Headlines 12pm: PM Khan calls meeting on sugar commission

Here are the headlines from SAMAA TV’s 12pm bulletin.

• Prime Minister Imran Khan has summoned a meeting today (Sunday) to discuss the sugar commission. Ministers and cabinet members will attend the meeting. Decisions regarding the punishment of those named in the inquiry report will be made. Details of the meeting will be given later in the day by Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Accountability Shahzad Akbar.
• Information Minister Shibli Faraz says that the prime minister’s promise to go after those who patronised and benefited from the sugar mafia by fleecing the public will soon to be fulfilled. On the other hand Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed said that Shehbaz Sharif’s case is serious and his fate is jail.
• Pakistan has reported 67 COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours taking the country’s death toll to 2,000. A total of 4,960 new cases were reported. Punjab records more than 37,000 cases while Sindh’s count crossed 36,000. The total number of cases in the country stands at 98,943.
• A strict lockdown was imposed across the nation on Saturday and Sunday. Only grocery stores, milk shops and pharmacies were allowed to remain open. Businesses and shops were also closed down. People visiting markets are being sent back home and shops defying government orders are being sealed. Public and inter-city transport in Balochistan has resumed.
• Prime Minister Imran Khan has tweeted that a smart lockdown is the only way to combat the novel coronavirus while keeping the economy intact. He said that the public did not understand the severity of the lockdown. “I appeal to civil society, media, ulema and our Tiger Force to create awareness amongst the public of COVID-19’s severity and the need to strictly observe SOPs,” PM Khan said.
• Coronavirus has been deliberately spread across the country, PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Saturday, hinting at the federal government’s culpability. He criticised the government and said Sindh’s efforts to curb the disease have been sabotaged. PTI’s Murad Saeed responded to him by saying that PPP only talks but never does. He called out Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah for corruption.
• Private hospitals in Karachi have earned more than Rs33 billion from COVID-19 tests. Between Rs30,000 and Rs200,000 is charged if a patient is admitted for a day. The biggest hospital in the city is earning more than a Rs1 billion every day.
• The Airbus team has finished decoding the flight data and cockpit voice recorder from the PIA PK-8303 crash and handed the data over to the Pakistani investigation team. The data has now been handed over to Air Commodore Usman Ghani who is on his way back to Islamabad and will arrive today (Sunday).
• Robberies are on the rise in Karachi. A couple robbed a house in Soldier Bazaar and took money and gold. Another man in Federal B area broke a car’s glass and robbed it.
• Four people were killed and three are in critical condition after an accident on the M5 Motorway in Rahim Yar Khan. The deceased include a woman and children.
• Two groups clashed in Okara over a land issue. They punched and kicked each other. The matter was resolved after the police intervened. Four people were injured.
• More than 400,000 people have died from the novel coronavirus across the globe. America has reported the highest number of deaths followed by Brazil, Russia, Britain and India. The number of cases in Iran and Saudi Arabia have increased again. A curfew has been imposed in Jeddah.
• The death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in the US state of Minnesota at the hands of the police, brought tens of thousands out onto the streets during a pandemic that is ebbing in Asia and Europe but spreading in other parts of the world. Thousands gathered outside the parliament building in London. More marched in the northern English city of Manchester and Australia.
• In Washington, hundreds knelt and applauded in the street ahead of another mass rally, where Mayor Muriel Bowse has renamed the area outside the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza”.

Article source: https://www.samaa.tv/news/pakistan/2020/06/headlines-12pm-pm-khan-calls-meeting-on-sugar-commission/