Islamabad, May 17 (IANS) Undeterred by criticism, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Friday donned police uniform again – this time the crisp charcoal black of the provincial police’s Elite Force as she reviewed their passing out parade in Lahore.

“This is not a uniform, it is a national service that comes to the sons and daughters of a few nations. The uniform is an honour as well as a great test,” she said in her address, Geo News reported.

The Punjab CM assured the Elite Force personnel about providing them with all the necessary resources.

“Whatever the IG Punjab needs will be provided, there will be no shortage of resources,” she said in her address. Later, she was also caught on camera testing out their specialised weapons.

Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the country’s first female Chief Minister, also expressed her satisfaction that at least 70, among those passing out, are women. She also interacted with them after the parade.

This was not the first time that Maryam Nawaz wore a police uniform. Late last month, she donned the khaki Punjab Police attire while inspecting a passing-out parade of lady constables and traffic assistants at the Police Training College, Chung.

However, a section of people had questioned her right to wear the uniform, causing clashes on social media. Subsequently, the Punjab Police clarified that she was indeed “entitled to wear the police uniform” as per the Punjab Police Dress Regulations.

–IANS

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Cologne (Germany), May 17 (IANS/DPA) The Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute for Religion (DITIB) announced in Cologne on Friday that from 2025 onwards, 75 graduates of Islamic theology from Turkey will be trained in Germany every year.

The young men are to receive intensive German and integration courses in Germany. After a total of two years of training, they will be required to work as Imams in German DITIB mosques for at least 10 years.

“We offer them the prospect of staying in Germany so that cooperation in the local communities can flourish,” said DITIB Secretary General Eyup Kalyon.

The new Imam training programme is intended to gradually replace the more than 1,000 preachers currently working in Germany for the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet).

The German government and Turkey agreed on a roadmap for this in December because the Imams, who are usually sent by Diyanet for four years, follow instructions from Ankara as Turkish civil servants, hardly speak any German and usually only have a sketchy knowledge of the realities of life in German society.

The German government had announced that it would financially support the training of further Imams in Germany.

DITIB also wants to continue its Imam training programme, which has been running since 2020 and is aimed at Muslim theologians from Germany.

So far, a total of 58 men and women have been trained as “Islamic religious representatives” in two courses, said Kalyon.

–IANS/DPA

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Geneva, May 17 (IANS/DPA) The civil war in Sudan is on the brink of spiralling out of control, the United Nations warned on Friday, a year after the start of major fighting in the East African country.

At least 16,000 people died so far, with 33,000 injured and around nine million displaced, and a famine is now looming, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

More than a third of the people in the Sudanese capital Khartoum and in the Darfur region are already suffering from acute food deprivation, the agency said.

The number of children under the age of five and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers suffering from acute malnutrition has risen from 3.9 million at the beginning of 2023 to 4.9 million in 2024.

A bloody power struggle is raging between the forces of Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, an army general who is Sudan’s de facto leader, and his former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, spoke to the two men separately on the phone for the first time since 2022, his office reported on Friday.

He called on them to enter into peace negotiations, not to obstruct humanitarian aid in the country and to prevent atrocities committed by their fighters.

Both had agreed that international humanitarian law must be respected, Türk’s spokeswoman said. She did not give any details about further reactions from either side.

Concrete proposals for new peace negotiations or a meeting between the two men were not discussed, according to the spokeswoman.

During the calls, Türk expressed his extreme concern at the recent escalation of fighting between the sides in Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur.

There, 1.8 million inhabitants and displaced persons are caught between the fronts and have hardly any food left, he said.

–IANS/DPA

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Bratislava, May 17 (IANS/DPA) Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico remains in intensive care two days after the assassination attempt on his life and it is unclear if he will make a full recovery.

Fico was hit by four shots and underwent five hours of surgery in the Banska Bystrica hospital on Wednesday, according to the latest information provided by Fico’s deputy Robert Kalinak and Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok.

The severity of the injuries could make recovery difficult and Fico will “have to relearn many things,” Kalinak said. Even if Fico is responsive in the hospital, there is still no final certainty “that we have won.”

Health experts pointed out that complications after the operation could still be life-threatening. Kalinak is standing in for Fico during his absence.

The government office in Bratislava said additional information on the 59-year-old politician’s state of health will be released “when the situation allows.”

The office called on the media, politicians and the general public to disseminate only officially confirmed information, saying misleading false information and speculation have also been reported by the media.

–IANS/DPA

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Prague, May 17 (IANS/DPA) Slovakia’s former president Ivan Gasparovic on Friday expressed hopes that a deep schism within the country will be overcome following the attempted assassination this week of Prime Minister Robert Fico.

“Slovakia is totally divided,” 83-year-old Gasparovic lamented on Czech public television, adding that society had at least found some unity in this terrible moment.

“Even those who have completely different views on Fico and politics in Slovakia have realised that things can’t go on like this,” said Gasparovic, a lawyer who headed the country from 2004 to 2014.

The National Council, Slovakia’s unicameral parliament, had become “a circus tent and a boxing ring” where politicians’ private affairs are discussed or hatred is spread, he continued.

On Wednesday, Fico, 59, was hit by several gunshots fired by a single attacker as he greeted supporters in a square in the central Slovakian town of Handlová.

He is currently recovering in the university hospital in nearby Banska Bystrica after a long operation.

Regarding Fico’s condition after the surgery, Gasparovic said: “Not everything is in order, but his state is such that we have great hope that it will end well.”

A 71-year-old suspect who was charged on Thursday with the attempted murder of Fico was described by authorities as a “lone wolf” motivated by political grievances.

–IANS/DPA

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