Author: Nafisa Hoodbhoy

ISLAMABAD: Desperate to boost foreign exchange reserves over the $11-billion mark, Pakistan has received another loan of $1 billion from the China Development Bank as authorities remain adamant, at least in public, not to read the writing on the wall.

Pakistan secured on Saturday financing of $1 billion, said Dr Miftah Ismail, the newly-appointed finance minister, while addressing a post-budget press conference. He did not officially disclose the name of the Chinese institution.

However, sources in the finance ministry said the China Development Bank has given $1 billion out of an estimated $1.5 billion. In its revised estimates, Pakistan has budgeted about $2 billion injection from Chinese financial institutions alone. This includes $1.5 billion from the China Development Bank and $500 million from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).

With the fresh injection, Chinese financial institutions have so far given $2.2 billion to Pakistan to help the country steer through difficult times. Earlier, the ICBB gave $1 billion at three-month floating interest rate of London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) plus 3.02%.

Earlier this month, the Bank of China also gave $200 million.

Disbursements of foreign loans remained at $7.53 billion from July through March of this fiscal year due to delay in release of some loans by Chinese financial institutions. The China Development Bank loan was initially expected to be disbursed in March.

Pakistan’s economy has come under pressure with external account worries remaining the focus of economic managers. With a widening current account deficit, foreign exchange reserves have slipped below $10.9 billion at the mid of this month. Chinese loans would temporarily stabilise reserves to close to a three-month import cover.

To a question, Ismail again said on Saturday that Pakistan would avoid knocking the doors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “We are trying our best to avoid the IMF package and today, have secured $1 billion financing from China,” said Ismail.

The government has been trying to contain the current account deficit and the increase in custom duty rates by another 1% is one such measure that will help control imports, said Ismail.

Independent economists predict that Pakistan will return to the IMF by September or October this year, as it cannot sustain the external account pressure without combined support of the IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The government is so far navigating the crisis by taking expensive short-term foreign commercial loans. For the outgoing fiscal year, the government had budgeted $8 billion in loans that it has now officially revised upwards to $10.6 billion.

However, the finance ministry’s internal plans talk about $12.5 billion minimum foreign borrowings for this fiscal year, ending June 30.

The public debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio has estimated to peak to 70.1% by the end of fiscal year 2017-18. This is the highest level in the past 15 years and also in violation of the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act of 2005.

For the next fiscal year 2018-19, the finance ministry has budgeted $9.6 billion in external loans, which are $3.4 billion less than the foreign financing plan Pakistan shared this month with Moody’s International, said sources in the finance ministry.

For the next fiscal year, the government has budgeted $3 billion foreign commercial loans and $2 billion worth of Eurobonds, according to Estimates of Foreign Economic Assistance 2018-19 that the government shared with the National Assembly on Friday.

It also expects slightly over $1 billion from Islamic Development Bank and $1.4 billion from the ADB

Chinese engineers and other staffers, engaged in the construction of M4 Motorway from Bahawalpur to Faisalabad, attacked policemen deployed for their security after the foreign workers were barred from leaving their camp’s premises without a security squad, DawnNewsTV reported on Wednesday.

Several mobile phone clips doing rounds on social media show Chinese nationals approaching the police officials in a provocative manner and attacking them. A video showed a Chinese national standing on the bonnet of a police van, another video showed several Chinese nationals trashing policemen and some local people in plain clothes.

According to police officials, Chinese engineers and other officials wanted to leave their camp in Khanewal and visit a “red-light” area on Tuesday night. They resorted to agitation when denied permission to leave the camp without being accompanied by security officials.

Later, the Chinese engineers also cut power supply to the police camp established within the main construction camp, the officials added.

On Wednesday morning, the Chinese workers stopped work on the project and abandoned heavy machinery and vehicles on various roads in the area. They also resorted to violence and attacked police in their camp.

Subsequently, the protesting Chinese engineers wrote a letter to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, claiming that police officials refrained them from performing their duties and attacked them.

They also accused the security in-charge of attempting to hit the Chinese workers with his vehicle. Police officials, however, rejected the accusations and said they were fabricated.

Later in the day, Khanewal DPO Rizwan Omer Gondal held a meeting with the protesting Chinese workers following which they agreed to open the blocked roads.

Meanwhile, the police officials made it clear to the Chinese engineers that they will not be allowed to leave their camp without security arrangements.

This was not the first time when Chinese nationals in Pakistan attacked local police. In 2016, a clash occurred between the police and Chinese workers as the latter insisted on staying at a construction camp at night, but the former opposed the idea due to security reasons.

According to media reports, citing sources, some Chinese nationals associated with the Chinese army and trained in martial arts had attacked and injured police personnel deployed for their security.

However, the police had avoided taking any legal action against the Chinese to avert further conflict. In fact, the then CPO had suspended three SHOs and six other policemen for not restraining themselves from a clash.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1399531/chinese-workers-thrash-policemen-in-khanewal

WASHINGTON — Once described as an ill-equipped band of insurgents, the Taliban are increasingly attacking security forces across Afghanistan using night-vision goggles and lasers that United States military officials said were either stolen from Afghan and international troops or bought on the black market.

The devices allow the Taliban to maneuver on forces under the cover of darkness as they track the whirling blades of coalition helicopters, the infrared lasers on American rifles, or even the bedtime movements of local police officers.

With this new battlefield visibility, the Taliban more than doubled nighttime attacks from 2014 to 2017, according to one United States military official who described internal Pentagon data on the condition of anonymity. The number of Afghans who were wounded or killed during nighttime attacks during that period nearly tripled.

That has forced American commanders to rethink the limited access they give Afghan security forces to the night-vision devices. Commanders now worry that denying the expensive equipment to those forces puts them at a technological disadvantage, with potentially lethal consequences.

For years, American commanders have been reluctant to give night-vision equipment to rank-and-file Afghan soldiers and police officers out of concern of widespread corruption among those forces.

The devices — headsets and infrared lasers — are usually given only to elite Afghan commandos and police special mission units, according to American military officials.

As some of this equipment falls into Taliban hands, the militants are joining a larger trend, said David W. Barno, a retired lieutenant general who led the war effort in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. Advanced equipment, such as drones and precision weapons, is being seized by other extremist groups in other global conflict zones, he said.

“It’s going to be a problem,” Mr. Barno said, “and it’s going to change how we operate.”

With the spread of the devices, infantry units on patrols have been told not to use certain marking devices that can be seen only by night-vision equipment. Helicopter crews have been made distinctly aware that their aircraft are no longer cloaked by darkness.

In one case last November, Taliban fighters wearing night-vision goggles attacked a police outpost in Farah Province, in western Afghanistan. By the time the predawn assault was over, eight Afghan officers lay dead in their beds, Haji Abdul Rahman Aka, the elder of the province’s Pule Regi area, said at the time. Only one Afghan officer survived.

The frequency and ferocity of the nighttime Taliban attacks are linked to attempts by Afghan forces, based in small checkpoints across the country, to hold territory that has been wrested away from the militants.

Previously unreported documents, obtained by The New York Times, underline concerns about the Taliban’s growing sophistication on the battlefield after 16 years of war — and American commanders’ efforts to stunt it.

The documents show that the American military has begun to send older models of night-vision hardware to regular Afghan Army units. Those headsets cost an estimated $3,000 each, officials said.

One of the first batches of night-vision equipment for conventional units in southern Afghanistan, part of a monthslong pilot program, was sent to the embattled 215th Corps in Helmand Province in the spring of 2016.

Only 161 of the 210 devices were returned, according to the military documents obtained by The Times, and the equipment was not effectively used, in part because the forces were not properly trained to use it.

Afghan troops said the missing devices were reported as “battle losses,” but could not support that claim with any proof or records to explain where or when they were left behind, according to the documents.

At the time, the commander of the 215th Corps was Maj. Gen. M. Moein Faqir. He was later arrested on sweeping corruption charges that included misuse of food money meant for his troops.

Last year, and with better results, night-vision equipment was sent to the 205th Corps, located around Kandahar, the military documents showed.

Five devices were lost between July and December, when the program ended, according to the documents. Over the summer and fall, the Afghan National Army suffered 15 percent fewer casualties around Kandahar than it had during the same period in 2016.

The documents credited the night-vision equipment for the marked reduction, concluding that the devices are “becoming an integral part of base defense plans.” The American military is now planning to equip the unit with roughly 2,500 night-vision goggles as part of what the documents described as a concept for a “permanent program.”

Despite those measured successes, it remains unclear if the American military will give the devices to the rest of the Afghan Army.

The American military headquarters in Kabul has said it equips only Special Operations units in the Afghan Army and police forces with night-vision technology.

Capt. Tom Gresback, a spokesman for United States forces in Afghanistan, declined to comment on the plans to distribute the devices to the Afghan National Army, as outlined in the military documents. He said American commanders would provide Afghan national defense and security forces “with the resources necessary to promote security throughout Afghanistan.”

But some American advisers closer to the ground fight are already trying to get the technology for their Afghan counterparts, according to a United States official. He said that would require a decision made through the leadership in Kabul and the Pentagon to allow American commanders to distribute the devices to even more Afghan security forces.

With the night-vision devices, Taliban fighters have been able to approach Afghan bases nearly undetected before attacking.

Initially, such ambushes were attributed to Taliban forces known as “Red Units” located in Afghanistan’s southern provinces. But over the last year, the night-vision devices have frequently turned up in the country’s north and east, according to two American military officials, signaling a widespread distribution into other groups of Taliban fighters.

Those officials said the Taliban were using both tightly controlled American-made devices and gear that is widely available for purchase. In some cases, American officials said, the equipment was left on the battlefield by United States or Afghan troops, including those who were killed in action.

In others, Afghan soldiers are believed to have sold the devices to the extremists.

That was disputed by Gen. Dawlat Waziri, who until recently served as spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense. He said all night-vision equipment provided to Afghan troops by the American military had been “accounted for.”

“No case of night vision sold by our soldiers to the Taliban has been reported,” General Waziri said.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said fighters obtained night-vision devices after attacking Afghan bases or capturing members of the Afghan security forces.

Rank-and-file Afghan police officers are particularly under threat by increasing numbers of deadly nighttime attacks, said one of the American military officials. Those units are spread farther into sparsely populated areas across Afghanistan than are army soldiers.

Officers with the Afghan National Police, especially in the south, have been making desperate requests for the equipment for months, the official said. The police are part of the Ministry of Interior, which is suspected of rampant corruption.

In Helmand Province, Marine Corps advisers are helping a request by the 505th Zone of the Afghan National Police to receive night-vision devices, Col. C.J. Douglas, the head of the Marines’ police advising component there, said in an email.

It is unclear if the Afghan police unit will get them