Cabinet comes up with old formula to cope with power crisis

ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet again approved on Wednesday a formula to resolve the energy crisis that has failed earlier — two weekly days off, business closure at sunset and staggering of industrial holidays — to overcome increasing electricity shortfall during peak hours.

And surprisingly, the decision was taken this time without the consent of the provinces and without even consulting them.

The chief ministers were not invited to the meeting although the decision cannot be implemented without their active cooperation.

In fact, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa publicly criticised the decision immediately after it was reported by the media.

And because the other stakeholders, the commerce and industries sector, had also not been taken on board, representatives of traders and industries expressed their displeasure and said the move would adversely affect businesses and industries.

Water and Power Minister Syed Naveed Qamar said the meeting presided over by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had decided that provinces would be consulted for implementation of the decision on energy conservation because they had to play a central role in enforcement of business closure after sunset.

He said some designated branches of banks would be allowed to operate on Saturdays to address practical business problems.

The cabinet did not take a decision on a proposal to increase electricity tariff by 12 per cent because of paucity of time, and decided to address financial aspects of the restructuring of circular debt and related matters in its next meeting.

The meeting decided to disconnect power supply to defaulting consumers 45 days after non-payment of bills even if these included ‘sensitive’ connections.

“The cabinet decided to disconnect electricity without discrimination to those who fail to pay their bills, whether he/she is the president, the prime minister, chief of army staff, the provincial governments or any other government institution,” Finance Minister Dr Hafeez Shaikh told journalists after the meeting.

He said all institutions were given a budget every year and it was their responsibility to pay their power bills with responsibility, he said, adding the government was serious and firm in implementing the decision indiscriminately because it had injected around Rs1 trillion in the power sector over the past three years and yet unpaid electricity bills stood at about Rs300 billion.

Mr Naveed Qamar said the cabinet had also decided to do away with the current tariff setting mechanism under which the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) fixed different tariffs for distribution companies of Wapda, resulting in tariff differential subsidy in hundreds of billions of rupees because of equalised and uniform tariff for the entire country.

He said from now onwards, a single tariff application would be filed before Nepra which would determine a uniform tariff.

Nepra will also be revamped and strengthened.

Dr Shaikh said the government decided to involve the private sector in billing, metering and collection of electricity bills to improve overall recovery because the public sector had failed to deliver.

The cabinet agreed to privatise the Islamabad and Faisalabad electric supply companies, which were the best distribution companies in the country, he added.

The ministers sidestepped questions why reform measures introduced almost a decade ago for transparent electricity costs were being reversed and whether it was an attempt to camouflage increasing system losses of distribution companies in Sindh, Balochistan and Fata.

An official, however, explained that the separate tariffs were premised on continuation of a set of reform measures, including privatisation of these entities which could not be done.

Dr Shaikh did not answer a question about quantifying the cost of bad governance and delayed decision-making, but an official said the Rs1 trillion the minister talked about having injected into the power sector could be attributed to these factors. The amount would have been enough to construct Diamer-Bhasha dam and Munda dam, generating a surplus electricity of about 8,000MW.

Mr Qamar said Pepco – looking after 14 distribution, generation and transmission companies of Wapda – would be abolished in a few days and corporate entities would be made fully independent through professional managements and a private sector board so that they did not look towards the federal government for bailouts.

The management contracts would be signed with new chief executive officers and chief financial officers with specific targets and performance rewards. He said the cabinet had decided to double security deposit for new connections and for reconnections after disconnection owing to default. Life-line consumers using 100 units a month will be exempt from the increase in deposit.

The minister for power said efforts would be made to ensure full recovery of outstanding dues within six months.

Simultaneously, special concessions on power tariffs to Azad Kashmir and Balochistan would be gradually eliminated in consultation with the respective governments. In Balochistan, all agricultural tube-wells would be brought on metres to quantify their consumption so that the government could provide a flat amount of subsidy, instead of applying un-metered flat rates.

He said billboards and neon-signs would not be provided electricity after sunset.

He said it had been proposed to close down wedding halls across the country after 10pm. About 30 million energy-saving bulbs have been procured with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank and their free distribution would be completed by June next year. Also, the ongoing power projects would be fast-tracked to be completed in 18 months, he said.

Mr Qamar said the measures would reduce the demand-supply gap to a manageable level.

Dr Shaikh said the cabinet had also decided to refund to power companies Rs10 billion the Federal Board of Revenue had collected as general sales tax on unpaid electricity bills.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/cabinet-comes-up-with-old-formula-to-cope-with-power-crisis.html

Pakistan faces threat of water scarcity

By Amin Ahmed 

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations has placed Pakistan among the ‘water hotspots’ of Asia-Pacific region, saying that the country is facing major threats of increasing water scarcity, high water utilisation, deteriorating water quality and climate change risk.

Changes in weather patterns across the world have increased occurrences and intensities of extreme events of rain, floods, droughts and cyclones, such as those afflicting Australia, China, Myanmar and Pakistan, according to the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2011 published by the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) on Wednesday.

The report says climate change has affected hydrological patterns and freshwater systems, thereby posing a risk to overall water security. Climate change results in changes in spatial distribution and shifting of precipitation patterns, such as the start of rainy season and snowmelt.

Asia and the Pacific have the highest annual water withdrawal of all the world’s regions because of their geographic size, population and irrigation practices.

Pakistan faced an economic loss of $7.4 billion because of last year’s massive floods, reflecting a damage of 4.9 per cent of GDP. Figures show that Pakistan’s economy has been facing damages from natural disasters since 1991-95 when this loss was $248 million or 0.4 per cent of GDP.

The period of 1996-2000 was relatively calm and the loss was only $59 million. It was also a period when the country faced drought-like situation due to El-Nino factor.

However, natural disasters started denting the national economy from 2001-05 when economic losses rose to $1.1 billion and $1.8 billion in 2006-10, statistics reveal.

Over 2,100 people were killed and over 18 million affected by the 2010 floods. In terms of number of mortality, data calculated mortality from natural disasters at 2,186 people per annum in 2010, 7,919 between 2001 and 2010 and 675 in 1991-2000.

Asia-Pacific countries continue to suffer disproportionately from disasters caused by natural hazards. The region is vulnerable to many types of disasters, including floods, cyclones, earthquakes, drought, storm surges and tsunamis. During the past decade, on average, more than 200 million people were affected and more than 70,000 killed by natural disasters annually.

The region is undergoing major demographic transformation.

Gender inequalities in the Asia-Pacific region are also evident in education, employment and property ownership and decision-making. Female participation in the labour force in the region has remained unchanged for almost 20 years, with 65 employed women per 100 employed men.

The report also reveals that for the first time in recorded history, the Asia-Pacific fertility rate was equal to the replacement rate of 2.1 (live births per woman).

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/pakistan-faces-threat-of-water-scarcity.html

Ban on fissile material production opposed

UNITED NATIONS: Some powerful states had changed the strategic environment of the South Asian region, Pakistan complained to the world body on Tuesday and said it opposed banning production of fissile material used as fuel for nuclear weapons.

Fissile Production Ban and Pakistan - FMCT 

“Clearly it is not through choice but necessity that Pakistan is opposed to negotiations on Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), as no country can be expected to compromise on its fundamental security interests,” Pakistan`s delegate told the UN.

Over the past few years, some powerful countries, in pursuit of their commercial interests as well as dubious notions of balance of power, have embarked upon an unfettered and discriminatory nuclear cooperation arrangement in gross violation of their international commitments. “They have no moral authority in calling for strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime when they are themselves responsible for undermining it,” the deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, Mr Raza Bashir Tarar, told the first committee of UN General Assembly`s Disarmament and International Security.

“This has accentuated our security concerns as such nuclear cooperation shall further widen the asymmetry in stockpiles in our region,” he said.

Thus, FMCT that purported only to ban future production of fissile material would permanently freeze a strategic disadvantage for Pakistan and was therefore, unacceptable, the Pakistani diplomat said.

With the introduction of the treaty into the agenda of the conference, Mr Tarar said Pakistan had called attention to the fact that a treaty to cut off future production of fissile material will freeze the existing asymmetries in fissile material stockpiles, which will be detrimental for its national security.

Accordingly, Pakistan has been advocating a treaty that not only bans future production, but also aims at reducing existing stockpiles of fissile material.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/ban-on-fissile-material-production-opposed.html

Ten killed in slew of attacks targeting Iraq police

BAGHDAD: Iraqi officials say 10 people have been killed in a string of attacks targeting security forces in Baghdad.

Two police officials say a suicide attacker blew himself up near a police station in western Baghdad while another targeted a police station in a northern Shia neighborhood. Nine people were killed in the two bombings.

In western Baghdad, a parked car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded and killed one civilian. Another roadside bomb aimed at a police patrol in western Baghdad wounded three policemen.

A hospital official confirmed the causalities.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/10-killed-in-slew-of-attacks-targeting-iraq-police.html

Alleged plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador: Biden warns Iran of ‘serious consequences’

WASHINGTON, Oct 12: US Vice President Joe Biden warned Iran on Wednesday that it would have to face ‘serious consequences’ for allegedly plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. US President Barack Obama called the plot a “flagrant violation” of US and international law but allowed his deputies to do most of the talking.

Also on Wednesday, the US imposed sanctions on an Iranian commercial airline – Mahan Air – for allegedly “ferrying operatives, weapons and funds” on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is also known as the Quds force.

“The consequences for Iran, I think, will be serious. I think what we have to do is unite the entire world against the Iranian behaviour,” Mr Biden told CBS News.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that senior members of Iran’s Quds force had participated in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi envoy, Adel al-Jubeir.

“It’s clear that senior levels of Quds force were engaged in the plotting,” he said, adding that Washington would respond by intensifying efforts to isolate Iran.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the alleged plot was a “dangerous escalation” in Iran’s support of terrorism.

The plot is “a flagrant violation of international and US law and a dangerous escalation of the Iranian government’s long-standing use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism”, she said.

On Tuesday afternoon, the US Justice Department announced that it had charged Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalised US citizen, and Gholam Shakuri, a member of the Quds force with conspiring to carry out a bomb attack on the Saudi envoy.

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi called the plot “an amateurish scenario” and told the news agency ISNA there have been similar allegations over the past few decades.

“The Islamic Republic never seeks to get involved in this kind of behaviour and, despite 32 years of pressure brought to bear on Iran, the country has always acted and reacted ethically,” he said. But the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington endorsed the US claim saying that the plot was “a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions” and said it was “not in accord with the principles of humanity”.

In London, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal told a conference that “someone in Iran is going to have to pay the price” for the plot.

Vice President Biden said the US was laying out its case to world leaders and demanded “accountability for Iran and further isolation of Iran in terms of their ability to operate around the world”.

Iran was already subject to numerous American sanctions but on Wednesday, the US Treasury Department expanded the sanctions to include Mahan Air, claiming that it was “yet another facet of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ extensive infiltration of Iran’s commercial sector to facilitate its support for terrorism”.

On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers joined Democrats in condemning Iran.

“This would constitute an act of war not only against the Saudis and Israelis but against the United States,” said Congressman Michael McCaul.

“Iran’s assassination of a foreign diplomat in our country would have violated both US and international law, and represented an act of war,” said Congressman Peter King.

Congressman Ted Poe called the plot an “act of war” against the United States and said: “We have to do something.”

But a senior US Defence Department official told Fox News the announcement was “not a trip wire for military action” in Iran.

“No one should read into this as preteens for any type of military response,” the official said.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/alleged-plot-to-assassinate-saudi-ambassador-biden-warns-iran-of-serious-consequences.html

Clinton calls Iran plot ‘dangerous escalation’

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday denounced an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington as a ‘dangerous escalation’ by Tehran and called for international condemnation.

The plot is “a flagrant violation of international and US law and a dangerous escalation of the Iranian government’s long-standing use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism,” Clinton said.

“Iran must be held accountable for its actions.”

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/clinton-calls-iran-plot-dangerous-escalation.html

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“The messaging and browsing delays … were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” it said. “As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service.”

RIM did not say how long it might take. In India, top mobile carrier Bharti Airtel sent text messages to customers saying BlackBerry services were likely to be restored in four to five hours.

The service disruptions are the worst since an outage swept north America two years ago, and come as Apple prepares to put on sale its already sold-out iPhone 4S on Friday.

Many companies, no longer seeing the need to pay to be locked into RIM’s secure proprietary email service, have already began allowing employees to use alternative smartphones, particularly Apple’s iPhone, for corporate mail.

RIM has made inroads into the youth market and into developing economies attracted by its free BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, partially compensating for its losses in the corporate market in North America and Western Europe.

RBC said the latest crisis could hurt RIM’s reputation in these key markets, particularly after high-profile tussles with states whose governments demanded access to encrypted communications for security reasons.

“Following recent high-profile sovereign challenges to open up RIM’s secure networks… these outages create another highly visible PR challenge, coming in markets where the company is still growing,” its analysts wrote in a note.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/millions-suffer-as-blackberry-disruptions-enter-third-day.html

Millions suffer as BlackBerry disruptions enter third day

NEW YORK, Oct 12: A three-day disruption to BlackBerry services spread to North America on Wednesday, frustrating millions of users of the Research In Motion (RIM) devices just two days before rival Apple’s new iPhone 4S goes on sale.

RIM advised clients of an outage in the Americas and said it was working to restore services as customers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India continued to suffer patchy email and no access to browsing and messaging.

RBC analysts Mike Abramsky and Paul Treiber estimated that about half of BlackBerry’s 70 million subscribers outside North America could be affected.

RIM, which had said on Tuesday services had returned to normal, said later it was still working to resolve the problem.

“The messaging and browsing delays … were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” it said. “As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service.”

RIM did not say how long it might take. In India, top mobile carrier Bharti Airtel sent text messages to customers saying BlackBerry services were likely to be restored in four to five hours.

The service disruptions are the worst since an outage swept north America two years ago, and come as Apple prepares to put on sale its already sold-out iPhone 4S on Friday.

Many companies, no longer seeing the need to pay to be locked into RIM’s secure proprietary email service, have already began allowing employees to use alternative smartphones, particularly Apple’s iPhone, for corporate mail.

RIM has made inroads into the youth market and into developing economies attracted by its free BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, partially compensating for its losses in the corporate market in North America and Western Europe.

RBC said the latest crisis could hurt RIM’s reputation in these key markets, particularly after high-profile tussles with states whose governments demanded access to encrypted communications for security reasons.

“Following recent high-profile sovereign challenges to open up RIM’s secure networks… these outages create another highly visible PR challenge, coming in markets where the company is still growing,” its analysts wrote in a note.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/millions-suffer-as-blackberry-disruptions-enter-third-day.html