ISLAMABAD: South Korea’s Ambassador to Pakistan Park Ki Jun has said Seoul and Islamabad can undertake mega projects in diverse fields on the pattern of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Pakistani state media reported on Monday.
In an interview with the state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster, Ambassador Park acknowledged the importance of CPEC as a game-changer for Pakistan, China and other regional countries.
Beijing is investing over $65 billion in energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan as part of CPEC, a major segment of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
The multi-billion-dollar corridor will connect China to the Arabian Sea and help Islamabad expand and modernize its economy through a network of roads, railways, pipelines and ports in Pakistan.
“Same pattern can be pursued to enhance cooperation between South Korea and Pakistan in multiple sectors like energy and infrastructure,” Ambassador Park was quoted as saying by Radio Pakistan.
Pakistan, which has been facing low foreign exchange reserves, currency devaluation and high inflation, averted a sovereign default last year and recently reached a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a new $7 billion loan program.
The South Asian country is currently making desperate attempts to boost foreign direct investment in a bid to support its $350 billion fragile economy, with Islamabad seeing a flurry of high-level exchanges with Saudi Arabia, Japan, Azerbaijan, Qatar and other countries in recent months.
Ambassador Park said Pakistan had a “great skilled workforce” and South Korean IT companies were keen to start businesses in Pakistan by taking advantage of this skilled youth bulge, according to the Radio Pakistan report.
He emphasized the need to enhance trade cooperation between South Korea and Pakistan, saying the existing trade volume of around $1.2 billion was far less than the potential of both countries.
“Pakistan has rich natural resources and a vibrant human resource, while Korea is leading in advanced technology and economic growth,” he said, stressing the need to work jointly for the betterment of the people of the two countries.
Ambassador Park said a week-long Korea-Pakistan Gala would also be organized in October in Islamabad, which would be attended by officials and artistes from both countries.
Women ride Pakistan’s economic crisis into the workplace
Pakistan was first Muslim nation to be led by a woman PM in 1980s, women CEOs grace power lists in Forbes magazine, make up ranks of police and military
But much of Pakistani society operates under a traditional code which requires women to have permission from their family to work outside of the home
Updated 4 sec ago
AFP
KARACHI: Amina Sohail veers through heavy traffic to pick up her next passenger — the sight of a woman riding a motorcycle drawing stares in Pakistan’s megacity of Karachi.
The 28-year-old is the first woman in her family to enter the workforce, a pattern emerging in urban households coming under increasing financial pressure in Pakistan.
“I don’t focus on people, I don’t speak to anyone or respond to the hooting, I do my work,” said Sohail, who joined a local ride-hailing service at the start of the year, transporting women through the dusty back streets of the city.
“Before, we would be hungry, now we get to eat at least two to three meals a day,” she added.
The South Asian nation is locked in a cycle of political and economic crises, dependent on IMF bailouts and loans from friendly countries to service its debt.
Prolonged inflation has forced up the price of basic groceries such as tomatoes by 100 percent. Electricity and gas bills have risen by 300 percent compared to July last year, according to official data.
Sohail used to help her mother with cooking, cleaning and looking after her younger siblings, until her father, the family’s sole earner, fell sick.
“The atmosphere in the house was stressful,” she said, with the family dependent on other relatives for money. “That’s when I thought I must work.”
“My vision has changed. I will work openly like any man, no matter what anyone thinks.”
In this photograph taken on August 19, 2024, Amina Sohail, a motorbike rider with a local ride-hailing service provider Bykea, speaks during an interview with AFP in Karachi. (AFP)
Pakistan was the first Muslim nation to be led by a woman prime minister in the 1980s, women CEOs grace power lists in Forbes magazine, and they now make up the ranks of the police and military.
However, much of Pakistani society operates under a traditional code which requires women to have permission from their family to work outside of the home.
According to the United Nations, just 21 percent of women participate in Pakistan’s work force, most of them in the informal sector and almost half in rural areas working in the fields.
In this photograph taken on August 17, 2024, receptionist Hina Saleem talks on a telephone at a leather factory in Karachi. (AFP)
“I am the first girl in the family to work, from both my paternal and maternal side,” said Hina Saleem, a 24-year-old telephone operator at a leather factory in Qur’angi, Karachi’s largest industrial area.
The move, supported by her mother after her father died, was met with resistance from her extended family.
Her younger brother was warned that working could lead to socially unacceptable behavior, such as finding a husband of her choice.
“My uncles said ‘get her married’,” she told AFP. “There was lots of pressure on my mother.”
At the changeover of shifts outside the leather factory, workers arrive in painted buses decorated with chinking bells, with a handful of women stepping out amid the crowd of men.
In this photograph taken on August 17, 2024, employee Anum Shahzadi sorts jackets at a leather factory in Karachi. (AFP)
Nineteen-year-old Anum Shahzadi, who works in the same factory inputting data, was encouraged by her parents to enter the workforce after completing high school, unlike generations before her.
“What is the point of education if a girl can’t be independent,” said Shahzadi, who now contributes to the household alongside her brother.
Bushra Khaliq, executive director for Women In Struggle for Empowerment (WISE) which advocates for political and economic rights for women, said that Pakistan was “witnessing a shift” among urban middle class women.
“Up until this point, they had been told by society that taking care of their homes and marriage were the ultimate objective,” she told AFP.
“But an economic crunch and any social and economic crises bring with them a lot of opportunities.”
In this photograph taken on August 18, 2024, a homemaker Farzana Augustine prepares lunch for her son at their house in Karachi. (AFP)
Farzana Augustine, from Pakistan’s minority Christian community, earned her first salary last year at the age of 43, after her husband lost his job during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“My wife had to take over,” Augustine Saddique explained to AFP.
“But it is nothing to be sad about, we are companions and are running our house together.”
The sprawling port metropolis of Karachi, officially home to 20 million people but likely many millions more, is the business center of Pakistan.
It pulls in migrants and entrepreneurs from across the country with the promise of employment and often acts as a bellwether for social change.
In this photograph taken on August 16, 2024, childminder Zahra Afzal heads to work, in Karachi. (AFP)
Nineteen-year-old Zahra Afzal moved to Karachi to live with her uncle four years ago, after the death of her parents, leaving her small village in central-eastern Pakistan to work as a childminder.
“If Zahra was taken by other relatives, she would have been married off by now,” her uncle Kamran Aziz told AFP, from their typical one room home where bedding is folded away in the morning and cooking is done on the balcony.
“My wife and I decided we would go against the grain and raise our girls to survive in the world before settling them down.”
Afzal beams that she is now an example for her sister and cousin: “My mind has become fresh.”
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations on Saturday reaffirmed its commitment to UN peacekeeping missions while marking the International Day of Police Cooperation, noting its police contingents have actively contributed to global peace by serving the world body since the 1960s.
UN peacekeeping operations, carried out in conflict zones, are crucial in maintaining security, protecting civilians and fostering sustainable peace in post-conflict areas.
In May, Pakistan announced it had contributed 235,000 troops to 48 missions in 29 countries since 1960.
A month later, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi pledged to send 128 additional police officers to UN peacekeeping forces after meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in New York.
“Since the 1960s, Pakistan’s police have actively contributed to United Nations’ peacekeeping missions in countries such as Sudan, Haiti, Kosovo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the Pakistani diplomatic mission said in a social media post. “Their roles include maintaining law and order, training local police forces, and providing security for humanitarian operations.”
It said Pakistan also deploys female officers, enhancing their ability to engage with vulnerable groups, adding the professionalism of the country’s police has earned them international recognition.
“On the International Day of Police Cooperation today, we reiterate our resolve to continue working under the @UNPeacekeeping to promote global peace, security and stability,” it continued.
Since the 1960s, Pakistan's police have actively contributed to United Nations' peacekeeping missions in countries such as Sudan, Haiti, Kosovo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their roles include maintaining law and order, training local police forces, and providing… pic.twitter.com/3rx7IRacds
— Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the UN (@PakistanUN_NY) September 7, 2024
According to the Pakistan military’s statement, more than 180 Pakistanis deployed in different parts of the world have died during the peacekeeping operations.
QUETTA: Earlier this year, Danial Shah, a Pakistani photographer and filmmaker currently pursuing a doctorate in visual and performing arts in Brussels, got an idea: to travel from the land of the colonizer, Britain, which had ruled the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947, to the land that was colonized, present day Pakistan — but without flying.
Thus began a journey that took him from London to the southwestern Pakistani town of Quetta, the city of his birth, via trains, ferries, buses and taxis at a cost of $2,509.
“I wanted to start my journey from London, the reason is that Britain ruled our country for a long time, colonized us and it is Britain that gives us [Pakistanis] visas with great difficulty,” Shah, a 35-year-old documentary filmmaker and photographer, told Arab News in an interview in Quetta.
Pakistani photographer and backpacker Danial Shah, who travelled from London to Quetta in 58 days via trains, ferries, buses and taxis, uses his phone in a street in Quetta on September 3, 2024, during an interview with Arab News. (AN Photo)
“So I thought if I get a visa, I will start my journey from the place where the colonizer lives and reach the place which they colonized.”
Spending his early childhood in Quetta, Shah was always thrilled by the stories of foreign travelers who frequented the area and often arrived using what was dubbed the historic Quetta-London Road, once a popular route for international tourists and considered a ‘gateway’ to Europe.
“I often used to see foreigners here and when you asked someone their story, they would say, ‘We have come from Germany, from London, traveling through Turkiye and Iran’,” Shah said. “So, when I found time, I thought I should go on this journey also.”
This map, shared by Pakistani photographer and backpacker Danial Shah, shows his journey from London to Quetta. Shah’s 58-day-journey brought him home to Quetta via trains, ferries, buses and taxis at a cost of $2,509. (Photo courtesy: Danial Sheikh)
Frequent public commuting through the Quetta-London route, stretching over thousands of miles, began after the end of World War I and people even used it to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj, according to Dr. Irfan Ahmed Baig, a Quetta-based historian and author of the Urdu-language book ‘Quetta My City.’ European tourists choose the route to enter Turkiye via Greece and continued onwards to the Middle East and Asia. The route was diverted to Central Asia from Afghanistan, from where to leads to India and Bangladesh via Pakistan.
“A Quetta-London bound bus service was started in the 1950 but it was suspended due to unknown reasons,” Baig told Arab News. “During the Soviet Union’s incursion on Afghanistan, tourist movement through this route declined due to security reasons.”
Shah’s journey through a stretch of the route also did not come without difficulty as he faced strict border security checks on account of holding a Pakistani passport, considered one of the weakest travel documents according to global rankings, and amid fears about human smuggling and illegal migration.
This photo, posted on August 11, 2024 on Instagram, shows Pakistani photographer and backpacker Danial Shah, who travelled from London to Quetta in 58 days via trains, ferries, buses and taxis, at the Albania Museum in Tirana, Albania. (Photo courtesy: Danial Shah)
“At various border crossing points, I was the only one off-boarded from buses and questioned by border security forces,” he said.
But he powered on and the journey that began in London on July 3 took him through Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East, to Pakistan’s Balochistan province on August 21.
“From London, I traveled to France. From France, I went to Italy, where I took a boat to Croatia. From Croatia, I went to Serbia, Serbia to Bosnia, and from Bosnia to Montenegro, Albania,” the University of Antwerp student said.
“From Albania, I entered Greece. Then I took a boat from Greece to Turkiye and from Turkiye I took a bus to Iran. From Iran I traveled through buses and taxis and reached Pakistan.”
He said he was grateful for the people he met along the way and the hospitality and warmth he was offered.
“I enjoyed Bosnia the most, followed by Albania, and then Turkiye and Iran, because their manner of hospitality is similar to our Quetta,” Shah said.
His next plan is to save up for journeys to ever new countries and cultures.
This photo, posted on August 22, 2024 on Instagram, shows Pakistani photographer and backpacker Danial Shah, who travelled from London to Quetta in 58 days via trains, ferries, buses and taxis, in Iran. (Photo courtesy: Danial Shah)
“I wish to plan a year-long journey after saving some money to see more countries and additional stay,” Shah said, “because I met many people who were on the same route but traveling to Central Asia via Iran and Afghanistan to Vietnam.”
ISLAMABAD: Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar on Saturday described restoring Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flights to the United Kingdom and other European countries as a “major priority,” saying that he raised the issue with British officials during his five-day visit to London, which he called beneficial for the country.
The suspension of PIA flights to the UK and Europe followed a 2020 plane crash in Karachi that killed 97 people. This was compounded by a controversial statement from Ghulam Sarwar Khan, the aviation minister in former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s administration, who asserted that a significant number of Pakistani pilots held fake licenses, leading to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) ban on PIA.
Since then, the airline has undergone multiple audits to address safety and operational concerns in hopes of restoring international routes.
Addressing a news conference in London, Dar criticized the former aviation minister’s “irresponsible statement,” saying Pakistan had since made every effort to resume PIA flights.
“I told the [British] deputy prime minister [Angela Rayner] that it is a serious matter for our community and diaspora,” he said during the media interaction at the Pakistan High Commission. “It is a major priority. So, we will continue to engage and will not sit and relax until as long as this thing is done.”
Dar noted that while restoring flights to Britain and Europe was important, advancing the privatization process of the national airline was equally vital.
“We will start receiving the first round of bids for PIA [privatization] on October 1,” he said, adding the government was also outsourcing Islamabad airport operations, with bids expected next month.
He further emphasized that his visit to Britain had been highly productive.
“I believe that my visit was extensive, busy and potentially very useful for Pakistan,” he said.
This was Pakistani deputy prime minister’s first visit to Britain following the change of government in the UK, where the Labour Party won the general elections in July and returning to power after 14 years.
ISLAMABAD: Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party is holding a rally in Islamabad today, Sunday, to press authorities for the release of the ex-premier, who has been facing a slew of cases.
Khan, who has been in jail since August on charges of corruption, treason and attempting to incite a mutiny in the military, has waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance against Pakistan’s military since his ouster in a parliamentary no-trust vote in April 2022.
He has accused the then army leadership of orchestrating his ouster together with his political rivals as part of a United States-backed “foreign conspiracy.” The military, Khan’s rivals and Washington have repeatedly denied this.
His PTI party aims to mobilize the public for the release of the former cricket star who has a devoted following, but has struggled to hold rallies across the country. The party this week said it got permission for the rally in Islamabad, which was canceled twice in recent months.
“We are holding this rally as per the law and the constitution,” PTI member Aamir Dogar was quoted as saying by the party on X. “Efforts should not be made to prevent it.”
پولیس نے پولیس گردی کا مظاہرہ کرتے ہوے جنریٹر روک لیے اور جلسہ گاہ تک نہ جانے دیے ، ایم این اے ملک عامر ڈوگر رات ایک بجے موقع پر پہنچے اور جنریٹر جلسہ گاہ تک پہنچائے!#چلو_چلو_اسلام_آباد_چلوpic.twitter.com/Z22KwPt8oO
The party has also announced simultaneous protests outside the Pakistani embassy in London and in other parts of the world.
“Everyone must attend the all important protest tomorrow in London outside the Pakistan embassy,” Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari said on X. “It will be a historic turnout in Islamabad, London and world over. This is the beginning of our peaceful protests in Pakistan and world over. It’s a duty upon us to stand up.”
Everyone must attend the ALL important protest tomorrow in London outside the Pakistan embassy. IA it will be a historic turnout in Islamabad , London and world over. This is the beginning of our peaceful protests in Pakistan and world over. It’s a duty upon us to stand up… pic.twitter.com/m3pTGJa8ps
The PTI says it has been facing a state-backed crackdown and the mass arrest of its members and supporters for standing by Khan. Pakistani authorities deny the allegations.
The action against the PTI began after people carrying its party flags attacked and damaged government and military installations on May 9, 2023, after Khan’s brief arrest that day in a graft case.
Hundreds of PTI workers and leaders were arrested following the May 9 riots and many remain behind bars as they await trial. The military has also initiated trials of at least 103 people accused of involvement in the violence.
Khan recently made a “conditional” offer of talks to the army, if “clean and transparent” elections were held and the “bogus” cases against his supporters were dropped. The military, which has repeatedly said Khan and his party were behind the May 9 attacks, has ruled out any talks with him.
