FARUKH SHEHZAD

He informed the minister that presently 1.4 million students are enrolled in AIOU while the university has graduated 36 lac students so far

ISLAMABAD, NOV 4 - Federal minister for Education and Professional Training, Mr. Shafqat Mehmood, inaugurated the newly constructed Science Block of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) today (Wednesday).

Tashkent, NOV 4 – President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting on the priority tasks of improving the activities of the domestic hydrometeorological service.

The hydrometeorological service is important for many areas, such as agriculture, energy, transport, ecology. But due to the lack of proper attention over the years, this area in Uzbekistan has lagged behind the times. Upper-air observations have not been conducted since 1995, which reduces the reliability of weather data. 

According to international standards, there should be 4,000 stations on the territory of our country, but in reality there are only 335.

The material and technical base of the Center for Hydrometeorological Service is outdated, and the economic profitability is low. In particular, over the past 9 months, the center was able to cover only 6 percent of expenses from its own income.

– Hydrometeorology is one of the areas important for ensuring our security. Today the main task is to change the quality of services in the system, – said Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

The meeting presented a presentation on the phased commercialization of the center’s services.

Today meteorological data is provided free of charge to 35 departments, including about 20 commercial organizations. The cost of services is lower than the cost and has not been revised for 15 years.

The head of state stressed the importance of revising prices and expanding the coverage of paid services.

The presence of many unused features is indicated. For example, next year, on the basis of a public-private partnership, one solar power plant will be built in Karmaninsky and Nurabad districts, and in 2022 – three solar and one wind power plants. These stations will use the services of the meteorological service to plan their power generation.

In addition, it is possible to provide paid services to Internet services for weather forecasting, clusters and foreign scientific institutions.

The Hydrometeorological Center stores observational data for the last 100 years. That’s 18 million sheets. The meeting set the task of fully digitizing this data.

The deficiencies in the material and technical support of the meteorological service are considered in detail. It was noted that only 14 out of 70 weather stations are automated. The weather forecast is made using 10-year-old software, which negatively affects the promptness of preparing data on weather and natural disasters. It was emphasized that the existing three weather radars – in Tashkent, Samarkand and Nukus – are not enough.

In this regard, it was instructed to install locators in Bukhara, Navoi, Surkhandarya and Namangan regions in the coming years, automate all meteorological stations, build new stations and posts. The implementation of these measures will improve the quality and efficiency of the meteorological service.

Uzhydromet is the regional center of the World Meteorological Organization. Stressing the importance of preserving this status, the head of state instructed to organize a regional hub in Samarkand in 2022 to collect, process and store backup data.

Meteorological data is one of the important factors in ensuring the efficiency of agriculture. Overseas enterprises of the agro-industrial complex are provided with more than 20 types of services such as determination of plant moisture, precipitation, soil temperature. In our country, there are only 9 such services. Agrometerological observations are carried out at 96 stations and posts, their number has increased by only 5 over the past 10 years, which is why the reliability of forecasts does not exceed 80-85 percent.

The Center for the Hydrometeorological Service was instructed to create additional agrometeorological posts in each region next year. The President noted the importance of installing agrometeorological stations and measuring instruments in Jizzakh and Kashkadarya regions within the framework of a grant from the World Food and Agriculture Organization, expanding the range of services to 14, and then introducing this experience in all regions. The task was to develop software for servicing farms and clusters online.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev paid special attention to the development of science and increasing the personnel potential of the sphere. It was pointed out the need to organize in the next academic year a faculty of hydrometeorology at the National University of Uzbekistan, on the basis of the Tashkent Hydrometeorological Technical School, to establish training and advanced training of modern mid-level specialists.

It was also instructed to increase the wages of workers in the sphere and introduce a system of bonuses for many years of experience.

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Joe Biden wins longtime Republican stronghold Arizona, locked in other tight races with Trump

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday falsely claimed that he had won the US election with millions of votes still uncounted and said he would go the Supreme Court to dispute the counting of votes.

“Frankly, we did win this election,” Trump said after claiming he was winning several battleground states where votes were still being tallied.

Trump's comments came after Democratic rival, Joe Biden, said he was confident of winning a contest that will not be resolved until a handful of states complete vote-counting over the next hours or days.

The Republican, who according to initial results is in a neck-and-neck race with Democrat Joe Biden, said he would go to court and wanted "all voting to stop”.

"We'll be going to the US Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop. In fact, there is no more voting just counting," he said.

He appeared to mean stopping the counting of mail-in ballots which can be legally accepted by state election boards after Tuesday's election, provided they were sent in time.

Election laws in all US states require all votes to be counted. More votes still stood to be counted this year than in the past as people voted early by mail and in person in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump won the battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and Texas, dashing Biden's hopes for a decisive early victory, but Biden said he was on track to winning the White House by taking three key Rust Belt states.

Biden, 77, was eyeing the so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that sent Trump, 74, to the White House in 2016 for possible breakthroughs once those states finish counting votes in hours or days to come.

Trump has repeatedly and without evidence suggested that an increase in mail-in voting will lead to an increase in fraud, although election experts say that fraud is rare and mail-in ballots are a long-standing feature of American elections.

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Biden has won California, Oregon and Washington state, while President Donald Trump has won Idaho and Florida.

An avalanche of early votes fed Democrats’ high hopes of ending decades of losses in Texas, where polls showed Joe Biden running unusually close. But Trump carried Texas for a second straight year.

Trump won Texas by 9 percentage points in 2016 and all but took a win here for granted. He didn’t swing through Texas for campaign rallies or swamp television airwaves, and his conservative allies on the ground scoffed at Biden’s chances as a far reach.

Trump also won Florida and its 29 electoral votes, the biggest prize among the perennial battlegrounds and a state crucial to his reelection hopes.

A victory in Florida means re-election is within Trump’s grasp. A loss in the state would have made it nearly impossible for Trump to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to retain the White House.

Electoral College votes are assigned to each state, in part based on their population.

Biden still has multiple paths to the 270 electoral votes he needs without Florida despite having spent lots of time and money trying to flip the state that backed Trump in 2016.

Other competitive swing states that will help decide the election, including North Carolina, remained up in the air.

Biden won California, Oregon and Washington state, while President Donald Trump won Idaho.

California, Oregon and Washington are all liberal states, while Idaho is conservative.

California has 55 electoral votes, the biggest haul of any state. It’s also the home of Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris. She served as the San Francisco district attorney and the state’s attorney general before winning election to the Senate in 2016.

Trump won Ohio and its 18 electoral votes, holding on to a battleground state where the race against Biden had tightened in recent months.

The Republican nominee comfortably carried the Midwestern state four years ago, but polls heading into the final weeks showed Biden well within range, forcing the president to spend more time in the state than anyone expected.

Trump also won four of Nebraska’s five electoral votes, while Biden won one electoral vote from the state. Biden’s win in the 2nd Congressional District, which includes Omaha, is a flip from 2016, when Trump narrowly won it against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Early wins

Soon after the polling time ended, AP reported that President Trump had won Kentucky, and Biden had carried Vermont.

There were also some predictable victories for each candidate, with Trump taking Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma and Biden winning Massachusetts, his home state of Delaware and Virginia, a former battleground that has become a Democratic stronghold.

Trump also took West Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Meanwhile, Biden won Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New Mexico, New York, the District of Columbia and Colorado.

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BAKU, NOV 4 (DN) - Since September 27, 2020 the armed forces of Armenia have been targeting the civilian population, private houses and civilian infrastructure in Azerbaijan in a deliberate, widespread and systematic manner. 

By doing so, Armenia grossly violates its obligations under international humanitarian law, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols as well as disregards the humanitarian ceasefire declared on October 10, 18 and 26.

On November 3, Armenia continued to launch attacks in various directions, including across the international border with Azerbaijan. The border regions of Azerbaijan -  Gadabay, Tovuz and Dashkesan were fired at from Berd, Chambarak and Vardenis regions of Armenia.

Moreover, Armenia’s armed forces targeted Aghdam and Aghjabadi regions with heavy artillery. Fizuli city and its surrounding villages were attacked with 300 mm “Smerch” MLRS.

As of November 2, Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) found 314 unexploded ordnances (UXO), 1173 bomblets from 9N235 cluster munition, 698 exploded missiles part, 1627 anti-personal mines, 276 pieces of anti-tank mines, explosives of 476 anti-tank mines and etc.

On November 2, while on duty in ANAMA’s deminer was hit by anti-personal mine placed by Armenia’s armed forces in the Jabrail region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the explosion, the deminer’s left leg was amputated from the ankle.

As of November 3, as a result of Armenia’s attack 91 civilians, including children, women and elderly were killed, 405 civilians have been hospitalized with serious injuries. Moreover, 2488 private houses, 97 apartment buildings and 461 civilian infrastructure were destroyed or damaged.=DN

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“All the territories of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia must be liberated and all these territories must be returned to Azerbaijan”

BAKU, NOV 4 (DN) - Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan has said that we highly appreciate the statement made by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and the support given to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

“All the territories of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia must be liberated and all these territories must be returned to Azerbaijan”, the Supreme Leader said, reiterating the strong support of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Azerbaijan's just position based on international law.

Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan further said we highly value the efforts of the friendly Iranian state to resolve the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, including the visit of the Special Envoy of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi to the region and the initiative on the settlement of the conflict as soon as possible.

We believe that the relations between our countries, built on historical roots, will continue to develop successfully and will serve to ensure peace, stability and prosperity in the region.=DN

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Trump takes Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma while Biden wins Delaware and Virginia.

US President Donald Trump was narrowly leading Democratic rival Joe Biden in the vital battleground state of Florida on Tuesday while other competitive swing states that will help decide the election outcome remained up in the air.

Soon after the polling time ended, AP reported that President Trump had won Kentucky, and Biden had carried Vermont.

There were also some predictable victories for each candidate, with Trump taking Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma and Biden winning Massachusetts, his home state of Delaware and Virginia, a former battleground that has become a Democratic stronghold.

Trump also took West Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nebraska’s 3rd Congressional District, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Meanwhile, Biden won Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New Mexico, New York, the District of Columbia and Colorado.

It was too early to call, in a tight race, the battleground of Florida as well as Georgia. In Florida, a must-win state for Trump in his quest for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, Trump was leading Biden 50.3 per cent to 48.7pc with about 89pc reported.

Biden still has multiple paths to the 270 electoral votes he needs without Florida despite having spent lots of time and money trying to flip the state that backed Trump in 2016.

Voters, many wearing masks and maintaining social distancing to guard against the spread of the coronavirus, experienced long lines in a few locales and short waits in many other places. There were no signs of disruptions or violence at polling sites, as some officials had feared.

The winner — who may not be determined for days — will lead a nation strained by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people and left millions more jobless, racial tensions and political polarisation that has only worsened during a vitriolic campaign.

Control of the Senate is at stake, too: Democrats needed to net three seats if Biden captured the White House to gain control of all of Washington for the first time in a decade. The House was expected to remain under Democratic control.

A new anti-scaling fence was erected around the White House, and in downtowns from New York to Denver to Minneapolis, workers boarded up businesses lest the vote lead to unrest.

With the worst public health crisis in a century still fiercely present, the pandemic — and Trump’s handling of it — was the inescapable focus for 2020.

For Trump, the election stood as a judgment on his four years in office, a term in which he bent Washington to his will, challenged faith in its institutions and changed how America was viewed across the globe.

Rarely trying to unite a country divided along lines of race and class, he has often acted as an insurgent against the government he led while undermining the nation’s scientists, bureaucracy and media.

At the White House on Tuesday night, more than 100 family members, friends, donors and staff were set to watch returns from the East Room.

Trump was watching votes come in upstairs in the residence with a few close aides. Most top campaign officials were monitoring returns from a “war room” set up in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Biden spent the day last-minute campaigning in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he was born, and in Philadelphia with a couple of local stops in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was spending Election Night.

The president began his day on an upbeat note, predicting that he’d do even better than in 2016. But during a midday visit to his campaign headquarters, he spoke in a gravelly, subdued tone.

“Winning is easy,” Trump told reporters. “Losing is never easy, not for me it’s not.”

Trump left open the possibility of addressing the nation on Tuesday night, even if a winner hadn’t been determined. Biden was also scheduled to give a nighttime speech from Wilmington.

“I’m superstitious about predicting what an outcome’s gonna be until it happens [...] but I’m hopeful,” said Biden. “It’s just so uncertain [...] you can’t think of an election in the recent past where so many states were up for grabs.”

With the coronavirus now surging anew, voters ranked the pandemic and the economy as top concerns in the race between Trump and Biden, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate.

Voters were especially likely to call the public health crisis the nation’s most important issue, with the economy following close behind. Fewer named health care, racism, law enforcement, immigration or climate change

The survey found that Trump’s leadership loomed large in voters’ decision-making. Nearly two-thirds of voters said their vote was about Trump — either for him or against him.

The momentum from early voting carried into Election Day, as an energised electorate produced long lines at polling sites throughout the country.

Voters braved worries of the coronavirus, threats of polling place intimidation and expectations of long lines caused by changes to voting systems, but appeared undeterred as turnout appeared it would easily surpass the 139 million ballots cast four years ago.

No major problems arose on Tuesday, outside the typical glitches of a presidential election: Some polling places opened late, robocalls provided false information to voters in Iowa and Michigan, and machines or software malfunctioned in some counties in the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Texas.

The cybersecurity agency at the Department of Homeland Security said there were no outward signs by midday of any malicious activity.

The record-setting early vote — and legal skirmishing over how it would be counted — drew unsupported allegations of fraud from Trump, who had repeatedly refused to guarantee he would honor the election’s result.

Referendum on Trump

Supporters of both candidates called the election a referendum on Trump and his tumultuous first term. No US president has lost a re-election bid since Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Among the most closely contested states that are expected to determine the outcome are Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia, with Democrats hoping that Biden may even threaten Trump in states that once seemed certain to go Republican such as Ohio, Iowa and Texas.

Trump is seeking another term in office after a chaotic four years marked by the coronavirus crisis, an economy battered by pandemic shutdowns, an impeachment drama, inquiries into Russian election interference, US racial tensions and contentious immigration policies.

Biden is looking to win the presidency on his third attempt after a five-decade political career including eight years as vice president under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.

Biden has promised a renewed effort to fight the public health crisis, fix the economy and bridge America’s political divide. The country this year was also shaken by months of protests against racism and police brutality.

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Trump began the day on an upbeat note, predicting that he'd do even better than in 2016, but during a midday visit to his campaign headquarters, spoke in a gravelly, subdued tone

US President Donald Trump and Joe Biden handed their fate on Tuesday to voters, who will decide which man will steer the country through the surging pandemic that has killed over 231,000 people, destroyed jobs and reshaped nearly every aspect of American life.

With almost 102 million Americans voting early and millions more waiting in lines on Election Day, the rancorous campaign across a polarised nation clearly struck a nerve with the electorate.

“The most important issue is for us to set aside our personal differences that we have with each other,” said Eboni Price, 29, who rode her horse Moon to her polling place in a northwest Houston neighbourhood.

With the worst public health crisis in a century bearing down, the pandemic — and Trump's handling of it — became the inescapable focus for 2020.

Trump began the day on an upbeat note, predicting that he'd do even better than in 2016, but during a midday visit to his campaign headquarters, spoke in a gravelly, subdued tone.

“Winning is easy,” he told reporters. “Losing is never easy, not for me it’s not.”

In and around polling places across the country, reminders of a 2020 election year shaped by the pandemic, civil unrest and bruising political partisanship greeted voters.

Many wore masks to the polls either by choice or by official mandate with the coronavirus outbreak raging in many parts of the country.

After a summer of nationwide protests against police violence and racism, businesses in several major US cities were again boarded up as a precaution against unrest, an extraordinary sight on Election Day in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups said they were watching closely for signs of voter intimidation, and the US Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said it would deploy staff to 18 states.

Democratic presidential candidate Biden asked Americans to trust him as they had in 2008 and 2012 alongside Barack Obama. "We can heal the soul of this nation — I promise we won’t let you down," he tweeted.

Voters in Dixville Notch, a village of 12 residents in the US state of New Hampshire, kicked off Election Day at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday by voting unanimously for Biden.

The vote and count only took a few minutes, with five votes for Biden and none for President Donald Trump.

Polls began opening on the East Coast on Tuesday as election officials warned that millions of absentee ballots could slow the tallies, perhaps for days, in some key battleground states and as Trump threatened legal action to prevent ballots from being counted after Election Day.

Those yet to vote headed to polling places on Tuesday despite another spike in Covid-19 cases that has hit much of the country. Among those braving the polls were voters who may have wanted to vote by mail but waited too long to request a ballot or those who didn’t receive their ballots in time.

Election officials across some 10,000 voting jurisdictions scrambled to purchase personal-protective equipment, find larger polling places, replace veteran poll workers who opted to sit out this year’s election due to health concerns and add temporary workers to deal with the avalanche of mail ballots.

Later in the day, Trump again sought to sow doubt over the counting of ballots beyond election day, saying the country was “entitled” to know who won on the day of the vote.

“You have to have a date, and the date happens to be November 3,” he said during a visit to Republican National Committee offices in Arlington, Virginia.

“And we should be entitled to know who won on November 3.”

Biden leading in polls

More than 99 million Americans have cast their ballots in early voting, according to the US Elections Project.

The United States is more divided and angry than at any time since the Vietnam War era of the 1970s — and fears that Trump could dispute the result of the election are only fueling those tensions.

Despite an often startlingly laid-back campaign, Biden, 77, leads in almost every opinion poll, buoyed by his consistent message that America needs to restore its “soul” and get new leadership in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people.

Hours before the polling was to begin, Biden tweeted that he would "govern as an American president".

"I will work with Democrats and Republicans, and I’ll work as hard for those who don’t support me as for those who do."

“I have a feeling we're coming together for a big win tomorrow,” Biden said in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a vital electoral battleground where he was joined by pop superstar Lady Gaga.

“It's time to stand up and take back our democracy.”

But Trump was characteristically defiant to the end, campaigning at a frenetic pace with crowded rallies in four states on Monday, and repeating his dark, unprecedented claims for a US president that the polls risk being rigged against him.

After almost non-stop speeches in a final three-day sprint, he ended up in the early hours of Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan — the same place where he concluded his epic against-the-odds campaign in 2016 where he defeated apparent front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Despite the bad poll numbers, the 74-year-old Republican real estate tycoon counted on pulling off another upset.

“We're going to have another beautiful victory tomorrow,” he told the Michigan crowd, which chanted back: “We love you, we love you!”

“We're going to make history once again,” he said.

Warning of violence

Trump himself is planning to visit his campaign headquarters in Virginia on Tuesday, while Biden will travel to his birthplace of Scranton, the scrappy Pennsylvania town where Trump also visited on Monday.

There are worries that if the election is close, extended legal chaos and perhaps violent unrest could ensue — not least because Trump has spent months trying to sap public trust in the voting process in a nation already bitterly divided along political fault lines.

He ramped up these warnings in the final days, focusing especially on Pennsylvania's rule allowing absentee ballots received within three days after Tuesday to be counted.

In a tweet flagged with a warning label by Twitter on Monday, he said this would “allow rampant and unchecked cheating”.

“It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!” Trump tweeted.

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