ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday said the “genocide” of the Palestinians in Gaza was unacceptable as it reiterated a call for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on the besieged territory, amid continuous Israeli strikes from the land, air and sea.
The Palestinian death toll from Israeli strikes has surpassed 10,000, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday. About 1,400 people in Israel have died since the October 7 incursion by Hamas that started the war.
On Tuesday, Pakistan’s Foreign Office stressed the urgency of a ceasefire in Gaza to prevent further civilian deaths.
“With 10,000 Palestinian dead and counting, we underline the urgency of bringing an end to the carnage in #Gaza and call for ceasefire,” it said in a statement on X.
“Genocide is unacceptable in any day and age.”
With 10,000 Palestinian dead and counting, we underline the urgency of bringing an end to the carnage in #Gaza and call for ceasefire. Genocide is unacceptable in any day and age. #CeasefireNOWpic.twitter.com/RW2rnKTtHL
The war has become the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian violence since Israel’s establishment 75 years ago, with no end in sight as Israel vows to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities.
Casualties are likely to rise sharply as the war turns to close urban combat.
Pakistan does not recognize the state of Israel and calls for an independent Palestinian state based on “internationally agreed parameters” and the pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.
The South Asian country has been calling for a cessation of hostilities in Gaza since the beginning of the war.
On Monday, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations (UN), Ambassador Munir Akram, said Israel had been emboldened by the international order’s “double and triple standards,” which he considered to be the “root” of the crisis unfolding in the Middle East.
Akram urged the world to rectify the imbalance at the heart of the UN and in the application of international law.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s telecom authority reiterated on Wednesday that faults in two international undersea Internet cables are to blame for slow Internet across the country, saying that one of them is likely to be repaired by early October.
Internet disruptions over the past few weeks have affected millions of Pakistani users, adversely affected businesses and drawn nationwide complaints. Pakistan has 110 million Internet users, and up to 40 percent slower Internet speeds have affected nearly half the country’s 241 million population.
Digital rights experts say the government’s move to install a firewall to monitor and regulate content and social media platforms has caused the Internet to slow down. Pakistani authorities have rejected the allegations and said a faulty undersea cable had caused slower Internet connections.
“The ongoing Internet slowdown across the country is mainly due to fault in two (SMW4, AAE-1) of the seven international submarine cables connecting Pakistan internationally,” the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said in a message.
“It is updated that fault in SMW-4 submarine cable is likely to be repaired by early October 2024,” the authority added. “Whereas submarine cable AAE-1 has been repaired which may improve Internet experience.”
Pakistan’s IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja has repeatedly rejected reports that the government was responsible for slowing or shutting down the Internet, attributing it instead to the widespread use of virtual private networks (VPNs) amid a ban on social media platform X since February.
Separately, a petition has been filed in the Islamabad High Court against the nationwide Internet shutdowns, seeking responses from the government and the PTA. Pakistan says submarine cable fault responsible for slow Internet to be repaired by October
ISLAMABAD: International credit ratings agency Moody’s on Wednesday upgraded Pakistan’s ratings to Caa2 from Caa3 and changed the country’s outlook to “positive” citing improving macroeconomic conditions and better government liquidity and external position.
The ratings upgrade reflects Pakistan’s decreased default risk after a $7 billion IMF bailout staff-level agreement in July.
However, despite doubling since June 2023, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves remain insufficient for its external financing needs, the agency said.
“The upgrade to Caa2 reflects Pakistan’s improving macroeconomic conditions and moderately better government liquidity and external positions, from very weak levels,” the ratings agency said. “Accordingly, Pakistan’s default risk has reduced to a level consistent with a Caa2 rating.”
The agency said Pakistan’s Caa2 rating continues to reflect the country’s “very weak debt affordability,” saying that it drives high debt sustainability risk. Moody’s said it expects interest payments to continue absorbing about half of government revenue over the next two to three years.
“The Caa2 rating also incorporates the country’s weak governance and high political uncertainty,” it said.
Moody’s said that sustained reform implementation, which includes revenue-raising measures, can increase the government revenue base and improve Pakistan’s debt affordability.
It said completing IMF reviews in a timely manner would also allow Pakistan to continually unlock financing from official partners, sufficient to meet its external debt obligations and support further rebuilding of its foreign exchange reserves.
Moody’s said that while it expects Pakistan to cover its financing needs with funding from official partners, there remains “uncertainty” around the government’s ability to sustain reform implementation.
It cautioned that a weak coalition government formed after the February election this year may not be able to take revenue-raising measures without stoking social tensions.
“Slippages in reform implementation or results could lead to delays in or withdrawal of financing support from official partners,” Moody’s warned.
ISLAMABAD: Top Pakistani officials said on Wednesday militants were using the territory of neighboring Afghanistan and receiving support from India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) spy agency to launch attacks in Pakistan, including a string of recent deadly attacks that killed over 50 people in the southwestern Balochistan province.
This is the first time that senior government officials have named nations behind attacks that began on Sunday night, when separatists militants in the country’s largest province took control of a highway and shot dead 23 people, mostly laborers from the eastern Punjab province. They also blew up a railway bridge that connects Balochistan to the rest of Pakistan and tried to separately storm camps of the paramilitary Frontier Corps and Levies forces in the Bela and Kalat districts respectively. On Tuesday night, militants tried to capture a key highway but were forced to retreat into the mountains after paramilitary forces arrived.
Sunday’s assaults were the most widespread in years by ethnic militants fighting a decades-long insurgency to win secession of the resource-rich province, home to major China-led projects such as a port and a gold and copper mine. The Pakistani state denies it is exploiting Balochistan and says it is working for the uplift of the region through development schemes.
“This conspiracy against us is being hatched from two places,” Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori told reporters on Wednesday. “It’s linked to the RAW [Indian spy agency] set up in Afghanistan and all of these activities are being carried out in Pakistan through RAW’s set up in Afghanistan.
“These anarchists are after Pakistan’s economy and its armed forces,” the governor added.
“And this narrative of hate, you can connect its series, [it becomes stronger] whenever Saudi or CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor] projects gain momentum, whenever Pakistan receives investments from UAE or Türkiye or when Pakistan’s relations with Iran are headed toward improvement.”
India and Afghanistan have not yet commented on Tessori’s accusations.
A day earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also said militants wanted to hurt Pakistan’s economic interests, especially in resource-rich Balochistan, which is a centerpiece of China’s investments in Pakistan.
“RAW does not want CPEC projects to be completed in Pakistan,” Tessori added. “They don’t want Pakistan to improve its ties with its neighboring countries.”
Separately, Interior Minister Mohsin Raza Naqvi met a delegation of United Nation representatives and also raised the issue of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or the Pakistani Taliban using Afghanistan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan. In the past, Kabul has denied such accusations.
“Outlawed TTP is using Afghan soil for attacks that have to be stopped at all costs,” Naqvi said.
Pakistan’s federal government has ruled out a military operation against separatists after Sunday’s attacks but vowed a targeted response.
ISLAMABAD: Islamabad and Beijing will start work on five new economic corridors with the support of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), a civil-military hybrid body set up by Pakistan last year to attract foreign investment, state-run Radio Pakistan reported on Wednesday.
Pakistan says it has completed more than 50 projects worth $25 billion under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, with more than $65 billion pledged for road, rail and other infrastructure developments in the South Asian nation of 241 million people.
“The second phase of CPEC has been started with the facilitation of the Special Investment Facilitation Council,” Radio Pakistan reported, adding that the two nations would “work closely” on five new economic corridors linked to CPEC.
“These economic corridors include Innovation Corridor, Livelihood Corridor, Green Energy Corridor, Regional Development Corridor and Employment Creation Corridor.”
Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has said the new corridors are part of CPEC Phase II.
China and Chinese commercial banks hold about 30 percent of Pakistan’s total external debt of about $100 billion, most of which has been loaned for CPEC projects.
The projects have also been threatened in recent years by militants, especially in the Balochistan province where China is building a deep sea port at Gwadar and runs a gold and copper mine.
On Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said a series of coordinated attacks by separatist militants in Balochistan on Sunday night were aimed at stopping development projects that form part of CPEC.
The assaults, killing more than50, were the most widespread in years by ethnic militants seeking to win secession of the resource-rich province.
Beijing has previously flagged concerns about the security of its citizens working on projects in Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan. Six Chinese engineers working on a dam project were killed in March in the country’s northwest. Separatist militants have also targeted Balochistan’s Gwadar port, which is run by China.
Chinese targets have previously come under attack by several Baloch militant groups, who say they have been fighting for decades for a larger share in the regional wealth of mines and minerals denied by the central government. The state denies exploiting Balochistan.
ISLAMABAD: Traders in Pakistan went on strike today, Wednesday, shutting down their businesses in all major cities and urban areas to protest a rise in electricity costs, new taxes imposed on shop owners and brisk inflation.
A major Pakistani religio-political party, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), as well as the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, have thrown their weight behind the traders’ nationwide strike call.
Most of the public markets across Pakistan were closed on Wednesday, though pharmacies and grocery stores selling basic food items remained open. Stores were shuttered in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi, as well as in the city of Lahore, the country’s culture capital, and the main economic hub of Karachi.
However, traders in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southwestern Balochistan provinces observed a partial strike, keeping some stores open while closing others.
“We are holding a nationwide strike tomorrow [Wednesday] to …. extend relief to the public as early as possible,” top JI leader Liaqat Baloch told Arab News on Tuesday.
“If the government fails to listen to the genuine demands of the public and extend relief, we will be left with no option to start a long march toward Islamabad.”
A labourer pulls a hand cart past closed shops at a market in Rawalpindi on August 28, 2024, amid a nationwide strike by trade organizations against high electricity bills, excessive taxes and absence of business-friendly policies. (AFP)
“STRUGGLING BUSINESSES”
A two-week-long sit-in by the JI in Rawalpindi to pressure the government to cut electricity bills and retract new taxes imposed in the budget 2024-25 was called off earlier this month after the party reached an agreement with the federal government.
As per the deal, the government promised to form a mechanism to reduce electricity prices and review contracts with independent power producers (IPPs) within 45 days. IPP agreements have come under scrutiny in recent weeks as households have received steep electricity bills. Many members of the public and independent policy analysts say Pakistan has been saddled with electricity bills it has no possibility of paying because of faulty contracts signed with IPPs, which produce expensive power.
Tough measures that are part of a 37-month $7 billion loan program IMF bailout deal signed last month, such as raising tax on agricultural incomes and raising electricity prices, have also prompted concerns about poor and middle class Pakistanis grappling with rising inflation and the prospect of higher taxes.
Baloch said his party had given “ample time” to the federal government to negotiate with IPPs to bring down electricity prices and review other options to reduce inflation and cut taxes, especially on the salaried class.
“We postponed our fourteen-day sit-in in Rawalpindi following the government’s promise to extend relief to the public,” Baloch said. “If the government fails to keep the promise, we will resume our nationwide protests.”
A labourer sits in a closed market area during a nationwide strike called by trade organizations against the high electricity bills, excessive taxes, and the absence of business-friendly policies, in Lahore on August 28, 2024. (AFP)
Traders said they were protesting “hefty taxes” imposed on retailers through a Tajir Dost Scheme, a voluntary tax compliance program under which businesses can declare their assets and incomes and potentially receive benefits like reduced tax rates and simplified tax compliance procedures.
“Our businesses have reduced around seventy percent in a year due to the deteriorating economy while the government is imposing heavy taxes on traders who are struggling to keep afloat,” Ajmal Baloch, President of Markazi Anjuman Tajran Pakistan, a traders’ union, told Arab News.
“We have been demanding the government to withdraw these regressive tax measures that would adversely affect the economic growth in the country.”
Ajmal said traders would march toward Islamabad if their demands were not met after Wednesday’s strike.
“Every businessman in Pakistan is already paying hefty taxes,” he added, “so the government should immediately withdraw these additional tax measures.”
The government raised power prices 26 percent during the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, before tacking on another 20 percent increase on July 13. Officials say the increases were needed to meet conditions set by the International Monetary Fund for a $7 billion loan deal reached last month.
The government has also added a confusing bevy of taxes on top of the base price, adding up to a bill that has more than doubled for some Pakistanis.
