KABUL: A huge fire swept through a market in downtown Kabul yesterday, destroying hundreds of shops and forcing the city’s nearby money exchange to evacuate, police and witnesses said.
There were no reports of any casualties in the early morning blaze which destroyed most of the cloth market’s 500 shops, Kabul fire department officials said.
A fire department official speaking on condition of anonymity said an electrical short circuit was the most likely cause of the fire, which was so severe that Nato and Afghan army fire squads were called in to help.
“We are all working together to get this under control,” the official said. A photographer at the scene said the fire had reduced hundreds of shops to charcoal.
A Kabul police official who also spoke under condition of anonymity said separately that the nearby currency exchange market, the war-torn country’s largest, had to be evacuated as the fire approached its outer walls.
“Police helped the money market evacuate and remove their money from the market to safe places,” he said.
Four-fold increase in poll expenses proposed by ECP
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has proposed a four-fold increase in election expenditure to Rs6m for a National Assembly seat and Rs4m for that of a provincial assembly.
The current ceiling of Rs1.5m and Rs1m for a national and provincial assembly seat respectively was fixed over a decade ago.
The proposal is part of a comprehensive draft and that is a combination of amendments proposed by the ECP’s legal framework committee and the National Assembly’s standing committee on law and justice and its sub-committee.
A joint meeting of the ECP and the Senate’s standing committee on election issues is to discuss the proposed law on December 31.
The draft law proposes that a party would not be eligible to receive an election symbol if it does not fulfil three conditions: if it had not secured at least one seat with its election symbol in any of the past three parliamentary polls, or had failed to obtain five per cent of total votes cast in the constituencies in which its candidates took part during the three previous elections or has not established a ‘functional central office’, with a central committee and district offices, in at least 10 administrative districts and offices in at least 50 tehsils and talukas.
The draft law seeks to widen the definition of corrupt practices as well to include capturing polling stations and tampering with ballot papers which previously was confined to bribery, impersonation and undue influence.
Internews
