ISI chief in first US trip in a year
WASHINGTON: The new chief of Pakistan’s powerful spy agency held talks in the United States on Wednesday after a prolonged gap as the countries look to renew their uneasy cooperation in battling extremists.Lieutenant General Zaheer ul-Islam is the first head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to visit Washington in a year. He comes just after Pakistan agreed to give Nato convoys access to its border with Afghanistan.
Islam held meetings Wednesday at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a person familiar with his trip said.
Spokespeople for the CIA and Pakistani embassy declined comment.
The ISI and the military have long been major power centers inside Pakistan and both were deeply embarrassed when US forces carried out a secret raid in May 2011 that killed Osama bin Laden in the military city of Abbottabad.
Islam was appointed in March after the retirement of ISI chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who led the agency since September 2008.
Pakistan agreed to support the United States in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks but shut its border to Nato convoys in November last year after a US air strike killed 24 Pakistani troops.
Islamabad reopened land routes seven months later after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said sorry over the deaths.
On Tuesday, Pakistan signed a deal to let convoys through until the end of 2015, in a major relief for the United States, which plans to pull most troops out of Afghanistan before then.
The United States and Pakistan have also been deeply divided over unmanned US air strikes against militants, with Islamabad saying that the drones violate the country’s sovereignty and increase anti-US sentiment.
The United States believes that the raids kill extremists who would otherwise be unreachable. An attack on Sunday killed at least seven militants, officials said.
Tensions were already high before the bin Laden raid after a CIA contractor, Raymond Davis, shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore in January 2011.
Pakistan released Davis after $2 million was paid in blood money to the victims’ families.
Pakistan, India to hold talks on electricity trade today
ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan and India are going to hold one-day technical talks on electricity
trade on Thursday with the focus on identification of the points on both the
sides of the border from where the electricity will be traded, an official
said.
The two sides would initiate talks how to build infrastructure for import of
500MW electricity.
An official said, “We will have to decide about what type of transmission line
would be laid down for importing electricity and at what points Pakistan would
receive the electricity.”
“However, we have identified two places, Dina Nath near Bhai Phero and
Ghaziabad from where the transmission system will be started and go deep in the
Indian Punjab at Bathinda from where the electricity will be imported.” But all
this will be finalised during the talks after consultation with the Indian
side.
India had already offered to export 5,000MW to Pakistan. Earlier, there was a
move to import electricity from private sector, on which it was decided to
import electricity under the government-to-government arrangement.
The five member Indian delegation headed by Joint Secretary Rita Acharia has
arrived and will start technical talks on Thursday. The Pakistani side will be
headed by Joint Secretary Zargham Ishak.
Naveed Ismail, CEO of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC)
would also be the part of the dialogue.
The official said that the tariff for import of electricity will not be figured
out in the meeting as it will be constrained to the technical issues about
laying down of infrastructure for electricity trade.
However, the official said that in the first phase, Pakistan would import 500MW
at a cost not more than Rs7-8 per unit, keeping in view the tariff at which
Pakistan is importing electricity from Iran as a benchmark.
“For the import or export of electricity, the two sides need to develop 500 or
220kv transmission lines stretching almost 70 kilometres.”
Pakistan and India will each construct 45km 500 or 220kv transmission lines on
their respective sides within six months after signing of a formal agreement,
he said.
The agreement will be for five years, which will be negotiable for extension
for another five years or more, he added.
The World Bank had already agreed to fund the infrastructure to be laid down
for the import and export of electricity between the two countries and the bank
will extend around $300-400 million to install the transmission lines within
six months, once an agreement is reached.
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Business News:
Inflation up 9.6pc in
July
ISLAMABAD, Aug 1: The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation
rose 9.6 per cent in July 2012 from a year ago, the lowest since December 2009,
but Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Wednesday cautioned the government
on an increased risk of price hikes in manufacture items.Despite inflation being at a 31-month low, the PBS said prices were likely to rise further in the coming months as inflation, which is primarily dominated by increase in food prices and/or petroleum products, was now seeing a new trend; a rise in prices of manufacture items as well.
Furthermore, prices are likely to increase due to a weak monsoon, the recent hike in petroleum prices and CNG, the rupee depreciation and energy shortages which are all likely to result in an increase in cost of production and also push up non-food inflation.
Prices traditionally also rise in Ramazan, which will be incorporated in August’s data.
The government’s borrowing from the central bank is also likely to fuel inflation further.
The government projected an inflation target of 9.5 per cent for 2012-13 fiscal year, compared with an inflation of 11.01 per cent in the previous year.
Core inflation, which is non-food and non-energy inflation, entered double digits as it rose 11.3 per cent from a year ago, which according to analysts, may make it harder for the central bank to cut interest rates when it unveils its monetary policy this month.
The State Bank of Pakistan is due to announce its monetary policy for the subsequent two months on Aug 10 and it kept its key policy rate unchanged at 12 per cent in June.
In July, total food inflation was at 8.73 per cent from a year ago, non-perishable food items witnessed a surge of 8.58 per cent and perishable items increased 9.58 per cent in July over last year.
Industrial goods recorded a massive increase during last month validating the argument of an increase in prices in the coming
months.
The price of food items which registered an increase include: Onions (50.93 pc), Pulse Gram (49.95 pc), Besan (42.97 pc), Gram
Whole (31.52pc), Fresh Fruits (28.01pc), Condiments (20.47pc), Beans (20.26pc), Honey (20.12pc), Cigarettes (18.20pc), Milk Powder (17.67pc), Chicken (14.59pc) and Rice (14.53 pc).The non-food prices that rose in July over last year include: text books (40.60 pc), household servant (35.04 pc), motor vehicle tax (28.73 pc), doctor (MBBS) clinic fee (25.53 pc), utensils (23.85 pc), firewood whole (23.81 pc), marriage hall charges (20.50 pc) and Dopatta (20.39 pc).
Housing, water, electricity, gas and fuel rose by 5.60 per cent and health care cost increased by 15.59 per cent in July over the same month last year.
Transportation fare increased by 12.57 per cent mainly due to an increase in the price of diesel, petrol and CNG filling charges.
The PBS statistics showed that the inflation measured through sensitive price index was up by 7.67 per cent in July and inflation
in the wholesale manufactured products also increased 7.22 per cent over July last year.
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KARACHI
Gold Tezabi (24-ct) Rs 48,942
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OGRA hikes POL, CNG prices
ISLAMABAD: The Oil and Gas
Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has issued a notification of POL and CNG price hike
effective from today for the next fortnight.
Earlier, the government on the advice of Oil and Gas
Regulatory Authority (OGRA) had approved an increase in the prices of petroleum
products.
According to the notification, the price of petrol has been
raised by Rs7.67 per litre to Rs93.79, diesel by Rs4.58 to Rs101.79 and HOBC
has become expensive by Rs7.64 per litre to Rs120.16.
The price of Kerosene oil has been raised by Rs4.64 per
litre to Rs92.83.
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