KARACHI: Pakistan’s airspace is “safe” for all kinds of flight operations, the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) said on Sunday after a European air safety agency this week warned of a “continued possible threat” to aircraft flying at low altitudes in Karachi and Lahore cities.
On July 28, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued an advisory stating that the presence of “violent non-state actor groups with confirmed anti-aviation weaponry” in Pakistan means there is a high risk to flight operations at altitudes below Flight Level (FL) 260 in Lahore and Karachi.
The advisory also mentioned the internationally disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir remains a site of territorial dispute, adding that “sporadic military operations” in the region pose a potential risk to civil aviation and could lead to cases of misidentification in case a military conflict escalated.
PCAA spokesperson Saif Ullah brushed aside the advisory, saying that the EASA has issued such warnings in the past frequently.
“If we look at Pakistan, all aircraft are flying here,” Saif Ullah told Arab News. “There are no such [imminent] threats at the moment due to which we would ground aircraft because if there were any threats, we would have first grounded them.”
“In our country, our airspace is safe for all types of flight operations,” Saif Ullah concluded.
According to EASA, its advisory will remain active till 31 January, 2024.
Separately, Pakistan’s national airline has been grappling with a flight ban imposed by the EASA and the European Commission. The ban came into effect after the May 2020 air crash in Karachi, which was attributed to licensing problems within the national airline by one of the country’s former aviation ministers.
The EASA spokesperson has said the agency is conducting “constructive discussions” with the PCAA regarding the flight ban.
Pakistan says airspace ‘safe’ for flight operations despite European agency’s warning
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Pakistan says airspace ‘safe’ for flight operations despite European agency’s warning
- European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) warned aircraft this week against flying over Karachi, Lahore at low altitudes
- EASA advisory said ‘sporadic military operations’ in disputed Kashmir region poses potential risk to flight operations
Pakistan receives final tranche of $1.1 billion as part IMF loan program — central bank
- The IMF executive board completed the second review of the $3 billion loan program in its meeting on Monday
- The approval came a day after PM Sharif’s meeting with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in Riyadh
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has received a final tranche of $1.1 billion as part of a $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program it entered last summer, the central bank said on Tuesday.
The IMF executive board completed the second review of the Stand-by Arrangement (SBA) in its meeting on Monday and approved the disbursement of SDR 828 million ($1.1 billion) for Pakistan, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
The approval came a day after Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif discussed a new loan program with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
“SBP has received SDR 828 million (around $ 1.1 billion) in value 29 Apr 2024 in its account from IMF,” the central bank said in a statement. “The amount shall be reflected in SBP’s foreign exchange reserves for the week ending on 3rd May 2024.”
Pakistan secured the $3 billion IMF program in June last year, which helped it avert a sovereign default. Islamabad says it is seeking a new loan over at least three years to help achieve macroeconomic stability and execute long-overdue reforms.
Finance Minister Aurangzeb has said Islamabad could secure a staff-level agreement on the new program by early July, though he has declined to detail what size of the program it seeks. If secured, it would be Pakistan’s 24th IMF bailout.
The $350 billion South Asian economy faces a chronic balance of payments crisis, with nearly $24 billion to repay in debt and interest over the next fiscal year — three-time more than its central bank’s foreign currency reserves.
Pakistan’s finance ministry expects the economy to grow by 2.6 percent in the fiscal year ending in June, while average inflation for the year is projected to stand at 24 percent, down from 29.2 percent the previous fiscal year.
Gunmen kill a police officer assigned to protect polio workers in northwest Pakistan
- At least 10 police have died this year while on security duty for vaccination campaigns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
- Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are regularly marred by violence, with militants claiming campaigns sterilize children
PESHAWAR: Gunmen fatally shot a police officer assigned to protect polio workers in Pakistan’s northwest, an official said Tuesday.
At least 10 police have died this year while on security duty for vaccination campaigns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The gunmen fired at a team working in Bajaur district, killing the officer on the spot, police officer Dilawar Khan said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assault.
Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are regularly marred by violence. Militants target vaccination teams and police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming that the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
A five-day anti-polio campaign started Monday in 13 high-risk districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. More than 21,000 teams are tasked with administering vaccines to 4,423,000 children under age 5. More than 32,000 police are protecting the teams.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only countries where the spread of polio has never been stopped.
The potentially fatal, paralyzing disease mostly strikes children under age 5 and typically spreads through contaminated water.
Occupiers using ‘fake news’ against freedom struggles in Kashmir, Palestine — Pakistan’s UN envoy
- Conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have become key battlegrounds in an information war
- Online propaganda fighting to make people around the world take sides, harden positions
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Munir Akram, has said occupying powers were increasingly using fake news and disinformation campaigns to subdue freedom struggles in Kashmir and Palestine, state-run APP said on Tuesday.
The conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have become key battlegrounds in an information war that goes far wider than their tightly drawn physical borders. Carefully crafted social media posts and other online propaganda are fighting to make people around the world take sides, harden their positions and even move broader public opinion.
While plenty of real imagery and accounts of the ensuing carnage have emerged, they have been intermingled with users pushing false claims and misrepresenting videos from other events.
“We are witnessing this today in the Gaza war and have witnessed this consistently in the case of occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” Akram told the UN Committee on Information on Monday, referring to online disinformation campaigns.
Akram voiced regret that the use of digital media was “turbocharging” the spread of disinformation “to promote Islamophobia to justify foreign occupation and aggression to turn victims of aggression into the culprits.”
This had led Pakistan to initiate a resolution on disinformation which was unanimously adopted last year, the Pakistani envoy said, adding that consultations would soon take place to advance its objectives.
“Pakistan would welcome the development of an inter-governmentally formulated code of conduct for information integrity on digital platforms,” Akram said, adding that the increasing use of AI tools to spread false information and conduct digital surveillance needed to be addressed.
“At the core of information manipulation, Internet blackouts, censorship and the use of special media laws by the occupation authorities is a sinister design to de-legitimize freedom struggles and perpetuate a climate of fear, intimidation and violence,” Akram added.
In some instances with regards to the Gaza war, online propaganda simply involves the framing of real events, violent images and videos, and hate speech to emphasize the guilt of one side and vindicate the other.
But much of the material relies on the creation of what’s commonly referred to as fake news, in the form of fabricated stories published on social media that repurpose or mislabel real photos or videos.
For example, one post on X (formerly Twitter) that was viewed 300,000 times used a photo of an accidental fire at a McDonald’s restaurant in New Zealand to falsely claim the company had been attacked by pro-Palestinian protesters for its perceived support of Israel. Despite being debunked, the story was still the focus of heated discussions on social media channels.
There are also reports of excerpts from video games and old TikToks being shared with claims they are from real current events in Gaza, and fake government agency social media accounts posting disinformation.
Pakistan unveils advanced anti-rape cell in Karachi to boost conviction rate in sexual violence cases
- The model cell is an improved version of a pilot project launched in the southern Pakistani city last year
- A medical legal department at the center of the new cell will work with the police, empower prosecution
KARACHI: Less than eight months after the inauguration of the pioneering Anti-Rape Crisis Cell in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, authorities on Tuesday unveiled a model cell to address legal cases involving sexual- and gender-based violence.
According to War Against Rape, a non-profit organization, Pakistan witnessed 5,279 reported rape cases in 2021, with less than three percent resulting in convictions, highlighting the urgent need for such initiatives.
Dr. Summaiya Syed, Police Surgeon Karachi, said recent measures in the province, including the Sindh Sexual Violence Response Framework of 2021 and the launch of the pilot Anti-Rape Crisis Cell last year, had shown promising progress, taking the conviction rate in cases of sexual violence from five to 15 percent.
“It offers separate spaces which weren’t really available in the pilot project,” she said after the launch of the model cell at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Hospital in a ceremony attended by the provincial health minister, Dr. Azra Pehechu, as the chief guest.
“Now we have better a space, better organization, better referral pathways, better connections between those referral pathways and better availability of resources,” she added.
Dr. Syed said they had learned several things from the pilot project which were utilized while setting up the new establishment.
“We hope that here since now we have dedicated referral pathways, dedicated SOPs [standard operating procedures] will be followed,” she added. “I have better staff provisions over here. We hope to take that [conviction ratio] higher.”
Maliha Zia, Associate Director Legal Aid Society, said facilities like anti-rape cells generate proper and effective evidence in cases of rape which can be used during the prosecution stage.
She said the government of Sindh, along with the police and the judiciary, had been working extensively for the last three years on improving the state’s response to rape cases.
The initiatives taken by the provincial authorities, she added, included training of medical staff to understand the role that they need to play during the trial and the necessary changes they need to make while reporting these cases.
“All this work has culminated in the establishment of an anti-rape crisis cell which not only puts together the medical legal department at the center, a capacitated medical legal department, but connects it directly with the police and prosecution to make an effective case,” Zia continued, adding strong medical evidence and solitary statement of the survivor would result in conviction rates.
Pakistan top court seeks government response on ‘meddling’ by spy agencies in judicial affairs
- The Supreme Court took up the case after six high court judges accused Pakistani spy agencies of intimidating them
- Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa emphasizes he will not accept ‘any interference’ from any source in the judiciary’s affairs
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top court on Tuesday sought replies from the government and bar associations in a case involving accusations levelled by six high court judges of intimidation and interference by the country’s intelligence agencies in judicial matters.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan took up the case after six out of eight Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges accused the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of intimidating and coercing them over legal cases, particularly those with significant political consequences.
The judges provided various examples of alleged interference, including a case concerning Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, and mentioned incidents where they said their relatives were abducted and tortured, and their homes were secretly surveilled, aiming to coerce them into delivering favorable judgments.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa directed Attorney-General Mansoor Usman Awan to submit the federal government’s response in the case, ruling that if any intelligence agency or institution wanted to submit their response, they could do it until May 6.
“We all sitting in the court want to see judiciary independent,” he said. “Anyone in this court who doesn’t want judiciary’s independence [from external pressure], they can come forward.”
The development came after five high courts in the country, including the IHC, submitted their suggestions in the Supreme Court to prevent meddling of intelligence agencies in judicial affairs.
Chief Justice Isa also sought suggestions from the Pakistan Bar Council and the Supreme Court Bar Association before the next hearing.
“I will never accept any interference from any source and there has not been a single complaint since my assumption of this office to me or the SC’s registrar,” he said.
The letter by the IHC judges earlier stirred frantic debate in Pakistani political, media and legal circles that prompted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to set up an inquiry commission late last month to investigate the accusations. But former chief justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, who was appointed head of the commission, recused himself, leading to uncertainty about the process.
Chief Justice Isa, who has repeatedly said that judicial meddling would not be tolerated, mentioned in Tuesday’s hearing that such interference could occur in multiple ways.
“Interference can be from within and without, from intelligence agencies, from one’s colleagues and family members or from social media,” he said.
The top judge maintained that judgments and court orders “shout” on their own if there was interference.
During the hearing, Justice Athar Minallah said there had been no interference during his time as a judge of the Islamabad High Court. He said this was a matter of public interest and a case involving the armed forces as they were the “defenders of the country.”
“We also have to maintain the image of our armed forces,” Justice Minallah remarked. “These are our soldiers who defend the country.”
The court ruled that no new petitioners would be made respondents in the case and adjourned the hearing till May 7.
