Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday departed for London for a routine medical check-up, which was repeatedly postponed due to his official engagements over the past few months.
According to the premier’s spokesperson, Nawaz will undergo a detailed medical check-up which owing to his national engagements was postponed repeatedly.
However, sources in the ruling party said the PM was suggested to spend a week in London to relieve his ‘stress and anxiety’ because of the situation developed after Panama leaks. “PM Nawaz will also spend time with his children in London,” the source added.
The PM would spend the week with his children at his London residence, sources said, adding the PML-N was unhappy of his decision to address the nation on the issue of Panama Papers. It was, however, suggested by daughter Maryam Nawaz to clear his position in public.
A massive leak of 11.5 million tax documents on April 3 exposed the secret offshore dealings of world leaders and celebrities, also naming three of the premier’s children for owning London real estate through offshore companies.
The premier’s visit comes after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar cancelled his visit to the United States on the instructions of PM Nawaz. “In view of the prime minister’s programme to proceed to (the) United Kingdom for medical checkup, I have decided not to proceed to Washington to attend the Spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF),” Dar said in an official handout issued on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Senator Ahsan claimed that Premier Nawaz, who is flying to London ostensibly for ‘routine medical check-up’, would, in fact, meet Asif Ali Zardari to seek his support. “Nawaz Sharif is going to London to pay a visit in the court of Asif Zardari,” he told journalists outside the Parliament House. However, he warned that if his party bailed the prime minister out, it would suffer politically. “I will convey my views to PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto and Co-Chairman Asif Zardari,” Senator Ahsan added.
A spokesperson for Nawaz Sharif was quick to rebut the claim. “The prime minister did not express a desire to meet the PPP leadership during his upcoming London visit,” Mussadek Malik said in a statement. No such meeting is scheduled, he added.
Media jumps the gun again
Is there no verifying of news in Pakistan? It has been seen again and again that foreign news is aired as breaking news without – it seems – reading the details of the content. This leads to misquoting of people and "revealing of facts" that are not even part of the news.
This trend was once again seen during the expose of the Panama Leaks – an international investigative story that revealed that many high placed people had invested in off shore companies. Many people were named, some of them from Pakistan. However, there were some people who were not mentioned in the Panama leaks but their relatives were and the Pakistani media picked these up without verifying whether it was true.
Many people were not mentioned in the Panama Leaks but the media still named them. This is quite weird and unethical and time to take a step back to see why some among in the media jump the gun before making sure that the news is authentic.
For example a news channel – ARY – was once again breaking news with the name of the owner of Jang Group. But the sad part was that it did this without verifying if this was true or not. And it turned out that the news was false which resulting in once again damaging the image of this channel.
It would be better if channels would double check when blaming others for something that can be checked and can turn out to be false.
Another biased poster encouraging corruption. The Panama Papers needed no verification. They were already verified.
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