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Pakistan election results show jailed former PM Imran Khan’s backers heading for an “election upset”

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Islamabad — As long lines of pessimistic Pakistani voters waited to cast ballots on Thursday, many had serious doubts about the power of their votes to influence the course of events in their country as it faces major security and economic challenges. By Friday morning, however, results trickling in showed a much closer race than many had expected, and a much better result for the man widely seen as Pakistan’s most popular politician.

Former cricket star Imran Khan, who served as Pakistan’s Prime Minister several years ago, and his PTI party’s backers looked set to defy expectations and win a large share of the seats up for grabs in the parliament. That’s despite the fact that Khan himself is in prison, and both he and his party were kept off the ballots. Khan and his backers have always claimed the myriad corruption and other charges he’s been convicted of are baseless and politically motivated. 

PAKISTAN-POLITICS-VOTE
A vendor holds the poster with a portrait of Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan at a market in Lahore, Feb. 9, 2024, a day after Pakistan’s national elections.

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty


The PTI faced a sweeping crackdown ahead of the vote, with its candidates barred from holding rallies and forced to stand as independents. Along with a cut-off of cellular service on election day, delays in vote counting, allegations of deep-fake videos falsely claiming party leaders had called for election boycotts and deadly attacks targeting politicians, the circumstances led to widespread criticism over the freeness and fairness of the parliamentary elections.

No “foregone conclusion”?

As official results came in Friday, they showed something few had expected: Independent candidates backed by the PTI had taken around about 50 seats in the legislature, not far behind the roughly 70 combined seats won by the two parties seen has having the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military.

“Independents spring surprise, PTI-backed candidates defy odds,” read the headline across the front page of Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper.

Local TV stations’ unofficial counts showed independents leading many of the remaining races, too, after the nation went to the polls to fill 266 seats up for grabs in the 336-member National Assembly.

PAKISTAN-POLITICS-VOTE
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party and former prime minister Imran Khan’s supporters celebrate their lead in the country’s national elections, in Peshawar, Feb. 9, 2024.

ABDUL MAJEED/AFP/Getty


“There was a sense of certainty about the outcome,” Sarah Khan, an assistant professor of political science at Yale University, told the French news agency AFP. “That sense of certainty got upset very early on… It’s definitely not the foregone conclusion that anybody thought it might be.”

“At least I am voting”

The sun was shining, but it was bitterly cold as Ramzan Awan stood bracing himself against a brisk wind Thursday, waiting in a long line to cast his vote in Islamabad.

“I’m content, this is my fifth time voting,” he told CBS News. Despite all the criticism from opposition figures of the election being neither free nor fair, Awan said he was determined to do his part for Pakistan’s democratic system. “The political parties or the politicians never satisfy us or fulfil our wishes, but at least I am voting.”

Iqbal Khan, an IT student who recently turned 18, was there to vote for the first time ever.

“I feel proud. I have a right to vote in this country, and I did, so I feel good about that,” he told CBS News. He cast his vote for a PTI-backed candidate.

“I am doing my part, I’m taking advantage of a right to vote. I want Imran Khan to lead this nation, but he is in jail for politically motivated – and most importantly, bogus charges. I know the army has tied the hands and feet of Imran Khan. We are facing tyranny of the army, but still, I vote for PTI,” he said.

Doubts, but hope for stability

Pakistan’s military has long been accused of interfering in, even rigging the nation’s elections. Since Pakistan gained its independence from Britain in 1947, not one of its 24 prime ministers has ever completed a five-year term. The nation’s political leaders have instead been derailed by assassination, military coups and being forced into exile.

“There has been massive pre-poll rigging over the last few months, in terms of sidelining the Imran Khan-led PTI by the arbitrary use of the judicial and executive branches of the state,” former Senator Afrasiab Khattak, of the National Democratic Movement party, told CBS News. “Khan and many of his party colleagues are imprisoned, harassed and persecuted. PTI has been deprived of its well-known election symbol.”


Protests rage across Pakistan after former Prime Minister Imran Khan arrested

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Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, a former government minister, was even more dismissive of this week’s election before the voting, telling CBS News a “preferred political outcome was pre-determined.”

On Friday, however, he was calling the results “probably the biggest election upset in Pakistan’s political history.”

Amir Rana, director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies think-tank, told CBS News the elections came at “a critical time.”

He said the process was “highly compromised” and, regardless of who is elected, “the civilian governments in Pakistan have limited influence over foreign policy and security matters.”

Rana said the military would continue pulling the strings in the background, and that means there’s unlikely to be much in the way of change, even if millions of Pakistani voters demand it.



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As sunscreen misinformation spreads online, dermatologists face real-life impact of online trends

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With the holiday weekend in full swing, the anti-sunscreen movement’s recent spike is worrying dermatologists.

“It was not like this before,” Dr. Jeanine Downie, a board-certified dermatologist with her own practice in New Jersey told CBS News Confirmed. “I see easily six patients per week that are anti-sunscreen, where it used to be maybe one every other week or one a month. And now it’s just gotten crazy.”

Downie says in the last two weeks she’s diagnosed three squamous cell and two malignant melanomas, both of which can turn cancerous if not caught early. “And that’s me, just one little dermatologist,” she said.

This movement picked up steam in June, with creators on TikTok telling followers in no uncertain terms “stop wearing sunscreen.” At first, the posts received tens of thousands of views and likes. Dermatologists on the platform then began sharing their own reactions, with those videos gaining even more views. And more recently, influencer Nara Smith went viral sharing an at-home sunscreen recipe to her 8 million followers that dermatologists say does little to protect wearers from sun damage.

Dr. Shereene Idriss, a New York dermatologist who has amassed more than a million followers on her social media channels, is trying to leverage that influence to educate users about sunscreen and sun protection.

“It’s becoming more and more difficult, I think, as a consumer, to try to weed through the noise,” Idriss told CBS News Confirmed. 

This misinformation reflects the surprising reality of how some young Americans view sun safety. A study by the Orlando Health Cancer Institute in March found that 1 in 7 adults under the age of 35 say daily sunscreen use is more harmful than direct sun exposure. “I tell my patients, if you want your face to look like a leather bag later, then that’s up to you,” Downie said. About 6.1 million adults are treated each year for basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas according to the CDC. Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the country.

“They only want the natural things,” said Downie. “But I tell them all the time, sitting in traffic here in the tri-state area, the level of pollutants in the air on a daily, weekly and monthly basis is significantly more toxic than any chemical they’re going to rub into their skin with sunblock.”

While there’s no evidence that sunscreens are unsafe, the FDA is currently investigating potential concerns. It’s called for more data on 12 ingredients often found in U.S. sunscreen. After conducting its own study into how certain ingredients are absorbed into the bloodstream, the FDA has called for more research into potential health effects on the body.

However, beachgoers on the Jersey Shore this week told CBS News that sun safety is top of mind this summer. CBS News Confirmed looked at Google Search trends and saw terms like “sunscreen” and “what does skin cancer look like” are at an all-time high since tracking began in 2004.

“You know what gets them to start wearing sunblock?” said Downie. “Young kids and young adults, Gen Z, Gen X, they hate pores. And once they hear that they’re going to have big pores that look like potholes, they put that sunblock on.”

The dermatologists CBS Newsspoke with say there is no such thing as a healthy tan. To best protect yourself this summer, they say to use sunscreen and reapply often; wear UPF clothing or UV visors; and avoid being outside during peak UV index between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.



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Moderate Masoud Pezeshkian wins Iran’s presidential runoff election

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Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s runoff presidential election Saturday, besting hard-liner Saeed Jalili by promising to reach out to the West and ease enforcement on the country’s mandatory headscarf law after years of sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic Republic.

Pezeshkian promised no radical changes to Iran’s Shiite theocracy in his campaign and long has held Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the final arbiter of all matters of state in the country. But even Pezeshkian’s modest aims will be challenged by an Iranian government still largely held by hard-liners, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and Western fears over Tehran enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels.

A vote count offered by authorities put Pezeshkian as the winner with 16.3 million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million in Friday’s election.

Iran's presidential election goes to run-off
Iranian reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian speaks at his rally for the presidential elections in Tehran, Iran, on July 3, 2024.

Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images


Supporters of Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker, entered the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn to celebrate as his lead grew over Jalili, a hard-line former nuclear negotiator.

But Pezeshkian’s win still sees Iran at a delicate moment, with tensions high in the Mideast over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, Iran’s advancing nuclear program, and a looming U.S. election that could put any chance of a detente between Tehran and Washington at risk.

The first round of voting June 28 saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian officials have long pointed to turnout as a sign of support for the country’s Shiite theocracy, which has been under strain after years of sanctions crushing Iran’s economy, mass demonstrations and intense crackdowns on all dissent.

Government officials up to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei predicted a higher participation rate as voting got underway, with state television airing images of modest lines at some polling centers across the country.

However, online videos purported to show some polls empty while a survey of several dozen sites in the capital, Tehran, saw light traffic amid a heavy security presence on the streets.

The election came amid heightened regional tensions. In April, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel over the war in Gaza, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region — such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.

Iran is also enriching uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so. And while Khamenei remains the final decision-maker on matters of state, whichever man ends up winning the presidency could bend the country’s foreign policy toward either confrontation or collaboration with the West.

The campaign also repeatedly touched on what would happen if former President Donald Trump, who unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, won the November election. Iran has held indirect talks with President Joe Biden’s administration, though there’s been no clear movement back toward constraining Tehran’s nuclear program for the lifting of economic sanctions.

More than 61 million Iranians over the age of 18 were eligible to vote, with about 18 million of them between 18 and 30. Voting was to end at 6 p.m. but was extended until midnight to boost participation.

The late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a May helicopter crash, was seen as a protégé of Khamenei and a potential successor as supreme leader.

Still, many knew him for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.



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