KARACHI: Pakistan’s government on Wednesday slashed the price of petrol by Rs15.39 per liter for the next 15 days, with the move expected to bring major relief for consumers in a country reeling from inflation over the past two years.
Pakistan typically adjusts petroleum prices on a fortnightly basis, taking into account fluctuations in the international energy market and the rupee-dollar exchange rate. The latest decrease brings the price of petrol down from Rs288.49 to Rs273.10 per liter.
According to an official notification by the Finance Division released on Wednesday night, the price of high-speed diesel has also seen a downward revision of Rs7.88 per liter, setting it at Rs274.08 from Rs281.96.
“The prices of petroleum products have seen a decreasing trend in the international market during the last fortnight,” the Finance Division said in a press release.
“The Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has worked out the consumer prices, based on the price variations in the international market. The prices of Motor Spirit & HSD for the next fortnight, starting from 16th May, 2024, are accordingly being lowered.”
Pakistan slashed prices of petrol by Rs5.45 per liter on May 1 due to declining prices of petroleum products in the global energy market.
The South Asian country significantly increased fuel prices after securing a short-term, $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year.
The rising rates also led to spiraling inflation in the country, though the government started offering relief to the people by gradually bringing down the petroleum prices.
Pakistan is already in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to secure another loan which is expected to be bigger in terms of size and duration.
‘Form of violence’: From US to Pakistan, deepfake videos target women politicians
Pakistani lawmaker Meena Majeed was targeted in deepfake video showing her publicly hugging male minister
Pakistan lacks legislation to combat sexualized deepfakes while the UK’s laws criminalize sharing deepfake porn
Updated 17 sec ago
AFP
WASHINGTON: From the United States to Italy, Britain, and Pakistan, female politicians are increasingly becoming victims of AI-generated deepfake pornography or sexualized images, in a troubling trend that researchers say threatens women’s participation in public life.
An online boom in non-consensual deepfakes is outpacing efforts to regulate the technology globally, experts say, with a proliferation of cheap artificial intelligence tools including photo apps digitally undressing women.
The intimate imagery is often weaponized to tarnish the reputation of women in the public sphere, jeopardizing their careers, undermining public trust, and threatening national security by creating conditions for blackmail or harassment, researchers say.
In the United States, the American Sunlight Project, a disinformation research group, identified more than 35,000 instances of deepfake content depicting 26 members of Congress — 25 of them women — across pornographic sites.
A study published by the group last month showed that nearly one in six women in Congress have been victims of such AI-generated imagery.
“Female lawmakers are being targeted by AI-generated deepfake pornography at an alarming rate,” said Nina Jankowicz, chief executive of the ASP. “This isn’t just a tech problem — it’s a direct assault on women in leadership and democracy itself.”
ASP did not release the names of the female lawmakers depicted in the imagery to avoid public searches, but it said it privately notified their offices.
In the United Kingdom, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was among more than 30 British female politicians found to be targeted by a deepfake porn website, according to a Channel 4 investigation published last year.
The high-traction site, which was unnamed, appeared to use AI technology to “nudify” about a dozen of those politicians, turning their photos into naked images without their consent, it said.
The tech advancements have given rise to what researchers call an expanding cottage industry around AI-enhanced porn, where users can turn to widely available AI tools and apps to digitally strip off clothing from pictures or generate deepfakes using sexualized text-to-image prompts.
In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is seeking 100,000 euros ($102,950) in damages from two men accused of creating deepfake porn videos featuring her and posting them to American porn websites.
“This is a form of violence against women,” Meloni told a court last year, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.
“With the advent of artificial intelligence, if we allow the face of some woman to be superimposed on the body of another woman, our daughters will find themselves in these situations, which is exactly why I consider it legitimate to wage this war.”
In Pakistan, AFP’s fact-checkers debunked a deepfake video that showed lawmaker Meena Majeed publicly hugging an unrelated male minister, an act culturally deemed immoral in a conservative Muslim-majority nation.
In a separate episode, Azma Bukhari, the information minister of the Pakistani province of Punjab, said she felt “shattered” after discovering a deepfake video online that superimposed her face on the sexualized body of an Indian actor.
“The chilling effect of AI-generated images and videos used to harass women in politics is a growing phenomenon,” the nonprofit Tech Policy Press said last year, warning that the trend will have a “silencing effect on the political ambitions” of women.
In this photograph taken on November 20, 2024, Azma Bukhari (C), Information Minister of Pakistan’s province of Punjab, speaks with media after attending her deepfake video case hearing in Lahore. (AFP/File)
The proliferation of deepfakes has outstripped regulation around the world.
Pakistan lacks legislation to combat sexualized deepfakes. UK laws criminalize sharing deepfake porn and the government has pledged to ban its creation this year, but so far no firm timetable has been laid out.
A handful of US states including California and Florida have passed laws making sexually explicit deepfakes a punishable offense and campaigners are calling on Congress to urgently pass a host of bills to regulate their creation and dissemination.
While high-profile politicians and celebrities, including singer Taylor Swift, have been victims of deepfake porn, experts say women not in the public eye are equally vulnerable.
After ASP notified the targeted US Congresswomen, the fake AI-generated imagery was almost entirely scraped from the websites, reflecting what it called a “disparity of privilege.”
“Women who lack the resources afforded to members of Congress would be unlikely to achieve such a rapid response from deepfake pornography sites if they initiated a takedown request themselves,” ASP said.
ISLAMABAD: The government in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Sunday warned of a clearance operation in the Kurram district, where a shooting at an aid convoy injured a top administration official a day earlier.
Saturday’s gun attack was carried out by unidentified men near Bagan, a tense locality in the district’s center, as Deputy Commissioner (DC) Javedullah Mehsud and other officials led the aid convoy to Parachinar, leaving the top official and four security men injured.
Kurram, a northwestern district of around 600,000 people in KP, has been rocked by tribal and sectarian clashes since November 21, when armed men attacked a convoy of Shia passengers, killing 52 people.
The attack sparked further violence and blockade of a main road connecting Kurram’s main town of Parachinar with the provincial capital of Peshawar, causing medicine, food and fuel shortages in the area, as casualties surged to 136.
On Sunday, KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and other provincial officials held a meeting to discuss the law and order situation in Kurram after the attack on DC Mehsud and the delivery of aid goods to Kurram.
“If those involved in the January 4 attack are not handed over to the government, strict action will be taken at the scene of the incident,” the provincial government said in a statement late Sunday.
“In case of further violation/non-cooperation in handing over the culprits, population of the incident site will be temporarily shifted, if required for the clearance operation.”
Saturday’s gun attack came days after a grand jirga, or council of political and tribal elders formed by the KP provincial government, brokered a peace agreement between the warring Shia and Sunni tribes, following weeks of efforts.
The KP government said it had asked the jirga members, who had signed the peace agreement, to hand over the perpetrators of the January 4 attack and their supporters.
“If law and order is not maintained, miscreants and those who disturb the peace will be dealt with iron hands,” it said.
“Section 144 will be imposed in Kurram district and there will be curfew on the roads during the movement of convoys. Anyone carrying weapons will be considered a terrorist. Head money will be announced for various militants.”
On Wednesday, warring Shia and Sunni tribes had agreed on the demolition of bunkers and the handover of heavy weapons to the authorities within two weeks as part of the peace agreement.
Any party that launches an attack after the signing of the deal will be considered a “terrorist” and action will be taken against it. A fine of Rs10 million ($35,933) will be imposed on those who violate the terms of the deal by using weapons against each other, according to the peace agreement.
Land disputes in the volatile district will be settled on a priority basis with the cooperation of local tribes and the district administration. Opening of banned outfits’ offices will be prohibited in the district, while social media accounts spreading hate will be discouraged via collective efforts backed by the government.
Separately on Sunday, police lodged a case against five people, all of whom were said to be residents of Bagan, for their involvement in the Jan. 4 attack on the aid convoy, which comprised 17 trucks that carried tents, blankets, medical kits, tarpaulins, solar lamps and sleeping bags.
Provincial authorities have previously air-dropped relief goods and airlifted ailing and injured people from Kurram to Peshawar via helicopters.
ISLAMABAD: Uzbekistan plans to launch direct flights to the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, Pakistani state media reported on Sunday, citing Uzbek Ambassador to Pakistan Alisher Tukhtaev.
The statement came amid Ambassador Tukhtaev's visit to Karachi this week, during which he addressed the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), Karachi Chambers of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), and members of the business community.
The ambassador highlighted the recent launch of direct flights between Tashkent and Lahore that underscored Uzbekistan’s commitment to fostering people-to-people contacts, the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency reported.
“Our two nations are closer than ever, thanks to the realization of the long-awaited vision of regional connectivity,” the ambassador said, describing direct flights from Uzbekistan to Karachi as a "significant step" to foster closer ties.
The development comes amid Pakistan's efforts to consolidate its role as a pivotal trade and transit hub connecting the landlocked Central Asian states with the rest of the world, leveraging its strategic geographical position. There has been a flurry of visits, investment talks and economic activity between officials from Pakistan and the Central Asian nations in recent months.
In Feb. 2023, Pakistan and Uzbekistan signed a $1 billion deal to increase bilateral trade at the eighth meeting of the Inter-governmental Commission on Trade-Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation in Tashkent. The agreement was aimed at encouraging the exchange of goods and services.
Ambassador Tukhtaev shared that Uzbekistan implemented a soft visa regime for Pakistani citizens in September 2023, facilitating business and tourist travel. He said trade between Uzbekistan and Pakistan had tripled over the last few years, rising from $122 million in 2019 to $387 million in 2023.
He stressed the importance of untapped opportunities for further collaboration between the two countries, particularly in textiles, pharmaceuticals, leather and tannery, food processing, and agribusiness sectors, according to the APP report.
The Uzbek envoy commended the success of the “Made in Pakistan” single-country exhibition held in Tashkent in June 2024, which provided an invaluable platform for entrepreneurs from both nations to forge new trade and investment agreements. Building on this momentum, he announced plans for a “Made in Uzbekistan” industrial exhibition in Karachi later this year, expressing confidence that it would further strengthen economic ties.
“Uzbekistan offers a safe, conducive, and liberal environment for investment,” he stated, urging Pakistani businesses to capitalize on opportunities in various sectors and welcomed the idea of organizing business-to-business (B2B) meetings alongside business delegation visits to materialize trade and investment prospects.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani information technology (IT) associations and experts on Sunday urged the government to address the issue of slow Internet speeds by expediting the rollout of 5G spectrum and taking other measures, amid reports that the country suffered the highest economic losses in the world from Internet disruptions last year.
Pakistan suffered a total of $1.62 billion losses due to Internet outages and social media shutdowns in 2024, according to a recent report by global Internet monitor Top10VPN.com, surpassing losses in war-torn countries like Sudan and Myanmar.
The report, released on Jan. 2, said Pakistan, home to over 240 million people, experienced 9,735 hours of Internet disruptions that affected 82.9 million users, with elections and protests cited as the primary causes.
Last month, the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), the country’s top representative body for the IT sector, warned that Internet slowdowns and restrictions on virtual private networks (VPNs) could lead to financial losses and increase operational costs for the industry by up to $150 million annually.
“Pakistan suffers a loss of more than one million dollars per hour on account of Internet shutdown in the country,” P@SHA Chairman Sajjad Mustafa Syed told Arab News.
“The country urgently needs to address Internet outages and speed issues by rolling out 5G through a spectrum auction expected in March this year, while simultaneously completing the fiberization of cell towers and bringing new undersea cables to enhance connectivity and ensure the efficient deployment of next-generation telecommunications infrastructure.”
He said Pakistan’s IT sector had been thriving in recent years and its IT-related exports clocked in at $3.2 billion in the last fiscal year, which ended in June 2024, however, frequent Internet shutdowns could lead to a loss of revenues.
“Achieving the government’s target of $15 billion in IT exports [this fiscal year] depends on market access, infrastructure stability, a supportive taxation policy, and a skilled workforce,” he noted.
Internet speeds in Pakistan have dropped by up to 40 percent over the past few months, according to the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (WISPAP), as the federal government last year moved to implement a nationwide firewall to block malicious content, protect government networks from cyberattacks, and allow authorities to identify IP addresses associated with what it called “anti-state propaganda” and “terror attacks.”
Authorities have also announced plans to ban VPNs, which encrypt data and mask IP addresses to create a secure connection between a device and a network over the Internet. Access to social media platform X has already been blocked in Pakistan since February 2024, with the government saying the block was aimed at stopping “anti-state activities” and due to a failure by X to “adhere to local Pakistani laws.”
Rights activists say the moves are designed to “stifle critical voices and democratic accountability” in the South Asian country, the government denies it.
Tufail Ahmed Khan, president of the Pakistan Freelancers Association (PAFLA), said Pakistan has over 2.37 million freelancers who were directly impacted by frequent Internet shutdowns in 2024.
“Despite challenges such as Internet shutdowns and connectivity issues, Pakistan’s IT exports showed an upward trend last year, although growth could have been even stronger without these obstacles,” he told Arab News.
Khan praised the government’s announcement in Nov. last year about a National Fiberization Policy initiative to enhance broadband coverage and boost Internet speeds, saying the policy would benefit freelancers.
“The connectivity issue should be resolved on priority, so that we can work on increasing freelancing in Pakistan which will not only increase our foreign remittances, but also reduce pressure on government for employment,” he said.
“We request government to make Internet and VPN-friendly policies and there is also a need to bring freelancers in the banking eco-system and they should be encouraged to bring their money to Pakistan.”
Zohaib Khan, a former P@SHA chairman who owns a leading IT company, said freelancers were the most affected by downgraded speeds or Internet closures last year as Internet outages did not impact fiber optic and fixed lines.
“But reports of Internet shutdowns are damaging Pakistan’s brand image on the global stage, which indirectly impacts the industry,” he told Arab News, advising freelancers to use co-working spaces for their work in such situations.
“The government should consider addressing this issue on priority.”
Arab News reached out to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA), which regulates Internet in the South Asian country, and the IT Ministry for a comment on the subject, but did not receive a response.
On Saturday, the PTA said it had arranged a temporary bandwidth to address degraded Internet services caused by a recent fault in the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) submarine cable, ensuring Internet stability across the country.
The AAE-1 cable is one of seven international undersea cables connecting Pakistan globally. Disruptions in these cables can significantly impact Internet performance, affecting individual users and businesses reliant on stable connectivity for daily operations.
The PTA has also announced that the country was set to enhance its Internet speeds and connectivity by linking up with the 2Africa submarine cable later this year.
2Africa, one of the world’s largest submarine cable systems, spans 45,000 kilometers and connects 46 locations across Africa, Europe and the Middle East, offering speeds of up to 180 Tbps.
State Minister for IT Shaza Fatima Khawaja last week said that Pakistan was also in talks with Elon Musk’s Starlink to bring satellite Internet services to the country.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Sunday resolved to foster bilateral collaboration in various economic sectors, the Pakistan prime minister's office said, following PM Shehbaz Sharif's meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.
The Pakistan premier met with the UAE president in Pakistan's Rahim Yar Khan city, according to Sharif's office. They discussed a wide range of issues, including economic collaboration, regional stability, climate change, and the promotion of mutual interests on the global stage.
PM Sharif praised the UAE’s role as a key development and investment partner of Pakistan, and underscored Pakistan’s readiness to expand this cooperation in sectors such as renewable energy, technology, trade, infrastructure and skill development.
During the meeting, Sheikh Mohamed highlighted the Gulf nation’s "keen interest" in collaborating with Pakistan in the mining, minerals and agriculture sectors, PM Sharif's office said.
"The meeting concluded with a joint resolve to foster greater cooperation, particularly in priority sectors, ensuring a brighter future for both nations," it said in a statement.
The development comes as Pakistan, faced with a prolonged economic crisis, has been making efforts to leverage its geopolitical position to enhance trade with various countries in the region as well as to attract foreign investment to revive its $350 billion economy.
The UAE is Pakistan’s third-largest trading partner after China and the United States (US), and a major source of foreign investment, valued at over $10 billion in the last 20 years, according to the UAE foreign ministry. It is also home to more than a million Pakistani expatriates. Policymakers in Pakistan consider the UAE an optimal export destination due to its geographical proximity, which minimizes transportation and freight costs while facilitating commercial transactions.
In January last year, Pakistan and the UAE signed multiple agreements worth more than $3 billion for cooperation in railways, economic zones and infrastructure, a Pakistani official said, amid Pakistani caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar’s visit to Davos, Switzerland to attend 54th summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
During Sunday's meeting, PM Sharif extended his gratitude to Sheikh Mohamed for the UAE’s support to Pakistan during critical times, particularly in humanitarian assistance and development aid.
The UAE president expressed admiration for the manner in which Pakistan’s economy had stabilized and was moving in the "right direction," and emphasized that this "renewed economic vigor has created prospects for enhanced bilateral investment and collaboration," Sharif's office said.
"In his remarks, His Highness also reiterated the UAE’s commitment to enhancing its longstanding partnership with Pakistan, emphasizing the importance of people-to-people connections and shared prosperity," it said.
"Both leaders reaffirmed their dedication to peace and progress in the region, vowing to work closely on matters of mutual interest."
