Tag: Pakistan

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the leaking of several audio files released over the past week and a review of cybersecurity at the prime minister’s office (PMO).

The National Security Committee, comprising Sharif himself, top military and government officials met on Wednesday to discuss the audio leaks and ways to ensure fool-proof security at the PMO and other important government offices.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah will lead the committee, according to a statement released after the meeting.

What is the government investigating?

The leaks started on September 24 when multiple files of purported conversations, allegedly recorded in the PMO, emerged online. They apparently showed Sharif and other ministers talking about official matters. In at least one instance, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party’s vice president Maryam Nawaz Sharif could also be heard.

As soon as the files came began circulating on Pakistani social media, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb played down the matter, saying the files have nothing incriminating or illegal in them.

At a news conference on Tuesday, however, Sharif called the leaks a “very serious lapse” and announced the formation of a high-powered committee to probe the incident.

“This is a big question mark. Who will now come to Pakistan to meet the PM in the PM House? Be it a friend or a sympathiser, they will think twice about if they should mention anything sensitive or not. They will think 100 times, wondering if these conversations will be recorded,” the prime minister said.

What do the PMO audio files contain?

At least four different audio files purportedly recorded in the PMO have been leaked so far.

The first file included a conversation between Sharif and an unnamed government official, discussing the importation of industrial machinery from India.

Another file contains a purported conversation between Maryam and Sharif, discussing the performance of former Finance Minister, Miftah Ismail, who resigned earlier this week.

In that audio file, Maryam could be apparently heard complaining about Ismail’s performance and expressing her wish for the return from exile of Ishaq Dar, who has now replaced Ismail as the finance minister.

Dar, a 72-year-old veteran politician, returned last week from London where he lived since 2017 in a self-imposed exile following corruption allegations against him. He is close to the ruling Sharif family.

How were the audio files leaked?

There has been no official statement on how the audio files were leaked or who recorded them in the first place.

In a tweet on September 24, Fawad Chaudhry of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party hinted at a Twitter thread by an unidentified user.

The user, OSINT Insider, claimed the files were leaked online in August by a hacker who allegedly asked for $340,000 to release the complete material.

In another tweet the next day, Chaudhry attacked the intelligence agencies for their failure to find the source of the files. He also asked why the government was not responding to the leak.

“More than 100 hours of conversation from PMO is available for sale since August/September. But our agencies will only look at sensitive issues once they get free from their political tasks,” he tweeted.

Are there more audio leaks?

On Wednesday, a new audio file purportedly featuring opposition leader Imran Khan surfaced on social media when he was the prime minister.

In the audio file lasting just over 100 seconds, Khan is talking to a top bureaucrat about a “cypher” or secret cable sent to Islamabad by the then Pakistani envoy to the US.

“We only have to play it up. We don’t have to name America. We only have to play with this,” he could be heard saying.

Days before he lost a no-confidence vote in parliament in April this year, Khan had alleged a “foreign conspiracy” being hatched by the US to overthrow his government. Islamabad and Washington have denied the allegations.

It is unclear if the file about Khan is part of the same tranche of the PMO leaks aimed at incriminating the incumbent government.

Khan’s PTI party has not denied the authenticity of the audio tape so far, but the politician alleged the government itself had leaked it.

“This was leaked by Shehbaz Sharif at al. They did a good thing by leaking this,” Khan told reporters in Islamabad on Wednesday. “I say the whole cypher should be leaked. It should be apparent to everybody that what a huge foreign conspiracy this was.”

Khan’s PTI was also the target of two other leaks last month when purported telephone conversations between former Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin and two of his provincial counterparts were released.

Tarin, who confirmed the authenticity of the conversation, could be heard discussing the International Monetary Fund bailout package with the two ministers.

Source; Aljazeera

Public services in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, have been suspended and businesses are being urged to close, as torrential rains cause deadly flash flooding and infrastructure damage, leaving at least 15 dead since Saturday.

On Sunday night, more than 60 millimeters (2.3 inches) of rain fell in Karachi, equivalent to an entire months’ worth of rainfall in just a matter of hours.

For several months every summer, Pakistan struggles to contend with heavy monsoon rains, but in recent years experts say climate change is accelerating existing weather patterns.

On Sunday, Pakistan’s climate change minister, Sherry Rehman, issued flash flood warnings for residents in more than 14 cities and townships.

Since the monsoon season began last month, more than 300 people have been killed by heavy rains across Pakistan, according to its National Disaster Management Authority.

In Karachi, capital of Sindh province and home to almost 16 million, entire neighborhoods have been partially submerged. Photos show people wading knee-deep in muddy floodwater, with vehicles left stranded by the deluge.

Infrastructure including bridges, highways and roads have been damaged, disrupting traffic and upending the lives of millions across the city. Many have stocked up on fuel for their generators in case of power outages.

“Climate change is a threat. We are a coastal city. It’s happening so fast and we will bear the brunt,” said Afia Salam, a climate change advocate in Karachi. “People need to see the situation beyond individual events like a bridge falling or a road getting flooded.”

Climate crisis and poor infrastructure

 

Pakistan often experiences heavy rains from July through September, but experts say the rains have only increased in both frequency and intensity.

“The rapidity of these events is increasing and our response is not keeping pace,” said Salam. “We are being reactive to individual events. Strategies need to be put in place.”

And the poorest and most vulnerable are on the front line of crisis.

Karachi, the country’s financial capital, boasts luxury hotels, malls and upmarket gated communities. But disparities in wealth and development remain, and an estimated 50% of its residents are “forced to live in informal settlements,” according to the World Bank.

“Karachi’s infrastructure is highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters,” according to the World Bank.

The crisis is exacerbated by poor flood management and ineffective disaster response, experts say.

Other provinces, including Balochistan in the southwest, have also experienced extreme rainfall in recent days. At least 87 people have been killed in the province due to “heavy rainfall, floods and infrastructure collapse” this month alone, according to a report from the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA).

Two people — a woman and a child — died on Sunday after a roof collapsed in the province’s Jaffarabad district, according to Naseer Nasar, PDMA director general.

At least eight dams in Balochistan have been breached, while nine bridges have been damaged, the PDMA report said. More than 700 livestock have died due to flooding, it added.

Earlier this month, torrential rain caused widespread flooding in Karachi. Most underpasses were flooded, and there was nowhere to pump the water out to, according to the chief minister of Sindh, Murad Ali Shah.

Karachi’s main streets, which house financial institutions and bank headquarters including Pakistan’s central bank, were flooded and rescue services were using boats to reach stranded people.

Extreme weather impacts millions

 

Extreme weather events in South Asia are becoming increasingly frequent due to climate change, with temperatures in parts of India and Pakistan reaching record levels during a heat wave in April and May.

A deadly cholera outbreak linked to contaminated drinking water had infected thousands of people in central Pakistan in May, as the country grappled with a water crisis exacerbated by the scorching temperatures.

Residents in Pir Koh, a remote mountainous town in Balochistan province, had no access to clean drinking water. The lack of rain had caused nearby ponds to dry up, with their only source of water being a pipeline that had “rusted and contaminated the water supply,” said local resident Hassan Bugti.

A 2022 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said they had medium confidence that heat waves and humidity stress would become more “intense and frequent,” and “annual and summer monsoon precipitation will increase.”

India and Pakistan are among the countries expected to be worst affected by the climate crisis, according to the IPCC.

Source:CNN

Chickens in Pakistan have been feasting on captured locusts under an initiative to combat swarms of the insects that are threatening food supplies in the impoverished country.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has endorsed plans to expand a pilot project in the breadbasket province of Punjab, where villagers earned cash by gathering locusts that were then dried out, shredded and added to poultry feed.

Farmers are struggling as the worst locust invasion in 25 years wipes out entire harvests in Pakistan’s agricultural heartlands, leaving people scrambling for income.

Muhammad Khurshid from Pakistan’s food ministry and biotechnologist Johar Ali set up the programme, drawing on efforts in war-ravaged Yemen, where authorities have encouraged people to eat the protein-rich locusts amid famine.

The pair chose Punjab’s Okara district, where farmers had not used any pesticides that would make locusts unsuitable for consumption.

“We first had to learn, and then teach the locals how to catch the locusts. Nets are useless against them,” Khurshid told the AFP news agency.

At night, locusts cluster on trees and plants, making them easy to scoop up as they lie motionless in the cooler temperatures until the sun begins to rise.

For a reward of 20 rupees (12 cents) per kilogramme (roughly two pounds) of locusts, locals worked all night to collect them.

One farmer who lost all her crops to the insects said she and her son earned 1,600 rupees ($10) during a single locust-gathering outing, helping to offset the financial damage.

Organisers struggled at first to convince farmers to join the hunt but, by the third night, word had spread, and hundreds joined in – turning up with their own bags to stuff full.

With 20 tonnes of captured locusts, authorities ran out of money to pay the collectors and the programme was paused.

The ministry, which recently announced the results of February’s pilot, is now preparing to expand the project to other locations.

The harvested locusts went to Hi-Tech Feeds – Pakistan’s largest animal-feed producer – which substituted 10 percent of the soybean in its chicken food with the insects.

“There was no issue with the feed, the locusts have a good potential for use in poultry feed,” general manager Muhammad Athar said, after trying the modified product on 500 broiler hens.

Nationwide emergency

While the project is not a solution to the devastation inflicted on crops, it can provide hard-hit farmers with a fresh revenue stream and relieve pressure on authorities struggling to distribute locust-beating pesticides.

Locust swarms have gnawed their way through crops across East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and parts of India this year, and experts fear their numbers will explode as monsoon rains arrive this month.

The crisis is so severe that the government has declared a nationwide emergency and appealed for help from the international community.

Bananas, mangoes, vegetables and other crops are all vulnerable – raising fears of food shortages – as are the wheat and cotton harvests that provide Pakistan with vital revenue.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, Pakistan could suffer about $5bn in losses if 25 percent of its crops are damaged.

A reduced harvest could also push prices up and risks worsening food insecurity.

About 20 percent of the population are already undernourished, with almost half of all children under five stunted, according to the World Food Programme.

Source: aljazeera.com

A Pakistan International Airlines plane has crashed in Karachi on a flight from Lahore, aviation officials say.

The plane, which was reportedly carrying around 99 passengers and eight crew, was flying from Lahore to Jinnah International Airport, one of Pakistan’s busiest airports.

Pictures shared on social media show smoke rising from the crash site, a residential area in Karachi.

Emergency services have arrived at the scene, where homes have been damaged.

“The plane crashed in Karachi. We are trying to confirm the number of passengers but initially it is 99 passengers and eight crew members,” said Abdul Sattar Khokhar, the spokesman for Pakistan’s aviation authority.

The crash comes just days after the country began allowing commercial flights to resume.

What is Pakistan’s safety record like? Pakistan has a chequered aviation safety record, including a number of airliner crashes.

In 2010, an aircraft operated by private airline Airblue crashed near Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board – the deadliest air disaster in Pakistani history.

In 2012, a Boeing 737-200 operated by Pakistan’s Bhoja Air crashed in bad weather on its approach to land in Rawalpindi, killing all 121 passengers and six crew.

And in 2016, a Pakistan International Airlines plane burst into flames while travelling from northern Pakistan to Islamabad, killing 47 people.

Source: bbc.com

Police have arrested a man suspected of killing two young women in Pakistan, after a video in which a man is seen kissing them went viral on social media.

Muhammad Aslam is suspected of shooting the pair, aged 18 and 16, who were his cousins.

The man in the video, the owner of the phone it was filmed on, and relatives of the women are also in custody.

Rights group say violence against women remains a serious problem in Pakistan.

They were murdered last week in the village of Shamplan, in Garyom region on the border of North and South Waziristan tribal districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The area is a socially conservative remote region, where tribal law is often upheld over federal law.

Activists believe about 1,000 such so-called “honour killing” murders – for perceived transgressions of social codes – are carried out across the country every year.

The 52-second long video was reportedly shot nearly a year ago, but went viral a few weeks ago.

In the video, seen by the BBC, Umer Ayaz, 28, is seen in a secluded area outdoors with three veiled women, two of whom he then kisses. He has been arrested and charged with making the “vulgar” video clip.

He is believed to be married with two children.

The third girl, who is not kissed in the video, is the wife of the suspected killer according to police. She is believed to be in hiding.

Fida Wazir, whose phone was used to make the video, has also been arrested – suspected of spreading the video on social media.

The father of one victim and the brother of the other are also in police custody for failing to report the killings and concealing evidence.

Source: bbc.com

Two teenage girls have been murdered in a so-called “honor killing” in north-west Pakistan following a video circulated on the internet.

They are said to have been shot dead by a family member earlier this week in a village on the border of the North and South Waziristan tribal districts.

The killing occurred after a short mobile video of them with a young man surfaced on social media, police said.

Police have been sent to the remote area to investigate the case.

The incident is said to have taken place on Thursday afternoon at Shaam Plain Garyom, a border village of North and South Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to a police report quoted by Pakistani daily Dawn.

It said the reason behind the killings of the two girls, aged 16 and 18, was believed to be a video, provided to Dawn, which shows a young man recording himself with three young girls in a secluded area outdoors.

It appeared the video was shot nearly a year ago and most probably went viral on social media a few weeks ago, a senior police official told the newspaper.

“At the moment, our topmost priority is to secure the life of the third girl and the man before taking any action,” the officer said.

Human Rights Watch says that violence against women and girls remains a serious problem in Pakistan.

Activists believe about 1,000 such “honour killing” murders are carried out across the country every year.

What is an ‘honour killing’?

It is the killing of a member of a family who is perceived to have brought dishonour upon relatives.

Pressure group Human Rights Watch says the most common reasons are that the victim:

But killings can be carried out for more trivial reasons, like dressing in a way deemed inappropriate or displaying behaviour seen as disobedient.

Source: bbc.com

At least 73 passengers died when a train travelling from the city of Karachi to Rawalpindi in Pakistan caught fire.

Minister for railways, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, said the fire was caused by the explosion of a gas cylinder being used by passengers cooking breakfast.

The blaze is thought to have spread to at least three carriages.

According to officials cited in local media, many of the victims died as they tried to jump off the burning train.

Another 40 people have been injured. Officials say the number of dead may still rise.”Two cooking stoves blew up. They were cooking, they had [cooking] oil which added fuel to fire,” Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.

Read:Pakistan plane: Army aircraft crashes into residential area killing 17

Passengers bringing stoves onto trains in order to cook meals on long journeys is a common problem, the minister said. Though it is common to carry food on board, gas cylinders are banned.

District deputy commissioner Jamil Ahmed said some of the victims were so badly burnt they could not be identified, and they would need to use DNA to find out who had died.

Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was “deeply saddened by the terrible tragedy” on Twitter, adding that he had ordered an “immediate inquiry”.

The accident happened near the town of Rahim Yar Khan in the south of Punjab province. Many passengers were pilgrims heading to Raiwind near Lahore for one of Pakistan’s largest annual religious congregations, organised by the Tablighi Jamaat Sunni Muslim missionary movement.

Read:More than a dozen killed in Pakistan train collision

The train running from Karachi, across most of Pakistan to Rawalpindi, is the Tezgam – one of Pakistan’s oldest and most popular train services. It runs daily and takes 25-and-a-half hours.

After an earlier suspension in the wake of the fire, the railways minister said services have now been restored.

This is Pakistan’s worst rail disaster in over a decade.

The country has a history of railway accidents with multiple deaths. Casualty figures are often so high because trains are packed with far greater numbers than they were designed for.

In July, 11 people died in an accident, with four dying in another accident in September.

Read:Millions malnourished in Pakistan despite abundance of food

In 2007, at least 56 people were killed and more than 120 injured in a crash near Mehrabpur.

And in 2005, more than 130 people were killed when three trains collided in Sindh province in one of the country’s worst train disasters.

Source: bbc.com