Pakistani PM thanks King Salman, Gates foundations for global anti-polio efforts/node/2580172/pakistan
Pakistani PM thanks King Salman, Gates foundations for global anti-polio efforts
A health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child during a door-to-door polio vaccination campaign at a slum area in Lahore on May 23, 2022. (AFP/File)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday met a delegation of the Polio Oversight Board in Islamabad and thanked the King Salman and Bill & Melinda Gates foundations, among others, in their global efforts for polio eradication.
Pakistan, along with neighboring Afghanistan, remains the last polio-endemic country in the world. The nation’s polio eradication campaign has hit serious problems with a spike in reported cases this year that has prompted officials to review their approach to stopping the crippling disease.
Poliovirus, which can cause crippling paralysis particularly in young children, is incurable and remains a threat to human health as long as it has not been eradicated. Immunization campaigns have succeeded in most countries and have come close in Pakistan, but persistent problems remain.
“The Prime Minister thanked the King Salman Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary Foundation, UNICEF and CDC, which are partners with the Government of Pakistan in the polio eradication campaign,” Sharif’s office said in a statement after the meeting.
“The role of all these organizations reflects the global efforts in the polio eradication campaign.”
This year, 50 cases have been reported in Pakistan: 24 from Balochistan province, 13 from Sindh, 10 from KP and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually but in 2018 the number dropped to eight cases. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.
Pakistan’s polio eradication program began in 1994, and the number of cases has declined dramatically since then. But efforts to eradicate the virus have for years been undermined by vaccine misinformation and opposition from some religious hard-liners, who say immunization is a foreign ploy to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western spies. Militant groups also frequently attack and kill members of polio vaccine teams.
In July 2019, a vaccination drive in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was thwarted after mass panic was created by rumors that children were fainting or vomiting after being immunized.
Public health studies in Pakistan have shown that maternal illiteracy and low parental knowledge about vaccines, together with poverty and rural residency, are also factors that commonly influence whether parents vaccinate their children against polio.
Pakistan’s chief health officer this month said an estimated 500,000 children had missed polio vaccinations during a recent countrywide inoculation drive due to vaccine refusals.
KARACHI: A leading digital rights organization has called for the establishment of an independent oversight body comprising civil society activists and government functionaries to monitor Internet censorship decisions, highlighting concerns over the impact of Pakistan’s cyber laws on press freedom.
In a report analyzing the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) and related legislation, the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) warned this week the law had been used to target journalists and suppress dissenting voices across the country.
Enacted in 2016, PECA was introduced to combat cybercrime but has been widely criticized by activists who see it as a tool for curbing free speech and stifling political opposition. Over the years, several journalists have faced legal action under the law, with cases registered against them in different parts of the country.
The Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), a non-profit established in 2013 to promote free speech, noted in its report that PECA was passed after more than a year of closed-door consultations between the government and lawmakers, despite objections raised by civil society and international human rights organizations.
The lack of transparency in the legislative process, it said, had created an uncertain digital environment, allowing law enforcement agencies to target individuals who question state policies and actions.
“Journalists remain particularly precarious in this increasingly restrictive online environment given their outsized visibility and centrality to freedom of expression,” the report said, adding media workers were “under attack from the state’s lawfare.”
The DRF stressed the need for revising existing laws, including the wholesale repeal of certain sections and enacting reforms to prevent law enforcement agencies from misusing legislation against journalists and dissenting voices in digital spaces.
It recommended the formation of “an independent oversight body, comprising a majority of civil society experts and a minority of government officials, to review and monitor Internet censorship and throttling decisions, ensuring transparency, accountability and adherence to international human rights standards.”
One of the most significant consequences of aggressive digital regulation, the report noted, had been the “chilling effect” phenomenon, where self-censorship becomes a preemptive protective mechanism in response to state surveillance and regulatory crackdowns.
The DRF further emphasized the importance of ensuring that future legislation on digital governance and technological regulation is developed through inclusive consultations with all stakeholders, including civil society organizations, journalists, media professionals and the technical community.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Uzbekistan are expected to sign agreements in multiple sectors today, Wednesday, during Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to Tashkent for talks on defense, energy and trade.
Sharif landed in Tashkent late Tuesday following a two-day visit to Baku during which multiple agreements to enhance cooperation in the trade, energy, tourism and education sectors were signed.
Pakistan is seeking to leverage its strategic position as a key trade and transit hub to connect the landlocked Central Asian republics to the global market. Since last year, there has been a surge in visits, investment talks and other economic activity between Pakistan and the Central Asia republics.
On Wednesday, Sharif arrived at the Congress Center in Tashkent where he was received by Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ahead of bilateral talks.
“The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, and the President of Uzbekistan, His Excellency Shavkat Mirziyoyev, will attend the signing ceremony of agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) aimed at strengthening cooperation between the two countries across multiple sectors,” Sharif’s office said in a statement.
Sharif and the Uzbek president will also participate in the Pakistan-Uzbekistan Joint Business Forum and engage in discussions. Sharif is also scheduled to visit the Tashkent-based Technopark, where he will tour Uzbekistan’s industrial manufacturing units.
Uzbekistan is the largest consumer market and the second-biggest economy in Central Asia. It is central to Pakistan’s regional connectivity plans and was the first Central Asian nation with which Pakistani officials signed a bilateral Transit Trade Agreement (UPTTA) and a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) covering 17 items.
A landmark moment in the relationship was the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership during a high-level Pakistani visit to Uzbekistan on July 15-16, 2021. This was followed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s visit to Pakistan on March 3-4, 2022, which resulted in the signing of another Joint Declaration on Further Steps to Enhance the Strategic Partnership and multiple agreements covering trade, investment, and economic cooperation.
In February 2023, Pakistan and Uzbekistan signed a $1 billion trade deal to enhance bilateral commerce, facilitating the exchange of goods and services. In 2021, bilateral trade surged by 50 percent and in 2024 it exceeded $400 million, moving closer to the goal of reaching $500 million in the short term and $1 billion in the long term.
Last month, Uzbekistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Alisher Tukhtaev, announced plans to launch direct flights between Uzbekistan and Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi. Uzbekistan and Pakistan are also working toward optimizing cargo flows, green corridors at border customs points, and digitalization of customs clearance processes to facilitate smoother trade operations.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday condemned the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), calling it “ethnic cleansing in real time” and warning that such actions could jeopardize peace in the Middle East region.
Pakistan’s Alternate Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, made the remarks while attending a UNSC briefing on the Middle East, including the situation in Palestine.
The Pakistani diplomat said to move beyond the perpetual cycle of violence and destruction, the international community must prioritize pursuing a just and lasting peace across the Occupied Palestinian Territories, not just in Gaza.
“Peace cannot take root as long as Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank continue with impunity,” he told the Council. “Over 50,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, the largest mass expulsion since 1967. Military raids, settler violence and illegal land annexations intensify daily.”
“These are not isolated incidents but part of a deliberate strategy to erase Palestinian identity from their own land,” he continued. “It is ethnic cleansing in real time. If this Council is serious about peace, it should ensure that the ceasefire extends beyond Gaza to all occupied Palestinian territories.”
Ahmad also underscored the importance of allowing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to assist Palestinians, saying Israel was legally obligated under Article 2 (5) of the UN Charter to facilitate its work.
“The deliberate targeting of aid agencies is a moral outrage and a violation of international law,” he said.
He further highlighted that over 90 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure — homes, businesses, hospitals and places of worship — had been reduced to rubble.
“This is not just destruction but an assault on an entire people’s existence,” he said, adding that the scale of suffering demanded more than just international sympathy and required decisive action.
“We must revive a credible, irreversible political process that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Ahmad said. “Full UN membership for Palestine is not a symbolic gesture: it is a legal and moral imperative.”
KARACHI: Benish Abbas, a TV producer from Pakistan’s commercial capital of Karachi, has not received a salary increment for three years, making it difficult for her family to endure the mounting costs of living.
Her story is common among salaried middle-class Pakistanis reeling under rising prices largely brought on by tough reforms under the latest bailout from the International Monetary Fund, including higher energy costs and taxes on domestic consumers and businesses.
That Pakistan’s consumer inflation rate had fallen to its lowest in more than nine years — dropping to 2.4% year-on-year in January — was expected to bring relief to mid-income Pakistanis. But even as the prices of goods are now rising more slowly, the cost of living has not become more affordable for people like Abbas in the absence of wage growth.
Inflationary pressures have also triggered protests in recent months by traders and opposition political parties.
“My salary has not increased. My husband is in the same situation [for nearly a decade],” Abbas told Arab News in an interview from her small, rented house in Karachi’s Ancholi neighborhood where she lives with her husband and two daughters.
“The rent is increasing, school fees are increasing, our electricity bill has doubled, tripled … Our salaries keep us hand to mouth.”
Though fuel prices in Pakistan have declined multiple times in 2024 and 2025 due to lower international oil prices and exchange rate fluctuations, Abbas said it did not reflect on transport fares and thus made little difference to her family.
“STICKY CORE INFLATION”
The South Asian country, currently bolstered by a $7 billion facility from the IMF granted in September, is navigating a tricky path to economic recovery. The IMF is set to review Pakistan’s progress by March, with the government and central bank expressing confidence about meeting the targets.
Pakistan’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points to 12% last month, as inflation eases and growth looks set to pick up after 1,000 basis points of rate cuts over the last eight months.
The State Bank of Pakistan has slashed rates from an all-time high of 22% last June, one of the most aggressive moves among central banks in emerging markets and exceeding its 625 bps of rate cuts in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
After the policy rate decision, central bank governor, Jameel Ahmad, told a press conference that inflation would ease further in January but noted core inflation remained elevated. He forecast full-year inflation in the year to June would average 5.5%-7.5%.
But these measures have not improved the lives of mid-income individuals like 26-year-old Raja Muhammad Haris who earns less than Rs30,000 ($107) a month and has not gotten a salary increment in three years.
“The inflation has increased significantly in the last two to three years,” Haris, who supports a family of eight, said. “Yet, our salaries have not increased in proportion to the inflationary rate.”
A civilian employee of the Pakistani armed forces, Haris said he found it difficult to run his kitchen, forcing him to accumulate debt.
“We have to take a loan from the bank, sometimes we have to take it from a friend, from neighbors. We have to manage the house somehow, we have to run the house somehow,” he said. “Per month we have to borrow Rs20,000 [$71.56].”
Sana Tawfik, an economist and head of research at Karachi-based Arif Habib Limited, agreed that IMF-backed structural reforms carried out by Pakistani authorities, though necessary to put the economy on track, had burdened the average citizen.
While consumer price inflation had decreased, core inflation remained a major concern, she added.
Core inflation is a measure of inflation that removes volatile prices, like food and energy, from the consumer price index (CPI). This creates a more stable picture of underlying inflation trends, covering items like health care, textbooks, clothing, furniture, and electric appliances.
“Core inflation is still sticky and is hovering in the range of 9 to 9.5%,” Tawfik said. “It is expected to remain elevated.”
The economist said while inflation had declined significantly in terms of numbers, it continued to pressure a major chunk of the country’s population, especially due to high electricity and gas bills.
“Inflation is there, and prices are increasing,” she said, though the pace at which the two things had increased in recent months had slowed down.
Strained household budgets have also affected the sale of essentials like medicine.
Malik Nasir Khan, who runs a pharmacy at a largest medicine market in Karachi, said the prices of life-saving drugs like Paracetamol had almost doubled in just a month.
“The customers who used to buy monthly medicines are now buying medicines to last only 10-12 days,” Khan said. “Now they are not buying medicines, medicines are not being sold in large quantities.”
Housewife Farhana Asghar Khan, 48, said she had to borrow Rs1,000 ($4) from an acquaintance to buy medicines, the prices of which the ailing mother of three said exceeded far beyond her reach.
“My monthly medicines cost Rs1,500 [$5.37] and I took a loan of Rs1,000 [$3.58] from an acquaintance and bought medicines from it,” she said.
“For Rs300 [$1.07], I could only get two strips of pills.”
“BASE EFFECT IS KEY”
Mushtaq Khan, a Karachi-based economist, agreed that the status quo would continue as long as incomes were stagnant.
“The middle class is suffering as their incomes are stagnant in Pakistan while the poverty rate is increasing. The improvement in business sentiments from the economic stability is primarily felt by the elite,” he told Arab News.
Mushtaq said year-on-year inflation was low because of the base effect, which would end in May 2025, “which means the prices will start increasing from May (2025) onwards.”
He said the food sub-index had been stagnant since Oct. 2024 but was likely to move up from February onward.
“The prices of clothing have consistently increased in the range of 14%-17% year-on-year, but have come down from the 20 percent plus in 2023. The utilities and rent have settled down but will increase from April,” Mushtaq added.
Health costs remained high, rising year-on-year in the range of 13%-16%, while year-on-year inflation had decreased since 2023. Transportation costs had fallen as POL prices were down, but this was likely to reverse when the
petroleum development levy and general sales tax were added to fuel prices in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year, Mushtaq said.
“The base effect is key. The cost of living is a slow burn. The price levels may consistently increase but the year-on-year data is strongly influenced by the base effect,” the economist said. “That is the crux of the matter, prices are increasing on a monthly basis, but the year-on-year data shows a fall.”
Pakistan government spokesman Attaullah Tarar was not available for comment for this story. Officials from the ministry of finance also did not respond to requests for comment.
ISLAMABAD: Mari Energies, a Pakistani hydrocarbon exploration firm, has discovered new oil and gas reserves in the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, it said on Tuesday, with initial tests suggesting a flow of 12.96 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) of gas and around 20 barrel per day (bbl/d) of condensate.
The discovery has been made in KP’s Waziristan district at the Spinwam-1 exploratory well, which was drilled on May 28 last year, according to the exploration firm.
Mari Energies holds a 55% stake in the Waziristan block together with the state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) and Orient Petroleum Inc. (OPI).
“Initial pre-acid testing of the Samanasuk Formation has shown a flow of 12.96 MMSCFD of gas and approx. 20 bbl/day of condensate at 32/64” choke, and a Wellhead Flowing Pressure of 2,127 psig (pounds per square inch gauge),”
Mari Energies said in a letter to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).
“Further testing is underway, including post-acid job and assessments in the existing formation and additional targeted formations, to fully evaluate the well potential.”
The Spinwam-1 well in the Waziristan block has total depth of 4,400 meters, according to the exploration firm.
“This discovery has opened a new play within the block,” Mari Energies said.
The development comes a week after Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik said Pakistan was offering foreign investors 40 offshore and 31 onshore blocks for oil and gas exploration.
The South Asian country, which imports most of its energy needs and is currently looking for ways to lessen the costs, is currently pursuing a multi-pronged strategy to advance the energy sector, focusing on indigenization, electrification and liberalization.
Malik, who invited international investors to capitalize on opportunities in these newly opened blocks, said a significant portion of Pakistan’s natural resources was unexplored, the state-run APP news agency reported.
“Pakistan is open for business and we will provide all necessary facilitation to investors,” the petroleum minister was quoted as saying.
