Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari turns down Israel’s Wolf Prize over ‘genocide’ in Gaza

KARACHI: Security officials said on Wednesday they had freed 155 hostages after separatist militants hijacked a train carrying more than 400 people in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, with an armed rescue operation entering its second day. 

The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) bombed part of a railway track and stormed the Quetta-Peshawar-bound Jaffar Express on Tuesday afternoon in Mushkaaf, an area in the mountainous Bolan range of Balochistan. The province has been the site of low-level separatist insurgency for decades, with separatist groups accusing the government of stripping the province’s natural resources and leaving its people mired in poverty. They say security forces routinely abduct, torture and execute ethnic Baloch, allegations echoed by human rights campaigners.

Government officials and security forces strongly deny violating human rights and say they are uplifting the province through development projects, including multi-billion-dollar schemes funded by China. 

In the latest assault, the train was trapped in a tunnel and the driver was killed after sustaining serious injuries, local authorities, police and railway officials said.

“So far, security forces have safely rescued 155 passengers from the terrorists,” a security official with direct knowledge of the ongoing rescue operation said on condition of anonymity. “At least 27 militants have been eliminated.”

“The terrorists have positioned suicide bombers very close to some innocent hostage passengers,” he added. “Facing possible defeat, the terrorist suicide bombers are using innocent people as human shields.”

The official said the militants were in touch with their “handlers” in Afghanistan, echoing a common accusation by Pakistani security and government officials that a recent spike in militancy was being orchestrated from the neighboring country. The Taliban rulers in Kabul deny they allow Afghan soil to be used by insurgents to plan or carry out terror attacks. 

PRISONER EXCHANGE

Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province by area, covering 347,190 square kilometers and constituting 44 percent of the country’s total landmass. However, the remote province bordering Afghanistan and Iran is the country’s most backward region in terms of nearly all social and economic indicators.

There are no Internet and mobile services in nearly 60 percent of the province, according to independent monitors, and areas which have such services often see shutdowns and months-long disruptions due to security reasons.

Speaking to Arab News on Tuesday, Imran Hayat, the divisional superintendent of Pakistan Railways in Quetta, said the department was unable to communicate with staff aboard the train as militants had carried out the assault in a “no-signal zone.”

“We haven’t retrieved a single body or injured from the area yet due to the communication blackout,” he said.

The BLA said in a statement on Tuesday it had not suffered any casualties but had killed 30 soldiers and shot down a drone. There was no confirmation of this from Pakistani authorities.

The group said it was prepared for a prisoner exchange, 

“The occupying state of Pakistan is given 48 hours to immediately and unconditionally release Baloch political prisoners, forcibly disappeared persons and national resistance activists.”

The BLA warned that the hostages included military, paramilitary, police and intelligence officers, who would be killed if the BLA’s demands were not met within the stipulated period “or if the occupying state attempts any military action during this time.”

The Balochistan government has imposed emergency measures to deal with the situation, spokesperson Shahid Rind told media, without giving any details.

The separatists have also recently attacked projects being developed as part of the $65-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), part of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, in Balochistan. The program is also developing a deep-water port close to the new $200-million airport in Gwadar, a joint venture between Pakistan, Oman and China.
 

ISLAMABAD: Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has asked authorities to expedite privatization of Pakistan-owned Roosevelt Hotel in New York, Pakistani state media reported on Tuesday, amid Islamabad’s efforts to streamline its fragile $350 billion economy.
Roosevelt Hotel, a 19-story building located at a prime location in New York, was inaugurated in Manhattan on September 22, 1924. Named after the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, Pakistan’s national airline leased it in 1979 through the Pakistan International Airlines Investments Limited (PIA-IL).
The hotel closed its doors to guests in Dec. 2020 after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the tourism industry worldwide. In 2023, New York City (NYC) administration struck a $220 million, three-year deal with PIA to convert the hotel into a shelter, as per a report in The New York Times.
On Tuesday, Dar presided over a meeting of Pakistan’s federal cabinet committee on privatization in Islamabad to review the progress of the ongoing privatization initiatives, including that of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, the Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported.
“Deputy Prime Minister urged the Privatization Commission to fast track the privatization process of the Roosevelt Hotel,” the report read.
Roosevelt Hotel and PIA are among the main entities Pakistan is pushing to privatize as part of economic reforms undertaken by Islamabad under its loan agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with a $7 billion extended funds facility agreed in Sept. being the latest such bailout.
The development comes at a time when an IMF mission is visiting Pakistan to review the South Asian country’s progress on key IMF conditions as part of the first review of the $7 billion bailout. A successful review will result in the release of around $1 billion to Pakistan as second installment under the program.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb last month said they were confident of meeting targets of the IMF program. Pakistan was able to build some trust with the IMF by completing a short-term, nine-month program last year.
Previous loan programs in Pakistan ended prematurely or saw delays after the governments at the time faltered on meeting key conditions. However, the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is making rigorous efforts to boost trade and foreign investment in order to revive the country’s economy and end its reliance on foreign loans.