Author: Dena Qalat

WASHINGTON – Pakistan has received “significant financing assurances” from China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates linked to a new International Monetary Fund program that go beyond a deal to roll over $12 billion in bilateral loans owed to them by Islamabad, an IMF official said on Thursday. IMF Pakistan Mission Chief Nathan Porter declined to provide details of additional financing amounts committed by the three countries but said they would come on top of the debt rollover. “I won’t go into the specifics, but UAE, China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia all provided significant financing assurances joined…

A large majority of the parliamentary group of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) believe that President Ranil Wickremesinghe should run for president, but the party will have to decide on who they will support, an MP said. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday March 06, State Minister Arundika Fernando said the SLPP’s parliamentary group overwhelmingly believes that President Wickremesinghe should be the one to govern the country going forward. “We think at the moment that it is Ranil Wickremesinghe who can govern this country going forward. We will present our proposal to the party. If the party decides there’s…

More than 180,000 people across France, including 100,000 in Paris, marched peacefully on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism in the wake of Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several parties on the left, conservatives and centrists of President Emmanuel Macron’s party as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sunday’s march in the French capital amid tight security. Macron did not attend, but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against “the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism.” However, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc…

The US ambassador to Bangladesh has sought meetings with leaders of the country’s three major parties, the embassy said Monday, as Washington seeks to break a political impasse ahead of elections. Dhaka is set to hold a general election in January, but the main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and its allies have said they will boycott the vote unless Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina quits power and lets a neutral government oversee the polls. Hasina has launched a major crackdown against the BNP since police broke up a giant opposition rally on October 28. Police have arrested more than…

Air pollution in Pakistan is having a devastating impact on people’s health. As global leaders meet at the United Nations Climate Conference, COP28, in Dubai, for the first time the formal proceedings have included a day focusing on health. This is an explicit recognition of the urgent need to address the health impact of climate change. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes air pollution as the “single biggest environmental threat to human health,” and estimates that 99 percent of the world’s population live in locations that are above WHO thresholds to protect health. Pregnant people, children, older people, people with disabilities, people with conditions such as asthma, and socially and…

In the run-up to Pakistan’s general elections next February, a familiar pattern is repeating itself. Ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan sits in jail with 180 legal cases registered against him. Former three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has returned from exile with the military’s backing, despite having been convicted and disqualified from running for office for life just a few years ago. The ground is now being prepared for his electoral run as the favored candidate of the establishment (a euphemism for Pakistan’s powerful army). This is par for the course in Pakistan. In the run-up to the 2018 election which elected Khan…

Colombo: Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday presented his government’s 2024 budget, emphasising the need for tough reforms until the full recovery of the cash-strapped island nation’s economy. Although Sri Lanka has managed to control its hyperinflation in the ongoing economic crisis, its economy is far from being fully recovered. “We have been able to put back on the rails the derailed economy. Still, people undergo suffering,” Wickremesinghe, who is also the Finance Minister, said. “The inflation which was 70 per cent in September 2022 has been reduced to 1.5 per cent in October this year,” the minister said. He…

The Afghan Taliban on Friday made a fresh pitch for peace talks between Pakistan and the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as Islamabad’s efforts aimed at seeking action against the terror outfit by Kabul could not make headway. Pakistan dispatched its special envoy to Kabul this week on a three-day trip to convey a clear message that the interim government will have to take a decisive action against the TTP. But the Afghan Taliban told him after a series of meetings that Pakistan should pursue the path of peace instead of use of force. Ambassador Asif Durrani met with Afghanistan’s Acting…

The launch of the highly anticipated Hollywood movie Barbie has been delayed in Pakistan’s Punjab province over “objectionable content”. Officials said the film would be reviewed and needed clearance from the provincial boards that censor scenes violating the country’s social, cultural and religious values. “We will review the film before its release in the country,” Farrukh Mahmood, secretary of the Punjab film censor board, told the Guardian. He did not mention any particular scenes. The move comes after the release of one of the year’s most talked about films was also postponed by Middle Eastern countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE)…

Two police officers and four attackers were killed on Saturday when gunmen and suicide bombers stormed a police station in the mostly Sunni city of Zahedan in Iran’s restive southeast, state television reported. Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, was scene of some of the bloodiest protests during a wave of nationwide unrest last year triggered by the death of a young Kurdish woman in the custody of the morality police. A militant group operating in the area called Jaish al-Adl, or Army of Justice, claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack in a social media post, saying it was in retaliation for…