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Posts published in January 2015

GB caretaker cabinet sworn in

ISLAMABAD – Twelve-minister Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) caretaker cabinet took oath on Saturday. The oath taking ceremony was held at Gilgit-Baltistan House and Chief Minister Pir Karam Ali Shah administered oath to the caretaker ministers. Those who took oath included, Nasir Hussain and Mushtaq Ahmed advocate from Gilgit, Haji Sanaullah from Baltistan, Inayatullah Shimali and Basharatullah from Diamer, Haji Naimatullah from Bounji, Fauzia Saleem from Skardu, Zawar Qalb-e-Ali from Nagar, Abdul Jehan and Ali Murad advocate from…

G-B stripped of more than 50% forest cover

By Shahzad Anwar in The Express Tribune, January 25th, ISLAMABAD: Although national and international efforts are under way to curb illegal logging, local markets are flooded with timber from Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), resulting in massive deforestation in the absence of proper oversight. Owing to the continuous cutting of banned species including pine, kail and deodar, forest cover in G-B has eroded more than 50 per cent over the last 20 years, said a top forest official.…

WB to fund 108MW Gulpur Hydropower Project: report in The News, January 25, 2015

ISLAMABAD: The World Bank (WB) Board has accorded approval for financing the 108 MW Gulpur Hydropower Project to be located at Poonch River, District Kotli, AJK. A high-level delegation of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the arm of the World Bank, met Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday and had an in-depth exchange of views on various WB sponsored development projects, says a press release. Ishaq Dar lauded the WB Board’s decision regarding the Gulpur…

Political suicide in Gilgit-Baltistan: letter to the editor in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2015

GILGIT: Some of the religio-political parties in Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) are demanding the annulment of the provincial caretaker cabinet for being non-representative, biased and unbalanced. These assertions may be true, but if the demand to change the already notified caretaker provincial cabinet is acceded to, it will cause religio-political rifts in the region. The parties which have reservations about the mechanism used for the selection of the cabinet members must tolerate this for now and remain…

G-B interim cabinet nominations spark anger: By Shabbir Mir in Express Tribune, Jan 17

GILGIT: The five-member interim cabinet of Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) has been announced with representatives belonging to various areas of the region. However, it has met criticism from several quarters. The announcement was made Thursday night after Caretaker Chief Minister Sher Jehan Mir met Federal Minister for G-B and Kashmir Affairs Birjis Tahir in Islamabad. “A notification about the appointment has also been issued,” a G-B government official told The Express Tribune on Friday. Members of the…

China corruption crackdown ensnares top spy: Reuters report in Dawn, Jan 17th, 2015

BEIJING: China is investigating one of its top spy chiefs for corruption, according to the ruling Communist Party’s anti-graft watchdog, signalling that the boldest crackdown on corruption in decades has spilled over into its powerful intelligence apparatus. Ma Jian, a vice minister at China’s Ministry of State Security, is the most senior security official to be investigated since former domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang was ensnared in a graft scandal last July. The investigation into…

G-B interim cabinet nominations spark anger: By Shabbir Mir in Express Tribune, Jan 17

GILGIT: The five-member interim cabinet of Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) has been announced with representatives belonging to various areas of the region. However, it has met criticism from several quarters. The announcement was made Thursday night after Caretaker Chief Minister Sher Jehan Mir met Federal Minister for G-B and Kashmir Affairs Birjis Tahir in Islamabad. “A notification about the appointment has also been issued,” a G-B government official told The Express Tribune on Friday. Members of the…

Neelum-Jhelum Funding crunch slows down power project

By Peer Muhammad in The Express Tribune, January 14th, 2015. ISLAMABAD: A funding crunch will keep the Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project unfinished this year, forcing officials to treat 2016 as the target year for completion. This was stated by project director Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project Lt Gen (retd) Muhammad Zubair, who was giving a briefing to the Senate standing committee on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) on Tuesday. Zubair said the project has been delayed due to…

Military courts in GB to be illegal: Asma : report in The News, January 15, 2015

ISLAMABAD: Former president of Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Asma Jehangir has said that there is no mention of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in the 21st Constitutional Amendment, and therefore the formation of military courts in GB is illegal and unconstitutional. She asked if the 342 parliamentarians could not sustain the pressure with regard to formation of the military courts, how the 17 judges of the Supreme Court could do the same.Talking to journalists on the premises…

Neelum-Jehlum project to be completed by Dec 2016

By Ijaz Kakakhel in Daily Times, January 14, 2015 ISLAMABAD: Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project Director Gen (r) Zubair on Tuesday assured the Senate Standing Committee on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan that the power project would be completed by December 2016. He said the issue with Neelum-Jhelum project was that total foreign currency component (FCC) requirement of the project as per approved PC-I was $1.585 billion, adding that the donors of the project had agreed to…

PM gives nod for establishment of military courts in Gilgit-Baltistan

By Abdul Manan in The Express Tribune, January 13th, 2015. ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday gave a nod for the establishment of military courts in Gilgit-Baltistan. The premier approved that Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK Councils also adopt the 21st Constitutional Amendment as well as amendment in the Army Act to facilitate formation of military courts in those areas. Presiding over a meeting to review progress on the National Action Plan (NAP), the prime minister…