President Zardari announces Chinese takeover of Gwadar port
By: AFP
ISLAMABAD: China took control of Pakistan’s Gwadar port on Monday as part of its drive to secure energy and maritime routes that also gives it a potential Arabian Sea naval base, sparking Indian concern. ….
Read more » DAWN
Link – http://dawn.com/2013/02/18/president-zardari-announces-chinese-takeover-of-gwadar-port/
Reports claim American supership USS Enterprise is in Pak territorial waters
By Shafqat Ali
US moves its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, into Pakistani territorial waters near Gwadar, media reports said.
“The US has moved its biggest aircraft carrier 65 to 70 nautical miles away from Gwadar in the second week of June”, a Pakistani television channel reported.
The USS Enterprise, which holds a crew of over 4,000, had taken part in several wars.
The move comes as relations between Pakistan and the US have touched new lows. Pakistan has refused to reopen Nato supply through infuriating the US.
The Pak-US relations have never recovered to normal since the killing of Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad in May last year. The killing of 26 Pakistani soldiers by the Nato forces in November further dented the ties.
“After the deployment of the aircraft in Pakistani sea the country’s security agencies are now investigating into the matter. The movement apparently shows the increasing interest of the US in Balochistan province of Pakistan”, another channel reported.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon plans to soon deploy a new generation of drones the size of model planes, packing tiny explosive warheads that can be delivered with pinpoint accuracy.
The move to introduce new small drones seeks to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage, the report said.
Errant drone strikes have been blamed for killing and injuring scores of civilians throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, giving the US government a black eye as it targets elusive terrorist groups, the newspaper said.
The Predator and Reaper drones deployed in these regions typically carry 100-pound laser-guided Hellfire missiles or 500-pound GPS-guided smart bombs that can reduce buildings to smouldering rubble.
The new Switchblade drone, by comparison, weighs less than 6 pounds and can take out a sniper on a rooftop without blasting the building to bits. It also enables soldiers in the field to identify and destroy targets much more quickly by eliminating the need to call in a strike from large drones that may be hundreds of miles away.
“This is a precision strike weapon that causes as minimal collateral damage as possible”, said William I. Nichols, who led the Army’s testing effort of the Switchblades at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala.
The Obama administration, notably the CIA, has long been lambasted by critics for its use of combat drones and carelessly killing civilians in targeted strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.
In Islamabad, on Thursday, Foreign Office spokesman Muazzam Khan said that efforts were underway to mend the strained relationship between Pakistan and the US.
Speaking to reporters at a weekly news briefing, Mr Khan said that the decision to restore the Nato supply route would be made by the political leadership.
The FO spokesman dispelled the impression that Pakistan was raising the tariff on the supply route adding that there were several other issues involved.
“Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used as terrorist safe havens”, he added.
Courtesy: Decan Chronicle
Iran Opens Chabahar Port For NATO Supply zaranj-delaram – PKKH.tv
PKKH Exclusive by Shaikh Fahad
Afghan officials from Ministry of Chamber & Commerce speaking on condition of anonymity have said that Afghanistan will be allowed to use Iran’s Chabahar port for shipments and trade after the two countries signed an agreement in Kabul last Wednesday. It has also been learned that the Chabahar port has been financed by Indian government to maintain Iranian and Indian influence in Afghanistan after US forces leave Afghanistan in 2014. The second purpose, we believe of investment in this port is to counter Gwadar port of Pakistan.
The agreement was signed by Afghanistan’s Minister of Commerce and Industries Anwar al Haq Ahady and the Iranian Ambassador to Afghanistan Abolfazl Zohrevand.
The endorsement of the pact means Afghan traders including those directly working with American contracting companies will be able to use the southeastern port – Iran’s only port with direct access to the sea – for importing and exporting goods. The news of signing of this agreement comes as relief to US/NATO official since the closure of NATO supplies from Pakistan has caused massive setback in terms of finance to US/NATO.
Officials said the Chabahar port will help Afghanistan’s trade-related transit problems and is likely to boost commercial transactions.
The leading Israeli manufacturer of tankers, aircraft refuelers, fire fighting trucks, armored vehicles and special purpose trailers, Hatehof Ltd., reportedly provides Pakistan’s Air Force with military equipment under a clandestine contract.
Nearly a month ago, 11 aircraft refueling trucks departed Hatehof’s plant in the Tzippori industrial zone in Galilee region, situated 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) northwest of Nazareth, for the Port of Ashdod, located about 40 kilometers (24 miles) south of Tel Aviv, in the dead of the night.
The trucks were later boarded on a cargo ship in the Ashdod Port and dispatched to Turkey from where they were transported to Pakistan, according to a recent report aired on Israel’s Channel 2 television network.
The report comes as the Israeli firm has sent several convoys of aircraft refueling trucks to Pakistan in order to equip the Muslim states’ Air Force.
Under an agreement reached between Hatehof Ltd. and BMC — one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in Turkey, truck chassis are sent to Israel to be converted into aircraft refueling trucks for Pakistan’s Air Force.
Courtesy: Press Tv
The language of the interview is urdu (Hindi).
Courtesy: Geo Tv (Capital Talk with Hamid Mir) → YouTube
by Ansar Abbasi
ISLAMABAD: Thousands of Nato, ISAF and US Military containers have reportedly gone missing inside Pakistan during the last four years amid serious fears that many of these may have contained arms and ammunitions, which may have gone to terrorists.
Almost corroborating the grave charges levelled by PPP leader Dr Zulfiqar Mirza that a senior minister of MQM was responsible for these missing containers being in-charge of Ports and Shipping Ministry, sources in the Federal Board of Revenue say in addition to more than 24,000 missing containers of Afghan Transit Trade Commercial side, thousands of the unchecked containers belonging to Nato, ISAF and US Military had left the Karachi Port, but did not cross the Pak-Afghan border during the last four years. The sources, ….
Read more → The News
– General Kayani reaches Karachi
KARACHI: Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani landed in Karachi on Thursday morning, DawnNews reported. The army chief would be given a detailed briefing on the situation of the city, sources said. General Kayani had hinted that the army could provide its services to the government in restoring peace in the port city. Analysts were giving importance to General Kayani’s visit amidst continuing violence in the city.
Courtesy: DAWN.COM
via – above news adopted from Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, 25 August, 2011.
– China’s dream of Indian Ocean ports — the so-called string of pearls — is heightening geopolitical tensions in a rough neighborhood.
BY ROBERT D. KAPLAN
Pakistani officials have announced that the Chinese look favorably on taking over the operation of the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar close to the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz, and perhaps building a naval base for the Pakistanis there as well. The Chinese have apparently contradicted these claims, indicating that they have made no such decisions on these matters.
The fact that Pakistan should want deeper Chinese involvement with this strategically located port, even as the Chinese are hesitant to do just that, should surprise no one. Gwadar is where dreams clash with reality. …
Read more : ForeignPolicy
By MICHAEL WINES
BEIJING — This is officially the Year of Pakistan-China Friendship, and in a four-day visit to Beijing last week — the third in just 17 months — Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, proclaimed that the two best friends “are like one nation and two countries.” Chinese officials were reported to have presented Mr. Gilani with 50 fighter jets as a welcome gift.
So it raised eyebrows when this week the two nations politely disagreed over whether Mr. Gilani had given the Chinese a gift that would be hard to mislay: an entire naval base, right at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Pakistan’s defense minister, Ahmad Mukhtar, who accompanied Mr. Gilani on the state visit, announced the deal after Mr. Gilani returned home on Saturday.
“We have asked our Chinese brothers to please build a naval base at Gwadar,” a deepwater port on Pakistan’s southwest coast, he told journalists.
Moreover, he said, Pakistan had invited China to assume management of the port’s commercial operations, now run by a Singapore firm under a multidecade contract.
On Tuesday, however, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, disagreed, saying the port had neither been offered nor accepted.
“China and Pakistan are friendly neighbors,” she said at the ministry’s twice-weekly news conference. “Regarding the specific China-Pakistan cooperative project that you raised, I have not heard of it. It’s my understanding that during the visit last week this issue was not touched upon.”
Some analysts were at a loss to explain the discrepancy.
“Maybe there were some discussions between the two sides when Gilani was up in China last week, bearing on some kind of future Chinese stewardship of the port,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, in a telephone interview. “Maybe there was some speculative discussion. Perhaps the Defense Ministry simply got its signals wrong.”
“We’re seeing a lot of incompetence in the Pakistani government these days,” he added. ….
Read more : The New York Times
via BrownPundits
ISLAMABAD: The Chinese government has acceded to Pakistan’s request to take over the operations at Gwadar Port as soon as the term of agreement with the incumbent Singapore Port Authority expires, Federal Minister for Defence, Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar said after completing his visit to China on Saturday. …
Read more : Daily Times
KARACHI, May 12: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf announced on Thursday that it would stage a sit-in at the Native Jetty, near the sea port, on May 21 and 22 against military supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan and the US drone attacks on Pakistani soil.
PTI Sindh president Naeem-ul-Haq told a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Thursday that PTI chairman Imran Khan and leaders of other parties would address the sit-in participants.—PPI
Courtesy: DAWN
Pakistan: Karachi naval bus bomb kills five
Suspected militants have killed at least five people in a bomb attack on a navy bus in the port city of Karachi.
Four of those who died in the roadside bombing were navy personnel. The fifth was a passing motorcyclist, officials said. Several others were wounded.
It is the third such attack this week. Four people died when two navy buses were bombed on Tuesday.
Officials believe the same group is behind the attacks. The Taliban say they carried out the bombings.
Correspondents say security officials in Karachi, the main base for Pakistan’s navy, are also not ruling out a possible link to local Islamist groups.
Militant groups linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda have carried out attacks in the southern city in the past.
The spate of bombings in Karachi is being seen as retaliation for an offensive against the Pakistani Taliban and their allies in the north-west of the country.
Taliban claim
Thursday’s bomb went off in the early hours of the morning in the Karsaz area of the city, along the busy Faisal Avenue. It tore through the bus and left a huge crater in the road. …
Read more : BBC
HEC’s devolution to provinces opposed
by Khalid Hashmani, McLean
In my opinion, the recent decision by the Pakistani Government to devolve HEC into provincial HECs is overdue and must be carried out. As a matter of fact, I recommend to Dr. Javaid Laghari to not only support this decision but also help to ensure that it is implemented fully and that he should assume the role of Sindh HEC and make it one the best educational institutions in Pakistan and in the world as he did with ZABIST.
I do not know of any federal-level powerful higher education authorities in any federal state in the world as we have in Pakistan. Using the name of Islam and Pakistan, the establishment of Pakistan has been imposing unnecessary and inefficient centralization on the provinces/ States/ Republics. The tool of “centralization” has been used to discriminate and exploit smaller provinces and usurp resources of Sindh and Balochistan for the benefit of other provinces. Neither Canada has a federal HEC nor USA and other democratic and federal countries have created such institutions. In other countries where a federal-level commissions exist, their role is very limited and constrained to advise on standards.
The reason that Sindh’s Education Ministry is inefficient has no relevance whether or not Pakistan’s HEC should be devolved. The federal Education Ministry and HEC both have history of discrimination against Sindhis and denying due share in educational opportunities in Pakistan. The same rational of inefficiency is given for centralized control of Sindh’s resource industries such as coal, oil, gas, and ports.
The fact that few Vice Chancellors and educationalists from Sindh do not support devolution of HEC is the same as some pro one-unit establishment organs gave when the people of Sindh, Balochistan, and Pakhtunkhwa demanded dissolution of one unit. Such pronouncement did not succeed then and they will not stop devolution of HEC and other federal agencies and departments returning them into their provincial jurisdictions.
As a highly super centralized state, Pakistan is increasingly failing and is now considered one of worse countries on most human development factors. It is time that it’s setup is reorganized on the basis of the 1940 Resolutions, which is the fundamental principle for various provinces/ States/ Republics to join Pakistan.
Courtesy: Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, March 27, 2011.
The most powerful 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck Japan’s northeastern coast around 0546 GMT on Friday. It caused a four-meter tsunami in the port city of Kamishi and its tremors shook buildings in the capital Tokyo, over 300 kilometers away and the disaster’s massive impact was only beginning to be revealed…” We share grief & sorrow of our Japanese brethren.
– You Tube
By NADA BAKRI
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Demonstrators blocked roads and clashed with police on Monday in Oman, the normally quiet oil-rich country along the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, as three-day-old protests calling for political reforms and better living conditions spread to Muscat, the capital.
In the northeast port city of Sohar, where the protests originated, demonstrators blocked roads to the port, Oman’s second biggest, and an industrial area that includes a refinery and an aluminum factory, according to two witnesses in Sohar and news agencies. They also set a supermarket on fire and clashed with the police. Protesters have also been camped out for three days in the city’s main square, called Kurra Ardiyah Roundabout, despite efforts by police and army to push them out, a resident in Sohar said by e-mail. …
Read more : The New York Times
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