ISLAMABAD: Only two projects at a cost of $137 million under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have been completed so far out of 17 early harvest proposed projects at a total estimated cost of $18 billion. According to the information shared with the National Assembly last week, the two CPEC projects that have been completed are Quaid-e-Azam 100 megawatts Solar Park at a cost of $137 million and Digital Terrestrial Multiband Broadcast at a cost…
Posts published in “Day: October 12, 2016”
BEIJING – China is much worried about the increasing imbalance of power in south Asia and thinks measures should be taken to maintain a balance. With the CPEC project going in the top gear, the Chinese government is also concerned about the strained relations between India and Pakistan, but hopes the tension would not escalate further after the security advisers of the two countries recently talked to each other on hotline. This was the crux…
A rising political star who survived the political storms in Chongqing municipality and Shanxi province is tipped to become the deputy party chief of the affluent eastern Jiangsu province as well as the top party official of its capital Nanjing, two sources say. “The party boss of Taiyuan Wu Zhenglong will soon be named the deputy party secretary of Jiangsu province and party head of Nanjing,” a Nanjing-based source told the South China Morning Post…
The top brass of the People’s Liberation Army has expanded its anti-graft targets to include mid-level officers to root out the harmful influence of Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, the disgraced former top leaders of the army. All Communist Party chiefs from PLA departments, and units under the powerful Central Military Commission held a study meeting on Monday to come up with measures to eliminate all adverse effects of Guo and Xu’s leadership, in the…
Rare protest in Beijing appears to involve disgruntled soldiers: AP report in SCMP, 11 October, 2016
More than 1,000 protesters gathered in front of China’s defence ministry on Tuesday, the latest apparent demonstration by soldiers as the world’s largest standing military modernises and downsizes. The protesters stood for several hours in front of the Bayi building in central Beijing, home of the Ministry of National Defence. Many wore green fatigues bearing the hammer-and-sickle logo of the Communist Party. The purpose of their demonstration was unclear. Protesters declined to be interviewed and…
Strategic cooperative partnership between Dhaka and Beijing is set to enter a “new level” during the upcoming visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is scheduled to arrive on Friday for 22-hour visit. It would be the first time a Chinese president is paying a state visit to Bangladesh in the past 30 years. “Bangladesh is China’s important partner in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, and the visit would be a milestone for…
The writer is a PhD candidate and coordinator of the South Asia Study Group at the University of Sydney Somebody somewhere in the Foreign Office or the civilian political leadership all of a sudden decided to wake up after decades of nap and instantly found the country in dire straits of international isolation. Since then, the media and Parliament have been soaring with questions and comments on the why and how of Pakistan’s international isolation.…
As it was not enough for the first time, the Prime Minister’s Office felt the urge to refute a story for the second time only to refresh its contents that have nothing to do with national security as everything in the report is already common knowledge. There was also news of a ‘special meeting’ of the top civilian and military leadership to discuss the story, a story that both repudiated as ‘fabricated’. The real matter…
It is a disturbing day when civilian and military top leadership meet to lecture the media on how to do their job. Couched in the familiar and nauseating mantra of protecting “vital state interests”, the resulting action from the meeting was just a few hours later – the addition of Dawn’s Cyril Almeida to the Exit Control List. Apparently a barrage of online abuse, and three official denials were not enough to assuage tempers riled…
THERE are times in a news organisation’s history that determine its adherence to the highest principles of journalism — its duty to inform the public objectively, accurately and fearlessly. This paper recently reported an extraordinary closed-door meeting between top government and intelligence officials where the foreign secretary briefed them on what he saw as Pakistan’s growing international isolation; following this, there was a discussion on the impediments in the way of dealing with the problem…
BEIJING: A senior official of China’s foreign ministry voiced hope on Tuesday that tensions between Pakistan and India will defuse after the upcoming summit of five emerging economic powers in a western Indian state later this month. China’s President Xi Jinping will travel to Goa to attend the 8th summit of BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — which will be held on October 15 and 16. The Chinese leader would also…