Here you can find all the latest news and development related to Pakistan and its Armed Forces. Also i try to keep up to date foreign affairs specially military related.
India's Game is Over Now: Why Bloch Rebels Surrendering in Large Numbers
500 Baloch rebels surrender
QUETTA: Around 500 Baloch rebels on Friday surrendered to the government.
Some 487 militants from four Baloch rebel organisations, including at least eight senior commanders, laid down their arms at an official ceremony in the Quetta city.
The militants pledged their allegiance to the state of Pakistan at the ceremony, which was also attended by the provincial chief minister.
“These militants had killed my own son and brother but I have forgiven them. The state of Pakistan also forgives them and I welcome them to be part of Balochistan’s CPEC project,” said Balochistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri at the ceremony.
“We will arrange employment for you. Nobody will be allowed to destroy peace in the province," he said.
Those who surrendered were members of Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), Balochistan Republican Army (BRA), United Baloch Army and Lashkar-e-Balochistan.
"We were misled by Brahumdagh Bugti. We have now come to know that he works for India. Why should we fight in our own country for another country," said Sarbaz Baloch, former spokesman of BRA, who has been fighting for 15 years.
GWADAR: China handed over two ships to the Pakistan Navy here on Saturday for joint security along the sea route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Recently built in China and equipped with state-of-the-art guns, the ships will be part of the navy.
Chinese officials, who reached Gwadar aboard the ships, handed them over to their Pakistani counterparts at a ceremony at the Gwadar port. Commander of the Pakistan Fleet Vice Admiral Arifullah Hussaini received the ships which have been named after two nearby rivers Hingol and Basol.
GWADAR: A group photo of senior Chinese and Pakistani Navy Officials at the handover ceremony of two ships by China to Pakistan here on Saturday.
Director General of the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency Rear Admiral Jamil Akhter, Commander West Commodore Mohammad Waris and top naval and civilian officials were present on the occasion.
“The Chinese ships have become part of the Pakistan Navy from today,” Vice Admiral Hussaini said, adding that the navy would become stronger with the induction of the ships.
The Chinese government will provide two more ships namely Dasht and Zhob to the navy. Work on the ships is in progress in China and will be completed soon.
China is extending help and cooperation to Pakistan for security along the CPEC’s land and sea routes.
Pakistan has already raised a new division of the army to ensure security along the CPEC route and in and around the Gwadar port. Security of Gwadar city has been handed over to the army’s new division raised during the tenure of former chief of army staff retired Gen Raheel Sharif. Speaking at the ships handover ceremony, Vice Admiral Hussaini said that the economic corridor was a reality. It would prove to be a game-changer for Pakistan and China, and the entire region would benefit from it.
“The CPEC will open new vistas of speedy development in Balochistan and create thousands of jobs for its youths,” he said.
He termed the induction of the Chinese ships into the Pakistan Navy a historic moment and said that the ships would be deployed for the security of the Gwadar port and the sea route of the CPEC.
Vice Admiral Hussaini said: “It is a great day for Pakistan and its people as such kind of ships have been inducted in the navy for the first time.”
With the passage of time, he said, Pakistan-China friendship was becoming stronger and deeper than the ocean.
He said that the navy and Gwadar had historic relations as the navy had arrived in the town when it was merged with Pakistan.
It was a matter of happiness that the Baloch youth were joining the navy to serve Pakistan and its people, he added.
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is expected to add over 2 million direct and indirect jobs to Pakistan’s economy and boost the country’s GDP growth rate to 7.5%.
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is expected to add over 2 million direct and indirect jobs to Pakistan’s economy and boost the country’s GDP growth rate to 7.5%.
Jobs & Economic Growth in Pakistan:
US-based consulting firm Deloitte and Touche estimates that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects will create some 700,000 direct jobs during the period 2015–2030 and raise its GDP growth rate to 7.5%, adding 2.5 percentage points to the country’s current GDP growth rate of 5%.
An additional 1.4 million indirect jobs will be added in supply-chain and service sectors to support the projects. An example of indirect jobs is the massive expansion in Pakistan’s cement production that will increase annual production capacity from 45 million tons to 65 million tons, according to a tweet by Bloomberg’s Faseeh Mangi. Other indirect jobs will be in sectors ranging from personal services to housing and transportation.
CPEC Benefits for Pakistan & China:
The CPEC will open doors to immense economic opportunities not only to Pakistan but will physically connect China to its markets in Asia, Europe and beyond, according to the Deloitte report.
Almost 80% of the China’s oil is currently transported from the Middle East through the Strait of Malacca to Shanghai, (distance is almost 16,000 km and takes 2-3 months). With Gwadar port in Pakistan becoming operational, the distance would reduce to less than 5,000 km. If all goes well and on schedule, of the 21 agreements on energy– including gas, coal and solar energy– 14 will be able to provide up to 10,400 megawatts (MW) of energy by March 2018. According to China Daily, these projects would provide up to 16,400 MW of energy altogether.
India’s War on CPEC:
The biggest challenge that CPEC faces today is India’s well-orchestrated effort to sabotage it. Not only are Indian leaders on record as opposing CPEC, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-hand man Ajit Doval have unleashed a concerted effort to try to make it impossible.
Mr. Modi has openly expressed support for Baloch separatists and Ajit Doval has talked about Pakistan “losing Balochistan”. A serving Indian Navy commander Kulbhushan Yadav has been arrested working undercover to wage covert war in Pakistan.
RAW Money Flow:
India has opened up a big money money spigot to use its agents to destabilize Pakistan. RK Yadav, an ex intelligence official of RAW, has in a TV interview (Siyasat Ki Baat with RK Yadav video 6:00 minutes), talked about RAW agents with “suitcases and cupboards full of money”.
Ex RAW chief A.S. Dulat has said “money goes a long way” in intelligence operations.
Current National Security Advisor has talked about RAW recruiting terrorists with one-and-a-half times the money they are making from other sources.
RK Yadav has, in his book “Mission R&AW“, written about RAW money paid to late Pakistani politician Khan Abul Wali Khan in 1970s. He’s also confirmed the existence of RAW-inspired 1960s Agartala Conspiracy that recruited Shaikh Mujib ur Rehman’s Awami League to work for Indian intelligence.
More recently, London Police documents have revealed the testimony of MQM leaders Muhammad Anwar and Tariq Mir confirming that Altaf Husain received money from Indian intelligence.
Modi’s Campaign to Isolate Pakistan:
While RAW is busy funding terror in Pakistan, the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Modi has launched a diplomatic offensive to have Pakistan declared a “state sponsor of terror”. It’s intended to deflect attention from Indian Army’s brutality against innocent Kashmiris and to cover up his own proxy war of terror to sabotage CPEC in Pakistan.
Summary:
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is a game-changer for Pakistan. It will build power plants and other infrastrastructure, boost Pakistan’s GDP growth to 7.5% and add millions of new jobs to bring prosperity to Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Modi is very unhappy about it and he has launched a multi-pronged concerted effort to sabotage CPEC by using covert wars and diplomatic offensives to hurt Pakistan. Can Pakistan defeat Indian plans and succeed in building a prosperous future? That is the big question. The answer depends on how well Pakistanis can unite to make it happen.
China may have more core benefits from the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) but it’s a game-changer for Pakistan which will also benefit from it. Contrary to what some Europeans think, Pakistan has a strategic position in the region. This was one of the main points raised by Dr Jean-Francois Di Meglio in his lecture on ‘The Economic, Strategic and Environmental Consequences of the New Silk Roads’ at the Area Study Centre for Europe (ASCE), University of Karachi, on Wednesday. Dr Di Meglio, who is President, Asia Centre, France, said he was not an expert on CPEC so what he would talk about was based on his experiences. He said his talk was divided in two parts: Europe’s standpoint on the Silk Road project and China’s point of view. Regarding the first part, Dr Di Meglio said when China announced the project in 2013, Europeans were doubtful about it. They thought since it was a 35-year project nothing could be achieved in the short term. They also thought that China was trying to rejuvenate something that used to exist in the past and there was no point doing it. Some people, however, harboured the notion that it was part of a grand plan. It was innovative because earlier the flow [of goods] was from West to East and now China was trying to reverse the direction of history. Shedding light on what Silk Road used to be, Dr Di Meglio said in the late 20th century it was just a road but also entailed some key points and strategic places, one of which was the area crossing the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In modern history, he said, two significant events took place. The first was the Great Game between Russia and Britain at the end of the 19th century where Russia had accumulated wealth and wanted access to the sea; the other was the Afghanistan War that resulted in the disintegration of the USSR. Dr Di Meglio said it was complicated for Europeans to talk about CPEC but countries like Germany and France had shown interest in it. With regard to negative feedback, some Central Asian countries were of the view that Russia was trying to re-establish links with China and the risk was that “China would be too much present”. But the Europeans discarded many important factors, he said. On the Chinese approach to the situation Dr Di Meglio said [economic] reforms in China started in 1978 and after 35 years, in 2013, they came up with another project. If you looked at the dates, another 35 years added to 2013 would mean the arrival of the year 2048. In 2047 Hong Kong would come back to Chinese sovereignty fully; and 2049 would be the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. He said reforms brought in 1978 came through a simple process: enrichment. If the people were richer they would be easier to manage. The Silk Road had the potential of making some countries marginally richer. That could be done by building infrastructure and by linking them up with China. Dr Di Meglio said CPEC was not an easy project but was not the most difficult to achieve either. There was room for Pakistani companies and politicians to take the initiative and speak to the Chinese for a level playing field as much as possible. Whosoever was going to benefit more from it, it was a game-changer for Pakistan. He argued that let’s say Pakistan was only benefiting 10 per cent from the project; even then you had other benefits like “influence” and “footprint”. He said some Europeans thought that Pakistan existed because there was a partition in 1947; they did not realise that Pakistan had an important strategic position. On China’s ambitions, Dr Di Meglio said while it wanted prosperity and stability, it did not want domination in the region. China knew that in the past empires rose and fell. “The way to last long is not to dominate other countries but to play with them.”
Pakistan Friday gave authorisation to Russia to join the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project after Moscow’s head of security services met Pakistani officials. Russia’s Federal Security Services chief, Alexander Bogdanov, met top Pakistani officials in what was described as a secret meeting. This was the first visit of a Russian intelligence agency’s head to Pakistan in 14 years.
Bogdanov reportedly requested to join the CPEC which was accepted by the Pakistani officials who granted Russia access to warm waters via Gwadar Sea Port. Earlier this week, Pakistan secured an additional $8.5 billion of investment from Beijing as part of the countries' joint energy, transport and infrastructure plan.
That is on top of the $46-billion CPEC project, which focuses on road building and energy infrastructure to end chronic power shortages in Pakistan and to link China's landlocked north-west with the deep-water port Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.
"This has now all been approved, so this is an additional $8.5 billion to the $46 billion we had already, so we are now close to $55 billion," said Federal Minister Ahsan Iqbal. Trade activities formally commenced on November 13 after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif welcomed the first large shipment of Chinese goods through the renovated port of Gwadar. The trade caravan reached Gwadar from China under the strict security cover of Pakistan Army and other security agencies.
