Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00embassy has come forward
00:00:01of and said one of its citizens who was
00:00:05in
00:00:05a that deadly blast yesterday has now succumbed to injuries
00:00:09and lost his life, so that puts the death toll of
00:00:13yesterday's attack up to 13, and it's been a
00:00:17really tragic day in Saudi yesterday, we
00:00:20of lost a four Saudi citizens were killed a
00:00:23US citizen was killed along with many other
00:00:27nationalities in that blast that happened. but today, as the
00:00:31aviation authority is saying, they did
00:00:34of intercept the cruise missile. right now, at the moment,
00:00:38damages being assessed at the airport, operations at the
00:00:41airport are not um are are
00:00:45ceased right now, so as we know that if you want to take
00:00:49a flight out of
00:00:50of riad, the best thing to do is contact your airline, also
00:00:54check in with the government and with your embassy and um of
00:00:58course see what's happening. and on Thursday three people were also
00:01:02killed in a strike on the airport, so
00:01:06right now we are also seeing that there's been a real
00:01:10of escalation and we have had our reporters and teams at the
00:01:16of of hospital today inside of Riad along with the Saudi health minister visiting the
00:01:19victims from yesterday's airport
00:01:24of of blast and um seeing the extent of the injuries. okay so Lee we
00:01:27do understand there is... a statement on the part
00:01:31of the Saudi Lad coalition in response to this attack,
00:01:35especially on this airport, we we see pattern that has
00:01:38developed on the part
00:01:40of the huties when it comes to striking the critical
00:01:43infrastructure, whether it be
00:01:46the infrastructure related to
00:01:49of oil, whether it comes to the airports clearly
00:01:53happen to be
00:01:54of the civilian
00:01:55of interest
00:01:56of now, given that fact the the Saudi Coalition has
00:02:00spleged decisive response and
00:02:03described this action as a full fledged war
00:02:07crime, what could be the manifestation of that?
00:02:11of first of all, and secondly, when we talk about the security of such
00:02:15civilian infrastructure, including the
00:02:18airports, infrastructure related to
00:02:21oil,
00:02:23of what what
00:02:24are the preparation levels when it comes
00:02:26of to think such type of? acts on
00:02:30the part
00:02:32of of
00:02:34of just to reiterate, it's been a really sad moment in
00:02:38Riad over the last few days as the Houtis escalate
00:02:42attacks on civilian infrastructure, people are
00:02:45losing their lives,
00:02:47of Riad is continuing as normal to some extent, it's
00:02:51of conference and event season, so we do see those go ahead, but the
00:02:55Saudi Lad coalition, as you said has condemned yesterday's
00:02:59attack and they've called it a fully fledged war crime and it's
00:03:03on civilian infrastructure. right now there is going to
00:03:07of be decisive response. what that decisive response looks like
00:03:11is not clear at the moment. there are of course
00:03:14some options available to Saudi Arabia. they are
00:03:18backing Yemen's
00:03:20of international government at the moment in its fight against the hoothis inside of
00:03:24Yemen. back on Monday, we saw the
00:03:27in alien um the three countries Turkey. Pakistan and Saudi
00:03:31Arabia who are part
00:03:32of the Mecca Defense Alliance, they all met each
00:03:36other, there was an
00:03:37a emergency of meeting, they agreed to activate that pact, so
00:03:41right now we're just seeing wheels get into motion when it comes into
00:03:45that, but also we have a look inside of Yemen, we have
00:03:48seen the Yemeni government
00:03:50of forces and the Saudi coalition retake some of that
00:03:54critical area that the Hutis managed to
00:03:58a overcome last. so we've seen them retake
00:04:02babalmendeb straight, of course, mocka on
00:04:04of the red sea, which is really important because we must remember
00:04:08the baba mendeb straight is vital when it comes to
00:04:12oil transit, when it comes to shipping, it's one
00:04:15of the major toak points and as we know Iran is also trying
00:04:19to choke off the straight of homos at the moment, and what's interesting
00:04:23is
00:04:23of if you have look at the geography
00:04:25of the Babal Mendeb straight, it's very flat, so um...
00:04:30Saudi led coalition and the dawn of Yemen managed to make gains
00:04:34along there,
00:04:37of right, right, Mark coming back to you, Lee, please stay with us,
00:04:40Mark, when we talk about the civilian
00:04:43of infrastructure in particular, what could be the ideal options with the
00:04:47kingdom right now, in order to defend those, in order to
00:04:51ensure the safety
00:04:52of and of security
00:04:52of the critical civilian infrastructure such as the
00:04:56airports and the oil related infrastructure.
00:05:02Let me uh echo my uh fellow guest panelist comments, it's a sad
00:05:05day uh when any civilians are harmed uh in armed
00:05:09a conflict, and I would argue this isn't just armed conflict. "it's a terrorist
00:05:13attack uh that has now caused uh 13 deaths as she's
00:05:16reporting uh in Saudi Arabia, including one US
00:05:19individual. unfortunately Saudi Arabia is facing what many countries
00:05:23are right now, not just in the Gulf, but obviously Ukraine for instance as
00:05:27well, where the simply are not enough air defense assets to protect
00:05:31everything uh, and from a military standpoint and from
00:05:34economic standpoint, Saudi Arabia is trying to protect its
00:05:38military assets as well as its oil pipeline, which is its revenue for"
00:05:42survival uh that's so critical, especially that east-west
00:05:45pipeline uh, because uh without it as well as without
00:05:49pre-shipping uh through the red sea via the babal men dead straight as
00:05:53well uh Saudi Arabia has been forced to be routing tankers through
00:05:56the cape of good hope uh down around the Horn of
00:06:00Africa uh so
00:06:01you know that's not good i i don't know that there
00:06:04are any immediate uh answers to it because there's such a high
00:06:07demand for air defense assets at this point in time i know
00:06:11Pakistan itself is supplied your defense assets, and you've got
00:06:15800 troops from past you, military
00:06:18agreements on the ground inside of of Saudi
00:06:22Arabia to try to protect the kingdom, but it's going to take more, and there's just a
00:06:26shortage these type of interceptors, because I don't think the hoothies are going to
00:06:30stop, they have to fight aasymmetrical war against Saudi
00:06:33Arabia, and they can't likely make a big impact on military
00:06:37installations uh in the kingdom, but they can
00:06:40you know do these heinous type attacks. as your own Pakistani prime
00:06:44minister Shaz said, they can commit these quote unquote heinous attacks
00:06:48against civilian sites and I think they'll continue to do that. I think the best
00:06:52defense sadly in this case is for Saudi Arab to go on the
00:06:55offense and to use its american partners as quickly as they can
00:06:59uh to take the fight to the hoothies and not wait um take the as we
00:07:03like to say in military analysis take the archer out the person
00:07:07firing these missiles
00:07:08uh don't try to intercept the missiles each time because that archer has many.
00:07:12missiles uh that you can deny him use of if you take him
00:07:16out right,
00:07:18now president Donald Trump was asked whether there could be
00:07:22a possibility the US involvement militarily, he responded by
00:07:26saying we may, now this response how is
00:07:30being it has been received in Saudi Arabia and
00:07:34what are the expectations the Saudies when it comes to the US
00:07:38in this regard? I just want to reflect
00:07:41something, the panelist said just before me when it comes to
00:07:45protecting civilian infrastructure, just from what I'm hearing
00:07:49from the ground and what I'm aware of is yesterday
00:07:52there were several missiles fired towards the airport
00:07:57a rapid rate and um it's very difficult I think you
00:08:00know
00:08:01as you did say redeploying um these patriot
00:08:05missile systems to certain areas - because um
00:08:09Saudi Arabia is absolutely vast um as your panelists. would
00:08:12say and also just the volume of attacks
00:08:16has um been something which has surprised many, especially
00:08:20someone who lives here like um myself, but yes we
00:08:24did hear from president Donald Trump, of course no definitive
00:08:28answer from President Donald Trump, he said he might he
00:08:32might not, so we haven't actually got a decision yet
00:08:35from the US, so we're still waiting on that decision, of
00:08:39course Marco Rubio to also condemned. what had
00:08:43happened at the international airport here came out and said that we
00:08:47stand with the Saudi, Saudi are allies and we do know
00:08:51that, but it's going to be really interesting to see what the US does at the moment, and the
00:08:55reason for that is of course they currently in negotiations with Iran. I
00:08:59know Iran has responded to the US response on the seven-day
00:09:03straight of Hamos proposal, and they said that the US response is
00:09:07insufficient, so we know right now the US is waiting for
00:09:10response. um from Iran, they've got that,
00:09:14it's probably not looking like that is going to lead to an agreement,
00:09:18and we must remember President Donald Trump right now is facing those mid-term
00:09:22elections in November, he's got a choice to make,
00:09:26domestically, it's highly unpopular in the U.S., his
00:09:29war with Iran, and I think the coming days and
00:09:33weeks will tell us on what's going to happen, because the mecca defense
00:09:36alliance, the plan is obviously to mobilize equipment
00:09:40as quickly as possible and to get... that interposition and the dawn of
00:09:44Yemen attacks and the dawnment of Yemen operation apologies
00:09:48which has been led by the Yemeny government and the Saudi Led coalition from
00:09:52the air could make major gains, so it's a weight and see
00:09:56holding pattern here, every time I speak to analys, they say that's the
00:10:00situation we're in. Right, one quick
00:10:03last question from you, Mark, does diplomacy stand any chance when it
00:10:07comes to de-escalating the situation between the Houtis and the
00:10:11kingdom?
00:10:16I think your guest panelist is saying it exactly
00:10:20right, this is a staalmate at this point in time, it's also
00:10:24kind of a quagmar. uh in part because the US elections,
00:10:27Iran is betting uh that they can win this war uh by uh
00:10:31weakening President Trump at the polls, and while he may be winken that's not
00:10:35going to stop him as commander and chief uh from being able to order or having the
00:10:39capacity to order uh future strikes. I would say
00:10:43just quickly and in defense the the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I would hope that the
00:10:47US would do more uh this kind of attack is unacceptable, and I would
00:10:51also quickly point out one other aspect to all of this, uh, it is creating
00:10:55interest in dynamic because Pakistan up to now has acted as
00:10:58mediator between the US and Iran, and for mediator you need to
00:11:02be objective, but if Pakistan is now taking the fight to the hooties
00:11:06uh directly or indirectly in Yemen, suddenly you're participant
00:11:10especially if as I, argue that it is, Iran that's
00:11:14behind the atuthi attacks, so everything is kind of spinning out of
00:11:17control, even though for now up until the midterms, I suspect for the most
00:11:21part uh it to be a
00:11:42first segment of today's show, in the second segment we are going to
00:11:46understand as to what is exactly the
00:11:50Indian authority, the led by Bharatiya Janata party government of
00:11:54course led by its prime minister, Narendra Modi
00:11:57is doing with massive demonstrations and the protests
00:12:01which have erupted in number of cities, most primarily when we
00:12:05talk about New Delhi and Mumbai, especially when we talk
00:12:09about the government crackdown against the protest testers
00:12:13in Delhi, Delhi has been put under
00:12:17the extreme security restrictions.
00:12:20Now what does that actually signif when the people are protesting?
00:12:25against an exercise by the Election Commission of
00:12:28India in connivance with the federal authorities, which is
00:12:32of course has already mentioned Bhartiya Janata party led by its prime
00:12:36minister Narendra Modi, when it comes to revising
00:12:39intensively the electoral
00:12:43roles, as per number of reports,
00:12:46130 million people's names have
00:12:50been put off the electoral roles, what does
00:12:54that? what does that signif and it is
00:12:57happening under the garb the special
00:13:00intensive revision and the election commission
00:13:04the opposition parties say, especially when we talk about Indian National Congress,
00:13:08it's leader Rahul Gandhi, he has been put under brief
00:13:12detention, likewise when we talk about this
00:13:15crackdown, there are reports that more than 1000 people
00:13:19have been put under detention, there are barricades and
00:13:22even journalists have... been
00:13:25arrested and their mobile phones and their
00:13:29devices have been confiscated by the police and law
00:13:32enforcement agencies over there. the opposition blames bharatiya
00:13:36janata party and the election commission of india going for
00:13:40this exercise in order to
00:13:43eliminate the names the eligible voters, most particularly
00:13:47when we talk about the Muslim voters in order to give
00:13:51a disproportionate advantage to bhartiy. the party and
00:13:55there is pattern in that particular regard in certain
00:13:59constituencies where there was no government of bharatiya janata party
00:14:02before such revision of electoral roles, bharatiya janata
00:14:06party came into power after such
00:14:09revision, there are international concerns also being raised
00:14:13regarding this particular exercise on the part the election commission of
00:14:16India and the Bharattiya party let
00:14:19government to understand what exactly is happening
00:14:23when we talk about that claim. of being the largest democracy in the
00:14:26world, what does this show about the true nature
00:14:30of this so-called largest democracy in the world of
00:14:34India? for
00:14:50million voters names have been struck
00:14:54of. electoral roles in India
00:14:58under the so-called special intensive revision
00:15:02the electoral roles, how do you look at
00:15:06this particular act on the part the election commission of
00:15:09India? firstly and also when we talk
00:15:12about its
00:15:15connivance with the bhartiya janata party led government over
00:15:25democracy is dying, it's been dying for the last
00:15:2812 years ever since BJP under Narendra
00:15:32Modi took office, but 12 years of
00:15:36dying has brought India's democracy to
00:15:39near fatal or near death state
00:15:43in which, as you just told your viewers,
00:15:47130 million voters are being
00:15:50disenfranchised, for your Pakistani viewers,
00:15:54I'll put it into perspective, that the total number of
00:15:58Pakistani voters in 2024 was 136
00:16:01million, so essentially number of
00:16:05voters nearly equal to... "all of Pakistan's
00:16:08voters is being struck the roles
00:16:12and this is very
00:16:15determined and deliberate exercise to
00:16:19rig the vote, to finally
00:16:23disenfranchise minorities, particularly Muslims
00:16:26and also to use
00:16:30this very selective engineering tool to
00:16:33disenfranchise the new cockroat janta party."
00:16:37which is now protesting and its leaders have been arrested,
00:16:41but I think this
00:16:45130 million Indians being struck the roles
00:16:48is essentially the culmination of a 12 year
00:16:52exercise in which
00:16:55the abolishing the special state of Kashmir,
00:16:59article 370 the Indian constitution back in
00:17:022019 and then afterwards the citizenship act
00:17:05in which again... "the same exercise was tried in
00:17:09which the citizenship itself, the government of India tried
00:17:13to take away again, the principal victims of Muslims
00:17:16and there is a systematic repression of minorities
00:17:20across India. what has changed, I think this is what
00:17:24in my view has brought India's democracy to near
00:17:28fatal level, that the
00:17:32animous the government, the repression the government has
00:17:35now spread. from minorities and muslims
00:17:39to all those who oppose it, so even
00:17:43Hindus or lower cast Hindus or educated
00:17:46students who are now opposing it, are facing the same kind of
00:17:50retribution that Muslims and minorites have faced
00:17:53in the last 12 years, in fact Muslims in Gujarat
00:17:57faced it a genocidal level at the hands of Narendra
00:18:01Modi back in 2002, but essentially this
00:18:05widening of repression from Muslim. to all those
00:18:08who oppose the regime, it has brought India's
00:18:11democracy, and I think it's very difficult to now call it
00:18:14democracy in which such widespread repression can
00:18:18take place. Exactly, we we see that
00:18:22widespread resentment among various stat the society, from
00:18:26Muslims it is expanding towards the other
00:18:30communities as well, when we specifically try to
00:18:33understand as to the international concern and...
00:18:37India which claims to be the largest democracy in the world, that there are
00:18:41international covenants when it comes to the universal declaration of
00:18:45human rights, the international covenant on civil and political
00:18:49rights, also the entire world
00:18:53happens to be very sensitive when it comes to the right to
00:18:56vote and such practices that ultimately lead to
00:19:00disenfranchisement of such huge chunk
00:19:03of population a certain
00:19:06country. isn't the world
00:19:08cognis, what is exactly happening right now in India
00:19:12and what should it be ideally? the world is sensitive to it, but because
00:19:16of India's size, particularly the size of its economy, and we should
00:19:20never forget the growth rate that it keeps
00:19:24deceiving the world with, in which now there is convincing
00:19:27evidence that India has been overestimating it growth
00:19:31numbers for again for decades
00:19:34now, but particularly under Bharatiya Janata Party. is
00:19:37rule, which I think now
00:19:40I again to be perfectly candid should be deemed a
00:19:43Hinditwa government in which
00:19:46it is trying to make sure that through
00:19:49its engineering and repression
00:19:53that it remains in power and the
00:19:56world has taken notice of it, but India's size and
00:20:00India's economic growth stats still force the world
00:20:04to do business, but as we have seen ' that there
00:20:08is there is a method to this
00:20:12madness that Narendra Modi is pursuing, but this
00:20:15madness has brought India's slowly bringing
00:20:19India's growth miracle to an
00:20:21end, lot of
00:20:25multinationals and other investments are leaving
00:20:28India and there is a flip side to this repression is that
00:20:32India's and this Hindutva governments
00:20:36entrenched. hatred of Pakistan and its
00:20:39war mungering against Pakistan has also made
00:20:43the world realize that
00:20:47region a which India keeps threatening with war and
00:20:50particularly with two nuclear arm neighbors exist side by side
00:20:54is that region which Narendra Modi can plunge
00:20:58into war any time is not a good destination for investment so that
00:21:02is India is also suffering not only from the
00:21:05international sensitivity to repression and voter
00:21:09fraud it is also now being paying the price for this war
00:21:13mungering against Pakistan by you know by
00:21:16economically directly and also of course
00:21:20Overall, if you look at the larger picture,
00:21:23India's alliance with the United States is
00:21:27also in trouble, because India has not proven to
00:21:31be the kind of foot soldier that the United States wanted against
00:21:35China, so many kind of
00:21:39what you say, vulnerabilities brought upon by the
00:21:43Hinditwa's you know systematic
00:21:47hatred and prejudice against.
00:21:50minorities and those who oppose it has now brought India to
00:21:54level in which the world is now, I think many the freedom
00:21:57house downgraded India's democratic credentials in this year's
00:22:01report, so India's democracy is dying, its international
00:22:05stature is is being shattered and now
00:22:09it's, I think it's going to be difficult two years until the next election
00:22:13for Narendra Modi right, Mr. Khan, there is another very
00:22:17interesting dimension, you already referred to briefly upon that. but also the
00:22:21cockroach Janata party. now there is a there is the
00:22:25pressure that is building upon the Bharatiyar the party led
00:22:29government. with these massive demonstrations in number of major
00:22:32cities including Mumbai, Delhi has been put under
00:22:36extreme security restriction also. now there is a brief
00:22:40history, the the cockroach general party was successfully able
00:22:44to get its demand met from the Bharatiya
00:22:48Janata party when the education... minister had to
00:22:51resign. now we know for fact there
00:22:54is backing from the opposition, indian national
00:22:58congress party as well, their leader was briefly detained though as
00:23:02well, with the corker janata party, other leading
00:23:06opposition parties and also there is also a hint on the part
00:23:10of Sunam Volkchok also who played a pivotal role in the
00:23:14last movement when it came to the resignation the education
00:23:17minister, this time around, the demand is
00:23:21the resignation the chief election commissioner,
00:23:25given that precedence, do you think there would be pressure amply
00:23:29mounted on Bharatiya party that they they once again
00:23:33would given or conceed to this new demand of this massive protest
00:23:37movement? i would like to point out
00:23:40that the one the symptoms of a
00:23:43prejudice based government is that it
00:23:47cannot bear independ institutions so for
00:23:51many decades now, more than two decades, India's
00:23:55election commission was sort the postered child of India's
00:23:59democracy, which you it was seen as a credible institution that
00:24:02despite all the corruption and mismanagement
00:24:06and embazzlement that happened in India, at least
00:24:10the Indian election commission was a credible institution that ran
00:24:14relatively fair elections, now that is no longer
00:24:17true, so similarly, "the another
00:24:20institution which became the cause the cockroach
00:24:24Janata party to come into being was the college entral system in
00:24:28which the examination system was exposed as
00:24:32rigged and so so many hundred thousands of young
00:24:36people who wanted to go into the Indian civil
00:24:39service realized that this again another
00:24:43institution that they believed in was rigged and
00:24:47corrupt and therefore they protested against it." It's very interesting that the
00:24:51handful of young people who have had no political experience, most them
00:24:55are under the age of 32, have have organized
00:24:58themselves into this this protest, but
00:25:02again this protest which is first was
00:25:05against the education minister, now they are protesting as the election
00:25:09commission, i it's too early to say whether the election
00:25:13commissioner would resign, but it's very clear that
00:25:16one major aspect of this Hindutva regime for the last 12.
00:25:20has been the slow decay of
00:25:24Indian institutions which is now exposed for all the world to
00:26:15Education has become the latest casualty of Hindutva
00:26:18politics as Muslim students are punished for excelling in
00:26:22Indian occupied Kashmir. Fascist Modi regime has shut down a
00:26:26medical college in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and
00:26:29Kashmir after the first bat soft. and overwhelming
00:26:33number of admissions of Muslim students, right-wing Hindu
00:26:37groups fueled by extremist Hindutva ideology under Prime Minister
00:26:41Modi demanded that the college should admit only Hindu
00:26:45students. The admissions to the medical college were finalized after
00:26:48India's national entrance examination test.
00:26:52Legislators the ruling BJP even petitioned the lieutenant
00:26:56governor to enforce religious discrimination,
00:26:58and so on the 6th of January, the National Medical Commission revoked the...
00:27:02college's
00:27:03recognition citing alleged deficiencies, move widely criticized as
00:27:07capitulation to religious extremists, rather than genuine
00:27:11educational concerns. chief minister of indian illegally occupied
00:27:15jammu and kashmir Abdullah condemned the BJP and its allied
00:27:19Hindu groups for targeting Muslim students, saying that the campaign had
00:27:22destroyed the future of aspiring doctors in Kashmir. Nasir
00:27:26Kuhihami the Jammu and Kashmir students association warned that framing
00:27:30education as Hindu. is Muslim was dangerously
00:27:34communalizing the sector. He stressed that institutions run by
00:27:38Muslim bodies across India do not exclude Hindu
00:27:42students. Naser termed religious segregation in the education
00:27:45as both discriminatory and deeply harmful to social
00:27:49cohesion. The closure the medical college further
00:27:53exposes the growing influence of Hindutva politics and Indian
00:27:57illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. raising serious
00:28:00questions about fairness. equality and the right of Muslim
00:28:04students to access
00:28:06education.
00:30:23Hello and welcome, you're watching Pakistan TV, the news the hour and nadal, let's address
00:30:27the headlines
00:30:28first.
00:30:44The President on the advice of Prime Minister Mohammad Shahbas Sharief imposes
00:30:47emergency infa under articles 232 and
00:30:51234 the Constitution of Pakistan given the gravity the
00:30:55situation.