PAKISTAN

Likely cause of US missile claim

Abbas Nasir 

December 22, 2024 

DAWN

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

WHILE the US policy has remained focused on enabling the creation of a Greater Israel via Gaza genocide, expansion of Zionist settlements in the West Bank and the grabbing of more and more parts of Syria by the Zionist state after the fall of the Assad regime, it is floundering elsewhere as was evident from claims coming from Washington, D.C. this week.

The US, Israel and their OIC member-allies in the region have caused setbacks to another OIC member Iran and the Axis of Resistance it leads by neutralising its most potent arm, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, by direct attacks and also by toppling the Syrian regime and severing the movement’s supply routes. Israel’s land grab in Syria also gives it commanding heights including Mount Hermon over south Lebanon to its west, the Hezbollah stronghold, as well as over Damascus towards the east.

But, in its final five weeks in office, a bizarre claim has been made by a top US security official about US concerns regarding Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme. This claim coincided with the announcement of US sanctions on a Pakistani state entity and three Pakistani Chinese firms.

In remarks made at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, US Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said it was hard for the US to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to America.

The bizarre claim regarding Pakistan’s missile programme could well be to appease India.

“Pakistan has developed increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment that would enable the testing of significantly larger rocket mot­ors,” he said, adding: “If those trends continue, Pakis­tan will have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including the United States.”

Any analyst in his right mind would pour scorn over this claim. Pakistan is nowhere in direct confrontation with the US anywhere in the world and why in the world would it wish to acquire ballistic missile capability to target the US, a superpower?

Pakistan’s entire national security doctrine is based on the Indian threat which, given the conflicts in 1948, 1965, 1971 and the Kargil flare-up, is a legitimate concern.

So, what is really behind such claims and the third or fourth set of sanctions over a short span of time (read Baqir Sajjad’s excellent situationer in yesterday’s edition of this paper for details) on Pakistan’s development of delivery systems?

My first thought was that when the US official referred to the potential capability to target the US it may have been a roundabout way of saying that perhaps Israel could come under threat. I quickly dismissed this notion. This, because Pak­istan has never done anything more than offer ‘moral and diplomatic’ support to the Palestinian cause and at this point in time, it isn’t in a position to take a tougher line against the Gaza genocide in terms of support beyond diplomatic fora.

The horror of babies and children being murdered, maimed and crippled through multiple amputations in a brutal indiscriminate bombardment because Israelis believe there are no ‘innocents’ in Gaza, including children, is on the one hand, and Pakistan’s economic state on the other.

That crippling reality makes it impossible for Pakistan do anything, even if its civil and military ruling elite may have wanted to come to the Palestinians’ aid. It stays afloat on handouts from US-controlled IFIs and cash-rich US allies in the region. One false move and the tap from which the dollars drip (unlike the free flow of the past) will be turned off.

Therefore, one was forced to look elsewhere and one plausible reason came via The Friday Times’ founder and former editor Najam Sethi, who pointed to the broader canvas.

India enjoys a special status with the US as evident from the fact that it can freely import sanctioned Iranian (and even Russian) oil at much cheaper rates without drawing international (read: US) opprobrium, even as countries like Pakistan are sinking under the cost of their oil import bill but can’t look towards Iranian oil and petroleum products for the fear of incurring Washington’s wrath.

Delhi is thus pampered not only because of the size of its market — over 1.4 billion people with a middle class component of more than 400 million — but also due to its location and physical size. It is seen as a counter to Chinese power in the reg­ion. India’s membership of the so-called Quad­rilateral Security dialogue alongside the US, Japan and Australia was meant to curb China’s economic and military primacy in the region.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union 33 years ago, it was expected that US imperialism would remain unchallenged in a unipolar world. Since then, China has made rapid advances as an economic and military power. This has posed a challenge to US ambitions around the globe.

The formation of the BRICs alliance is another major challenge and irritant. After the Kazan (Russia) summit of the grouping in October this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to disengage their troops on their disputed border. By Nov 6, the two countries had completed the process.

Apart from that improvement in China-India relations that will boost trade ties between the two, there was also talk at BRICS of setting up an alternative payment system for international deals to obviate secondary sanctions imposed on Russia, for example.

President-elect Donald Trump has already warned BRICS against the development of any alternative payment system/ currency undermining the greenback and threatened to impose 100 per cent tariffs on the nine-nation bloc many more are keen to join, if it happened.

The bizarre claim regarding Pakistan’s missile programme could well be to appease India and keep it onside to use it as a bulwark against China whether that is likely or not. India does see Islam­abad’s nuclear and missile programme as a major obstacle to its domination of the region and often sounds like a cry-baby when raising this issue.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2024

PAKISTAN

Media strangulation

DAWN
Editorial 

December 21, 2024 

AEMEND, in a recent statement, has only now drawn attention to the reality that has plagued Pakistani media for a while: financial warfare through advertising boycotts. The electronic media body’s executive committee meeting highlighted that “every possible tactic” is being deployed to suppress dissent, with pressure on TV channels aimed at exerting maximum control over the media. Pemra’s role as a mere rubber stamp, issuing illegal notices daily to bring the channels under pressure, exemplifies this systematic oppression.

It is perhaps the most insidious form of censorship witnessed and is proving devastatingly effective in silencing critical voices. News organisations maintaining editorial independence find themselves suddenly stripped of crucial government advertising revenue — their financial lifeline in a challenging media market.

Even more troubling are reports that provincial governments willing to place advertisements in these outlets are being prevented from doing so through establishment pressure, revealing a coordinated campaign to bring independent media to heel. These tactics accompany an already suffocating environment of legal harassment and arbitrary internet disruptions that hobble news gathering and dissemination. As AEMEND notes, this “one-sided portrayal of the situation is severely damaging the credibility of the media”. The recently strengthened Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act has become another tool in the arsenal against journalists, who face spurious cases designed to intimidate.

The collective impact is clear: a systematic dismantling of media freedom through death by a thousand cuts. When news organisations must choose between editorial integrity and financial survival, democracy itself is imperilled. The government’s responsibility to foster a free press environment is a constitutional obligation that directly impacts the health of our democracy. AEMEND’s initiative to unite with other media bodies including PFUJ, APNS, CPNE, and PBA signals a welcome recognition that the industry must present a united front against these pressures.

However, the onus lies on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government to halt this slide towards media capture. The establishment must understand that a pliant press serves neither democracy nor the national interest. Our journey towards democratic consolidation demands robust public discourse and fearless journalism. The administration must decide whether it wishes to be remembered as an enabler of press freedom or its executioner. The choice, and its place in history, lies entirely in its hands.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2024

Chinese ship linked to severed Baltic Sea cables sets sail


By AFP
December 21, 2024

The Yi Peng 3 has remained anchored in the international waters of the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark since November 19 - Copyright Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/File Mikkel Berg Pedersen
Johannes LEDEL

A Chinese ship linked to the recent severing of two undersea cables and anchored off Denmark’s coast since November 19, departed Saturday, Sweden’s coast guard said.

Sections of two telecom cables were cut on November 17 and 18 in Swedish territorial waters of the Baltic Sea.

Suspicions have been directed at a Chinese ship — the Yi Peng 3 — which according to ship tracking sites had sailed over the cables around the time they were cut.

The Yi Peng 3 had been anchored in the international waters of the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark.

Ship tracking site Vesselfinder showed the Yi-Peng 3 steaming north out of the strait on Saturday and Sweden’s coast guard confirmed that the vessel had lifted anchor.

“She has reported that she is heading for Egypt and Port Said,” Hanna Buhler, duty officer at the Swedish Coast Guard told AFP, adding that they would continue to monitor the ship.

On Thursday, authorities from Sweden, Germany and Finland were invited aboard for an investigation led by China.

A Danish representative also accompanied the group as Denmark had served a “facilitating role” by hosting meetings between the countries at the Danish foreign ministry earlier in the week, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen had said.

– ‘Observer role’ –

“It is our expectation that once the inspection is completed by this group of people from the four countries, the ship will be able to sail to its destination,” Rasmussen said.

Swedish police on Thursday confirmed that they were going onboard the ship as observers.

“Representatives of the Chinese authorities are conducting investigations aboard the vessel and have invited the Swedish authorities to take part in an observer role,” police said adding it would not be taking any “investigative measures”.

The Swedish Accident Investigation Authority (SHK) also took part in the visit, but noted that as the ship was “anchored in international waters”, where “Swedish authorities are not able to exercise jurisdiction over a foreign vessel”.

John Ahlberk, director of SHK, told AFP on Thursday that they were hoping to gather “as much information as possible”.

“There have been claims that the cable breakage has to do with anchors from the ship. So it is interesting for us to hear what the crew has to say about it,” he said.

Ahlberk noted that it was not clear to what extent they would be able to speak to the crew or conduct their own investigations since the investigation was led by Chinese authorities aboard a Chinese ship.

European officials have said they suspect sabotage linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Kremlin has rejected the comments as “absurd” and “laughable”.

– No accusation –

Sweden in late November requested China’s cooperation in the investigation, but Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stressed that there was no “accusation” of any sort.

Early on November 17, the Arelion cable running from the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania was damaged.

The next day, the C-Lion 1 submarine cable connecting Helsinki and the German port of Rostock was cut south of Sweden’s Oland island, around 700 kilometres (435 miles) from Helsinki.

Tensions have mounted around the Baltic Sea since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In September 2022, a series of underwater blasts ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines that carried Russian gas to Europe, the cause of which has yet to be determined.

In October 2023, an undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was shut down after it was damaged by the anchor of a Chinese cargo ship.

Drone attack hits Russian city 1,000km from Ukraine frontier

NOT AN ICBM

By AFP
December 21, 2024


Russian firefighters tackled blazes in the city of Kazan after a drone attack blamed on Ukraine - Copyright AFP/File Farooq NAEEM

Kyiv on Saturday staged a major drone attack on the Russian city of Kazan, 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the frontier, as Moscow’s troops captured a new frontline village in eastern Ukraine.

The drones damaged buildings in Kazan, capital of the Tartarstan republic, with a population of more than 1.3 million, but there were no victims, local officials said.

Kazan City hall said some fires had started and were being tackled by the fire brigade.

The city’s airport was temporarily closed, the Russian civilian aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said.

Some residents were evacuated, but authorities did not give figures. Authorities said that all major public events in Tartarstan had been cancelled as a precaution.

Videos on Russian social media networks showed drones hitting high rise buildings setting off fireballs.

AFP could not immediately verify the authenticity of the images.

Ukraine, which has staged regular attacks on targets inside Russia since the start of full scale military offensive in February 22, did not immediately comment.

“Today Kazan suffered a massive drone attack,” Rustam Minnikhanov, the Tartarstan republic leader, said in a post on Telegram.

“While before industrial enterprises were attacked, now the enemy attacks civilians in the morning,” he added.

Minnikhanov’s press service said at least eight drones had been detected.

Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of targeting “civilian infrastructure” in Kazan. It said six drones had been neutralised or destroyed but did not say how many had been involved.

The ministry said the Russian army had captured a new village near the key city of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces have made major advances in recent months.

Russian troops had “liberated” the village of Kostiantynopolske, just eight kilometers (five miles) from Kurakhove, an industrial town that is a looming Russian target, a statement said.

Russia on Friday staged strikes on the Ukraine capital, Kyiv, that left one dead and 13 wounded, according to the city’s authorities.

Another five people were killed in a Ukrainian attack on the Russian frontier region of Kursk, the local governor said.

Russia’s security service said meanwhile that a man had been sentenced to 19 years in jail for sending information to US intelligence services about the Russian military,

The unidentified man, who was born in 1993, was found guilt of “high treason” and other charges, the FSB agency said.

The inquiry “confirmed that he had established a confidential cooperation relationship with representatives of the US intelligence services,” the agency said.

The man was accused of sending information about the identity and other personal details on Russian soldiers. He was arrested in January 2023.

A regional court at Orenburg in the Urals ordered the jail term and sent the man to a “strict regime” penal colony, the FSB said.

It released images of the man surrounded by agents and in court.

Russian courts have ordered multiple heavy jail terms for treason, terrorism and sabotage since the start of the military offensive.

Albania announces shutdown of TikTok for at least a year


By AFP
December 21, 2024


TikTok's huge global success has been partly built on the success of its controversial 'challenges' - Copyright AFP 

Lou BENOIST

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said Saturday the government would shut down social network TikTok for at least a year from 2025.

“We are going to chase this thug out of our neighbourhood for one year”, Rama told a meeting with Albanian teachers, parents and psychologists in Tirana.

The government would launch programmes to “serve the education of students and help parents follow their children’s journey”, he added.

The blocking of the controversial social network comes less than a month after a 14-year-old student was killed and another injured in a fight near a school in Tirana.

The fight had developed from an online confrontation on social media.

The killing sparked a debate in the country among parents, psychologists and educational institutions about the impact of social networks on young people.

“In China, TikTok promotes how students can take courses, how to protect nature, how to keep traditions,” said Rama.

“But on the TikTok outside China we see only scum and mud. Why do we need this?”

Several countries have begun debating measures against TikTok, part of a wider debate on the influence of social media on vulnerable groups, such as children and adolescents.

“The problem is not the children but our entire society,” Rama argued.

– TikTok’s controversial ‘challenges’ –

TikTok’s huge global success has been partly built on the appeal of its “challenges” — an interactive call that invites users to create videos featuring dances, jokes or games that sometimes go viral.

The platform attracts young people with a never-ending scroll of ultra-brief videos. It has more than one billion active users worldwide.

Neighbouring countries such as Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia have also reported a negative impact of the platform, especially on the youth.

At least 22 cases of self-harm among girls from different schools in Kosovo southwestern city of Gjakova reported two months ago were blamed on a TikTok challenge.

Two weeks ago, local media in North Macedonia reported that hospital there had treated dozen of teenagers for injuries sustained after attempting the “Superman” TikTok challenge.

It involves one child leaping on to the linked arms of a few others.

And in Serbia, in the southwestern city of Novi Pazar there were reports that children in several high schools had taken part in a “choking” challenge.

A search for this on TikTok now produces a warning message from the platform that some challenges can be dangerous, and links to a short guide on how to spot them.

TikTok has faced accusations of espionage in the United States, and is under investigation by the European Union over claims it was used to sway Romania’s presidential election in favour of a far-right candidate.

The platform also has been banned for use by personnel in state institutions in several countries.

AFP, among more than a dozen other fact-checking organisations, is paid by TikTok in several countries to verify videos that potentially contain false information.

ICYMI

France’s most powerful nuclear reactor finally comes on stream


By AFP
December 21, 2024


France's flagship nuclear reactor at Flamanville in Normandy 

was connected to the national grid after a dozen years of delay 

- Copyright AFP Lou BENOIST

Catherine HOURS

France on Saturday connected its most powerful nuclear power reactor to the national electricity grid in what leaders hailed as a landmark moment despite years of delays, budget overruns and technical setbacks.

The Flamanville 3 European Pressurized Reactor in Normandy started providing electricity to French homes at 11:48 am (1048 GMT) Saturday, the EDF power company’s CEO Luc Remont said in a statement.

“Great moment for the country,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement on social network LinkedIn, calling it “one of the world’s most powerful nuclear reactors.”

“Re-industrialising to produce low-carbon energy is French-style ecology,” he added. “It strengthens our competitiveness and protects the climate.”

The French-developed European Pressurised Reactor project, launched in 1992, was designed to relaunch nuclear power in Europe after the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe in Soviet Ukraine, and is touted as offering more efficient power output and better safety.

The EPR, a new generation pressurised water reactor, is the fourth to be finished anywhere in the world. Similar design reactors in China and Finland came online ahead of it.

The launch is welcome news for the heavily indebted state-owned energy company EDF after multiple problems extended construction to 17 years and caused massive budget overruns.

Remont of EDF called the event “historic.”

“The last time a reactor started up in France was 25 years ago at Civaux 2,” he said, referring to the Civaux power plant in southwestern France.

The connection was initially scheduled to take place Friday.

It is the most powerful reactor in the country at 1,600 MW. Ultimately, it should supply electricity to upwards of two million homes.

– ‘Culmination of titanic effort’ –

The connection to the grid “will be marked by different power levels through to the summer of 2025” in a months-long testing phase, the company has said.

EDF said that starting up a reactor was “a long and complex operation.”

The plant will be shut down for a complete inspection lasting at least 250 days, probably in the spring of 2026, the company added.

Construction of the Flamanville reactor began in 2007 and was beset by numerous problems.

The start-up comes 12 years behind schedule after a plethora of technical setbacks which saw the cost of the project soar to an estimated 13.2 billion euros ($13.76 billion), four times the initial 3.3 billion euro estimate.

The start-up began on September 3, but had to be interrupted the following day due to an “automatic shutdown”. It resumed a few days later.

Generation has been gradually increased to allow the reactor to be connected to the electricity network.

Nuclear power accounts for around three-fifths of French electricity output and the country boasts one of the globe’s largest nuclear power programmes.

That is in stark contrast to neighbouring Germany, which exited nuclear power last year by shutting down the last three of its reactors.

“This morning marks the culmination of a titanic effort that has finally paid off,” Agnes Pannier-Runacher, the outgoing minister for ecological transition, said on X.

“We are drawing all the lessons from this to make a success of the nuclear revival that we decided on with the President of the Republic.”

Macron has decided to ramp up nuclear power to bolster French energy sustainability by ordering six new-generation reactors and laying options for eight more, that could cost tens of billions of euros.

In 2022, he called for a “renaissance” for the country’s nuclear industry to transition away from fossil fuels.

“What we have to build today is the renaissance of the French nuclear industry because it’s the right moment, because it’s the right thing for our nation, because everything is in place,” Macron said at the time.

SEE

France's Flamanville EPR starts supplying power

After long delay, French nuclear plant coming on stream

Freed activist Paul Watson vows to ‘end whaling worldwide’


By AFP
December 21, 2024

'One way or the other we are going to end whaling worldwide,' said Watson

 - Copyright Minas Gerais Fire Department/AFP Handout

Corentin DAUTREPPE

Animal rights activist Paul Watson, freed this week from detention in Denmark, vowed on Saturday to end whale hunting worldwide and to stop Japan if it tried to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean.

Watson, a 74-year-old Canadian-American, returned to France on Friday after spending five months in detention in the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland due to an extradition demand from Japan.

“One way or the other we are going to end whaling worldwide,” Watson told reporters in central Paris where several hundred supporters had gathered to greet him.

“We need to learn to live on this planet in harmony with all those other species that share this world with us.

“If Japan intends to return to the Southern Ocean we will be there,” said the founder of the conservation group Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF).

“We are not protesting Japanese whaling. We are simply requesting they obey the law.”

Under international pressure, Japan, one of three countries to conduct commercial whaling along with Iceland and Norway, abandoned these hunts. Since 2019 it has only caught whales in its own waters.

But in May, Japan launched the Kangei Maru, a whaling mother ship.

Activists believe this means Japan intends to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean, although the company operating the vessel has denied this.

“If the Kangei Maru goes to the North Pacific or the Southern Ocean then we will intervene against their illegal operations,” said Watson.

He also said he would oppose attempts by Iceland to resume whaling in 2025.

– ‘Enormous campaign’ –

In the 2000s and 2010s, Sea Shepherd played cat and mouse with Japanese ships that sought to slaughter hundreds of whales every year for “scientific purposes”.

But in July, Watson was arrested and detained in Greenland on a 2012 Japanese warrant, which accuses him of causing damage to a whaling ship and injuring a whaler.

He was released on Tuesday after Denmark refused the Japanese extradition request over the 2010 clash with whalers.

Watson told reporters he had turned his incarceration into an “enormous educational campaign”.

“Every situation provides an opportunity,” he said.

“And we’ve had five months to focus attention on Japan’s illegal whaling operations and also Denmark’s continued killing of pilot whales and dolphins in the Faroe Islands.”

On his release, Watson said he wanted to return to France, where his two young children attend school. He was looking forward to spending Christmas with his family before resuming his campaigns, he said.

His detention generated a high-profile campaign in his support that included prominent activists such as British conservationist Jane Goodall.

French President Emmanuel Macron was among those who spoke out for him and he also enjoyed massive support from the French public.

Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, said Watson had received more than 4,000 letters while in detention — more than 3,000 of them from France.

“He has received more letters of support from Japanese citizens than from Australians,” she added, pointing out that “less than 2 percent of Japanese people eat whale meat”.

Watson told reporters: “I am absolutely overjoyed with the support that we received from France.

“But most importantly, I am so happy that so many people in France care about the ocean.”

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/freed-activist-paul-watson-vows-to-end-whaling-worldwide/article#ixzz8v8HofV6r

Scientists observe ‘negative time’ in quantum experiments

AFP 

Published December 22, 2024 

TORONTO: Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it — an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter.

Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that “negative time” isn’t just a theoretical idea — it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny. The findings, yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, have attracted both global attention and scepticism.

The researchers emphasise that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time. “This is tough stuff, even for us to talk about with other physicists. We get misunderstood all the time,” said Aephraim Steinberg, a University of Toronto professor specialising in experimental quantum physics.

While the term “negative time” might sound like a concept lifted from science fiction, Steinberg defends its use, hoping it will spark deeper discussions about the mysteries of quantum physics.

Laser experiments

Years ago, the team began exploring interactions between light and matter. When light particles, or photons, pass through atoms, some are absorbed by the atoms and later re-emitted. This interaction changes the atoms, temporarily putting them in a higher-energy or “excited” state before they return to normal.

In research led by Daniela Angulo, the team set out to measure how long these atoms stayed in their excited state. “That time turned out to be negative,” Steinberg explained — meaning a duration less than zero.

To visualise this concept, imagine cars entering a tunnel: before the experiment, physicists recognised that while the average entry time for a thousand cars might be, for example, noon, the first cars could exit a little sooner, say 11:59am. This result was previously dismissed as meaningless.

What Angulo and colleagues demonstrated was akin to measuring carbon monoxide levels in the tunnel after the first few cars emerged and finding that the readings had a minus sign in front of them.

Relativity intact

The experiments, conducted in a cluttered basement laboratory bristling with wires and aluminum-wrapped devices, took over two years to optimise. The lasers used had to be carefully calibrated to avoid distorting the results.

Still, Steinberg and Angulo are quick to clarify: no one is claiming time travel is a possibility. “We don’t want to say anything traveled backward in time,” Steinberg said. “That’s a misinterpretation.” The explanation lies in quantum mecha­nics, where particles like photons behave in fuzzy, probabilistic ways rather than following strict rules.

Instead of adhering to a fixed timeline for absorption and re-emission, these interactions occur across a spectrum of possible durations — some of which defy everyday intuition.

Critically, the researchers say, this doesn’t violate Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which dictates that nothing can travel faster than light. These photons carried no information, sidestepping any cosmic speed limits.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2024

How India’s exploitation of US sanctions hurts Pakistani businesses

Imran Ayub 

December 20, 2024 

DAWN

Technicians produce industrial parts, which are used by automotive, home appliance, and textile manufactures, at Cosmos Engineering’s plant in North Karachi. (Right) Cosmos Engineering CEO Asim Farooqi holds up one of the parts manufactured at the facility.—Fahim Siddiqi / White Star


PAKISTAN’S contention that unilateral US sanctions against companies suspected of having links with its weapons programme could have “dangerous implications for the strategic stability of our region” is not simply rhetoric, but rooted in precedent.

Indeed, these designations have been used as an excuse by arch-rival India to arbitrarily harass Pakistani and Chinese commercial firms engaged in documented trade and industrial activities.


Consider the case of Cosmos Engine­ering, a Karachi-based manufacturer of automobile parts and home appliances.

In March of this year, Indian customs officials had intercepted a Malta-flagged merchant ship, the CMA CGM Attila, which was en route to Karachi. The allegation was that it was carrying a dual-use military-grade cargo, which Indian authorities claimed could be used by Islamabad for its weapons programme.


Cosmos Engineering and its Chinese partner, Taiyuan Mining Import and Export, have yet to be compensated for ‘wrongful’ seizure of their cargo

Indian customs officials claimed to have found an Italian-made computer numerical control (CNC) machine within the consignment, alleging its potential utility in nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, and subsequently confiscated it.

Although New Delhi claimed the interception, and subsequent seizure, of the cargo was made on the basis of “specific intelligence”, no evidence supporting the claim was ever publicly released, and despite the passage of several months, the Indian government has yet to substantiate its allegations.

Chinese exasperation

The Chinese supplier of the machinery, as well as their Pakistani partners, told Dawn earlier this year that they intended to pursue legal action against the Indian government “to return our goods” as well as securing “maximum compensation”.

“I have reported the entire situation to our government departments and am waiting for their reply,” Andy Qiao of China’s Taiyuan Mining Import and Export had told Dawn in March, in response to a written query.

He also mentioned that his firm was enlisting the help of lawyers specialising in international law to gather evidence and prepare legal action against the Indian government.

Andy claimed that the Indian claims were “fabricated”, and normal commercial machinery was being portrayed as being “dual-use technology” for weapons systems. He also accused the Indians of virtually “stealing the equipment” by force without notifying them.

“When we tried to contact them to ask about the basis for the seizure, they didn’t answer our calls. They didn’t respond to our emails,” he said.

Andy maintained that their contract with the Pakistani company and all the products shipped between them met legal export declaration requirements and were fully documented, in line with international trade laws.

“The Indian government’s actions are extremely irresponsible. They always want to play the role of world police, arbitrarily seize other people’s products, and wantonly violate international law and international trade rules,” Andy said.

Diplomatic outrage

Although Pakistan’s Foreign Office had issued a sharp rebuke to the Indian actions at the time, Cosmos Engineering claims that there has been no progress on the issue and their seized shipment, as well as legal efforts to clear their name, remain in limbo.

“Pakistan condemns India’s high-handedness in seizure of commercial goods. This disruption of free trade underscores the dangers inherent in the arbitrary assumption of policing roles by states with dubious credentials,” FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch had said at the time.

Referring to the CNC machine found in the consignment, Ms Baloch clarified that the item in question was “a commercial lathe machine”.

“Specifications of the equipment clearly indicate its purely commercial use. The transaction was being conducted through transparent banking channels with all the relevant documentation,” she said.

Open doors at Cosmos

For most countries, anything related to weapons production is kept a closely guarded secret. But Cosmos Engineering allowed Dawn wide-ranging access to its facility in the North Karachi Industrial Area, where this correspondent was allowed to meet workers and management, as well as inspect the facility to get an idea of the kind of work that went on there.

“We are one of leading manufacturers of the country specialising in parts, tools and dies, jigs and fixtures for a number of reputed industrial organisations,” Cosmos Engineering CEO Asim Farooqi told Dawn.

In a wide-ranging discussion, he rejected the accusations leveled by Indian authorities, saying that the CNC machine was an essential industrial tool, widely utilised across diverse sectors, including automotive, home appliance, and textile industries.

“Cosmos Engineering vehemently asserts its non-involvement in any defense-related activities or missile programmes,” he said.

“We have demanded the immediate release of our CNC machine held by Indian authorities. Any further delay poses a significant risk to our operations and undermines our hard-earned reputation,” he told Dawn.

When asked how far their efforts to secure legal relief had progressed, Mr Farooqi told Dawn on Thursday that his company had approached the Sindh High Court to seek the release of their consignment, and that the court had issued notices to both the shipper and the cargo insurance agent.

“Our Chinese partner has also sought help of the local court in Shanghai,” he said, adding that Chinese customs authorities had sought details of the shipment.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2024

PAKISTAN

Decaying delta

Naseer Memon 

Published December 21, 2024 

DAWN



THE Indus delta, once a pristine ecosystem, has lost its glory. Listed amongst the 40 most biologically rich ecoregions in the world, it is also a Ramsar site. Unfortunately, its mangrove forests and fish stock in its estuaries are dwindling and communities are abandoning their abodes due to scarce livelihood resources. Abject poverty, food insecurity and morbidity are rampant. The prosperous past of the area has given way to deprivation over the decades.

Commissioned in 1932, Sukkur Barrage was the first major diversion structure on the Indus river. The last century witnessed a series of dams and barrages being built on the Indus and its tributaries. The Tarbela and Chashma reservoirs on the Indus and Mangla Dam on the Jhelum river are the major storage sites. Since the Sutlej Valley project (1922-30), the rivers of the Indus basin have become entangled with three major dams, 23 barrages, 12 inter-river canals and 45 main canals. This web of canals has sprawled a massive irrigation system that has drastically curtailed flows to the delta area.

The massive upstream diversion that continued over a century has culminated in an ecological disaster in the Indus delta. The Indus delta was spread over an area of 600,000 hectares between Sir Creek to the east and Phitti Creek to the west. It had 17 active creeks, which have now shrunk to just two — Khobar and Khar.


Declined river flows have had a detrimental effect on the delta.

According to Census 2023, three deltaic districts of Sindh (Thatta, Sujawal and Badin) have eight talukas with a population of about two million people. This population is directly affected by the degradation of the delta. Declining fish catch, degraded farmland, increased frequency of cyclones and the malfunctioning Left Bank Outfall Drain have together aggravated poverty, unemployment, malnourishment and migration to other areas.

The declined river flow has had a detrimental effect on the delta. It has curtailed sediment transportation, which is a critical ingredient of the deltaic ecosystem. The silt forms the bed that hinders sea encroachment along its shoreline and also provides fertile soil to grow and sustain the mangrove forests. The mangroves are a breeding ground for several species of fish. The flow data of the last 25 years shows that for 12 years, flows below Kotri Barrage were less than 10 million acre feet (MAF) that was provisionally agreed on in the inter-provincial Water Apportionment Accord of 1991. Consequently, sediment transport to the delta has declined. The Indus delta would receive 400 million tonnes of silt in the pre-Tarbela years, which has declined to about 125Mt per year.

According to a report by the International Panel of Experts, 5,000 cusecs is the minimum flow required below Kotri Barrage to sustain the deltaic ecosystem. However, water flow data reveals that except for the two monsoon months (mid-July to mid-September), the desired quantum of water doesn’t cross the gates of Kotri Barrage. In other words, no silt reaches the coastline for most of the months, paving the way for sea intrusion.

In 2001, the government of Sindh estimated that up to 0.5 million hectares of fertile land in the coastal districts (12 per cent of the total cultivated area in the entire province) was affected by seawater intrusion. The report of the International Panel of Experts in 2005 mentioned that coastal accretion was about 30 metres every year.

A research paper by Dr Altaf Ali Siyal of the US-Pakistan Centre for Advanced Studies in Water mentions that the active delta occupied an area of about 13,900 square kilometres in 1833, which has shrunk to 1,067 sq km, marking a co­­lossal reduction of about 92pc. In 2005, the IUCN reported the area of the active delta as 1,190 sq km. A fresh survey through satellite technology is required to determine the quantum of precious land lost to the sea. The panel of experts recommended that a total volume of 25 MAF every five years should be released to transport the requisite amount of silt.

The research revealed that an area covered with mangrove forests comprised 103,413 hectares or 16pc of the tidal floodplains during 1990, which slowly decreased to 63,296 hectares or 9.81pc of the tidal floodplains in 2005. Recently, the provincial government made efforts to revive the mangrove ecosystem. Its efforts saw an increase in the mangrove cover to 81,324 hectares in 2017. Sustaining the mangrove cover requires regular freshwater flows to the estuaries.

Amid this devastation of a fragile ecosystem, constructing new canals upstream for corporate farming will further suffocate the delta, which is a national asset. The delta’s resuscitation is a national obligation. A moratorium on new upstream diversions is urgently needed for the Indus delta to survive.

The writer is a civil society professional.
nmemon2004@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2024

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE MYTH OF 'WESTERNISATION'

Nadeem F. Paracha 

Published December 22, 2024

DAWN

Illustration by Abro

In the April 1968 edition of a now defunct English daily, Business Post, one Yaqoob Sultan wrote an article in which he described a conversation he had had with a member of an Islamist political party. Sultan identified himself as a progressive student activist who was involved in the time’s protest movement against the Gen Ayub Khan dictatorship.

Sultan wrote that, when he met the Islamist at a wedding reception in Karachi, the Islamist told him that he (Sultan) and his like were ‘puppets of communist forces’ that were being used to destroy Islam in Pakistan. He then went on to admonish the ‘liberals’ as well, who he accused of being navigated by Western powers to promote secularism in the country. Sultan wrote that he retaliated by calling his accuser a hypocrite, because “Islamic [sic] parties were clearly being funded by the US to work against progressive forces.”

I stumbled upon this pithy piece 50 years later, during a research project in 2018. I found it rather interesting because whereas the accusation like the one made by the writer of the article became somewhat common in progressive/leftist circles, most people could not get their heads around it.

After all, how could those who were always raging against ‘Westernisation’ and secularism ever be supported by the US? Yet, there is now enough evidence to suggest that the US (as well as the UK) were doing just that.

The notion that the West has tried to impose Westernisation and secularism in Muslim regions in the past few decades is largely flawed. In fact, the West has done everything it could to ‘Islamise’ and, in some cases, radicalise the populations of these regions for specific geopolitical purposes

During the Cold War, Western powers, led by the US, cultivated Islamist outfits in Muslim-majority regions — especially in nation-states where progressive variants of Muslim nationalism were popular. The ideologues of these variants found more traction in striking strategic partnerships with communist countries, such as the erstwhile Soviet Union and China. Consequently, those helming these nation-states often sidelined and even repressed the Islamists.

As a result, the Islamists were quietly receptive to clandestine gestures of support offered to them by intelligence agencies in the US and UK. Both looked to destabilise Muslim regions that were either in the Soviet orbit or even tilting towards it.

This was before the anti-Soviet insurgency that broke out in Afghanistan in the 1980s, during which the US and UK further evolved the nature of their actions in this regard from being covert to overt. The influence and money of oil-rich Saudi Arabia were used to launch various social and cultural projects to ‘Islamise’ many Muslim-majority countries, as a way to induce perceptions of the Soviet Union as an atheistic force out to destroy Islam.

Additionally, moderate and progressive Muslim nationalists were demonised as ‘fake Muslims’ who were inherently secular and heretical. Ironically, though, Islamist outfits that were benefiting from these manoeuvres, continued to portray themselves as anti-West. But till the early 1990s at least, they were busy launching verbal and armed attacks against left-leaning and so-called ‘fake’ and ‘Westernised’ Muslims, rather than on the West.

The factions of the Islamist organisation Muslim Brotherhood, from which the Islamist Palestinian organisation Hamas emerged in 1987, put more effort attacking ‘secular’ anti-Israeli Palestinian groups than they did Israel. Attacks against Israel came later. In fact, in 1979, the Al-Mujamma al-Islami, the core organisation from which Hamas sprouted, was recognised as a “legitimate Palestinian organisation” by Israel, as opposed to the ‘secular’/left-leaning Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

In 2019, the reformist Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Salman was quoted as saying that the Saudi-funded spread of radical and stringent versions of Islam was the result of Western countries asking Riyadh to help counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

This became an open secret in 2020 when the British government declassified many secret documents related to the Information Research Department (IRD) — a now defunct division of the UK Foreign Office. According to a February 2020 report in The Middle East Eye, the documents demonstrate that IRD ran covert campaigns in multiple Muslim-majority regions during the height of the Cold War, establishing contacts with Islamist organisations and funding newspapers and radio stations in the Muslim world.

IRD also arranged for articles to be inserted in magazines published by Al-Azhar University in Cairo, to ensure that every student left the university a resolute opponent of communism. Those who were to be influenced through these projects were young people, women, trade unions, teachers’ organisations and the armed forces.

Indeed, such ploys — especially between the late 1960s and late 1980s — by British and American governments (with the help of Saudi Arabia), did succeed in ‘Islamising’ large segments of societies in many Muslim-majority regions, successfully developing a distaste in these societies not only for communism, but even for moderate forms of progressive politics.

It was only a matter of time that even more militant expressions emerged from within these societies. After the Soviet Union’s fall in 1991, these then turned their attention towards destroying the ‘infidel West’ that was once their most trusted ally and had helped them cleanse their societies from communists, ‘fake Muslims’ and secularists.

In 2011, the then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton claimed that the US had learned its lesson after 9/11 and would be more careful in choosing who to support. Yet, from the time of the tragic 9/11 episode, the US and its European allies unleashed hardened Islamist militant groups against ‘old enemies’ in Iraq, Libya and Syria.

It is true that all three were being run by tyrants. However, their departure did not see the entry of fluffy democrats, but Islamist groups with fantasies of establishing totalitarian regimes; fantasies originally stuffed in their heads by conduits of US and UK intelligence agencies during the Cold War. It is interesting to recall that Ahmed Sharaa aka Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the current head of Hayat Tahrir al-Shaam, the group leading the ouster of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, was once part of Al Qaeda and was held in US prisons for five years before being let go and helping establish what would later become ISIS or the so-called ‘Islamic State’.

From the late 1960s onwards, there was no attempt as such made by Western powers to ‘Westernise’ and secularise Muslim countries. Quite the contrary. It is thus largely incorrect and a myth that the West (especially in the last five decades) has tried to impose Westernisation and secularism in Muslim regions. The truth is, it did everything it could to not only ‘Islamise’ the populations of these regions but, on various occasions, to radicalise them for specific geopolitical purposes.

The West was one of the most prominent sources of the theocratic enlightenment that Islamists claim to have, as opposed to those they think are ignorant outcomes of Westernisation.

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 22nd, 2024

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