Islamabad: Pakistan senators are demanding an apology from billionaire Elon Musk, a lawmaker told AFP on Thursday, accusing him of “anti-Pakistan propaganda” as he seeks regulatory approval for his Starlink service in the country.
Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet service has applied for a license to operate in Pakistan but is awaiting clearance before users will be allowed to log on.
A senate committee on information technology and telecommunications met Wednesday to hear updates from officials assessing his application.
But committee chair Palwasha Mohammad Zai Khan told AFP “several senators denounced” Musk’s “anti-Pakistani propaganda” in recent comments he made on his social media platform X.
Musk has repeatedly highlighted claims that men of Pakistani origin were responsible for a spate of historic rape cases targeting mostly white girls in England.
“It was said that approval should be given on condition of his apology,” Khan told AFP.
“We are not saying it should be a pre-condition but it was a part of the discussion and we can only give our recommendations to the government,” she added.
Musk began launching attacks against the UK government this month after it resisted calls for a national inquiry into the historic abuse cases.
In Rotherham, a town of 265,000 inhabitants, a gang drugged, raped and sexually exploited at least 1,400 girls over a 16-year period from 1997, a public inquiry concluded in 2014.
A series of court cases eventually led to the conviction of dozens of men, mostly of South Asian origin. The victims were vulnerable, mostly white, girls.
An Indian lawmaker made a post on 8 January saying: “They aren’t ASIAN Grooming Gangs but PAKISTANI grooming gangs. Why should Asians take the fall for one absolute rogue nation?“
Musk commented with a message saying: “True.”
The historic abuse cases regularly prompt debate in the UK, where some claim they are used to enflame Islamaphobia while others say they are being quashed to prevent debate.
Whilst Musk’s electric vehicle and space ventures made him a billionaire, he has recently emerged as a political figure affiliated with newly inaugurated President Donald Trump.
Trump has tasked Musk, the world’s richest man, with slashing billions of dollars of federal government spending as head of a new “Department of Government Efficiency.”
Pakistan lawmakers seek Musk apology before Starlink approval
https://arab.news/bwfyj
Pakistan lawmakers seek Musk apology before Starlink approval
- Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet service has applied for a license to operate in Pakistan, but is awaiting clearance before users will be allowed to log on
- ‘Several senators denounced’ Musk’s ‘anti-Pakistani propaganda’ in recent comments he made on social media platform X, says Senate committee chair
Pakistan vaccinates over 26 million children amid declining polio cases
- Pakistani authorities say polio cases dropped to 31 in 2025 from 74 a year earlier
- Over 400,000 workers deployed as Pakistan, Afghanistan run simultaneous campaigns
KARACHI: Pakistan on Wednesday said its first nationwide polio vaccination drive of 2026 was continuing for a third day, with health workers having immunized more than 26.8 million children amid a decline in reported cases of the crippling disease.
The campaign, being conducted simultaneously in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, comes after Pakistan reported 31 polio cases in 2025, a significant drop from 74 cases in 2024, which officials had described as alarming.
More than 400,000 polio workers are going door to door across the country to administer oral polio drops to children, the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) said.
“More than 26.8 million children have been vaccinated nationwide in the first two days of the campaign,” it said in an update, urging parents to cooperate with vaccination teams and ensure their children receive the drops.
According to the statement, more than 14.5 million children have been vaccinated in Punjab, 5.88 million in Sindh, 4.32 million in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and around 1.28 million in Balochistan.
Vaccination figures also included nearly 294,000 children in Islamabad, more than 165,000 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 446,000 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Health authorities warned that polio is an incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis, stressing that sustained immunization efforts were essential to prevent its spread.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic, and both have stepped up coordinated vaccination drives in recent years amid concerns about cross-border transmission.
