Italian army will guard a hospital after attacks on medical workers

Italy’s army is set to begin guarding medical staff in Calabria starting Monday

ByGIADA ZAMPANO 

Associated Press
September 15, 2024




ROME -- Italy's army will guard medical staff at a hospital in the southern Calabria region starting Monday, after a string of violent attacks on doctors and nurses by enraged patients and relatives across Italy, local media reported.

Prefect Paolo Giovanni Grieco approved a plan to reinforce the surveillance services already operated by soldiers on sensitive targets in the Calabrian town of Vibo Valentia, including the hospital, the reports said.

Recent attacks on health care workers have been particularly frequent in southern Italy, prompting the doctors’ national guild to request that the army be deployed to ensure medical staff safety.

The turning point was an assault at the Policlinico hospital in the southern city of Foggia in early September. A group of about 50 relatives and friends of a 23-year-old woman — who died during emergency surgery — turned their grief and rage into violence, attacking the hospital staff.

Video footage, widely circulated on social media, showed doctors and nurses barricading in a room to escape the attack. Some of them were punched and injured. The director of the hospital threatened to close its emergency room after denouncing three similar attacks in less than a week.

With over 16,000 reported cases of physical and verbal assaults nationwide in 2023 alone, Italian doctors and nurses have called for drastic measures.

“We have never seen such levels of aggression in the past decade,” said Antonio De Palma, president of the Nursing Up union, stressing the urgent need for action.

“We are now at a point where considering military protection in hospitals is no longer a far-fetched idea. We cannot wait any longer,” he said.

The Italian Federation of Medical-Scientific Societies has also proposed more severe measures for offenders, such as suspending access to free medical care for three years for anyone who assaults healthcare workers or damages hospital facilities.

Understaffing and long waiting lists are the main reasons behind patients' frustration with health workers.

According to Italy’s largest union for doctors, nearly half of emergency medicine positions remained unfilled as of 2022. Doctors lament that Italy’s legislation has kept wages low, leading to overworked and burned out staff at hospitals.

These problems have been further aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has pushed many health workers to leave Italy in search of better opportunities abroad.

In 2023, Italy was short of about 30,000 doctors, and between 2010 and 2020, the country saw the closure of 111 hospitals and 113 emergency rooms, data from a specialized forum showed.

6.5-magnitude earthquake hits off the northern coast of British Columbia


By Associated Press11:48am Sep 15, 2024

A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck off the northern Pacific Coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia yesterday afternoon, according to the US Geological Survey.

The USGS said the quake was located off the tip of Haida Gwaii, an archipelago located about 1720 kilometres north of Vancouver.

It occurred at a depth of 33 kilometres beneath the surface.

A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck off the northern Pacific Coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia. (Nine)

The US Tsunami Warning Centre reported that there was no threat of a tsunami from this earthquake.

There were no immediate reports of major damage.

Deal with pilots averts strike at Air Canada


By AFP
September 15, 2024

Flagship carrier Air Canada said Sunday it has reached a last-minute tentative deal with its pilots, averting a crippling strike that would have grounded flights and risked devastating the economy.

The agreement was announced just minutes after a key overnight deadline lapsed that would have seen hundreds of flights started to be cancelled over the coming days.

“Air Canada has reached a tentative, four-year collective agreement with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), representing more than 5,200 pilots at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge,” the airline said in a statement.

The two sides had been in talks for 15 months.

This past week, groups representing more than 200,000 businesses across Canada urged the government to intervene, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused, while impressing on both sides that “millions of Canadians (were) counting on everyone to get this resolved.”

Both sides would have been in a position at midnight Sunday (0400 GMT) to issue a 72-hour notice of a worker strike or lockout by the airline, which was expected to trigger a phased shutdown of Air Canada’s operations and a full stoppage as early as Wednesday.

Air Canada said the new agreement “recognizes the contributions and professionalism” of its pilots, but did not provide any details on the terms, pending its ratification by union members.

The union, which had been pushing for a significant wage bump to close a pay gap with the pilots’ American counterparts, said the deal provides “an additional Can$1.9 billion ($1.4 billion) of value for Air Canada pilots over the course of the agreement.”

Also, “progress was made on several key issues including compensation, retirement, and work rule,” it said.

Air Canada flies to 47 countries and carries an average of 110,000 passengers a day on its 670 flights.

Outsourcing matters

Parvez Rahim 

Published September 14, 2024 

AN entrepreneur investing in establishing a manufacturing unit or setting up a business will aspire to get maximum returns in terms of profit from his initiative. Depending upon the magnitude of investment, he will have no control over the cost of plant equipment and raw materials, which will depend upon market rates.

However, he will make every effort to keep his administrative or fixed costs as low as possible. This includes the payment of monthly salary and benefits to employees. Here, he would explore all options to curtail the cost without compromising on the quality of his product or business interests.

He will decide about the areas where people with higher education will be required and those who will provide support services. In the former case, he will try to get the best people available and offer them an attractive salary and benefits. He may outsource the support services at competitive rates. This practice is prevalent the world over.

In Pakistan, the practice of engaging third-party contractors has been common since the inception of industry. The motive has been to cut costs and increase efficiency. Initially, there was a huge difference in cost for the same work done by the company’s own employees or those of contractors. The salary and benefits of own employees of lower cadres keep increasing due to the collective labour agreements reached with the union.

The contractors would not ensure compliance with the laws and make their workers available to interested employers at a low cost. This difference in cost has narrowed down over the years as now progressive employers force contractors to ensure compliance with all laws, especially relating to the welfar

Progressive employers force contractors to ensure compliance with all laws.

In addition to contracting out of services to a service provider, there are two other types of outsourcing carried out by companies: toll manufacturing and offshoring.

Toll manufacturing or tolling is outsourcing all the production or part of it to a third-party where the principal company provides all the raw materials or semi-finished products to the former. The work of the third-party company is to process the products or raw materials to the required specification.

Offshoring is a practice of relocating business processes or work functions to another country to save on costs and increase efficiency. A company may choose to outsource certain tasks or entire processes to low-cost countries, where labour may be cheaper or more skilled.

To facilitate its booming industry to compete in the international market, India promulgated the Contract Labour (Regulation) Act, 1970. Under this Act, the contractors must get themselves registered with the government. Besides, they must also ensure compliance with the labour statutes to secure the welfare and health of workers and avoid legal issues.

In Pakistan, half-hearted attempts were made in the 1990s to introduce a similar law, but the effort did not materialise. However, in the beginning of the current century, the federal government and Punjab and Sindh, respectively, have promulgated ordinances regulating the outsourcing of security services by security companies.

These ordinances require the security companies to get themselves registered with the government. Unfortunately, there are no provisions in the three ordinances guaranteeing the payment of minimum wages to the security guards and compliance with laws on daily working hours and the weekly rest days. As a result, most of the companies to whom their services are let out violate the laws to the detriment of security guards.

The Punjab Priv­a­­te Security Com­p­a­nies (Regulation and Control) Ordinance, 2002, is the only statute which provides for the group life insurance of guards for a paltry amount of Rs200,000 and mandatory registration with the social security institution. The responsibility to ensure compliance with the laws rests both with the service providers as well as the companies to whom those services are provided.

Besides, the core jobs in which workers employed through contractors work under the direct supervision and control of the principal employer and along with the latter’s own workers, cannot be outsourced. In this context, there are two landmark judgments of the Supreme Court dated May 16, 2013, and Dec 8, 2017, respectively.

In 2013, the management of Fauji Fertiliser plant at Mirpur Mathelo was directed by then chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to regularise the services of 112 workers. In 2017, the management of Pakistan State Oil had to regularise the services of 210 workers on the direction of then chief justice Saqib Nisar, at its head office in Karachi.

The writer is a consultant in human resources at the Aga Khan University Hospital and Vital Pakistan Trust.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2024

Negotiating with AI

Farid Panjwani 

Published September 14, 2024

LAST December, I observed a child watching a fire made by watchmen in our street to keep warm. The dance of the flames fascinated her but the heat she felt stopped her from going too close, which was a safe response.

Mysterium tremendum et fascinans (mysteries that we simultaneously admire and fear); theologian-philosopher Rudolf Otto coined this phrase to describe the human response to the incomprehensibility of extraordinary phenomena that people encounter. This triggered the thought of artificial intelligence, an invention unlike anything humans have created. From carrying out complex medical diagnoses to engaging in poetic conversations, AI is fascinating. But there is another side to it as well, a power that can have hugely undesirable consequences for people and the environment.

Technologies require negotiation. A well-negotiated car — serviced and well-driven — serves superbly for years. Mishandled, it gives trouble and becomes a burden. When technologies have a collective social use and impact, this negotiation involves wider material, legal and social factors for the realisation of its full potential. Continuing with the example of the car, these broader factors include, among other things, suitable roads, traffic regulations, an effective licensing system and considerate behaviour by drivers. In short, a technology’s potential — will it serve the few or the majority? — is fated in an ecosystem.

As it happens, the world today, the ecosystem in which AI is born, is not enviable. It is rather hugely worrisome: a closely interconnected world yet one where many people display a propensity to hate those defined as the ‘other’ through polarising ideologies; an unprecedented scientific knowledge of the physical world, yet a fragile relationship with nature; and, an unparalleled technological promise with serious threat to freedom and privacy. Hope and despair, like shadow and sunshine, are interlocked by these paradoxes.

At the heart of these conditions is the escalating concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. In 2022, 1.2 per cent of the richest people controlled 47.8pc of global wealth. This skewed distribution of wealth, an outcome of the neoliberal mode of economics, has political, social and psychological consequences as it creates inequities in access to resources and opportunities. In such an ecosystem, the power of AI is likely to exacerbate inequities and their consequences.


The world today — the ecosystem in which artificial intelligence is born — is not enviable.

What harm can this do? Sometimes AI is compared to the Industrial Revolution. The association goes only so far. That revolution, though catastrophic for unskilled physical labour, still left, in fact increased, the need for skilled manual work as well as intellectual labour. But now, the combination of AI and robotics can displace these forms of work and labour. The allure of profit makes this possibility attractive. This makes the threat of a completely unemployed life for hundreds of millions a real possibility. With humanoid teachers and nurses, even the belief that jobs that require a soft, human touch are safe seems untenable.


AI’s advocates often respond by foreseeing an age of leisure with universal income and unlimited time for swimming, playing, singing, fishing etc. This pious hope, or a false promise to justify the march of AI, forgets that barring a few, most of us enjoy leisure only after spending time on what is called work. The sweetest tooth will be repelled if forced to eat sweets as a staple meal.

Moreover, given what we now know of the neural plasticity, without the challenges of work and our growing dependency on AI for answers, how would the mind change? Would it become less agile, curious and intelligent whilst AI, on the other hand, with greater training becomes more intelligent? Finally, there is the question of its effect on the democratic model of governance. We work, pay taxes, and get a share in the government. We become citizens. Money received through largesse would mean no taxes and hence may result in no say in governance.

Even if we set aside the danger of mass unemployment, without rebalancing the power structures, the biggest uses of AI are likely to be in warfare, surveillance and marketing, with crumbs falling to education, health and other social goods. It is not a surprise that some of those who pioneered this technology, for example Geoffrey Hinton, formerly at Google, are now worried about the impact of AI.

Enter the importance of negotiation with AI. Without it, the path forward is slippery. How do we negotiate with AI? Critical education, at the individual level, and sound global and national regulations, at the collective levels, are the best negotiating tools we have.

Critical here means developing capacities to understand the structures of power and knowledge that lie beneath the surface and that shape life chances and access to opportunities and resources. The humanities are considered best suited for such capacities. They need to be an integral part of higher education with an aim to develop and sustain an interest in inner life, fellow beings, social organisation and the moral consequences of actions.

Such an education can help us realise that technologies do not stand outside of a society, from where they can be called upon to rescue it. Rather, they are embedded within a society whose contours must be reimagined if the technology is to become a force for good for the majority.

Equally important is to bring a range of global and national regulations that create a fine balance between creativity and social responsibility. These would include: an AI governance framework; accountability and safety protocols; data protection and privacy policies; equitable learning access; proscription on certain uses of AI, such as in warfare and for clandestine surveillance; public democratic oversight; transparency of algorithms; job protection, environmental impact regulations; and monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. This is far easier said than done. Hardly any of this exists currently.

Negotiations are possible under certain conditions and within a certain period. After that, it can be too late. Now is the time to negotiate.

The writer is a professor and dean, Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2024

PAKISTAN

Reforms & the IMF

Rashid Amjad 

Published September 14, 2024

STRUCTURAL reform is a prerequisite for Pakistan’s sustained economic growth. To put it bluntly, given our population and labour force growth rates, we need to grow at six per cent at a minimum to reduce poverty, unemployment and regional disparities. Yet, whenever we try to do so, the economy runs into a balance-of-payments crisis and faces the threat of a default. To overcome this binding constraint, we need to undertake painful structural economic reforms.

Unfortunately, most people believe that we are forced to carry out stringent economic reforms only because we borrow from the International Monetary Fund, and, had it not been for the IMF, we could have carried on our economic lives as before — paying little to no taxes, using cheap, subsidised electricity, running high fiscal deficits, and letting our domestic and foreign debt from donors and foreign commercial banks pile up. This is not true. We need reforms because we are not prepared to face the fact that we must change the irresponsible way we currently live and run the economy, with the result that we are forced to go to the IMF again and again or risk defaulting and being declared bankrupt.

If we were to accept this fact and start implementing the needed reforms — which, it must be said, even an undergraduate student of economics could draw up — we could say goodbye to the IMF even now. If our finance minister had the confidence and the people’s backing to assert that Pakistan was on its way to implementing tenable, durable reforms, he would not have felt the need to call our ambassador in Washington frequently to ask when the IMF Board was due to meet and approve our requested loan of $7 billion. After all, the IMF is a bank — even if of last resort — and if no country were to borrow from it, the IMF would simply close.

To return to the fundamental question: why are we incapable of carrying out the economic reforms that we desperately need? The standard answer is that the ruling elite — which owns and controls the means of production and thus benefits from the rents of an inefficient and exploitative system — does not allow this to happen.


Why are we incapable of carrying out economic reforms?

To put it another way, as Oxford economist Stefan Dercon argues, the ruling elite has to see the writing on the wall and build a strong coalition to actively support reforms and accept them. Otherwise, they will not survive long. Sadly, Prof Dercon met his Waterloo in Islamabad, where he recently presented a report along these lines at the request of the government of Pakistan, which duly chose to ignore it.

It is a fallacy that the ruling elite and, more importantly, the people of this country, are against undertaking reforms. As history bears witness, we are by nature a pragmatic people and can adjust to change when needed. These traits are what have given us the resilience to survive repeated periods of adversity and prosper over time. The traders who oppose reforms and taxes, primarily because any attempt to do so will require them to document their actual incomes, or the middle class, which cannot pay their mounting utility bills, are certainly not part of the ruling elite.

Who, then, stands in the way?

The first are the political elite, many of whom unfortunately do not have the required democratic credentials to be considered legitimate representatives of the public and now want to earn them by ‘easing’ the hardships that such reforms will impose on the already hard-pressed middle and working classes. The second is indeed the IMF itself, which forces a pace and sequencing of reforms that aggravate public hardship. Its philosophy of providing safety nets to the poorest of the poor makes economic sense, but these nets do not provide sufficient coverage to those in need.

The third, of course, are the global markets and our selected friends — China, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, for example — which have, over time, lost their confidence in our ability to carry out the economic reforms we promise while signing an agreement to do so.

Therefore, let us accept the reality as we face it and form a strong coalition that has the political will to execute the reforms we need, drawing on a political elite with sound credentials, which the people accept and support. This will also bring with it greater confidence on the part of global financial markets as well as among our nervous friends who are reluctant to roll over our debt, leave aside lending us more.

We can then show our disdain to the IMF. Till then, let us not shoot ourselves in the foot — indeed, both feet — by threatening them, as our current political elite is doing. At the moment, we really have no leg to stand on.

The writer is a professor at the Lahore School of Economics and former vice-chancellor at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2024

PAKISTAN

Child beggary

DAWN
Editorial

Published September 15, 2024 

CHILD begging, the ugliest form of child labour, is a curse on society. Ravaged by disease, crime, exploitation and drug abuse, hundreds of poor children populate Karachi’s intersections and street corners. The Sindh Child Protection Authority informed the Sindh Assembly recently that it was, in coordination with the provincial police, planning an anti-child beggary drive to rescue these children. The social welfare minister stated that as organised beggary was a multimillion-rupee racket, it was a complicated scourge to eradicate. But the government has much to answer for. First, despite beggary being illegal in Pakistan with up to three years in jail for beggars and parents of young mendicants, what propels the menace? Second, while several campaigns failed due to the absence of comprehensive data, we continue to formulate policies and initiatives based on guesswork.

The Asian Human Rights Commission’s estimates show that approximately 2.5 to 11pc of Pakistan’s population is begging; 1.2m children are on the streets of our urban centres. Hence, it is time to adopt a multidimensional rescue and rehabilitation model that resolves prime catalysts — poverty, climate crises, domestic violence, addiction, lack of education and unemployment — for the rising number of child beggars. Beggars are an ostracised social group; over 90pc of street children are sexually exploited. Authorities, in collaboration with NGOs, health and education experts, need to institute localised monitoring methods through child protection units in urban and rural areas with trained medical, security and counselling personnel. These should serve helpless families and children as contact points for security and shelter. Child beggars are not the same as destitute minors and orphans. Emotionally neglected and deprived of food, shelter, education and clothing, they are commodities in the hands of a mafia. Often, their psychosocial growth is impaired and they either become addicts or mentally ill. Every child trapped in poverty or a criminal network has to be healed for a prosperous society.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2024

Privatisation myth

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar 

Published September 13, 2024

BEYOND sensational late-night arrests of opposition MNAs, impunity for abductors and unending intrigue, there is a remarkable degree of continuity and consistency in how the Pakistani ruling class rules.

Working people and ethnic peripheries are of secondary importance to all who occupy the corridors of power; their primary concern is to appease big creditors and foreign investors.

Which is why former finance minister Ishaq Dar’s unveiled dig at the IMF is somewhat amusing. Let’s be honest: all bourgeois parties seek only to secure a share of the piece in the debt-ridden, militarised structure of power, so much so that policymaking is akin to farce. Whoever is in the seat of government reproduces the same tired economic policy prescriptions. There is no bigger example of this than the privatisation mantra.

The present turbo-charged hybrid regi­­me has followed the previous one in depicting privatisation of ‘sick’ state-owned ent­erprises as a panacea for our economic woes, an initiative, Mr Dar should be rem­inded, is entirely consistent with the IMF’s agenda.

The argument is simple: SOEs offer poor quality services while draining the public exchequer, so sell them off to the private sector and all will be well.

PIA is at the top of the chopping block. But there are many government departments either slated for sale or touted for a rechristening. Take PWD for example, which is to be abolished and replaced by a new infrastructure authority which will likely be a handmaiden of FWO. There are dozens of other public institutions that will, to use established policy-speak, be downsized or rightsized.

Privatising SOEs has been presented as a cure to our economic woes.

Let’s start with big fish like PIA. While airline travel is not the best example of truly public transport, it is nevertheless true that PIA used to offer highly subsidised fares to destinations like Gilgit and Gwadar.

Did this represent a burden on the public exchequer? It did, but then public services are not supposed to be subjected to the logic of profit-maximising capitalist firms. More generally, PIA’s performance and finances have not nosedived because it is state-owned; it can be argued that its financial plight is at least partially explained by the short-termism of the highly paid foreign consultants and executives hired over the past two decades precisely to fix the airline’s woes.

In the case of Pakistan Railways, financial woes are even easier to trace: until the 1980s, PR had a monopoly on freight traffic. In 1982, the National Logistics Cell was created, and a road-building frenzy was initiated that continues to this day. The NLC has now totally displaced PR in freight. The Railways’ passenger service was always subsidised by its cargo revenues.

Moving on to PTCL: when the enterprise was forcibly privatised under the Musharraf dictatorship, it was one of the most profitable enterprises in the country. In almost 20 years since, there has neither been a marked improvement in PTCL’s services, nor has its share value recovered to what it was in 2005. Arguably, the most notable fact is that it was sold to Etisalat, the UAE’s state-owned telecom company.

I could give more examples — of private sector IPPs that have run riot in the power sector, or local commercial banks that dole out cheap credit with reckless abandon, fuelling conspicuous consumption in cars and real estate, thus reinforcing jobless growth that accompanies the ‘privatise everything’ mantra loved by both our own economic czars and omnipotent creditors.

But I will save the last word for the long-suffering ethnic peripheries, where a hybrid privatisation of land, forest, water and minerals — a true enclosure of the commons — takes all ma­­nner of hybrid forms, depriving indigenous populations of even a modicum of the benefits of what our rulers call ‘development’.

Reko Diq, Saindak, Gwadar, Sindh’s coa­stal islands, Thar, the mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan, the Pakh­tun tribal districts, Swat, Dir, Kohistan and so many more are literally up for grabs: the nexus of foreign firms, the establishment and local big men pillage at will, sometimes by signing formal contracts and at other times through sheer gangsterism.

The case of Reko Diq is astonishing — a reckless contract award to one multinational company resulted in a fine of $6 billion, only for the government to turn around and promise a concession for the mine to another multinational company.

They call it privatisation to make it sound like the state and private sector are somehow at odds. In fact, both are engaged in what Marx called primary accumulation, an inherently violent process that is becoming more brazen by the day. Neither our own ruling class nor its foreign patrons have any interest in taming the particularly exploitative and brutal nature of the beast that is Pakistani capitalism.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2024

Bangladesh renewal

Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry 

Published September 15, 2024 

FORTY days after Sheikh Hasina Wajed fled Dhaka, Bangladesh is slowly recovering from the after-effects of her government’s violent crackdown on the students-led protests, that reportedly cost over 1,000 lives. The intellectual community worldwide is curious to understand why Hasina, who cultivated her image as the ‘iron lady’, lost her grip on power so rapidly, as well as the nature of the change in Bangladesh. Since 2009, Hasina ruled Bangladesh like an autocrat, crushing all opposition ruthlessly. She also built a cult around the figure of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Her ouster pacified widespread concerns in the country regarding the erosion of multiparty democracy under her and the attempt to impose one-party rule.

It has certainly been a peoples’ moment in Bangladesh, with terms such as ‘Monsoon Revolution’ being used to describe the change. However, it is not clear if this change is permanent and if political stability will return to the country soon. Hasina’s party, the Awami League, has lost considerable ground, but will endeavour to make a comeback, arguing that it represented the country’s secular ethos. Her 15-year rule enabled the party to spread its tentacles to every aspect of national life. Under her, the country saw notable economic development, though this was not inclusive and inequalities sharpened amidst unemployment and inflation.

In foreign policy, Hasina chose to capitulate to Indian dominance, which for the freedom-loving Bangladeshis was suffocating. For now, India’s space in Bangladesh has been squeezed, but it is evident that it will make every effort to preserve its influence. Of crucial interest to India is border security, given the 4,000-kilometre-long porous border and active insurgencies in India’s north-eastern states. However, the immediate challenge for India’s leaders is how to handle the presence of Hasina in their country. As long as she is in Delhi, the latter’s relations with Dhaka are not likely to improve. Given that the two countries signed an extradition treaty in 2013, many in Bangladesh have called for seeking her return to stand trial for the over 90 criminal cases lodged against her and her aides.

India is trying to manipulate the narrative that brought about the change in Bangladesh. Indian researchers and media are advancing a narrative that the change would nudge Bangladesh towards Muslim fundamentalism, and that the Hindus in Bangladesh were being targeted, which according to the BBC were mostly rumours. Ironically, it is India where religious persecution has risen to alarming levels. India is also desperately projecting the possible involvement of a foreign hand in the change, which appears to be totally indigenous. This is intended to discredit the change brought about by the sacrifice of the students who stood up to Hasina’s tyranny.


It is not clear when political stability will return.

Meanwhile, the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus is struggling to address the politically charged environment and reboot the economy, which was slowing down even before the protests began. The country’s garment industry has taken a particular hit due to the weeks-long protests. The government has set up a task force called ‘Re-strategising the economy and mobilising resources for equitable and sustainable development’.

Politically, a healing touch is required. The student leadership wants fundamental reforms in the judiciary, police, and election commission before the polls. It appears that elections may be delayed for some time.

As for the regional setting, Muhammad Yunus has underscored the need to revive Saarc, which was established in Dhaka in 1985. He wants Bangladesh to be­­co­­me a member of Asean and then serve as a bridge between Saarc and Asean.

How should Pakis­tan respond to this change? Pakistanis care for the people of Bangladesh, and should fully respect their right to determine their political destiny in whatever way they want. However, Pakistan can take satisfaction from the fact that Hasina will no longer be able to falsely accuse it or manipulate the sad events of 1971. The poisonous propaganda against Pakistan might also stop.

Hasina’s exit from power provides an opportunity for Pakistan and Bangladesh to reset bilateral ties. However, Pakistan must have realistic expectations of what the new interim government can do at a time when it is endeavouring to set matters right internally.

Pakistan has done well by expressing solidarity with the people of Bangladesh in the face of the devastating floods that recently hit the country’s eastern region. The two countries could also encourage people-to-people contacts and youth exchanges that Hasina had blocked. It would be appropriate for both countries to move towards each other at a measured pace with realistic expectations.

The writer is a former foreign secretary and chairman of Sanober Institute Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2024

Volunteers rush to help as Myanmar flood toll surges

AFP Published September 15, 2024 

This photo taken on September 14 shows homes submerged by floodwaters at Inle Lake, in Myanmar’s southern Shan state. — AFP

Volunteers rushed to areas inundated by floods in Myanmar on Sunday as the country’s death toll from the Typhoon Yagi deluge surged to 113 and remote areas reported increasing numbers of dead and missing.

Floods and landslides have killed more than 400 people in Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, which hit the region last weekend, according to official figures.

However, with roads and bridges damaged in Myanmar and phone and internet lines down, information has been limited.

One man told AFP how he had tried to rescue people with ropes as floodwaters four metres high surged through the hill town of Kalaw in Shan state on September 10.

“The current was very strong and even some buildings were destroyed,” he said, describing pieces of furniture being washed through the streets.

“I could see trapped families in the distance standing on the roofs of their houses,” said the man, who works for a local non-governmental group. “I heard there were 40 bodies in the hospital,” he said.

A businesswoman in Yangon who runs a company in Kalaw told AFP that her staff there had reported nearly 60 people had been killed in the town. The junta said on Sunday the death toll had jumped to 113 by Saturday night. The previous toll had been put at 74.

It did not specify whether any of those confirmed dead had been killed in Kalaw.

More than 320,000 people had been displaced and moved to “temporary relief camps”, junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said.

At Inle Lake, a tourist hotspot about 30 kilometres from Kalaw, flood levels had risen on Saturday to the second storey of houses built on stilts above the water, according to one man there helping to evacuate his family.

“Whole villages have been submerged” in some areas near the lake, he told AFP on Sunday, asking to remain anonymous. “The elders say this is the highest level of flooding they have seen,” he said.

Cars and trucks carrying volunteers were streaming north from the commercial hub Yangon to reach affected areas in Taungoo in the Bago region and around the capital Naypyidaw, AFP reporters said.

The vehicles were loaded with pallets of bottled water, bundles of clothes and dried food. Some had boats strapped to their roofs. “We want to help anyone who needs help at the moment. That is why we arranged to go to the flooding area,” said one woman heading for Taungoo.

More misery

The floods have added to people’s miseries in Myanmar, where millions have already been displaced by more than three years of war since the military seized power in 2021.

Residents of the Yado displacement camp in eastern Karen state were forced to flee their temporary homes after torrents of water ripped through the camp.

Belto, a resident of the camp, said the waters had washed his house away, along with his sister who was inside trying to retrieve their money. “She was taken by the water… and she got injured,” he told AFP on Saturday.

“We are already displaced people from war zones and after the floods, we don’t have anything left… But we are not the only ones who face this fate, all families are facing difficulties.”

The Sittaung and Bago rivers, which flow through central and southern Myanmar, were both still above dangerous levels, state media said, although water levels were expected to fall in the coming days.

In the east, the Thanlwin River was more than two metres above its danger level in the state capital Hpa-an on Saturday, state media reported. Thailand’s weather office warned Sunday of further heavy rain in provinces along the Mekong river.

Authorities in Vietnam gave an updated toll on Sunday of 281 dead and 67 missing.

Request for aid

Myanmar’s junta chief made a rare request for foreign aid to deal with the floods, state media reported on Saturday. The military has previously blocked or frustrated humanitarian assistance from abroad.

It suspended travel authorisations last year for aid groups trying to reach around a million victims of powerful Cyclone Mocha.

The United Nations’s Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar and the International Committee of the Red Cross told AFP on Saturday they could not comment on the junta’s request.

Heavy monsoon rains lash Southeast Asia every year but human-made climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.