UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan threw its full weight behind the new United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action to combat hate speech, saying that language was being used to secure narrow political and electoral gains in many parts of the world, including the South Asian region. “An inevitable consequence is to fan the flames of bigotry, intolerance, anti-Muslim hatred and xenophobia,” Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres unveiled the strategy at a special meeting held in the packed ECOSOC chamber on Tuesday.