to send 1,000 graduates to China to train in modern agricultural techniques after PM Sharif’s visit to Shaanxi last year
ISLAMABAD: A first batch of around 300 Pakistani graduates have successfully completed advanced agriculture training in China’s Shaanxi province, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced on Friday, describing the development as “very heartening.”
Pakistan decided to send nearly 1,000 graduates to China to train in methods and techniques to enhance Pakistani agricultural production following Sharif’s visit to the Chinese agricultural, industrial and educational hub of Xi’an, Shaanxi in June last year.
In a post on X, Sharif thanked the Chinese leadership, the Shaanxi government and the universities that imparted hands-on training to Pakistani graduates as well as appreciated the Pakistani national food security ministry, higher education commission and the Pakistani embassy for their hard work.
“Very heartening to know that the first batch of around 300 Pakistani agriculture graduates have successfully completed their hands-on practical training in Shaanxi Province, China, in important areas of water saving irrigation, seed production, animal husbandry, agriculture production and prevention of post-harvest losses,” he said.
The agriculture sector contributes nearly a quarter of Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) and employs 37 percent of the national labor force, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.
However, a fast-growing population, climate change and poor resource management have greatly impacted Pakistan’s crops in recent years, prompting officials to ponder alternative ways to enhance production.
Experts say building water reservoirs, restoring wetlands and promoting drought-tolerant crop varieties is vital to mitigating recurring and intensifying drought risks in the country.
“Rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge and the adoption of modern irrigation methods like drip and sprinkler systems are no longer optional,” Muhammad Saleem Shaikh, a spokesperson for Pakistani climate change ministry, said in Jan. this year.
“They are critical tools in our survival weaponry.”
Slashed US aid showing impact as Congress codifies cuts
- Nearly 500 metric tons of high-nutrition biscuits, meant to keep alive malnourished children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, were incinerated after expiration in Dubai
- But State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce took a more defiant tone on Thursday, saying the biscuits represented less than one percent of US global food aid
WASHINGTON, US: The United States’ destruction of a warehouse worth of emergency food that had spoiled has drawn outrage, but lawmakers and aid workers say it is only one effect of President Donald Trump’s abrupt slashing of foreign assistance.
The Senate early Thursday approved nearly $9 billion in cuts to foreign aid as well as public broadcasting, formalizing a radical overhaul of spending that Trump first imposed with strokes of his pen on taking office nearly six months ago.
US officials confirmed that nearly 500 metric tons of high-nutrition biscuits, meant to keep alive malnourished children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, were incinerated after they passed their expiration date in a warehouse in Dubai.
Lawmakers of the rival Democratic Party said they had warned about the expiring food since March. Senator Tim Kaine said that the inaction in feeding children “really exposes the soul” of the Trump administration.
Michael Rigas, the deputy secretary of state for management, acknowledged to Kaine that blame lay with the shuttering of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which was merged into the State Department after drastic cuts.
“I think that this was just a casualty of the shutdown of USAID,” Rigas said Wednesday.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, however, took a more defiant tone Thursday, saying the biscuits represented less than one percent of US global food aid, using figures that appeared to come from before Trump’s cutbacks.
“We will not be lectured about the issue of food aid or what we do for the rest of the world,” she said.
The Atlantic magazine, which first reported the episode, said that the United States bought the biscuits near the end of Biden administration for around $800,000 and that the Trump administration’s burning of the food was costing taxpayers another $130,000.
For aid workers, the biscuit debacle was just one example of how drastic and sudden cuts have aggravated the impact of the aid shutdown.
Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president for global policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, said that large infrastructure projects were shut down immediately, without regard to how to finish them.
“This really was yanking the rug out, or turning the the spigot off, overnight,” she said.
She pointed to the termination of a USAID-backed Mercy Corps project to improve water and sanitation in the turbulent east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Work began in 2020 and was scheduled to end in September 2027.
“Infrastructure projects are not things where 75 percent is ok. It’s either done or it’s not,” she said.
The House of Representatives is expected late Thursday to finalize the end of funding for what White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called “$9 billion worth of crap.”
It includes ending all $437 million the United States would have given to several UN bodies including the children’s agency UNICEF and the UN Development Programme. It also pulls $2.5 billion from development assistance.
Under pressure from moderate Republicans, the package backs off from ending PEPFAR, the anti-HIV/AIDS initiative credited with saving 25 million lives since it was launched by former president George W. Bush more than two decades ago.
Republicans and the Trump-launched Department of Government Efficiency, initially led by tycoon Elon Musk, have pointed to projects they argue do not advance US interests.
“We can’t fund transgender operas in Peru with US taxpayer dollars,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters, an apparent reference to a US grant under the Biden administration for the staging of an opera in Colombia that featured a transgender protagonist.
The aid cuts come a week after the State Department laid off more than 1,300 employees as Secretary of State Marco Rubio ended or merged several offices, including those on climate change, refugees and human rights.
Rubio called it a “very deliberate step to reorganize the State Department to be more efficient and more focused.”
Senate Democrats issued a scathing report that accused the Trump administration of ceding global leadership to China, which has been increasing spending on diplomacy and disseminating its worldview.
The rescissions vote “will be met with cheers in Beijing, which is already celebrating America’s retreat from the world under President Trump,” said Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Five private firms pitch routes as Pakistan eyes Gwadar-Gulf ferry corridor
- Five companies submit proposals as Islamabad reviews technical, financial feasibility of Gulf route
- Plan aims to position Gwadar as key maritime hub connecting South Asia, Gulf and Central Asia
KARACHI: Pakistan has been mulling routes for a ferry service it plans to launch to connect its southwestern Gwadar port with the Gulf region, the country’s maritime affairs ministry said on Friday.
The statement came after a meeting presided over by Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Junaid Anwar Chaudhry to review matters relating to the proposed ferry service.
Officials at the meeting reviewed technical and financial aspects of ferry operations, according to the ministry. Five privately-owned firms submitted their proposals, showing growing interest of the private sector.
“The ferry service will promote regional connectivity and trade,” Chaudhry was quoted as saying by his ministry. “It is expected to ease movement of passengers and goods from Gulf countries.”
Gwadar, situated along the Arabian Sea, lies at the heart of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), under which Beijing has funneled tens of billions of dollars into massive transport, energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan.
Pakistani officials say the geostrategic location of the southwestern Pakistani coastal town in the Balochistan province offers the shortest trade route to the Gulf and landlocked Central Asian states, highlighted its potential as a regional transshipment hub.
During the meeting, Chaudhry telephoned Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti and discussed provincial cooperation with him, according to the maritime affairs ministry. Bugti assured his full cooperation for the project.
“The ferry service will highlight Gwadar on the international maritime map,” Chaudhry added.
The development comes amid Pakistan’s efforts to capitalize on its geostrategic location to boost transit trade as it slowly recovers from a macroeconomic crisis under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program.
The country also plans to cut container dwell time at its seaports by up to 70 percent to improve trade competitiveness and ease congestion, while it last month reduced port charges for exporters by 50 percent at the second largest Port Qasim.
Pakistan says mobilizing all resources to ensure public safety after rains kill nearly 180
- Heavy rains this week flooded several cities as Pakistan braces for a tough monsoon amid erratic and extreme weather changes
- PM Shehbaz Sharif has called for formulating a coordinated plan to prevent losses in view of growing intensity of weather events
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Thursday that the government was mobilizing all resources to ensure public safety as rain-related death toll jumped to 178 since late June.
The statement came after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited the NDMA’s the National Emergencies Operation Center and called for formulating a coordinated plan to prevent losses in view of growing intensity of cloud bursts, heavy monsoon showers and flash floods.
Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province has been the hardest hit with 103 deaths, followed by 38 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 20 in Sindh, 16 in Balochistan and one in Azad Kashmir since June 26, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
“Despite the challenges posed by the ongoing rains, we’re working round the clock to ensure everyone’s safety,” Naqvi said on X.
“Rescue teams are on alert, drains are being cleared, and all resources are being mobilized.”
He urged people to follow adviseries and promptly report any emergencies to authorities.
On Thursday, Army Aviation helicopters carried out rescue operations, evacuating 40 people to safety from hard-to-reach areas in Punjab’s Jhelum district.
“Widespread thunderstorm with isolated heavy falls and torrential rains were expected Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Lahore, Sahiwal, Bahawalpur, Multan and DG Khan divisions, according to the NDMA.
The authority said the wet spell was likely to subside by Saturday.
Monsoon season brings South Asia 70 to 80 percent of its annual rainfall, arriving in early June in India and late June in Pakistan, and lasting through until September.
The annual rains are vital for agriculture and food security, and the livelihoods of millions of farmers. But increasingly erratic and extreme weather patterns are turning the rains into a destructive force.
In 2022, record-breaking monsoon rains combined with glacial melt submerged nearly a third of Pakistan, killing more than 1,700 people and displacing over 8 million. In May, at least 32 people were killed in severe storms, including strong hailstorms.
