Pakistan’s capital was under strict security lockdown as Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) landed in the city yesterday, ahead of a heads-of-government gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) this week.
Li’s visit is the first by a Chinese premier to Pakistan in 11 years, the Pakistani Prime Minister’s Office said. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif received Li at the airport.
The government has announced a three-day public holiday in Islamabad, with schools and businesses shut and large contingents of police and paramilitary forces deployed.
Photo: AFP / Pakistani Prime Minister’s Office
Pakistani army troops are responsible for the security of the capital’s Red Zone, the location of the parliament and a diplomatic enclave and where most of the meetings are to take place, the Pakistani Ministry of the Interior said.
The threat alert has been high in the South Asian nation ahead of the SCO summit, especially after the killing of two Chinese engineers and shooting to death of 21 miners.
Tensions have mounted after jailed former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan called for a protest today to press for his release and agitate against the coalition government, following violent clashes between his party loyalists and security forces.
Islamabad has sought to curb all movement of Chinese nationals in the city, citing fears they could be targets for violence from separatist militants.
The 23rd meeting of the SCO, which comprises nine full members, including China, India, Iran and Russia, is scheduled for today and tomorrow in Islamabad.
As well as attending the summit, Li is also undertaking a four-day bilateral visit to Pakistan from yesterday to Thursday, accompanied by senior officials, Pakistan’s foreign office said.
Li and Sharif are to lead their respective delegations to discuss economic and trade ties and cooperation under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a US$65 billion investment in the South Asian country under China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Li is also to inaugurate the CPEC-funded Gwadar International Airport in Balochistan Province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
The SCO participants are to be represented by the prime ministers of China, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as the first vice president of Iran and external affairs minister of India, the foreign office said.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who