VOA Urdu in Trouble for Airing Biden Video
By Anwar Iqbal
Washington: The Urdu service of Voice of America (VOA) has landed itself in the middle of a struggle between America’s two major parties — Republican and Democratic — to win over Muslim votes.
Some Urdu journalists may lose their jobs for airing a video that favors Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
There are only 3.5 million Muslims – about 1.1 per cent of the total US population – and apparently that’s why no party made a serious attempt to grab Muslim votes in previous elections. But this election is different.
And this point was also highlighted in the revised Urdu content of the July 22 video, which initiated the probe. “The number of Muslim voters in several key US states could play a significant role in the upcoming presidential election. In the 2016 election, President Trump won Michigan with less than 11,000 votes. The number of Muslim voters in this state is 1.5 million,” the post noted.
The video, posted on VOA Urdu’s website with logos and subtitles, featured clips of Mr Biden speaking at a July 20 Million Muslim Votes event that was organized by nonprofit Emgage Action. In the video, he promised to undo President Donald Trump’s alleged anti-Muslim measures “on day one” and urged Muslims to vote for him to defeat “Islamophobia”.
About a week after it was broadcast, some pro-Trump groups forwarded the video to Michael Pack, the CEO of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which runs VOA . He immediately ordered a probe to determine how and why this video was broadcast. “Staff members who attempt to influence American elections will be held accountable,” he said in a statement.
The statement noted that two of Mr Trump’s biggest congressional foes — Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashid Tlaib of Michigan — also “made appearances in the video”.
The USAGM statement underlined the importance of Muslim voters in the November 2020 elections.
The content, which appeared on the VOA’s Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts as well, has since been removed and may have violated federal law, the USAGM said.
US media reports said that “several VOA Urdu employees” were being probed for broadcasting the content while Mr Pack said that once the probe was over, those found responsible would be “dealt with swiftly and fairly”. - Dawn
Nine-Year-Old Pakistani Girl Sets World Record in Chemistry
A nine-year-old Pakistani girl breaking the record of Indian professor became the fastest and youngest in the world to arrange the chemical elements of the periodic table in the shortest possible time.
Natalia Najam,a Lahore-based science enthusiast, achieved the Guinness World Records title after arranging all elements of the periodic chart in just 2 minutes and 42 seconds on July 18, 2020, according to Gulf News.
She broke the previous record by 7 seconds.
After setting the record, the young girl screamed with joy as the judges gave her a resounding thumbs up.
Najam accomplished the feat by breaking the record previously held by Indian economics professor Meenakshi Agarwal who completed the same task in 2 minutes and 49 seconds.
The young Pakistani girl hopes that her achievement will inspire children around the world to continue taking strides in science and pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Many Pakistanis on social media hailed her achievement calling her “Pakistan’s young scientist” and an inspiration for young children, especially girls, to take up science subjects.
Her father Hasan Najam says his daughter has not received formal schooling and has been educated at home, local media reported.
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