U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday promoted improving ties between Saudi Arabia and Iraq as a way to counter Iran's growing military assertiveness in the region.Tillerson, participating in the initial meeting of the Saudi Arabia-Iraq Coord...
Read More »Monthly Archives: October 2017
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
Read More »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 wil...
Read More »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 Mar...
Read More »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 mount...
Read More »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 ...
Read More »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 pa...
Read More »