Pakistan PM orders swift installation of smart meters to enhance billing transparency/node/2584580/pakistan
Pakistan PM orders swift installation of smart meters to enhance billing transparency
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chairs a review meeting in Islamabad on December 28, 2024, on performance of Electricity Distribution Companies. (Photo courtesy: PMO)
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday directed the rapid installation of smart meters to improve transparency and curb overbilling in Pakistan’s power sector, according to an official statement.
Pakistan’s power sector faces significant challenges, including billing issues, electricity theft, and data discrepancies. Earlier this year in September, a Senate committee review highlighted these issues, noting that consumers have suffered due to incorrect meter readings and mismanagement.
“The installation of smart meters should be completed at the earliest to ensure transparency in the billing system,” the prime minister instructed the relevant officials in a meeting to review the performance of power distribution companies.
“Overbilling is absolutely unacceptable and strict action will be taken against officials involved in overbilling,” he added.
He also mentioned the problem of electricity theft in certain areas of the country, which contributes to the sector’s financial instability.
This is made possible through various methods, such as meter tampering or using illegal connections to consume power without proper billing.
“Concrete measures must be taken to prevent electricity theft,” the prime minister said.
He instructed the power companies utilize all necessary resources to meet targets set by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA).
He also instructed merit-based recruitment within power distribution companies, saying no compromise on transparency would be tolerated.
ISLAMABAD: An Islamabad accountability court will announce the verdict in a case involving former prime minister Imran Khan and his third wife Bushra Khan, in which they are accused of receiving land worth millions of dollars as bribe from a real estate tycoon through the Al-Qadir Trust, on Jan. 13, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said on Monday.
The charitable trust was set up by Khan and his third wife Bushra Khan in 2018 when still in office. Pakistani authorities have accused Khan and Bushra of receiving the land, worth up to 7 billion rupees ($25 million), from a property developer charged in Britain with money laundering.
Authorities accused Khan of getting the land in exchange for a favor to the property developer by using 190 million pounds repatriated by Britain in the money laundering probe to pay fines levied by a court against the developer. Khan’s aides have previously said that the land was donated to the trust for charitable purposes. The real estate developer has also denied any wrongdoing.
This is the second time the announcement of the verdict has been deferred. It was supposed to be announced on Dec. 23 but was delayed to Jan. 6.
“Decision on Alaqadir Trust case postponed till 13th January, communicated by judicial staff to the Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s legal team,” the PTI said in a message circulated among the media.
Khan’s party said the delay “questions the legitimacy of the merits of the trial,” alleging that it was conducted based on “phony evidence” to keep Khan in prison.
Pakistani news website Geo.tv reported that the decision was deferred as the judge, Nasir Javed Rana, was on leave.
Khan, who has been in jail since August 2023 in a slew of cases, had also become a beneficiary of the restored amendments, his party said after the ruling, arguing that he could now move the courts for acquittal in at least two major corruption cases, namely the land bribe case and an investigation involving the illegal sale of state gifts while he was PM.
Since his ouster from office, the former prime minister has led a campaign of unprecedented defiance against the country’s powerful military, accusing them of colluding with his rivals to orchestrate his removal.
The military has denied Khan’s allegations and insisted strongly it does not interfere in politics.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Sohail Adnan will face off against Egyptian opponent Moez Tamer Elmoghazy today, Monday, in the final of the British Junior Open Squash Championship in Birmingham after he beat another Egyptian opponent, Amr Moustafa, a day earlier.
The five-day championship kicked off in Birmingham on Jan. 2 and the final of the tournament is expected to be played today, Jan. 6. The event is being held at the Birmingham University Sport and Fitness, which features an all-glass show court.
Adnan stormed into the final after beating Moustafa 3-0 in the semifinal on Sunday with a scoreline of 11-7, 11-6 and 11-7.
“This victory sets the stage for a thrilling final encounter against top-seeded Egyptian player Moez Tamer Elmoghazy in the Under-13 category,” state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported on Sunday. “Adnan will be aiming to cap off a remarkable tournament with a gold medal.”
Pakistan has always been counted among the world’s top squash-playing nations, introducing legendary players of the sport such as Jahangir Khan, Jansher Khan, Azam Khan, and Qamar Zaman to the world. Between themselves, Jansher Khan and Jahangir Khan won the World Squash Open title 14 times for Pakistan during the ‘80s and the ‘90s.
Last month, Jansher Khan was inducted into the Professional Squash Association (PSA) Hall of Fame. A key part of the Pakistani dominance of the sport throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Jansher Khan won the World Championships eight times – a record in the men’s game – and also added six British Open titles to a glittering trophy haul.
A World No.1 for 97 months throughout his career, Khan’s final professional title count of 99 is the greatest of any player since records began.
Last week, Pakistani squash player Azan Ali Khan clinched the Junior Under-17 Scottish Junior Open Championship 2024 in Edinburgh after beating Switzerland’s Landro Wagle in the final.
‘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 06 January 2025
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 on Saturday.
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.
