Pakistan PM urges fair climate deal, warns of loan ‘death traps’ at UN event

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif speaks during a panel discussion convened by United Nations Secretary General on spearheading breakthroughs to reach the 2030 promise through just and inclusive transitions in SDG Moment in New York on September 24, 2024. (PMO)
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Updated 25 September 2024
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Pakistan PM urges fair climate deal, warns of loan ‘death traps’ at UN event

  • Shehbaz Sharif attended the inaugural General Assembly session, will address the world body on Friday
  • PM Sharif also holds meeting with Turkiye’s Erdoğan, says the Turkish president will soon visit Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday urged the world to ensure a fair deal in assisting developing countries like Pakistan in coping with the adverse impacts of climate change, warning that loans for this purpose were debt traps which he described as “death traps.”

Sharif expressed these opinions while addressing an event, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Moment 2024, on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Session in New York.

The high-level discussion week at the UNGA kicked off just a few hours before the prime minister spoke, with world leaders and policymakers attending debates and side events aimed at addressing the most pressing global issues.

Sharif attended a welcome reception hosted by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for the participating heads of state and government. The Pakistani premier also participated in the inaugural UNGA session.

“We faced terrorism after 9/11 … and finally, we were able to beat them [the militants] hands down, but in the process, we lost $150 billion as our economic loss, and during [the 2022] floods lost $30 billion, and yet we are asked to borrow money, to pay borrowed money in loans,” Sharif said while addressing the SDG event.




Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif gestures during a panel discussion with Fiame Naomi Mata’afa Prime Minister of Samoa, Bassirou Diomaye Faye President of Senegal, Mette Frederiksen Prime Minister of Denmark and Bernardo Arévalo President of Guatemala, convened by United Nations Secretary General on spearheading breakthroughs to reach the 2030 promise through just and inclusive transitions in SDG Moment in New York on September 24, 2024. (PMO)

“This vicious circle of debt traps, I call it a death trap, will not help at all the developing societies,” he continued. “So, we have to strike a fair deal.”

Pakistan witnessed unprecedented monsoon rains leading to flash floods in 2022, which were widely attributed to climate change despite contributing less than a fraction of a percent to global carbon emissions.

“Those who play with trillions [of dollars] and are responsible for these emissions, they have to share their responsibility and come to the help of these developing societies,” Sharif said, calling the current situation a result of an “unbalanced, unjust and unfair system [that] will lead to nowhere.”

Speaking about the issues faced by the country in the education sector, he noted that a large number of children were still out of school in Pakistan due to financing issues.

“Twenty-five million children even today are out of school [in Pakistan],” he said, calling it a “big challenge.”

However, he maintained that developing countries like Pakistan struggle to raise funds to meet the SDGs and catch up with the developing world.

BILATERAL MEETINGS

On the sidelines of the UNGA session, the prime minister also held a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.




Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (left) shakes hands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the sidelines of United National General Assembly meeting in New York on September 24, 2024. (PMO)

“Today, the president of Turkiye delivered a highly enthusiastic speech at the United Nations,” he told reporters after the meeting. “The way the Turkish president presented the issue of Palestine touched the hearts of everyone present in the hall.”

“I congratulated the president of Turkiye on his speech,” he added.

The prime minister said Pakistan and Turkiye enjoyed brotherly relations, adding that Erdoğan would soon visit the country.

He also met with President of Maldives Dr. Mohamed Muizzu and vowed to enhance cooperation with the island nation in various fields, including trade, tourism, education, investment and climate change.




Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (right) shakes hands with  President of Maldives Dr. Mohamed Muizzu on the sidelines of United National General Assembly meeting in New York on September 24, 2024. (PMO)

The PM Office said in a statement that during the meeting, the two leaders underscored the deep-rooted ties between Pakistan and the Maldives.

“Both leaders agreed on the need to increase people-to-people exchanges and collaborative efforts to promote economic growth and sustainable development in their respective countries,” the statement added.

Sharif is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Friday.


China warns citizens against travel to Pakistan after deadly suicide bombing — report

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China warns citizens against travel to Pakistan after deadly suicide bombing — report

  • Two Chinese engineers were killed in a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device blast in Karachi on Sunday
  • Beijing has called on Islamabad to ‘severely punish’ the attackers and ‘plug security loopholes’ to protect CPEC

ISLAMABAD: China has warned its nationals against traveling to Pakistan’s two western provinces, South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday, following a deadly suicide bombing in Karachi that killed two of its citizens on Sunday.
The attack occurred just before the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, scheduled for next week, and was claimed by the separatist armed group, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which said it used a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device for the explosion.
This was not the first attack against Chinese nationals in Karachi, where the same militant group killed three Chinese academics and their local driver in a suicide bombing in April 2022.
Pakistan announced plans to strengthen security protocols for Chinese workers in the country earlier this year after another suicide attack killed five Chinese workers on the Dasu Hydropower Project, and took strict disciplinary action against five senior officials for their “negligence.”
“In a statement on Monday, the embassy advised Chinese citizens to avoid traveling to the southwest province of Balochistan and the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which have seen a surge in attacks targeting Chinese personnel and projects,” the Hong Kong-based newspaper, known for providing in-depth coverage on Asia-Pacific, said in its report.
It added that Beijing had called on Islamabad to “severely punish” the attackers and “plug security loopholes” to protect the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Chinese nationals.
A statement in English available on the embassy’s website reminds “Chinese citizens, enterprises, and projects in Pakistan to be vigilant, pay close attention to the security situation, strengthen security measures, and make every effort to take safety precautions.”
The BLA opposes Pakistan’s control over Balochistan, claiming the region is exploited for its resources without benefiting the local population, an allegation denied by the state.
The group also has a history of targeting Chinese interests in the country due to Beijing’s involvement in infrastructure projects in Balochistan.
Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Tuesday the Chinese killed in the Sunday attack were Independent Power Producers engineers, adding that the government was in energy debt restructuring negotiations with them.
A senior Pakistani politician, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who closely monitors China-Pakistan relations, also shared the South China Morning Post story on social media, expressing regret over the situation.
“What a Shame, this travel advisory, warning of dangers of travel to Pakistan, is not emanating from Washington or London, but from Beijing, our next-door neighbor & Strategic Partner,” he wrote on X.
“China has huge investments in strife-torn Nigeria & Congo, but never have we witnessed there 19 murders of Chinese engineers & technicians in 6 incidents in 5 years, as we see these recurring in Pakistan,” he added.
Sayed questioned the priorities of the current government, saying it was focusing more on local protesters than addressing militants operating in the country.
https://x.com/Mushahid/status/1843710273670316505


Mad for momos: Pakistan’s first dumplings-only café carves a niche

Updated 7 min 29 sec ago
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Mad for momos: Pakistan’s first dumplings-only café carves a niche

  • Maria Mushtaq opened first branch of Mariyah’s Den in Karachi in 2021, she now has two more outlets in Pakistan
  • Food critic Ahmer Naqvi says dumplings popular as they “fit into modern life in terms of convenience and fusion”

KARACHI: If by chance you are a lover of dumplings and based in Karachi or Islamabad, then consider this a good time to pay a visit to Mariyah’s Den, Pakistan’s first dumplings-only café.
While Chinese dishes like fried rice, chow mein noodles and chicken manchurian have long been beloved to the Pakistani flavor palate, a taste for dumplings, a globe-spanning culinary trope, has been on the rise in the South Asian city in recent years. This growing taste is what founder and chef Maria Mushtaq was counting on when she started Mariyah’s Den as a delivery service for ready-to-cook frozen dumplings which she made and sold from home in 2020, as people opened up to trying new recipes and dishes during coronavirus lockdowns.
“Then my husband, who is also a partner in this venture, said ‘The way you steam it [dumpling] and the way you make it and serve it in the sauce, it’s very unique, so, you should open a café’,” Mushtaq told Arab News in an interview earlier this month.
The first branch of Mariyah’s Den opened in Karachi in November 2021. Three years later, the cafe has another outlet in Karachi and one in Islamabad as well.
The restaurant serves nine types of dumplings including beef, chicken, lamb, prawn, a combination of prawn and chicken, vegetarian, mushroom and a sweet variety filled with chocolate.
“A lot of people did come up and say, ‘Oh, you’re very brave that you opened a restaurant just on the basis of one dish’,” Mushtaq said. “But I realized that in Karachi, we do have specific places where we go to eat specific foods like nihari and bun kebab so why not dumplings?”
The cafe was a “hit since day one,” the chef added.
“Dumplings as a dish in itself were not that popular a long time ago, but now people do consider that it’s a snack and they like it,” Mushtaq said, explaining that she had tweaked what she thought were the “bland flavors” of Chinese dumplings to Pakistani tastes.
The dumplings at Mariyah’s Den are also served in the sauce, rather than with the sauce of the side.
“Dumplings have been there for a very long time, it’s like a 2000-year-old Chinese dish and dumplings are present in every culture but everyone has adapted it to their own taste and liking,” Mushtaq said. “The Nepalese have their own version, we have mamtus in the mountains [of Pakistan].
Customers also said dumplings were the “perfect comfort food,” filled with both carbohydrates and protein ingredients. Others liked the ease of eating them.
“I think we live in an era of snack foods. Most people like me prefer [dumplings], because it’s instantly available to grab and go,” Mohammad Shams, who was visiting Mariyah’s Den earlier this month, told Arab News.
Ahmer Naqvi, a Pakistani culture and food critic, agreed that dumplings were a comfort food and “very common” across cultures.
“It’s actually one of the oldest and most familiar things going around, like a samosa,” he said, “It is a different dough texture but using the same logic. As a result of globalization, you are seeing a combination of a more Chinese style of the dumplings. It’s more popular now because of the ways it fits into modern life whether in terms of convenience or in terms of fusion.”
Dumplings were also very easy to cook and store, Naqvi added.
For the future, Mushtaq plans to expand her menu but wants to stay true to the cafe’s roots in Chinese flavors.
“We are slowly adding noodles also. So, we have chilly noodles. We have just added a soup bowl, which is noodles with chicken curry,” she said. “I think the genre is just going to be dumplings and we’d just keep on experimenting with that kind of food which is fast, not junk, and it’s very healthy.”


Team of global experts to arrive in Karachi to supervise relocation of elephant Madhubala to Safari Park

Updated 34 min 9 sec ago
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Team of global experts to arrive in Karachi to supervise relocation of elephant Madhubala to Safari Park

  • Madhubala has been in solitary confinement at Karachi Zoo since April last year after her companion, Noor Jehan, passed away from illness
  • Animal rights activists in Pakistan have long demanded that animals, especially elephants, be shifted to ‘species-appropriate’ sanctuaries

KARACHI: A team of Four Paws, a Vienna-based animal welfare organization, will soon arrive in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi to oversee the shifting of an elephant, Madhubala, to a new sanctuary at the city’s Safari Park, Four Paws said on Tuesday.
Madhubala, a female elephant, has been in solitary confinement at Karachi Zoo since April 2023 after her companion, elephant Noor Jehan, passed away from illness. She is to be shifted to a sanctuary in Safari Park, where she will be in the company of two other elephants.
Madhubala, one of only three captive elephants alive in Pakistan, was brought to the South Asian country with three other elephants from Tanzania in 2009, with Four Paws experts saying earlier this year that solitary confinement had taken a strong toll on her.
Animal rights activists have long campaigned against the plight of animals in Pakistan, especially elephants, and demanded they be shifted to “species-appropriate” locations such as Safari Park.
“This marks a significant milestone in the efforts to ensure a safe and secure species-appropriate environment for African elephant Madhubala, who will have a chance to be united with her sisters Malika and Sonia,” Four Paws said in a statement, adding that the adaptation work at Karachi’s Safari Park had reached its final stage.
“As part of the final preparations, the focus now lies on completing the landscaping of the elephant enclosure at Safari Park, finalizing enrichment features, and continuing the necessary training of the three elephants, including resuming crate training for Madhubala.”
In addition to these tasks, complex logistical arrangements are being finalized and the exact relocation date of Madhubala will be announced in the coming weeks, according to Four Paws.
Madhubala will be carried from the Karachi Zoo to the Safari Park in a huge transport crate. The elephant is currently being trained to enter and exit the crate by herself and sit inside it.


Pakistan reports four new polio cases, appeals to parents to get children inoculated

Updated 08 October 2024
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Pakistan reports four new polio cases, appeals to parents to get children inoculated

  • The South Asian country plans to launch a nationwide polio vaccination campaign from Oct. 28 to vaccinate over 45 million children
  • A major initiative is also underway in targeted districts to vaccinate children who missed doses against polio, other childhood diseases

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has reported four new cases of poliovirus as an outbreak of the disease continues to expand, the country’s polio program said on Tuesday, with health officials appealing to parents to get their children vaccinated against the crippling disease.
A laboratory for polio eradication at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad confirmed the detection of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in two children in the Jacobabad district and one child in Malir district of the Sindh province and one more in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Dera Ismail Khan district, bringing the nationwide tally to 32 this year.
In a statement, Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s focal person for polio eradication, urged parents and caregivers to fulfil their duty and ensure their polio vaccination when polio teams visit their homes from October 28 in a nationwide campaign to vaccinate more than 45 million children.
“This should be a wake-up call for all parents and communities. Every paralytic polio case means there are hundreds of children who are silently affected by poliovirus and are potentially carrying and spreading it throughout their communities,” she said.
“Today, every child is at risk, and it is unfortunate that children are facing the real consequences of missing vaccination because of misguided decisions and misperceptions about the vaccine.”
Anwarul Haq, coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Center for polio eradication, said the WPV1 virus had been detected in sewage samples of all the above districts, indicating that the virus was widely circulating across the country. 
“Our team from the National Emergency Operations Center is fully engaged and supporting both provinces [Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa] in their response to the outbreak,” he said.
“We are conducting joint case investigations, preparing to implement high quality vaccination rounds and providing high-risk communities with integrated health service delivery to build children’s immunity.” 
There is no cure for polio, and paralysis caused by an infection is irreversible, according to the Pakistan polio program. Apart from the nationwide polio campaign from October 28, a major initiative, led by the expanded program for immunization, is also underway in targeted districts to vaccinate those children against 12 childhood diseases, including polio, who have missed their doses or have not completed their vaccination course.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio remains an endemic. Since late 2018, Pakistan has seen a resurgence of cases and increased spread of poliovirus, highlighting the fragility of gains achieved in the preceding three years.


UK population rises to 68.3 million driven by immigration from Pakistan, other countries

Updated 08 October 2024
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UK population rises to 68.3 million driven by immigration from Pakistan, other countries

  • Britain has seen high immigration in recent years from economic migrants and those who arrive via irregular crossings in boats
  • New work visa rules led to a surge in immigration from India, Nigeria and Pakistan, often to fill health and social care vacancies

LONDON: The United Kingdom’s population grew by 1 percent in annual terms to 68.3 million as of mid-2023, mainly due to high immigration, official data showed on Tuesday.
Net international migration was the main contributor to population increase for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — which together form the UK — in the year to mid-2023, Britain’s Office for National Statistics said.
The natural change in population, which is the difference between births and deaths, fell by 16,300. Previous projections from the ONS suggested a negative reading would not occur until the mid-2030s.
Britain has seen high immigration in recent years from economic migrants and those who arrive via irregular crossings in small boats — a hot political topic because of stretched public services after years of under-investment.
Record immigration caused the population of England and Wales to rise by 610,000 in mid-2023, the largest annual rise in 75 years. Net migration to Britain in 2015, the year before the Brexit referendum, was 329,000.
The population grew faster in England and in Wales, both seeing a 1 percent rise, when compared to Scotland with 0.8 percent growth or Northern Ireland which posted a 0.5 percent increase, the ONS said on Tuesday.
While post-Brexit changes to visas saw a sharp drop in the number of European Union migrants to Britain, new work visa rules led to a surge in immigration from India, Nigeria and Pakistan, often to fill health and social care vacancies.
In August some far-right groups took to the streets to protest against migrants, an early challenge to the newly elected Labour government.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who scrapped the previous Conservative government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda since taking office in July, has said that his approach to illegal migration would be pragmatic and mark a change from the last leadership.