China Set to Spend Billions on ‘One Belt One Road,’ But Some Want Focus on Poverty

LONDON � Running 1,300 kilometers over the world’s highest mountain pass, the Friendship, or Karakoram, Highway is evidence of China’s willingness to spend big as a contributor to global development.

Costing tens of billions of dollars, the road links western China with Pakistan, part of Beijing’s One Belt One Road Initiative, which seeks to rekindle ancient Silk Road trade routes linking China with Europe and Africa and is a central tenet of President Xi Jinping’s leadership, said professor Steve Tsang of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

The government is committed to do whatever it can to make sure that it is successful, Tsang said. So a lot more money and resources will be put into it to support that.

But figures show that since the Karakoram Highway was built, Pakistani exports to China have fallen while imports have increased, raising concern China’s new Silk Road could become a one-way street.

Address poverty

Stephen Gelb of the Overseas Development Institute says Beijing should focus its investments on global development goals.

At the moment there’s a lot of focus on infrastructure and particularly transport, pipelines, that sort of thing, which don’t directly address poverty, Gelb said. And in fact there’s been in some cases some controversy about the social and environmental impacts. But I think the focus should be to address development, including poverty and related issues.

Gliding above the choking traffic of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, the Chinese-funded tramway system opened last year at a cost of half a billion dollars. Beijing says investments like this will boost African economies, thereby alleviating poverty.

Gelb says it is also part of China’s plan to become a dominant force on the global stage.

It was affirmed in Xi Jinping’s speech (this week to China’s Communist Party Congress), he said, China’s very much about these days rules-based global governance, multilateralism, globalization.

Visiting India this week, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused China of not always playing by those rules.

China, while rising alongside India, has done so less responsibly, at times undermining the international, rules-based order, Tillerson said.

Paying the piper

Recipient countries have welcomed Chinese investment, which sometimes comes with fewer conditions than Western aid, such as demands for democratic reform. But Tsang warns there could be a sting in the tail.

The real issue will come when some of those countries, particularly in central Asia, have to pay back some of the loans that were acquired in the Belt and Road Initiative, Tsang said. And most of those countries will have problems paying back those loans.

For now, Chinese investment continues to expand. Development campaigners say Beijing’s focus should be not only on ports and pipelines but on tackling poverty.

Source: Voice of America

SRI LANKA ANNOUNCES SQUAD FOR T-20 SERIES AGAINST PAKISTAN

Sri Lanka has announced a fifteen member squad for the three-match T-20 series against Pakistan.

Thisara Perera will lead the squad for the series of which the first two matches will be played in Abu Dhabi on Thursday and Friday while the last match will be played in Lahore on 29th of this month.

Other players of the squad are Dilshan Munaweera, Danushka Gunathilaka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Ashan Priyanjan, Mahela Udawatte, Dasun Shanaka, Sachith Pathirana, Vikum Sanjaya, Lahiru Gamage, Seekkuge Prasanna, Vishwa Fernando, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay and Chathuranga de Silva.

Source: Radio Pakistan

Australia Joins Saudi Arabia and China on UN Human Rights Council

SYDNEY Australia has been elected unopposed to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, despite the U.N.’s consistent criticism of Canberra’s policies on asylum seekers and indigenous people.

The United Nations’ Human Rights Council was set up in March 2006. It is made up of 47 states which are responsible for promoting and protecting the rights of individuals around the world.

Australia this week was one of 15 new members, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Qatar. They will sit alongside existing members, among them Saudi Arabia, China and the United Kingdom.

The Australian government said it is important for countries that sit on the council to have their human rights records scrutinized and questioned.

Canberra has defended its record, stressing that Australia, one of the world’s most multicultural nations, had resettled more than 865,000 refugees since the Second World War. Officials have also said that Australia is closing down its controversial detention camps for asylum seekers and has taken all children out of immigration centers.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says Australia will be a fearless advocate for global rights.

We are a principled and pragmatic voice when it comes to human rights,” she said. “Our focus will be on a number of issues, including the empowerment of women, indigenous rights, strong domestic human rights institutions and the like.

But rights groups have questioned Australia’s record. They have consistently condemned the incarceration of asylum seekers in offshore camps in the South Pacific, and have, for years, accused Canberra of neglecting indigenous communities, which suffer disproportionately high rates of poverty, ill-health and imprisonment.

Anna Brown, the director of Legal Advocacy at the Human Rights Law Center, says while Australia has been a champion of gay rights, other areas must be addressed.

Australia has been an effective player at the council in promoting protections for LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people) across the globe, but obviously there is other examples where Australia needs to be standing up, it needs to be speaking up and taking principled positions and not picking and choosing where it is going to stand up for human rights, she said.

Australia will serve a three-year term on the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, beginning in January.

Source: Voice of America

PAKISTAN MOTORCAR RALLY BEGINS ITS COUNTRYWIDE JOURNEY FROM KHUNJERAB ZERO POINT

Pakistan Motorcar Rally started from Khunjerab Zero Point on Saturday.

Commander Force Command Northern Areas Major General Saqib Mehmood Malik and Chief Secretary Kazim Niaz hoisted the national flag and inaugurated the rally at Zero Point.

Famous mountaineer Nazir Sabir and Samina Baig were also present on the occasion.

The Rally passing through cities of Gilgit-Baltistan, KPK, Punjab, Sindh will conclude at Gwadar in Balochistan by 31st of this month.

According to ISPR, the rally is part of 70th Independence Day celebrations of Pakistan.

Source: Radio Pakistan

PITB DEVELOPS SMART PHONE APPLICATION TO PROVIDE SOLUTIONS TO TRAFFIC RELATED PROBLEMS OF PEOPLE

Punjab Information Technology Board has developed a smart phone application to provide solutions to traffic related problems of the people.

The app will educate people about driving license, provide traffic updates integrated with Google Maps, road congestion status and information of nearest bank to deposit fine.

Citizens will also be given information about protests, blockages through advisory messages.

The application, developed in collaboration with City Traffic Police Lahore and Punjab Police, is free for use.

Source: Radio Pakistan

Terror Group Jamaat-ul-Ahraar Confirms Chief Is Dead

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, or JuA, a faction of the banned Pakistan Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP) terror group, confirmed the death on Friday of its chief, Umar Khalid Khorasani.

Khorasani has been blamed for directing several deadly attacks carried out in different parts of Pakistan in recent years, including the devastating March 2016 attack on the Christian community in Lahore on the day before Easter that claimed the lives of 75 people.

Chief of our Jamaat-ul-Ahraar, Umar Khalid Khorasani, who sustained serious injuries in a recent U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan’s Paktia province, succumbed to his injuries Wednesday evening, Jamaat-ul-Ahraar’s spokesperson told the French news agency.

The spokesperson also confirmed that nine of Khorasani’s close acquaintances were killed in the same attack.

TTP earlier had also confirmed the killing of its top commander, Umar Mansoor, in a statement to Pakistani media.

According to local media reports, two drone strikes carried out by the U.S. in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan have reportedly killed about 31 militants, including Mansoor and Khorasani.

U.S. officials did not comment on the statements issued by JuA or TTP regarding the death of their leaders.

Improving relations

Some Pakistani analysts see the recent high-profile elimination of terror leaders in Pakistan as a sign of improving relations and cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan.

This new development shows that both Pakistan and American intelligence agencies are cooperating and the trust is building between the security and establishment of both sides, which is truly necessary if we have to win the war against terrorism in the region, Retired Pakistan Army General Talat Masood told VOA.

The drone attacks by the U.S. forces show its seriousness to target those militants who are carrying out fatal attacks in Pakistan from the Afghan soil, Masood added.

Masood said he believes that the death of both Khurasani and Mansoor will help U.S. and Pakistan improve their bilateral relations, which plummeted due to Pakistan’s alleged ties to or tolerance of terror groups operating on its soil who have waged attacks against U.S.-led NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistan has denied those claims.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is scheduled to visit Pakistan in the coming days, where he will meet with Pakistani high officials and discuss bilateral issues, including regional security.

The relations between both countries have been rocky in recent years and have become further strained after U.S. President Donald Trump, during his South Asia strategy announcement in August, put Pakistan on notice to take action against militant safe havens that pose a threat to regional security.

Who was Khorasani?

Umar Khalid Khorasani was reportedly in his 40s and hailed from the tribal region of Pakistan. He was a hard-core militant who started out as an anti-India jihadist and fought to liberate the Indian part of Kashmir.

He later joined Pakistan Tehreek-i-Taliban in 2007, but parted ways with the group after disagreements with TTP’s leadership.

Khorasani then founded the Jamaat-ul-Ahraar in 2014 and announced allegiance to the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

In 2015, JuA left the Islamic State group and reunited with the Pakistani Taliban.

JuA first came into prominence after it claimed responsibility for a terror attack on Pakistani security forces in Lahore’s Wagah border region with India in 2014 during a border parade. The attack killed 60 people, mostly civilians.

The Pakistani government banned JuA in November of 2016.

The United States has also placed JuA on a list of specially designated global terrorist organizations.

Pakistan has repeatedly alleged that JuA has planned and carried out attacks on Pakistani security personnel and civilians, using sanctuaries inside Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.

Kabul, however, rejects the allegations and blames Islamabad for harboring militant groups on its soil, including the Haqqani network, to launch attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan denies those allegations.

Source: Voice of America