You are here

  • Home
  • Pakistan PM to attend Arab-Islamic Summit meeting on Gaza and Lebanon today

Pakistan PM to attend Arab-Islamic Summit meeting on Gaza and Lebanon today

Update Pakistan PM to attend Arab-Islamic Summit meeting on Gaza and Lebanon today
A displaced Palestinian woman walks near tents in the al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on November 10, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Short Url

https://arab.news/8kjqf

Updated 24 min 17 sec ago
Follow

Pakistan PM to attend Arab-Islamic Summit meeting on Gaza and Lebanon today

Pakistan PM to attend Arab-Islamic Summit meeting on Gaza and Lebanon today
  • PM Sharif to meet Muslim World League secretary-general, Saudi investment minister on sidelines of summit
  • Pakistan has consistently criticized Israel for killing over 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October last year
Updated 24 min 17 sec ago
SAIMA SHABBIR
Follow

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will participate in the extraordinary Arab–Islamic summit meeting between the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) scheduled to be held today, Monday, in the Saudi capital Riyadh to discuss Israel’s ongoing wars in Gaza, Lebanon and escalating tensions in the Middle East. 
Sharif arrived in Riyadh on Sunday night to join various Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital who will attend the summit. Israel has waged war in Gaza since October last year, killing over 43,000 people and rendering the strip of land almost uninhabitable. Last month, it also invaded Lebanon, killing 3,000 people there since.
“Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif will attend the extraordinary summit meeting of the Arab-Islamic countries today,” a statement from Sharif’s office said. 
It added that the prime minister is expected to meet Saudi Arabia’s investment minister and the secretary-general of the Muslim World League on the sidelines of the summit. 




In this handout photo, taken and released by Pakistan’s Press Information Department on November 11, 2024, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif speaks during a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Governor of Riyadh Region Prince Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz at the Royal terminal of Riyadh International Airport in Riyad on November 10, 2024, ahead of the Arab–Islamic summit in Saudi capital to discuss Israel's ongoing wars in Gaza, Lebanon and the Middle East situation. (Photo courtesy: PMO)

The summit today will be a follow-up to the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit held in November 2023 in Riyadh, according to the Pakistani foreign ministry. Sharif will reiterate Pakistan’s full support to the Palestinian cause in his address at the gathering.
On Sunday, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, attended a meeting of the OIC’s Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) in Riyadh, wherein he called on the world to hold Israel accountable for its “war crimes” in Gaza.
“[Dar] expressed alarm at Israeli adventurism in the Middle East that is endangering peace and security in the region,” the Pakistani foreign ministry said in a statement. “[He] called on the international community to bring an end to Gaza genocide.”
Pakistan does not recognize nor have diplomatic relations with Israel and calls for an independent Palestinian state based on “internationally agreed parameters.”
Islamabad has also dispatched more than 1,300 tons of relief goods for Gaza and Lebanon, besides establishing the ‘Prime Minister’s Relief Fund for Gaza and Lebanon’ that aims to collect public donations for the war-affected people.
After attending the summit on Monday, the Pakistani prime minister will visit Baku, Azerbaijan on Tuesday to participate in a two-day World Leaders Climate Action Summit being held as part of the 29th UN Climate Change Conference.
“The prime minister will make a robust call for climate solidarity and climate justice, based on the established principles of equity,” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.

Topics: Arab-Islamic summit War on Gaza

Pakistan Stock Exchange breaches record 94,000 points barrier during intraday trading

Pakistan Stock Exchange breaches record 94,000 points barrier during intraday trading
Updated 11 November 2024
Follow

Pakistan Stock Exchange breaches record 94,000 points barrier during intraday trading

Pakistan Stock Exchange breaches record 94,000 points barrier during intraday trading
  • Rupee stability, falling bank lending rates played catalyst role in stock market’s bullish activity, says analyst
  • Pakistan Stock Exchange has witnessed bullish trend since last Monday when government slashed policy rate
Updated 11 November 2024
Shahjahan Khurram

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) soared to a record high during intraday trading on Monday, breaching the 94,000 points barrier for the first time which analysts attributed to improved market sentiments due to rupee stability and the government’s move to slash the policy rate. 
The KSE-100 Index rose to a record 94,020 points, a level never seen before in PSX history, during intraday trading on Monday. The stock market has been experiencing a bullish trend since last week which was evident when it breached the 93,000 points barrier for the first time on Friday.
Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation told Arab News the bullish trend was led by blue chip companies after American finance company MSCI revised Pakistan’s expected sta­n­dard index weight for November to 4.4 percent. The MSCI, in its latest review this month, announced the addition of eight Pakistani companies to its Frontier Market Small Cap Index.
“Rupee stability and falling bank lending rates following a slump in government bond yields played a catalyst role in bullish activity at PSX,” Mehanti told Arab News via text. 
The bullish trend has been observed in the stock market since last Monday when Pakistan’s central bank cut its key policy rate by 250 basis points, bringing it to 15 percent. This was the fourth straight reduction since June, as the country keeps up efforts to revive a sluggish economy with inflation easing.
Pakistan continues to enjoy record gains in the stock market as its economic indicators continue to improve after Islamabad secured a $7 billion, 37-month bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in September. 
Last year, Pakistan narrowly avoided a sovereign default when it clinched a last-gasp $3 billion IMF bailout program. The country has suffered a prolonged economic crisis that drained its foreign exchange reserves and saw its currency weaken amid double-digit inflation.

Topics: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX)

Pakistan beat UAE to clinch United Arab Classic Baseball championship

Pakistan beat UAE to clinch United Arab Classic Baseball championship
Updated 11 November 2024
Follow

Pakistan beat UAE to clinch United Arab Classic Baseball championship

Pakistan beat UAE to clinch United Arab Classic Baseball championship
  • Tournament featured Palestine, UAE, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and Nepal
  • Pakistan remained unbeaten throughout tournament, thrashing Afghanistan 17-3, India 12-0 and Bangladesh 10-0
Updated 11 November 2024
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan beat hosts United Arab Emirates 12-1 to clinch the United Arab Classic Baseball championship this week, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported on Monday, with the South Asian team taking home the trophy by remaining undefeated throughout the tournament. 
Baseball United Arab Classic, organized by Baseball United--a professional baseball organization in the Middle East and South Asia--took place from Nov. 7-10 in the UAE. The tournament featured Pakistan, UAE, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and Nepal.
Pakistan qualified for the final on Sunday after thrashing Afghanistan 17-3 on Saturday. Before that, the South Asian team had beaten India 12-0 and UAE 10-3. Pakistan had also defeated Bangladesh 10-0 on Nov. 7.
“Pakistan have won the United Arab Classic Baseball championship held in the United Arab Emirates,” Radio Pakistan said. “Pakistan beat UAE team in the final by 12-1.”
Pakistan’s official baseball body, Pakistan Federation Baseball, is internationally recognized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation. Pakistan Federation Baseball was founded by Syed Khawar Shah in 1992 and has grown into the preeminent baseball federation within South Asia over the last three decades.
Prior to this, Pakistan baseball won 10 championships in tournaments across Asia over the last 15 years, including the West Asia Cup in Islamabad in January 2023.

Topics: Baseball United Baseball United Arab Classic Pakistan Baseball Federation

Militant attack on Pakistani border leaves 5 security forces dead, Iran says

Militant attack on Pakistani border leaves 5 security forces dead, Iran says
Updated 11 November 2024
AP
Follow

Militant attack on Pakistani border leaves 5 security forces dead, Iran says

Militant attack on Pakistani border leaves 5 security forces dead, Iran says
  • No group claims responsibility for attack that took place in Iran's Saravan city in southeast
  • Sistan-Baluchestan province has been site of clashes involving militant groups, armed drug smugglers
Updated 11 November 2024
AP

TEHRAN: A militant attack near the Pakistani border with Iran left five Iranian forces dead, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
The report said the dead were ethnic Baloch members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s volunteer Basij force and were killed in Saravan city in Sistan and Baluchestan province. Saravan is some 1,400 km (870 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Earlier in the day, state TV reported that Revolutionary Guard forces killed three "terrorists" and arrested nine others in a military operation. The report did not specify which group the suspects belonged to.
Last month, unknown gunmen killed four people, including the chief of the Revolutionary Guard in the province.
In September, gunmen killed four border guards in Sistan and Baluchestan province in two separate attacks. The militant group Jaish al-Adl, which seeks greater rights for the ethnic Baloch minority, claimed responsibility for one attack in which one officer and two soldiers were killed.
The province, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been the site of occasional deadly clashes involving militant groups, armed drug smugglers and Iranian security forces. It is one of the least developed parts of Iran. Relations between the predominantly Sunni Muslim residents of the region and Iran’s Shiite theocracy have long been strained.

Topics: Pakistan Iran border Jaish Al-Adl group

Pakistan’s record smog triggers anguish and anxiety

Pakistan’s record smog triggers anguish and anxiety
Updated 11 November 2024
AFP
Follow

Pakistan’s record smog triggers anguish and anxiety

Pakistan’s record smog triggers anguish and anxiety
  • Lahore, a city of 14 million people on the border with India, regularly ranks among world’s most polluted cities
  • Schools in main cities of Punjab province, of which Lahore is capital, have closed until Nov. 17 due to the smog
Updated 11 November 2024
AFP

LAHORE: On the streets of Pakistan’s second biggest city, smog stings eyes and burns throats. Inside homes, few people can afford air purifiers to limit the damage of toxic particles that seep through doors and windows.
Lahore — a city of 14 million people stuffed with factories on the border with India — regularly ranks among the world’s most polluted cities, but it has hit record levels this month.
Schools have closed in the main cities of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital, until November 17 in a bid to lower children’s exposure to the pollution, especially during the morning commute when it is often at its highest.
“The children are constantly coughing, they have constant allergies. In schools we saw that most of the children were falling sick,” said Rafia Iqbal a 38-year-old primary school teacher in the city that borders India.
Her husband Muhammad Safdar, a 41-year-old advertising professional, said the level of pollution “is making daily living impossible.”
“We cannot move around, we cannot go outside, we can do nothing at all,” he told AFP.
According to the international Air Quality Index Scale, an index value of 300 or higher results is “hazardous” to health and Pakistan has regularly tipped over 1,000 on the scale.
In Multan, another city of several million people some 350 kilometers away, the AQI level passed 2,000 last week — a staggering height never seen before by incredulous residents.
Access to parks, zoos, playgrounds, historic monuments, museums and recreational areas will be banned until November 17 and tuk-tuks with polluting two-stroke engines, along with restaurants that operate barbecues without filters have been banned in Lahore “hot-spots.”
Air purifiers are luxury for most families, with the cheapest priced at around $90, with the added cost of replacing filters every few months in such extreme pollution.
Safdar and Iqbal do not have air purifiers and instead try to contain their children to one room.
“Preventive measures should have been taken. It’s a yearly occurrence,” Safdar said of the government.
“Obviously there is something missing in their solution.”
A mix of low-grade fuel emissions from factories and vehicles, exacerbated by agricultural stubble burning, blanket the city each winter, trapped by cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds.
The WHO says that air pollution can trigger strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.
It is particularly punishing for children and babies, and the elderly.
Last year, the Punjab government tested artificial rain to try to overcome the smog, and this year, trucks with water cannons sprayed the streets — with no results.
Special smog counters to triage patients have been established at clinics across the province, with 900 people admitted to hospital in Lahore alone on Tuesday.
Doctor Qurat ul Ain, a hospital doctor for 15 years, witnesses the damage from an emergency rooms in Lahore.
“This year smog is much more than previous years and the number of patients suffering from its effects is greater too,” she told AFP.
Many arrive with labored breathing or coughing fits and reddened eyes, often the elderly, children and young men who have breathed in the toxic air while on the back of motorbikes.
“We tell people not to go out and otherwise to wear a mask. We tell them not to touch their eyes with their hands, especially children,” she adds.
For days the concentration of polluting micro-particles PM2.5 in Punjab has been dozens of times higher than that deemed tolerable by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Doctor Alia Haider, also a climate activist, is calling for awareness campaigns for patients who often do not know the dangers of smog.
Children from poor neighborhoods, she said, are the first victims because they live all year round with pollutants of different types.
“We are stuck in our own poison,” she said. It’s like a cloud of gas over the city.”

Topics: Pakistan Smog Lahore Smog Delhi smog

Pakistan Railways suspends Quetta train operations for four days after deadly bombing

Pakistan Railways suspends Quetta train operations for four days after deadly bombing
Updated 11 November 2024
Follow

Pakistan Railways suspends Quetta train operations for four days after deadly bombing

Pakistan Railways suspends Quetta train operations for four days after deadly bombing
  • The suicide bombing at Quetta Railway Station killed 26 people and injured 64 others on Saturday morning
  • This was the deadliest attack since coordinated assaults in August that killed over 50 people in Balochistan
Updated 11 November 2024
NAIMAT KHAN

KARACHI: Pakistan Railways has suspended train operations from the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta to other parts of the country for four days, it said on Sunday, a day after a deadly bombing at Quetta Railway Station killed more than two dozen people.
At least 26 people were killed and 64 others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the crowded railway station early on Saturday morning in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, according to officials.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most prominent of separatist groups in Balochistan, claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest since a string of coordinated assaults on Aug. 25-26 in which more than 50 people, civilians and security officials, were killed in the region.
On Sunday, Aamir Ali Baloch, chief executive officer of Pakistan Railways, announced the suspension of train operations in view of security concerns and in the interest of passenger safety.
“Operations will resume as soon as clearance is granted,” Pakistan Railways said in a statement on Sunday night.
Train service from Quetta to other cities remained suspended for more than a month after separatist militants blew up a key bridge in the southwestern Balochistan province on August 26.
Built in 1887, the five-span bridge was the second such link constructed by the British Army at the Bolan Pass after reaching an agreement with the then Khan of Kalat, Meer Khuda-e-Dad Khan, to extend the railway network to Quetta and Chaman near the Afghan border.
Baloch said Pakistan Railways had successfully restored Quetta’s connection with the rest of the country and such incidents would not weaken their resolve. He said compensation would be provided to the families of the deceased and to the injured according to the railways insurance policy.
“Fifty injured individuals are currently being treated in trauma centers, where Pakistan Railways’ medical teams are present to provide care,” he said, commending the Quetta division team of railways for the immediate relief operations.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s most impoverished province where separatist militants have been fighting what they see as the unfair exploitation of the province’s mineral and gas wealth by the federation at the center. The province is home to major China-led investment projects such as a strategic port and a gold and copper mine.
The Pakistani government and military deny they are exploiting Balochistan and have long maintained that neighbors such as India, Afghanistan and Iran foment trouble in the remote province and support and fund the insurgency there to impede its development potential.

Topics: Quetta Railway Station Quetta Blast Baloch Liberation Army (BLA)

Related

Fear grips travelers a day after deadly bombing at Pakistan train station video
Pakistan
Fear grips travelers a day after deadly bombing at Pakistan train station
Pakistan vows to eliminate ‘terrorism’ as railway station attack kills 26 in southwest video
Pakistan
Pakistan vows to eliminate ‘terrorism’ as railway station attack kills 26 in southwest

Latest updates

Taiwan says exploding pagers in Lebanon were not made in Taiwan
Taiwan says exploding pagers in Lebanon were not made in Taiwan
KSrelief continues to deliver food aid to Palestinians
KSrelief continues to deliver food aid to Palestinians
Pakistan suspends Quetta train services after deadly station bombing
Pakistan suspends Quetta train services after deadly station bombing
Oil Updates – prices little changed as US storm threat abates, China stimulus disappoints
Oil Updates – prices little changed as US storm threat abates, China stimulus disappoints
Amazon’s 11.11 sale offers unmissable deals for shoppers in Saudi Arabia
Amazon’s 11.11 sale offers unmissable deals for shoppers in Saudi Arabia

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2024 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.