Oct 14, 2021 - US Chargé d’affaires Angela Aggeler meets (separately) Maryam Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif - no communiqué issued regarding the discussions

Feb 16, 2022 - US diplomat Peter McSherry meets (now dissident) PTI MNA Noor Alam Khan in Islamabad Mar 3, 2022 - US First Secretary Heather Eaton meets PMLN leaders, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Ahsan Iqbal, Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, Siddique-ul-Farooq, M. Zubair, Ahmed Jawad, as well as dissident PTI MNAs

Mar 3, 2022 - Consul General William K. Makaneole meets Hamza Shahbaz in Lahore

Here's a suggested response to the Uighur question for IK, SMQ, and anyone else from the Pakistan government that gets asked this question:

We in Pakistan feel the pain of persecuted people everywhere. Of course the oppressed people of Kashmir, who have been deprived of the... ... right to self-determination for decades, nine million of whom are trapped in an open-air prison by nearly a million Indian occupation troops, are closest to our hearts. But we also feel for the Palestinians, whose land has been occupied, and who are being systematically...

PM Imran Khan's Interview with Jonathan Swan on HBO's Axios - a transcript:

Opens with scenes from the streets of (I assume) Pindi: market, rabri stall, people on motorbikes, then cut to a view of Islamabad with the Faisal mosque and the hills in the background. Next is a shot of the steps outside (presumably) PM House. Shehbaz Gill and Farrukh Habib (I think it's him - he was wearing a mask), a uniformed army officer (military secretary?) standing with Swan. Gill says something in Punjabi. I just understood the word Amreeka.

SMQ shared in his speech in the National Assembly today the joint demands of #PMLN and #PPP about amendments to the NAB law that they have made a condition to supporting the government's #FATF related legislation package. Very revealing of their agenda. Here's what they want... Four FATF related bills are extremely urgent. They need to be passed before the APG review, which will drive whether the plenary in October decides to keep Pakistan in the grey or pushes us to "white list" status. Of course, the threat of being black listed continues to exist.

In the process of looking at the asset declarations by Advisors and SAPMs. No expert, of course, but some observations, from just a cursory reading of the statements uploaded... (Thread)

https://twitter.com/shiblifaraz/status/1284527464140673024

Dr Shahbaz Gill has declared net assets of 94 million Rupees as at June 30, 2019, of which about 40 million in the US. Interestingly, he does not seem to have an investment portfolio. No stocks, no retirement fund. Investments section is completely blank.

I understand how CM Murad Shah's impassioned appeals for a complete nationwide lockdown might appeal to some. The spread of #COVID19 can only be enabled, initially, by extreme social distancing. But just that, ON ITS OWN, won't solve the problem. The whole point of a lockdown is to prevent the spread of the virus WHILE you take other steps. Broadly, these fall into two buckets: (1) testing, tracing, quarantine (TTQ) to identify & isolate infected individuals, and (2) build capacity in your healthcare system.