QUETTA, Pakistan: The Taliban stormed a police station in Pakistan’s restive southwestern province of Baluchistan on Wednesday, triggering a shootout that killed a policeman and all three assailants, authorities said.
At least one other policeman was wounded in the attack in the town of Loralai, which was quickly claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.
According to district police chief Jawad Tariq, two suicide bombers detonated their explosives vests while the third militant was killed by police officers shortly after they came under attack.
“Because of the alertness of police, all three terrorists were killed,” Tariq said.
Mohammad Khurasani, a Taliban spokesman, gave no details about the attack.
Pakistan’s Baluchistan province has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by separatists demanding more autonomy and a greater share in the region’s natural resources, such as gas and oil.
Pakistani militant groups also have a presence in Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan.
Taliban storm town police station in southwestern Pakistan, kill officer
Taliban storm town police station in southwestern Pakistan, kill officer
- Two suicide bombers detonated their explosive vests while police killed the third militant
- Balochistan province has witnessed low-level insurgency for some time
New coach Gary Kirsten to join Pakistan cricket team in England
- The 56-year-old South African has served as the batting coach of Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League
- The PCB has also appointed Simon Helmot as the fielding coach and David Reid as mental performance coach
ISLAMABAD: Gary Kirsten will start his two-year assignment as the coach of Pakistan’s white-ball cricket team when he joins the squad in England on Sunday.
Pakistan will play four Twenty20s against England to prepare for the T20 World Cup next month in the Caribbean and the United States.
Pakistan has delayed naming its final 15-man squad for the T20 World Cup until the first T20 against England next Tuesday at Leeds.
Kirsten served as the mentor and batting coach of Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League. They were knocked out of playoff contention on Monday.
“I’ve missed the experience of coaching at the international level and nurturing talented players to reach their full potential,” Kirsten said in a statement issued by the Pakistan Cricket Board on Tuesday. “I’m committed to working closely with the (Pakistan) team to elevate their game and bring joy to fans around the world.”
Kirsten has coached India and South Africa.
Last month, the 56-year-old South African was confirmed as the white-ball coach along with Jason Gillespie as the red-ball coach.
Pakistan has done well in the last two T20 World Cups. It made the semifinals in 2021 and the final against England in 2022.
The PCB has also appointed Simon Helmot as the fielding coach and David Reid as mental performance coach of the national team for the T20 World Cup. Reid will join the team next Monday while Helmot will team up with the Pakistan side on May 31 after the T20 series against England.
Missile fired by drone kills four of a family in Pakistan near Afghan border, police say
- Local police chief said strike occurred in South Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
- It was not immediately clear who fired the missile and officers were investigating, the official added
DERA ISMAIL KHAN: A missile fired by a drone struck a house in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in northwestern Pakistan along the Afghan border before dawn Tuesday, killing at least four villagers, including children, police said.
The strike happened in South Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police chief Hidayat Ullah said. He said it was not immediately clear who fired the missile and officers were investigating. The Pakistan army evicted Pakistani Taliban insurgents from the region years ago, but they have been regrouping there.
Those killed in the missile strike were civilians with no known links to the insurgents. Villagers put their bodies on a road near a military camp and protested the killings and demanded information about who was responsible.
Most of the previous drone strikes in the area were carried out by the United States or the Pakistan army.
There was no immediate comment from the government or the military about the strike. The Pakistani Taliban, officially known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, is separate from but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban. It has been emboldened by the Afghan Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021.
Any significant rise in energy prices may impact improved inflation outlook — Pakistan central bank
- The bank says it is important for the government to set inflation target range in consultation with it
- However, its latest report finds gaps in collective and up-to-date understanding of inflation dynamics
KARACHI: Pakistan’s central bank has warned that any significant increase in energy prices may offset the impact of recent positive developments on the inflation outlook, urging the government to set an inflation target range in consultation with it.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said it had revised its inflation projection range to 23–25 percent for the current fiscal year against the target of 21 percent after the inflation hit all-time high of 38 percent in May last year, and had taken measures during the ongoing high inflationary episode to contain demand pressures and prevent de-anchoring of inflation expectations.
The central bank cumulatively raised the policy rate by 1,500 basis points during FY22 and FY23 and maintained it at 22 percent as adjustments in energy prices, in the backdrop of longstanding structural issues, continued to impact inflation outturns. As a result of monetary tightening, supported by some fiscal consolidation, lower global commodity prices, and improved domestic crop output, the inflation came down from its peak of 38 percent to 29.7 percent in December 2023, whereas core inflation has also gradually started to decelerate.
“Any significant increase in administered energy prices may offset the impact of positive developments on inflation outlook,” the central bank warned in its half-yearly report issued on Tuesday.
Higher input costs, increase in indirect taxes, and implementation of upward revision in minimum wage announced in the FY24 budget, alongside the second-round effects of administered prices of food and energy items, were responsible for the persistence in the core inflation during the first half of fiscal year 2023-24 (H1-FY24), according to the report.
“Despite subdued domestic demand and decline in global commodity prices, a combination of lingering structural issues, PKR (Pak Rupee) depreciation compared to H1-FY23, increase in government spending, and supply shocks kept the National CPI inflation at elevated levels,” it read.
The central bank also warned that its 23-25 percent inflation outlook may also be at risk due escalating geopolitical tensions, unfavorable weather conditions, adverse movements in global oil prices, and subsequent external account pressures, saying that it expected inflation to come down to 5–7 percent by September 2025.
To effectively anchor inflationary expectations, the central bank said: “It is important that the government sets the inflation target range in consultation with the SBP — ala the practice of joint agreements between the government and central bank in other countries, such as Canada, India and England.”
It also necessitates that deviations from planned fiscal policies, including the setting of administrative prices, are neither significant in magnitude nor in timing to avoid affecting monetary policy credibility and stoking long term inflationary expectations, according to the report.
It is imperative to relax the policy of price administration and to de-cap prices to help increase competition in the medium to long term and thereby lower inflationary pressure. While productivity growth is needed to improve supplies and lower per unit costs, there is also a need to significantly lower the pace of population growth to ease underlying demand pressures in the long term.
“There are gaps in collective and up to date understanding of inflation dynamics in the country,” the bank stated. “Plugging these gaps in understanding requires concerted efforts by academia, government institutions, and policy research institutes alike.”
Pakistan’s macroeconomic conditions somewhat improved during H1-FY24 and real economic activities moderately recovered against the contraction last year, while a $3 billion Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) helped reduce stress on external account, according to the central bank. Continued tight monetary policy stance and fiscal consolidation are expected to keep domestic demand in check, with modest economic recovery expected in the second half of FY24.
In the backdrop of improvements in business confidence, high frequency demand indicators since November 2023 and prospects for a good wheat production during FY24, the SBP projected real GDP growth in the range of 2-3 percent for the current fiscal year.
Pakistan’s top court allows ex-PM Khan’s video link testimony in NAB amendment case
- Khan has largely been kept out of the public eye by the authorities since his arrest last year in August
- Islamabad High Court reserved verdict over his bail petition in a case involving £190 million embezzlement
ISLAMABAD: In a significant political development, Pakistan’s top court on Tuesday instructed the government to arrange for former prime minister Imran Khan to present his arguments via video link from prison in a case involving amendments to the law regulating the country’s anti-corruption body.
The previous administration of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in May 2022 amended the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance, reducing several powers of the anti-graft body that was described as a tool of political engineering in the country.
One of the amendments restricted the NAB jurisdiction to cases involving over Rs500 million, leading the opposition to argue that these changes were designed to close corruption cases against leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.
In June 2022, Khan challenged the amendments in the Supreme Court, claiming they would effectively “eliminate any white-collar crime committed by public office holders.” After reviewing the case, the top court reinstated the original provisions of the law in September 2023, but the government decided to challenge the decision the very next month.
“The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder [Imran Khan] can present his arguments in the upcoming hearing via video link if he wishes to do so,” Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s Geo News TV. “Arrangements should be made for presentation of arguments via video link.”
Khan, who was arrested on corruption charges last year in August, has faced been through prison trial in many cases, though he has largely been kept out of the public eye, where he enjoys a massive following among his supporters.
If the video link is established, this will be the first time he will be seen and heard by people in the last several months. The court said during today’s proceedings it had allowed him to be represented through a counsel but he decided to personally argue the case.
The former prime minister, who was ousted from power in a no-confidence vote in April 2022, became tangled in a slew of legal cases, a frequent hazard for opposition figures in Pakistan.
In a separate development, the Islamabad High Court reserved its verdict while hearing his bail petition in an embezzlement case involving £190 million. The case is built around accusations that Khan and his associates misappropriated the amount sent by London-based National Crime Agency as part of a settlement involving seized assets of a Pakistani property tycoon in Britain.
According to the charges, instead of transferring this money to the state, it was adjusted by Khan’s administration against liabilities related to the property tycoon. As a result, Khan and others were accused of illegally benefiting from over 458 kanals of land for establishing a university.
The former prime minister’s wife, Bushra Bibi, also faced the charges in the case.
PM orders routing part of Pakistan’s imports via Gwadar to ‘fully operationalize’ southwestern port
- The prime minister gave instructions while presiding over meeting on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects
- PM Shehbaz Sharif also called for provision of ‘foolproof security’ to Chinese nationals who are working in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has instructed authorities to route a proportion of Pakistan’s imports through the Gwadar port in the southwestern Balochistan province to “fully operationalize” it, Sharif’s office said on Tuesday.
The prime minister gave the directives while presiding over a high-level meeting on projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a major segment of Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
The Gwadar port lies at the heart of CPEC, under which Beijing has pledged $65 billion for a network of roads, railways, pipelines, and ports in Pakistan that will connect China to the Arabian Sea and help Islamabad expand and modernize its economy.
PM Sharif said Pakistan-China partnership was currently on the “highest ever level” and urged authorities to strive for the positive outcomes of this partnership, according to his office.
“The Prime Minister directed to import a certain proportion of the domestic imports, especially the goods imported by the government, from Gwadar port,” Sharif’s office said in a statement.
China is a major ally and investor in Pakistan and has often financially assisted Islamabad, including in July last year when Beijing granted Pakistan a two-year rollover on a $2.4 billion loan, providing much-needed breathing space to the cash-strapped South Asian nation to tackle an economic crisis.
The prime minister instructed all the ministries to enhance collaboration for swift execution of CPEC’s second phase and warned against any laxity, according to the statement.
He also called for the provision of “foolproof security” to the Chinese nationals working in Pakistan, who have often been targeted by religiously motivated and separatist militants in Pakistan.
