High-level Pakistan delegation to visit US ‘shortly’ to address trade imbalance, finmin says

QUETTA: Police in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province have killed nine suspected militants in an intelligence-based operation in the Pishin district, the provincial police’s counter-terrorism department (CTD) said on Saturday.
The militants belonging to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were killed during a raid in Khanai Baba, a remote area of Pishin district located 55 kilometers from the provincial capital of Quetta, according to the CTD.
The TTP, which has been fighting with the Pakistani state since 2007, has stepped up its attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021.
Islamabad has frequently accused Afghanistan of sheltering and supporting anti-Pakistan militant groups, including the TTP, that carry out cross-border attacks in Pakistan. Taliban authorities deny the allegation.
“The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Balochistan carried out the raid in Pishin, killing nine terrorists of TTP after an exchange of fire,” the CTD said in a statement. “Explosives and arms were seized during the operation.”
The CTD said the slain militants had been involved in various militant activities in the province, without offering any evidence.
Pakistan has been battling twin insurgencies: one led my religiously motivated groups like the TTP, mainly in its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and the other by ethno-nationalist Baloch separatist groups in Balochistan.
The CTD raid followed a roadside blast in Balochistan that killed three paramilitary troops and injured four others in the Marget coalfield area near Quetta on Friday, a local administration official said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on ethnic Baloch separatist militants, who frequently target security forces, Chinese nationals, ethnic Punjabi commuters and laborers in the restive province.
The separatists accuse Islamabad of exploiting the province’s natural resources, such as gold and copper. Successive Pakistani governments have denied the allegations and said they only worked for the uplift of the region and its people.
Last month, the Baloch Liberation Army separatist group hijacked a train with hundreds of passengers aboard near Balochistan’s Bolan Pass, which resulted in the deaths of 23 soldiers, three railway employees and five passengers. At least 33 insurgents were also killed.
In a statement, Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti praised the CTD action against militants in Pishin.
“The intelligence-based operation averted a major tragedy in Balochistan,” he said. “The law enforcement agencies remain fully determined to completely eradicate terrorism from Pakistan.”

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Friday urged the international community to ensure faster and simpler disbursements from a new global fund set up to help vulnerable countries respond to climate-related losses.

The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), established at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in 2022 before being officially operationalized by 198 countries, aims to help developing and least developed countries (LDCs) cope with both economic and non-economic impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather events and slow-onset crises like sea-level rise and droughts.

Aurangzeb made the remarks while addressing a high-level dialogue over the issue, held on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings in Washington.

“Emphasizing that simplicity and agility should be the guiding principles, the finance minister urged the need for speedy disbursements under the fund, unlike the experience of LDCs and other vulnerable nations with existing climate finance mechanisms,” Pakistan’s finance ministry said in a statement circulated after the dialogue.

Aurangzeb also stressed the importance of “the integrity of the whole process with adequate checks and balances,” according to the statement.

He said Pakistan had been among the strongest proponents of the fund, warning that climate change represents an “existential threat” to countries like his own.

Pakistan has experienced increasingly erratic weather patterns in recent years, including heatwaves, droughts, cyclones and glacial melting.

In 2022, record monsoon rains triggered floods that killed over 1,700 people, affecting 30 million more and causing economic losses exceeding $30 billion.