text: Join your friends and family on a breathtaking, interactive underwater journey that uses cutting-edge technology to transport you to extraordinary places and rarely witnessed moments in nature.
  Encounter’s immersive technology lets you play with sea lions, get up-close with a majestic, life-sized Humpback whale, and discover the incredible stories of National Geographic’s ocean explorers.
  Mildred (Frances McDormand) is a divorced single mother working in the small town gift shop of the small town of Ebbing, Missouri. It’s also been seven months since her teenage daughter was raped, murdered, and set on fire. She rents out three billboards on a rarely used side road to advertise her frustrations with the slow pace of law enforcement. The billboards say, “Raped while dying,” “Seven months and no arrests,” “How come, Chief Willoughby?” The chief (Woody Harrelson) tries to pacify the grieving mother while keeping his loyal officers in check from retaliation. Deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell) is trying to apply pressure to get the billboards removed by any means. The small town loves their sheriff and turns on Mildred, which suits her just fine. The more people that disagree with her the more it helps fuel her sense of righteous indignation. Mildred engages in an escalating series of battles with the police and town that might just make justice impossible.
  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri feels like a Coen brothers’ movie played straight, and it’s borderline brilliant in its depiction of homespun characters allowed tremendous emotional latitude. These are people with complex depth who are allowed the power to be contradictory. They can be vicious one moment and kind the next, wise one moment and impulsive and self-destructive the next, capable of great acts of mercy and cruelty. This achieves two things: 1) making the characters feel far more convincingly drawn, and 2) making the characters consistently surprising. This is a messy movie but I don’t mean that as any intended insult. It’s messy in scope, messy in tone, and yet it thrums with the messy feelings and messy complications of human tragedy. What happened to Mildred’s daughter is utterly horrifying and her rage is righteous; however, that doesn’t sanctify her. She makes mistakes, pushes people away, and can be cruel even to her own family. I was expecting Harrelson’s police chief to be a sort of villain, either incompetent or conniving, willfully ignoring the murder investigation. This is not the case at all and he is full of integrity and rightfully beloved in his community. As happens in many criminal cases, the trail of evidence just ran cold, but Mildred would prefer every male in the city, state, and even the country be blood tested to find a culprit. Her demands are fundamentally unreasonable and Willoughby points out the many civil rights protections in possible violation. Just because Mildred has been wronged does not make her the hero, and just because Willoughby is the face of local law enforcement does not make him the enemy. They are people with much more in common than they would ever admit. The awful circumstances of the plot have pit them against one another in an escalating tit-for-tat that serves as projection for Mildred’s blinding fury against a world that would rob her of her daughter.
  The dichotomy of sweetness and terror is best exemplified in the transformation of Mildred and Dixon, one of the most satisfying and engrossing film experiences of the year. Thanks to writer/director Martin McDonagh’s deft handling, these two characters start at opposite ends and grow before our eyes. Mildred tests the limits of her resolve and anger and makes costly mistakes. Dixon begins as the screw-up with a badge (hat he literally misplaces) rumored to have tortured a black prisoner in jail. He seems like the dim-witted poster boy for unchecked masculine privilege. He feels like an enforcer of the corruption we (wrongfully) assume is at work in this small town. As Mildred descends into darker decisions, Dixon ascends and chases a redemptive arc, which is amazing considering the damning behavior he engages in at the halfway mark. These two characters start as adversaries and develop into begrudging allies in a completely organic way that doesn’t blunt either character. That transformation is thrilling to watch and terrifically satisfying on its own terms. By the very end of the movie, I was ready and willing to watch its hypothetical sequel setup, especially if it meant I got to spend more time with these carefully crafted people.
  McDonagh’s film juggles many tones, effortlessly switching from laugh-out-loud comedy to crushing drama and back again. I was genuinely surprised how many times I laughed and how hard I was laughing. During my second theatrical viewing, there was an old woman in the back who was quite vocal in her bafflement about how anyone could be laughing. And if you were told the specifics of the plot and its heavy subject matter, I would tend to agree. McDonagh has a preternatural feel for how to find humor in the most unlikely of places. The humor dissipates as the film marches into its second half, a natural byproduct of having to raise the dramatic stakes and make things feel serious. This is the first grounded drama in McDonagh’s filmography (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths). He doesn’t shortchange the impact of his drama by weaving in more heightened comedic moments. The characters feel realistically developed and portrayed and are allowed to exist in moral grey areas. There’s a minor character played by Peter Dinklage who is positioned as a romantic option and a bit of a fool, but by the end you feel degrees of sympathy even for him. Even this most minor of supporting characters (not a comment on Dinklage’s stature) has earned your emotions. That’s great storytelling but it’s also tremendous execution from the director. Another sure sign of McDonagh’s command for tone is that he undercuts his story’s moment of triumph. I’ll dance around spoilers but Three Billboards looks to end in a way where several characters would claim a hard-won victory, and McDonagh casually strips that away. Even though this is a movie, and even though there are moments of broad, irony-laced comedy, the complexities and disappointments of real life emerge. Even to the very end, Three Billboards doesn’t follow the expected rules of How These Things Go.
  The excellent acting gives further life to these tremendous characters. McDormand (Fargo) is radiating with ferocious resentment and indignation. Her character is a walking missile that just needs to be pointed in the right direction. Her stares alone could cause you to shrivel. McDormand hasn’t been given a character this good in years. She opens up the full reserve of her deep acting reservoir, able to flit from great vulnerability to intense repulsion. She has plenty of big moments where she gets to tell off the disapproving townspeople and media members. It’s ready made for easy laughs, but McDormand is so good that she shades those moments with subtler emotional nuance. You get the laugh and you also get further character insight. It’s a performance of such assured strength that I imagine you’ll be hearing her name often during the awards season. Rockwell (The Way, Way Back) has also never been better. He has to play a similarly deep array of emotions, from idiot comedy to heroic dramatics, and at every point Rockwell is stunning. He makes every joke twice as funny. When Dixon becomes a larger focus of the story is when he undergoes more intensive introspection. He goes from buffoon to three-dimensional character. Harrelson (War for the Planet of the Apes) also delivers a worthy performance as a proud yet wounded man who is trying to do right against a world of pressures and self-doubt.
  Three Billboards is an impressive, absorbing, searing film gifted with some of the best-developed characters in 2017. The portrayal of the characters is so complex and given startling life from such amazingly talented actors. You’ll watch three of the best performances of the year right here. You get a really strong sense of just how life has been irrevocably altered from this heinous crime, not just with Mildred but also for the town as a whole. Things cannot go back to being the way they were. The characters you like can make you wince. The characters you don’t like you might find yourself pulling for. Thanks to the complexity and nuance, the film delivers a raft of surprises, both pleasant and painful. These people feel closer to real human beings. McDonagh’s brilliant handling of tone and theme is a remarkable work of vision, cohesion, and execution. This is a darkly comic movie that can make you bust out laughing and an affecting human drama that can make you cry. It takes you on a journey that feels authentic and wildly entertaining. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (which should have simply been called Three Billboards) subverts typical Hollywood clichés by making sure, even during its wilder flights of comic fancy, that everything is grounded with the characters first and foremost.
  It’s been fifteen years after the outbreak of the devastating Simian Flu. Mankind is dwindling and falling victim to a secondary virus as well. There are only pockets of humans left and small militias taking the fight to the super-intelligent apes. Caesar (Andy Serkis once more in mo-cap) and his followers have taken refuge near a waterfall. The ape community is ambushed by soldiers led by The Colonel (Woody Harrelson). With their home exposed, Caesar splits up the remaining numbers and sends them out to find a new shelter. He is determined to seek out the Colonel for vengeance. Eventually the other apes are captured and put into a slave labor camp and Caesar and company must rescue them and flee mankind’s last gasp at staying atop the food chain.
  I don’t want to scare people away. War for the Planet of the Apes is still a very entertaining and gripping movie that can easily warrant stuffing your face full of popcorn. It’s also a blockbuster with tremendous weight. At a steep 140 minutes long, I still could have used even more of this movie. Reeves displays an uncommon sense of patience for a blockbuster filmmaker given a big studio’s checkbook. A majority of this movie is silent and this doesn’t panic Reeves. The director tells his story in a visually appealing and accessible way that doesn’t scrimp on characterization and depth. For long stretches the only communication on screen is ape sign language (small quibble: the apes too often fail to look at one another when they do this). There’s a lingering hush over much of the film, allowing the audience to immerse themselves fully. When the action does heat up, the sounds and music matter more. The solemn silences, hunting parties, and tense standoffs should remind people of Westerns and prisoner-of-war movies. This is the second big-budget 2017 movie making direct Vietnam parallels concerning a man-vs-apes conflict. The prison escape structure of the second half is immediately compelling and just as well developed as what came before. The multiple points needed for an elaborate escape are presented one-by-one and organically. The mini-goals and geography are clear at all times. It leads to an all-out assault climax that is thrilling on multiple levels but also deeply satisfying because of the extensive legwork.
  Serkis (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) has been the beating heart of this franchise and his work as Casaer has been a monumental achievement in the advancement of special effects (the series has never won an Oscar for its VFX). Caesar is a fully formed character with relatable flaws and doubts, and thanks to the wizards at Weta, you can see the nuances flash across his face. Serkis brings an impressive range of emotions to a non-human character that’s piercingly silent often. It’s a performance that deserves shared credit to the animators and to Serkis, who is deserving once again of awards consideration that I know will unfairly never come. Harrelson (Now You See Me 2) is definitely evoking a Colonel Kurtz homage, a man given over to the darkness. I appreciated that his character has a credible back-story that informs his actions. He’s not simply a maniacal madman. He respects Caesar and the apes, but views life as a zero-sum game, which makes genocide an appealing last-ditch option. The pleasant surprise among the cast is Steve Zahn (Captain Fantastic) who plays Bad Ape. It’s a character that seems prone to comic relief non-sequitors, but he’s scarred from his own survival experiences. This is an ape still going through PTSD and that presents even the comedic with a twinge of tragedy. The unseen actors behind their mo-cap performances breathe startling life into the numerous non-human characters, bringing unparalleled realism to this sci-fi realm.
  Sometimes the most upsetting movies are the ones that have a glimmer of promise and then never take advantage of that promise, instead falling upon staid genre clichés and predictable plotting that makes you wonder how a good idea was smashed into a boring and formulaic product. Triple 9 falls into this category of film disappointment. It has a great premise: a group of corrupt cops (Chiwetel Ejiofer, Anthony Mackie) are in debt to an Israeli mob matriarch (Kate Winslet) and owe her one last score, and their solution to ensure they can get away with their crime is to arrange for a new cop on the beat (Casey Affleck) to be killed, thus providing a major distraction. The problem here is that none of these characters are at all interesting. They all have conflicts and the movie does a fine job of providing each one with some kind of pressure and general motivation, but outside of the forces against them, you can summarize them in a scant few words apiece (drug addict, war vet, single dad, etc.). The plot events also just seem to coast around until a pile-up of climaxes, all of which lack satisfying closure as the body count mounts. It’s hard to care, and the only character that seems worth following is Affleck’s newcomer sniffing out the dangers that are closing in on him. Woody Harrelson feels like he’s making a special guest appearance from a separate movie from Oren Moverman as a drug-addled and angry detective. Too often the characters feel out of orbit from one another, the storylines rarely coalescing. It feels like everyone was given the same acting note of being dour and harried. Winslet’s hammy turn as an Israeli mob boss allows her to reuse her accent from Steve Jobs. Director John Hillcoat (Lawless) provides a certain charge with how he stages the robbery sequences but it’s not enough. Triple 9 is a movie that wastes a great cast, a fine premise, and a talented director. It’s not terrible by most accounts but it’s resoundingly mediocre, and sometimes that can be even worse than bad.
  The last time writer/director Scott Cooper looked at a rural, low-income, hand-to-mouth existence, he helped lead Jeff Bridges to Oscar gold with Crazy Heart. It would make sense then for Cooper’s follow-up, Out of the Furnace, to populate those same hills. It also makes sense why actors would flock to Cooper’s next project. It’s a film that strives to be a little of everything, a slow burn and artful revenge thriller, but ultimately will please few, the actors wasted here included.
  In rural Pennsylvania, Russell Baze (Christian Bale) is a diligent steelworker who always has to be on the lookout for his younger brother, Rodney (Casey Affleck). Prone to impulsive decisions, Rodney routinely finds himself in debt to bad people. The situation magnifies when Russell is sent to prison for a few years due to a fatal car accident he was responsible for. When he leaves the penitentiary, life has only gotten worse. Russell’s ailing father passed away while he was locked up. His girlfriend, Lena (Zoe Saldana), has moved on with police chief Wesley Barnes (Forest Whitaker). Most distressing, Rodney has gone through four tours of Iraq and is deeply troubled. He’s fallen into old habits and gotten involved in an underground bare-knuckle fighting ring run by the ferocious Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson). Rodney runs afoul of Harlan and disappears, and Russell goes on the warpath for vengeance.
  The problem is that Out of the Furnace doesn’t do enough to separate itself from the pack. We get little insight into the hard lives of these men. Both brothers are haunted by guilt and trauma, squeezed by few economic opportunities, and feeling like life itself is trapping them in corners. However, their path is already predetermined. Russell is destined to stay on the narrow path of responsibility, suffering slings and arrows, but striving to do the right thing. We see this time and again. And Rodney is destined to make poor decisions, desperately getting in over his head and reaching out to all the wrong people. We see this time and again. Each part is solidly locked in, and so we wait because we know their exact trajectory. We know something bad will happen to Rodney and we know Russell will be driven to seek justice his own way. Likewise, Harlan is a scary psycho without complexity. He’s just a drug-addled, violent, scary dude, but he’s so one-note. Lena, once she briefly reunites with Russell, is completely absent in the film, as if her unrequited position is all she serves for our purposes. Cooper displayed a terrific ear for lived-in characters with Crazy Heart, and the details of this world feel honest, it’s just that there aren’t enough of them. The storyline is engraved with little variation, and Cooper doesn’t take full advantage of his great cast, relying upon familiar scenes and elements to establish his loosely drawn characters. We’ve seen these burnouts and lowlifes and dignified blue-collar workers all before. This is a film that wants to be challenging but too often seems to take the easy road.
  The very plot structure also seems amiss. As stated above, the journey seems set in stone, so then when something bad does happen to Rodney, it feels overdue. Rodney doesn’t meet his ultimate bind until halfway through Act II, and then when the plot shifts to vengeance, it becomes an uncomplicated straight line. And a streamlined plot with little variation or surprise, with characters that are customary, can get boring. Once Russell is on the warpath, there is little complications or obstacles, or even moments to contemplate the full extent of his actions. And then the movie is done. Because the final act plays out exactly as you anticipate, the movie leaves you feeling anticlimactic. The payoff is unsatisfying. Plot reorganization would have benefited the Russell vs. Harlan storyline. Rather than draw out Rodney’s ultimate screw-up, which everyone is just waiting for from minute one, why not have his screw-up be the Act I break, coming around the half-hour mark rather than more than an hour into the film? That sets the story forward and provides enough space for Russell to work upwards toward Harlan as well as examine what kind of man he is becoming. As it plays out, Harlan is crazy but also easy to access despite the threats of what the rural hill people will do to visitors. If a revenge story was the method that was going to test Russell’s character and redemption, then we needed to get to this crossroads sooner, especially since everyone is waiting for it to happen.
  The power of the acting goes a decent way to compensate for the film’s unresolved investment. Bale (The Dark Knight Rises) internalizes most of his character’s emotions, always trying to hold back a swell of anger and guilt, to just keep going one day at a time. He delivers another strong performance as a man struggling to do the right thing. In this day and age, even a passable Bale performance is going to be above average. Affleck (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) is a go-to actor when you have a desperate character that is clearly outmatched. His volatile performance is laced with sadness, as you understand how cursed Rodney feels, how the universe hands him bad break after bad break. Affleck tinges his hopelessness with a resigned weariness, as if he’s just seeking a final release. Harrelson (Now You See Me) stews villainously, erupting with extreme violence. He’s a scary guide helped by Harrelson’s flicker of madness he imbues the character with. It’s too bad he doesn’t do anything memorable outside the opening minute. Whitaker (Lee Dainels’ The Butler) probably gets the worst of it, and I think he knows it, which is why the actor adopts a gravely speaking voice that sounds like he has a frog in his throat. Beyond the fact that he’s linked with Russell’s old flame, there isn’t anything important to mention about the character, nor is there anything for Whitaker to do other than make limp threats about letting the police focus on Harlan.
  Out of the Furnace is one of those movies that gets details right but loses sense of the big picture. Its blue collar, working class characters are given the right clothes, posture, look, but they’re not given enough material to breathe as characters. The people in this movie end up becoming dispensable parts of the background, serving their strict plot purposes and then dissolving again, lacking complexity and personality. The characters aren’t strong enough for this to be character-driven; the plot isn’t given sufficient structure for this to be a searching moral exploration; the pacing and direction don’t provide enough thrills for the film to work as a revenge thriller. And so Out of the Furnace, while not being a bad film, falls short of truly working as a character study, as a moral examination, as a traditional pulpy revenge thriller. It’s got a great cast and some wonderful production values that convey the weight of low income America, but the movie just lacks an engaging story to justify the talent in use. A few more revisions would have helped, but Out of the Furnace ultimately comes up short because it lacks any sort of lasting heat.
  Everybody loves magic, right? At least the prospect of being surprised and delighted. Now You See Me takes something everybody loves (magic) and mixes it with a genre everybody loves (heist movie) and has already profited from the results at the box-office. Mix an ensemble of actors, though all of them white, and look over in this direction for a diverting, entertaining, and ultimately frustrating film that is too breezy to hate.
  Four different magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco) have teamed up to form a super team, The Horsemen, and they’ve taken Vegas by storm. A year into their reign, the insurance magnet and casino owner, Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), is sitting pretty with his investment until the Horsemen turn their targets on him. With each new fantastic trick, the quartet fleeces the shady businessman of his money, returning it to wronged parties and the public at large. FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol Agent Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent) are tasked with finding the magical fugitives and figuring out their greater scheme. Just as one of the magicians notes, every time they think they’re one step ahead, they’re actually three behind.
  Let’s begin by admitting that the premise of a group of magicians performing heists is excellent. Seriously, on that alone I’d be hooked. Wouldn’t an Ocean’s 11-style movie about a group of magicians working a big score just be awesome? There’s so much fun to be had with such a breezy premise and for the most part Now You See Me lives up to its breezy potential. It works in segments, presenting a magical set piece, watching it unfold, and then unpacking it, sort of like a reverse heist sequence. It provides a bite-size moment of satisfaction, and then the movie goes off and repeats the process. The Horsemen elude the police and we start to get a broader sense of their aims, namely a slice of class warfare vigilante justice. There’s a genuine thrill to watching smart, talented types outfox their antagonists, and Now You See Me is no different. Under Louis Leterrier’s (Clash of the Titans) direction, the results are fast-paced, constantly shifting and surprising, and so cheery in tone that it’s hard to fault the movie for its lack of substance. Here is an example of a summer movie that’s just fun to watch. It taps into the desire we all have to be fooled, the same willful disbelief we process when watching magic or movies themselves, the modern artistic equivalent of magic. For a solid hour-plus, Now You See Me is a diverting and entertaining action thriller.
  There are only a handful of traditional action sequences in the movie as most of the thrills are comprised of the illusions and some foot chases. I do want to single out a great moment, namely a magic fight where Jack Wilder (Franco) runs al over an apartment subduing police officers with magic. At first he relies on stealth to get the drop on them, but then the guy resorts to what is practically magic kung fu, using his sleight-of-hand to disarm his attackers. He then uses playing cards and flash paper at his disposal. I only wish that Rhodes, Wilder’s main adversary in the scene, tried to fight fire with fire, so to speak, and make use of the magical accessories in comical matters. The scene’s imagination reminded me of the final confrontation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? where a selection of toon-specific tools were brought back for a unique showdown.
  But with most magic acts, the good times start to fade once you find out how the trick is done. What hampers Now You See Me from being a stronger movie is a convoluted third act that goes to great preposterous lengths to explain the source behind the Horsemen. It’s pretty much who you’d assume it would be but I’ll still refrain from spoilers. Suffice to say, it’s an ending that doesn’t really work especially since it’s one of those reveals that makes you think back and question ordinary scenes. The movie muffs the landing, relying on twists to satisfy what was really just a high-concept heist movie. Another issue I had with the film is how quickly it marginalizes our would-be Robin Hoods of magic. After about the 45-minute mark, the Horsemen get sidelined as supporting characters and the movie is almost entirely told from the perspective of Rhodes. I understand there’s got to be some narrative discipline so that we don’t know the protagonists’ tricks before they perform them, but if I’m going to stuck with the dogged cop then make it his movie from the start. Compounding this problem is that the Horsemen, through no fault of the actors, barely register as characters. The actors are given one-note, and in the case of Fisher (The Great Gatsby) it was Woman, and that’s it. We see them as they perform their tricks and their daring escapes, but that doesn’t count as character development. In this regard, it’s less bothersome that these poorly conceived people get sidelined but then you stop and think that the only character you actually feel some interest in is Laurent’s Interpol agent.
  My suggestion for any possible future installments (Now You See Me Again? Now You Don’t?) is to focus more on our core team of magicians rather than their mysterious benefactor. I would also stress less time spent talking about The Eye of Horus or whatever through-the-centuries secret club of magicians the film was hinting at. I liked that, while completely elaborate and with endless fortune in preparation, that the illusions still had some tenuous foot in reality, that the magic tricks could be done in a somewhat recognizable world of ours (ignore the hologram junk). I strongly feel that even hinting about secret magical orders is just a step too far, breaking the film’s credulity, and taking what was fun and making it silly. I was worried before seeing the movie that the magic, as advertised, was going to be too supernatural. I was relieved that there wasn’t going to be a late reveal where some character rolls their eyes, probably Eisenberg, sand says, “Well, yeah, magic is real. Stupid.” When you’re playing around with larger-than-life figures that deal in theatricality and misdirection, I think it’s paramount not to get too carried away, failing to ground your movie for the audience.
  If you’re looking for a fun time out at the movies, Now You See Me will serve its purpose well enough until it begins to fall apart by the end. You may find yourself looking back and the earlier mystery and thrill of the unknown will dissipate upon reflection, leaving you with little. It’s fun while it lasts but when it’s all over you’re left with substandard characters and an overly convoluted plot that doesn’t satisfy in the clinch. Magicians-plan-heist is such a juicy premise that I hope someone else makes better use of it. I would still love to see that movie, only well developed and giving me characters to actually care about. Now You See Me is as substantial as a magic trick itself but it’s an inoffensive, carefree, and mostly fun ride at the movies, though I think so much more could have been done with this concept and this budget. For a $75 million dollar magic trick, I want a better result.
  LAHORE - PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday reiterated his demand for the removal of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan otherwise, he threatened, his party would launch a ‘Go Nawaz Go’ campaign.
  He has already set a December 27 deadline for the acceptance of party’s four-point charter of demands. “Go Nawaz Go” will be echoed from Karachi to Peshawar if the government fails to accept our four demands,” he said while addressing the party workers on the fourth day of the PPP Foundation Day celebrations. He said the victory of a political leader of a banned outfit in the Jhang by-election a few days ago meant the burial of the National Action Plan.
  “The National Action Plan does not exist anymore after the Jhang by-election,” he said. Bilawal said he would become prime minister with people’s support in the 2018 elections.
  The PPP, he claimed, was the biggest party of the country. “We should try to have all four demands met,” he said. He was critical of the PTI government’s performance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He said the province had been hit by ‘tsunami of terrorism’. The PPP chairman called PTI chief Imran Khan as ‘Chaacha’. There are reports that the PPP chairman plans to contest by-election on a National Assembly seat in Sindh after which he will be appointed as leader of the opposition in the lower house of the parliament, replacing Syed Khursheed Shah. It is likely that young Bilawal will contest the election from his mother Banazir Bhutto’s traditional Larkana seat.
  Addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club on Saturday, PPP Sindh President Nisar Khuhro defended the Sindh law against forced conversion of religion. He said the Sindh Assembly passed the bill against forced conversion to protect minorities’ rights. Religious segments are criticising the law which bans change of religion before the age of 18 and declares it against the teachings of Islam. However, rights activists are in all praise of the step taken by Sindh legislature.
  “There is no logic behind the changing of religion by a child until he/she gets complete knowledge about it. Young Hindu women could not be forced to convert religion for the purpose of marrying a man of other religion after the enforcement of law,” he argued in reply to a question.
  Khuhro was critical of ‘the concept of development introduced in Lahore by Punjab chief minister’. He said the all projects seemed to be Raiwind specific, the residence of Sharif family. “I saw development works in the Lahore areas leading to Sharif family’s residence in Raiwind,” he said.
  He added the Punjab government completely ignored the people living in slum and underdeveloped areas of the provincial metropolis. He said the federal government diverted funds from China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to build multi-billion Orange Line project in Lahore but it did not pay any heed to addressing the problems of the people.
  “We had seen no development on Karachi Circular Railways Project despite tall claims of the federal government,” he said. Similarly, the prime minister’s pledge to provide Rs1 billion for the development of Thar region in Sindh was yet to be fulfilled, he said. He also said the PML-N government must address the concerns of small provinces on the CPEC.
  Khuhro reiterated the PPP’s demand to enhance Rangers’ operation in Punjab which, according to him, had become a need of the hour after winning election of a man from banned outfit in Jhang. He said the South Punjab had turned into a safe haven of terrorists. Had the PPP’s demand to enhance NAP’s implementation in Punjab been addressed timely, the terrorism in Pakistan could have been eliminated to a large extent, he said.
  SAMBRIAL:- A passenger coming from Saudi Arabia to here had a cardiac arrest and passed away while travelling in the flight of a private airline. Yaqoob, a resident of Kamoke, was travelling to Sialkot International Airport from Saudi Arabia along with his two daughters. He caught cardiac arrest and passed away. His dead was shifted to Kamoke by the airlines staff. Special Price Magistrate, Nadeem Ahmed Chatta took action and imposed heavy fines on vegetable and fruit venders and other merchants.–Staff Reporter
  Some shopkeepers locked their shops and flew away to evade from fine during operation. STAFF REPORTER
  LAHORE - A team of police investigators on Friday visited the residence of Ayesha Ahad and recorded her statement in connection with a criminal case registered against Hamza Shehbaz and five others.
  Police sources said the investigation team recorded statement of the complainant at her house instead of asking the victim to visit the police station because of security reasons.
  SP (Investigation) city police division, ASP, and DSP concerned were part of the investigation team. The officers remained present at the victim’s house for an hour and left the place after recording her statement.
  According to sources, at least eight police guards were also deployed at the house of the lady to provide her foolproof security. Four policemen are deployed at Ayesha’s house while the other four police would escort the woman during traveling.
  Earlier, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had ordered the Punjab Police Inspector General to provide security to the woman when she appeared before the top court and complained that she was facing life threats.
  The Chief Justice had also ordered the police chief to register the case immediately. The case was registered with the Islampura police on the complaint of Ayesha Ahad , the alleged wife of former MNA Hamza Shehbaz.
  The main suspects nominated as accused persons in the FIR included recently-elected Senator and former IGP Rana Maqbool, former IGP Motorways Police Zulfikar Cheema, Hamza Shehbaz, Ali Imran Yousaf, son-in-law of CM Shehbaz Sharif and three other police officials. The charges against the accused include violence, robbery, usurpation, vandalism, threats to life and attempted rape.
  LAHORE - The Lahore High Court Tuesday dismissed a petition challenging the candidature of PML-N’s Sheikh Waqas Ahmad for NA-115, Jhang, by upholding the decision of an appellate tribunal wherein he was allowed to contest election from the same constituency.
  Muhammad Imran, a voter from NA-115, had moved the petition against decision of an appellate tribunal wherein the PML-N ticket holder Sheikh Waqas Akram was allowed to contest election. He said Akram did not meet the criteria set by Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution and should be barred from contesting election. He said he had fake degree but despite that the returning officer and the election tribunal allowed him to contest election.
  The petitioner alleged that Akram also concealed facts and details from the RO and Election Tribunal concerned. Therefore, he asked the court to set aside the appellate tribunal’s decision and bar him from contesting election.
  However, the division bench headed by Justice Shams Mahmood Mirza dismissed the petition and upheld the decision of the appellate tribunal about the candidate of Sheikh Waqas Akram to contest election from NA-115, Jhang.
  The bench sent the petition to the Chief Justice to form any other appropriate bench for hearing of the petition.
  A voter Fida Hussain had moved two petitions against Maulana Ludhayanvi challenging his candidature to contest election from NA-115 and PP-126, Jhang. He alleged that Ludhyanvi concealed the details of his assets and a number of criminal cases had been registered against him while filing nomination papers before the returning officer. He said appellate tribunal also allowed Ludhyanvi to contest the election.
  The petitioner prayed to the court to set aside the impugned decisions and reject the nomination papers of Ludhyanvi.
  The Lahore High Court Tuesday dismissed for not being maintainable a petition against a ban imposed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on participation of local bodies’ representatives in political activities of upcoming general election.
  Justice Shams Mahmood Mirza passed the order who took up the petition moved by a number of chairmen and vice-chairmen of different union councils. They had challenged the ban of the ECP and termed it a violation of Political Parties Act (Amended) 2017. The petitioners said the ECP banned their participation in upcoming general election. They prayed to the court to set aside the ban for being against the Constitution.
  Previously, Justice Shams heard the arguments and the reserved the verdict on maintainability of the petition.
  The ECP through a notification had restrained the local government representatives in election campaign under Section 233 of Election Act, 2017.
  “In an age when man is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim
  The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held at Brazil in 1992 declared March 22 as World Water Day. The day is celebrated throughout the world to mark the implementation of the UN recommendations (Earth Summit Agenda 21), to work out proposals and arrange activities to emphasize reduction in wasteful consumption of resources such as water.
  Water on earth (the water planet) exists as liquid, solid and gas. The total amount of groundwater on earth, apparently small in volume, is 35 times greater than the volume of water in all the fresh water lakes and rivers of the world Whatever is available to mankind from lakes, rivers, aquifers (ground water) and rainfall run-off is under great pressure with demand for diverse human activities. According to Global Footprint Network, man uses today an equivalent of 1.5 planet earths and thus has overshot the sustainable levels by half an earth.
  According to the Hague Ministerial Conference (2000) on water security in the twentieth century, there is a water crisis today; water is being so badly managed that billions of people in the world, and the environment suffer. Some examples of water crises around the globe such as that of China with too much water being where it is not needed and with too little where it is much needed.
  The Netherlands offers a good example of the success story of the healthy management of water. In view of the unworkable systems of rules and regulations and the complex and interdependent environmental problems, the Government of the Netherlands decided to identify all major environmental problems and meet with the key players such as industrialists and citizen groups etc to reach agreement on establishing bold new targets and time tables for drastically reducing pollution.
  As an effect of climate change in 2011, the Mississippi river was flooded and water flowed at the rate of 2.8 million cubic feet per second – an amount equivalent to thirty rimes the average volume of water falling from the Niagara Falls, The US army corps of engineers was at the helm to control the catastrophic inundation. As of today, people, cities and industries in the US and elsewhere obtain water in part, at least, from the reservoirs of flood control projects.
  While Pakistan faced a water deficit of nearly 34 MAF for its Rabi crops soon after the great flood of 2010, according to published data some 800,000 cusecs of water on average flows through the Sukkur Barrage en route to the Arabian Sea. The first wave of the great flood comprising 95.4 MAF water flowed to the sea vis-à-vis 34 MAF; an amount equivalent to the storage capacity of five Kalabagh dams.
  While the water availability per person in Pakistan has decreased precipitously from about 5000 cubic meters per person in 1947 to 1000 cubic meters today (classifying us as water stressed), the dreadful water episodes such as that of 2010 underscore the need for large, rain-fed reservoirs (dams) irrespective of the significance of Kalabagh dam to the country for water for drinking, food production and energy.
  In contrast to the efforts of individuals, the municipal bodies and the NGOs to ease the accessibility of potable water to people across the world, some global corporations and corporate sectors use water as a commodity. For example, Veolia, a $38 billion company in Paris promised more than it could in Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, South Africa and other countries.
  Water supplies in England and France have also dwindled and the major transnational corporations such as Perrier, Evian, Naya, Coke and Pepsi have already started buying up rights for fresh water worldwide to supply bottled water to people at a cost, according to Canadian water activists, Professor Maude Barlow and Professor Tony Clark.
  In 2011, Italy polled for a decision not to allow the corporate sector to take over the water supply from the municipalities. However, except for Uruguay, water activists in Bolivia, Argentina and Chile forced the private corporations out to leave water activities in these countries to be managed by the respective municipal bodies.
  Water is needed to produce food accounts for 2000-5000 litres per day while for basic human needs such as drinking, only 4 litres (1 gallon) per person per day is needed. In addition an amount of 250 gallons (1000 litres) of water per person is needed to produce power that we use at home daily.
  The enormity of the beneficiaries of goods and services from dams- both large and small in the country is not difficult to judge in view of increased population, the lack of preservation of watersheds, recurrent floods, the perils of drought and climate change. While population growth and global warming are ever on the rise, they are likely to produce a big decline in the world water resources in the coming years, and the situation in Pakistan, already facing these twin problems could be highly grim.
  The writer is ex-director NIAB, Faisalabad, former HEC professor, UAF, ex-professor of Environmental Sciences, GCUF, and former member of the New York Academy of Sciences, USA.
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