Prime Minister Gilani condoles the demise of mother of Ms Rukhsana Bangash

Islamabad: Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has expressed his deep and heartfelt condolence over the sad demise of mother of Ms Rukhsana Bangash, MNA and Political Secretary to the President of Pakistan.

In his condolence message, the Prime Minister prayed to Almighty Allah to rest the departed soul in eternal peace and grant courage to the bereaved family to bear this loss with courage.

For more information, contact:
Haji Ahmed Malik
Principal Information Officer
Press Information Department (PID)
Tel: +9251 925 2323 and +9251 925 2324
Fax: +9251 925 2325 and +9251 925 2326
Email: piopid@gmail.com

Prime Minister Gilani condemns murder of Olympian Syed Abrar Hussain Shah

Islamabad: Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has strongly condemned the murder of Olympian Syed Abrar Hussain Shah, Director, Pakistan Sports Board, Quetta a few days ago.

In his condolence message while talking to Syed Sabir Hussain Shah, brother of late Syed Abrar Hussain Shah, he prayed to Almighty Allah to rested the departed soul in eternal peace and grant courage to the bereaved family to bear this loss with courage.

The Prime Minister also offered every kind of assistance to the bereaved family.

For more information, contact:
Haji Ahmed Malik
Principal Information Officer
Press Information Department (PID)
Tel: +9251 925 2323 and +9251 925 2324
Fax: +9251 925 2325 and +9251 925 2326
Email: piopid@gmail.com

Pakistan claims 25 Taliban fighters killed in Mohmand airstrikes

Rawalpindi: A joint operation of Pakistan Army/FC KPK/PAF to evict terrorists stronghold of “Walidad” in Mohmand Agency was launched on 18 June 2011. Ground operation was preceded with precise strikes by PAF Air Craft’s on terrorists bunkers and positions on “Walidad Top”. After an intense fight, troops were able to secure “Walidad Top” and surrounding areas of the mountain and managed to kill 25 terrorists, while remaining fled across the border. During the operation own 4 soldiers embraced shahadat and 8 were injured.

Presently troops are consolidating their positions in the area and search operation for remnants is in progress. The operation also had full support of people of Mohmand Agency, who expressed great satisfaction and happiness on this successful operation and reiterated their resolve to keep supporting Security Forces in their effort to defeat terrorists in the area.

For more information, contact:
Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR)
Hilal Road, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Tel: +9251 927 1605
Fax: +9251 927 1601
Email: ispr@ispr.gov.pk

Landfill sites received 10286 Tonnes Garbage in first Two Days

Karachi: A total of 10286 tonnes of garbage and waste was shifted to city government landfill sites during first two days of the current 15 day cleanliness campaign in city. This garbage was lifted from various towns and disposed off at Jam Chakro Landfill site in Surjani and Gondpass Landfill site in Hub. No garbage was delivered at these sites from Bin Qasim Town and other municipal services providers including Surjani Project, DHA, and Cantonment Boards on 16 and 17 June nor they informed about where they dumped their garbage.

According to details on the first day of campaign a total of tonnes of garbage delivered at both landfill sites of city government while the second day they received tonnes of garbage from various towns of city.

On the first day, city district government Karachi collected 1534 tonnes of garbage from different corridors and major roads and shifted it to Jam Chakro Landfill site while Jamshed Town and Saddar Town disposed off a total of 1126 and 1088 tonnes of garbage to landfill sites.

Baldia town registered a lifting of 274 tonnes garbage on first day and disposed of 255 tonnes garbage on second day. In Gulberg the town administration disposed of 248 tonnes garbage on first day and 310 tonnes garbage on second day.

Gulshan Iqbal Town shifted 470 and 359 tonnes of garbage on first and second day respectively. Jamshed Town registered disposal of 546 and 581 tonnes of garbage on the first and second day of cleanliness campaign.

Keamari Town administration dispatched 147 and 92 tonnes of garbage on first and second day to landfill site. In Landhi Town a total of 60 and 211 tonnes of garbage was shifted to landfill site.

Similarly Liaquatabad Town disposed off 181 and 157 tonnes garbage on the first and second day of campaign. Lyari Town delivered 284 tonnes garbage to landfill site while the Malir Town administration lifted 217 and 212 tonnes of garbage from different areas of Malir Town and disposed it off to landfill site.

North Nazimabad Town delivered 330 and 311 tonnes of garbage on first and second day of campaign. New Karachi Town sent 298 and 300 tonnes of garbage to landfill site on the first two days of cleanliness drive.

Orangi Town did not delivered garbage to landfill site on first day but they disposed of 465 tonnes of garbage on second day. Saddar Town sent 893 and 285 tonnes of garbage on the first and second day of cleanliness drive.

Shah Faisal Town dispatched 238 and 283 tonnes of garbage on the first and second day. SITE town shifted 110 and 302 tonnes of garbage on the first and second day respectively.

City District Government Karachi delivered 1002 and 532 tonnes of garbage to land fill site on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, Works and Services Department of city government, had completed the survey of debris, banners, flags and wall chalking in city and they have also started cleaning works according to the data collected in the survey.

Gulshan Iqbal Town administration planted 500 saplings and performed fumigation in UC-5.

For more information, contact:
Administrator Secretariat
City District Government Karachi (CDGK)
City District Government Complex,
1st Floor, Civic Centre, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi
Tel: +9221 9923 2400 -01
Fax: +9221 9923 2406
Email: administrator@karachicity.gov.pk

District Coordinate Officer Karachi visit City Library

Karachi: DCO Karachi Muhammad Hussain Syed has said all possible measures will be taken to make the City Library in Markaz-e-Ilm-o-Saqafat a modern and well standard library in the city. On a visit of the library he directed to add more books on science and technology, social sciences and Islamic education so that the students and researchers could be provided with the opportunity to study and research in their subject.

EDO Community Development Rehana Saif on this occasion gave a briefing to DCO Karachi about the establishment of City Library in Markaz-e-Ilm-o-Saqafat. She said that the library will be made a modern reference library.

For more information, contact:
Administrator Secretariat
City District Government Karachi (CDGK)
City District Government Complex,
1st Floor, Civic Centre, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi
Tel: +9221 9923 2400 -01
Fax: +9221 9923 2406
Email: administrator@karachicity.gov.pk

World Refugee Day: UN High Commissioner for Refugees report finds 80 per cent of world’s refugees in developing countries

Geneva: A UNHCR report released today reveals deep imbalance in international support for the world’s forcibly displaced, with a full four-fifths of the world’s refugees being hosted by developing countries – and at a time of rising anti-refugee sentiment in many industrialized ones.

UNHCR’s 2010 Global Trends report shows that many of the world’s poorest countries are hosting huge refugee populations, both in absolute terms and in relation to the size of their economies. Pakistan, Iran and Syria have the largest refugee populations at 1.9 million, 1.1 million and 1 million respectively.

Pakistan also has the biggest economic impact with 710 refugees for each US dollar of its per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product), followed by Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya with 475 and 247 refugees respectively. By comparison, Germany, the industrialized country with the largest refugee population (594,000 people), has 17 refugees for each dollar of per capita GDP.

Overall, the picture presented by the 2010 report is of a drastically changed protection environment to that of 60 years ago when the UN refugee agency was founded. At that time UNHCR’s caseload was 2.1 million Europeans, uprooted by World War Two. Today, UNHCR’s work extends to more than 120 countries and encompasses people forced to flee across borders as well as those in flight within their own countries.

The 2010 Global Trends report shows that 43.7 million people are now displaced worldwide – roughly equalling the entire populations of Colombia or South Korea, or of Scandinavia and Sri Lanka combined. Within this total are 15.4 million refugees (10.55 million under UNHCR’s care and 4.82 million registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), 27.5 million people displaced within their own country by conflict, and nearly 850,000 asylum-seekers, nearly one fifth of them in South Africa alone.

Particularly distressing are the 15,500 asylum applications by unaccompanied or separated children, most of them Somali or Afghan. The report does not cover displacement seen during 2011, including from Libya, Côte d’Ivoire and Syria.

“In today’s world there are worrying misperceptions about refugee movements and the international protection paradigm,” said António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “Fears about supposed floods of refugees in industrialized countries are being vastly overblown or mistakenly conflated with issues of migration. Meanwhile, it’s poorer countries that are left having to pick up the burden.”

Reflecting the prolonged nature of several of today’s major international conflicts, the report finds that the refugee experience is becoming increasingly drawn-out for millions of people worldwide. UNHCR defines a protracted refugee situation as one in which a large number of people are stuck in exile for five years or longer.

In 2010, and of the refugees under UNHCR’s mandate, 7.2 million people were in such a situation – more than at any time since 2001. Meanwhile only 197,600 people were able to return home, the lowest number since 1990.

Some refugees have been in exile for more than 30 years. Afghans, who first fled the Soviet invasion in 1979, accounted for a third of the world’s refugees in both 2001 and in 2010. Iraqis, Somalis, Congolese (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Sudanese were also among the top 10 nationalities of refugees at both the start and end of the decade.

“One refugee without hope is too many,” said High Commissioner Guterres. “The world is failing these people, leaving them to wait out the instability back home and put their lives on hold indefinitely. Developing countries cannot continue to bear this burden alone and the industrialized world must address this imbalance. We need to see increased resettlement quotas. We need accelerated peace initiatives in long-standing conflicts so that refugees can go home.”

Despite the low level of refugee returns last year, the situation for people displaced within their own countries – so-called internally displaced people, or IDPs – showed some movement. In 2010, more than 2.9 million IDPs returned home in countries including Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kyrgyzstan. Nonetheless even with these return levels, at 27.5 million people the global number of internally displaced was the highest in a decade.

A further but harder-to-quantify group that UNHCR cares for is stateless people, or people lacking the basic safety net of a nationality. The number of countries reporting stateless populations has increased steadily since 2004, but differences in definitions and methodologies still prevent reliable measurement of the problem.

In 2010, the reported number of stateless people (3.5 million) was nearly half of that in 2009, but mainly due to methodological changes in some countries that supply data. Unofficial estimates put the global number closer to 12 million. UNHCR will be launching a worldwide campaign in August this year to bring better attention to the plight of the world’s stateless and to accelerate action to help them.

For more information, contact:
Mengesha Kebede
Representative
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Quaid-e-Azam University Road, Diplomatic Enclave 2,
Sector G-4/2, Islamabad
Tel: +9251 282 9502 -6
Fax: +9251 227 9455
E-mail: Pakis@unhcr.org

Kalabagh merits having a steel mill: Chairman Coordination, Raza Khan

Islamabad: Chairman Coordination, FPCCI Raza Khan on Sunday said Kalabagh merits having a big steel mill as the area has significant iron ore deposits.

Government has long been neglecting exploiting ten thousand million tonnes of proven deposits since a decade which is not in the national interest, he said.

Kalabagh can be home of the second largest steel mill which will not only boost economy but also provide jobs to thousands of people living in that underdeveloped area, he said.

Talking to industrialists at Hattar Industrial Estate, he said that government should establish a steel mill in Kalabagh which will also save precious foreign exchange wasted on import of scrap.

Raza Khan said that despite around 600 units, our industry is to go a long way to develop finished products of international quality, adding that per capital consumption of steel is around 36 kg which is discouraging as that global average intake stands at 198 kg.

Limited consumption show that infrastructure growth in our country is sluggish, he said.

The frequent problems faced by Pakistan Steel Mills, the largest industrial unit in Pakistan could be tackled through establishing small steel mills at different localities, he said.

Raza said that prices of steel should be realistic and millers should get relaxation on taxes imposed on their electricity bills as power is used as raw material in melting and rerolling units.

The supply of electricity and gas to the furnaces should be increased while unscheduled load shedding is also a major factor for losses. Authorities should give advance notices for any load shedding, he demanded.

For more information, contact:
Syed Masood Alam Rizvi
Secretary General
Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI)
B-1, Federation House, Main Clifton Road, Shahra-e-Firdousi, Karachi-75600, Pakistan
Tel: +9221 3587 3691
Fax: +9221 3587 4332
Email: info@fpcci.com.pk