ISLAMABAD: At a time when Pakistan’s newly-elected government is striving to improve its foreign policy stance with the United States and Muslim countries, former ambassadors and analysts suggest exercising caution, especially in enhancing its relationship with Iran.
“Pakistan needs to review its foreign policy but it should not antagonize the United States by cozying up to Iran at this critical juncture,” Former ambassador Ayaz Wazir told Arab News.
The debate over the country’s foreign policy hit the refresh button following a two-day visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. The meeting, which concluded on Friday, also stoked a fresh controversy after Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi issued a statement supporting Iran on its nuclear deal.
Zarif visited Islamabad just days ahead of a planned visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for high-level talks with Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government.
“Pakistan stands with Iran in this hour of need,” Qureshi said in the backdrop of the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear agreement signed in Vienna, in July 2015, between Tehran and the P5+1.
“With regards to the JCPOA, while supporting Iran’s stance, Mr.Qureshi expressed the hope that the remaining parties to the agreement would uphold their commitments in letter and spirit,” Pakistan’s Foreign Office said.
Wazir, however, said that Pakistan’s improved relationship with Iran is of no use considering the current political climate. “Islamabad cannot increase its trade and economic activities with Tehran due to the United States’ sanctions,” he said. “Also, Iran cannot help Pakistan at any international forum due to its isolation in the international community but other Muslim countries and the US can.”
He added that Pakistan is faced with a looming balance of payment (BoP) crisis and it should look toward friendly Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, to resolve the issue.
Pakistan would require the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank he said, adding that Pompeo has already warned that the US would be closely watching to see whether or not the IMF bails Pakistan out.
Aziz Ahmad Khan, another ex-ambassador, said that Pakistan is not in a position to irk the US at the cost of Iran and should be careful in maintaining its bilateral relationship with the latter.
“The US has withdrawn unilaterally from Iran’s nuclear deal and slapped economic sanctions on it as well. I think this should have been enough for our leadership to keep in mind while promising to stand with Iran,” he told Arab News.
Khan said that Pakistan should improve its bilateral relationship with all neighboring countries including India and Afghanistan for peace in the region. “We should not give an impression to the international community that Pakistan is trying to improve its relationship only with Iran,” he said.
Political analysts and experts of international relations also suggested that the newly-elected government keep international scenarios in mind while reviewing the country’s foreign policy.
“Everybody knows that Donald Trump is fiercely opposed to Iran and his administration will not be pleased if Pakistan tries to stand by Tehran,” Tahir Malik, professor of international relations, told Arab News.
He said that the US is a superpower and has been pushing for Pakistan to cooperate with it to stem the scourge of terrorism from the region, especially Afghanistan. “Our Foreign Office should come up with suggestions to address the US’s concerns instead of further deteriorating the relationship in the name of foreign policy,” he said.
US-Pakistan’s relations remain frosty due to a deep and longstanding trust deficit. But the US has not imposed sanctions on Islamabad and continues to engage with it at a diplomatic level.
Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, an academic and political analyst, said that Pakistan has limited clout in the international community and it is not in a position to defend Iran’s stance on the nuclear deal.
“Pakistan should try to get its house in order first and avoid interfering in matters that could cause its isolation in the international community,” he warned.
Jaspal said that the Pakistani leadership is getting a unique opportunity in the form of Pompeo’s visit next week and should focus on it.
“Pakistan cannot afford confronting the United States for Iran and it should not do this for its own interests,” he said.
ANALYSIS: Can Pakistan afford confronting US for Iran?
ANALYSIS: Can Pakistan afford confronting US for Iran?
- Pakistan’s improved relationship with Iran inconsequential due to US sanctions – former envoys
- Political analysts say US will not be pleased if Pakistan tries to side with Iran now
Desertions spark panic, and pardons, in Ukraine’s army
- Manpower problems present a critical hurdle for Ukraine, which is losing territory to Russia at the fastest rate since the early days of the February 2022 invasion
It was the final straw for Oleksandr, 45, who had been holding the line in the embattled Lugansk region in the early months of the war. Even his commanding officer was reluctant to send his men back toward what looked like certain death.
So when Oleksandr saw an opening to save his life, he did.
“We wanted to live. We had no combat experience. We were just ordinary working people from villages,” the soft-spoken serviceman, who declined to give his last name, said.
His decision is just one of many cases plaguing the Ukrainian military, which has already suffered at least 43,000 losses in nearly three years of fighting, President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed this month.
The government is also struggling to recruit new troops.
Together, these manpower problems present a critical hurdle for Ukraine, which is losing territory to Russia at the fastest rate since the early days of the February 2022 invasion.
The issue was put under the spotlight in September when 24-year-old serviceman Sergiy Gnezdilov announced in a scathing social media post that he was leaving his unit in protest over indefinite service.
“From today, I am going AWOL with five years of impeccable soldiering behind me, until clear terms of service are established or until my 25th birthday,” he wrote.
The state investigation service described his statement as “immoral” and said it played into Russia’s hands. He was detained and faces up to 12 years in prison.
Figures published by the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office show that more than 90,000 cases have been opened into instances of soldiers going absent without leave or deserting since Russia invaded in 2022, with a sharp increase over the past year.
Oleksandr said that after leaving the frontline, he remembered little from the year he spent at home in the Lviv region owing to concussions he suffered while deployed.
He recounted “mostly drinking” to process the horrors he witnessed but his guilt was mounting at the same time.
He ultimately decided to return after seeing young Ukrainians enlist or wounded troops return to battle — despite pleas from his family.
His brother was beaten during the historic Maidan protests in 2013 that toppled Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin leader, and later died.
His sister was desperate. “They’re going to kill you. I would rather bring you food to prison than flowers to your grave,” he recounted his sister telling him during a visit from Poland.
It was guilt, too, that motivated Buch, who identified himself by a military nickname, to return to battle.
The 29-year-old deserted after being wounded in fierce fighting in southern Ukraine in late 2022 during the liberation of Kherson city.
“Just staying under constant shelling gradually damages your mental state. You go crazy step by step. You are all the time under stress, huge stress,” he said of his initial decision to abscond.
In an effort to address manpower shortages, Ukrainian lawmakers in August approved an amnesty for first-time offenders who voluntarily returned to their units.
Both the 47th and 53rd brigades in December announced they would welcome back servicemen who had left the front without permission, saying: “We all make mistakes.”
Prosecutors said in early December that 8,000 servicemen that went absent without leave or deserted had returned in November alone.
Still, Siver, commander of the 1st Separate Assault Battalion, known as Da Vinci, who also identified himself by his military nickname, said the number of Ukrainian troops fleeing the fighting without permission was growing.
That is partly because many of the most motivated fighters have already been killed or wounded.
“Not many people are made for war,” said Siver, describing how his perceptions of bravery had been reshaped by seeing those who stood their ground, and those who fled.
“There are more and more people who are forced to go,” he said, referring to a large-scale and divisive army mobilization campaign.
But other servicemen interviewed by AFP suggested that systemic changes in military culture — and leadership — could help deter desertions.
Buch said his military and medical training as well as the attitudes of his superiors had improved compared to his first deployment, when some officers “didn’t treat us like people.”
Siver suggested that better psychological support could help troops prepare for the hardships and stress of battle.
“Some people think it’s going to be like in a movie. Everything will be great, I’ll shoot, I’ll run,” he said.
“But it’s different. You sit in a trench for weeks. Some of them are knee-deep in mud, cold and hungry.”
He said there was no easy solution to discouraging desertion, and predicted the trend would worsen.
“How do you reduce the numbers? I don’t even know how. We just have to end the war,” he said.
South Korea’s parliament impeaches acting president Han Duck-soo
- The motion led by opposition parties passed with 192 of the 300 votes amid rowdy scenes by ruling People Power Party members
SEOUL: South Korea’s parliament impeached acting President Han Duck-soo on Friday over a short-lived martial law, plunging the country deeper into political chaos, as the Constitutional Court said it would swiftly trial suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The impeachment of Han, who has been acting president since Yoon was impeached on Dec. 14 for declaring martial law on Dec. 3, has thrown South Korea’s once-vibrant democratic success story into uncharted territory.
The motion led by opposition parties passed with 192 of the 300 votes amid rowdy scenes by ruling People Power Party members who surrounded the speaker’s podium chanting the vote was invalid and parliament had committed “tyranny.”
Ahead of the parliamentary session, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung said his Democratic Party, which has majority control of parliament, will go ahead with the plan to impeach the acting president, accusing Han of “acting for insurrection.”
“The only way to normalize the country is to swiftly root out all the insurrection forces,” Lee said in a fiery speech, adding the party was acting on the public order to eradicate those who have put the country at risk.
There has been overwhelming public support for Yoon’s removal, according to opinion polls conducted after his martial law attempt.
The plan for a vote to impeach Han was unveiled on Thursday by the main opposition Democratic Party after he declined to immediately appoint three justices to fill vacancies at the Constitutional Court, saying it would exceed his acting role.
Until just before voting began, it was unclear how many votes were needed to impeach Han as acting leader. The threshold for a prime minister is a simple majority, while a two-thirds majority is needed for a president.
Speaker Woo Won-shik declared a simple majority would constitute parliamentary approval.
Han said in a statement after the vote that he would step aside to avoid more chaos and will await a Constitutional Court ruling on his impeachment.
By law Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok will assume the acting presidency.
Choi earlier pleaded with parliament to withdraw the plan to impeach Han, saying it would do serious damage to the country’s economy.
The South Korean won retreated to 1,475.4 per dollar, down 0.53 percent at 0707 GMT ahead of the parliamentary vote.
The vote to determine Han’s fate comes on the same day the Constitutional Court held its first hearing in a case reviewing whether to overturn the impeachment and reinstate Yoon or remove him permanently from office. It has 180 days to reach a decision.
North Korean soldier captured in Ukraine died from injuries – South Korea’s spy agency
- The soldier was captured by the Ukrainian army
- Location where he was seized was unknown
SEOUL: South Korea’s spy agency said Friday it had confirmed that a North Korean soldier sent to back Russia’s war against Ukraine had been captured by Ukrainian forces.
Pyongyang has deployed thousands of troops to reinforce Russian troops, including in the Kursk border region where Ukraine mounted a shock border incursion in August.
“Through real-time information sharing with an allied country’s intelligence agency, it has been confirmed that one injured North Korean soldier has been captured,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said in a statement.
The soldier was captured by the Ukrainian army, an intelligence source told AFP, adding that the location where he was seized was unknown.
The first confirmation of the capture of a North Korean soldier came days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or wounded” so far.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) also said Monday that more than 1,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded.
The JCS had also said that Pyongyang is reportedly “preparing for the rotation or additional deployment of soldiers” and supplying “240mm rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled artillery” to the Russian army.
Seoul’s military believes that North Korea was seeking to modernize its conventional warfare capabilities through combat experience gained in the Russia-Ukraine war.
North Korean state media said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a New Year’s message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying “the bilateral ties between our two countries have been elevated after our talks in June in Pyongyang.”
A landmark defense pact went into effect in December after the two sides exchanged ratification documents.
Putin hailed the deal in June as a “breakthrough document.”
‘Dangerous new era’: climate change spurs disaster in 2024
- This year was hottest in history, with record-breaking temperatures in atmosphere, oceans acting like fuel for extreme weather
- World Weather Attribution said nearly every disaster they analyzed over the past 12 months was intensified by climate change
PARIS: From tiny and impoverished Mayotte to oil-rich behemoth Saudi Arabia, prosperous European cities to overcrowded slums in Africa, nowhere was spared the devastating impact of supercharged climate disasters in 2024.
This year is the hottest in history, with record-breaking temperatures in the atmosphere and oceans acting like fuel for extreme weather around the world.
World Weather Attribution, experts on how global warming influences extreme events, said nearly every disaster they analyzed over the past 12 months was intensified by climate change.
“The impacts of fossil fuel warming have never been clearer or more devastating than in 2024. We are living in a dangerous new era,” said climate scientist Friederike Otto, who leads the WWA network.
That was tragically evident in June when more than 1,300 people died during the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia where temperatures hit 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit).
Extreme heat — sometimes dubbed the ‘silent killer’ — also proved deadly in Thailand, India, and United States.
Conditions were so intense in Mexico that howler monkeys dropped dead from the trees, while Pakistan kept millions of children at home as the mercury inched above 50C.
Greece recorded its earliest ever heatwave, forcing the closure of its famed Acropolis and fanning terrible wildfires, at the outset of Europe’s hottest summer yet.
Climate change isn’t just sizzling temperatures — warmer oceans mean higher evaporation, and warmer air absorbs more moisture, a volatile recipe for heavy rainfall.
In April, the United Arab Emirates received two years worth of rain in a single day, turning parts of the desert-state into a sea, and hobbling Dubai’s international airport.
Kenya was barely out of a once-in-a-generation drought when the worst floods in decades delivered back-to-back disasters for the East African nation.
Four million people needed aid after historic flooding killed more than 1,500 people across West and Central Africa. Europe — most notably Spain — also suffered tremendous downpours that caused deadly flash flooding.
Afghanistan, Russia, Brazil, China, Nepal, Uganda, India, Somalia, Pakistan, Burundi and the United States were among other countries that witnessed flooding in 2024.
Warmer ocean surfaces feed energy into tropical cyclones as they barrel toward land, whipping up fierce winds and their destructive potential.
Major hurricanes pummelled the United States and Caribbean, most notably Milton, Beryl and Helene, in a 2024 season of above-average storm activity.
The Philippines endured six major storms in November alone, just two months after suffering Typhoon Yagi as it tore through Southeast Asia.
In December, scientists said global warming had helped intensify Cyclone Chino to a Category 4 storm as it collided head-on with Mayotte, devastating France’s poorest overseas territory.
Some regions may be wetter as climate change shifts rainfall patterns, but others are becoming drier and more vulnerable to drought.
The Americas suffered severe drought in 2024 and wildfires torched millions of hectares in the western United States, Canada, and the Amazon basin — usually one of Earth’s wettest places.
Between January and September, more than 400,000 fires were recorded across South America, shrouding the continent in choking smoke.
The World Food Programme in December said 26 million people across southern Africa were at risk of hunger as a months-long drought parched the impoverished region.
Extreme weather cost thousands of lives in 2024 and left countless more in desperate poverty. The lasting toll of such disasters is impossible to quantify.
In terms of economic losses, Zurich-based reinsurance giant Swiss Re estimated the global damage bill at $310 billion, a statement issued early December.
Flooding in Europe — particularly in the Spanish province of Valencia, where over 200 people died in October — and hurricanes Helene and Milton drove up the cost, the company said.
As of November 1, the United States had suffered 24 weather disasters in 2024 with losses exceeding $1 billion each, government figures showed.
Drought in Brazil cost its farming sector $2.7 billion between June and August, while “climatic challenges” drove global wine production to its lowest level since 1961, an industry body said.
Court hearing set for man accused of fatally burning woman on New York City subway
- Sebastian Zapeta, a Guatemalan citizen who entered the US illegally, has been jailed at the city’s Rikers Island complex
- Authorities say Zapeta approached the woman and set her clothing on fire with a lighter, then sat on a bench and watched as she burned
NEW YORK: A court hearing is scheduled Friday for the man accused of setting a woman on fire on a New York City subway train and fanning the flames with a shirt as she burned to death.
Sebastian Zapeta has been charged with two counts of murder and one count of arson for the apparently random attack, which occurred early Sunday morning on a train stopped in Brooklyn.
The 33-year-old man made his first court appearance earlier in the week. He was not required to enter a plea, and his attorney has not responded to requests for comment.
The victim has not yet been publicly identified by police.
Zapeta, who federal immigration officials said is a Guatemalan citizen who entered the US illegally, has been jailed at the city’s Rikers Island complex.
Authorities say Zapeta approached the woman, who might have been sleeping on the train at the Coney Island station stop, and set her clothing on fire with a lighter. He waved a shirt at her to fan the fire, causing her to become engulfed in flames, prosecutor Ari Rottenberg said during the court appearance Tuesday.
Zapeta then sat on a bench on the platform and watched as she burned, prosecutors allege. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police took Zapeta into custody while he was riding a train on the same line later that day.
Zapeta told investigators that he drinks a lot of liquor and did not know what had happened, according to Rottenberg. However, Zapeta did identify himself in photos and surveillance video showing the fire being lit, the prosecutor said.
A Brooklyn address for Zapeta released by police after his arrest matches a shelter that provides housing and substance abuse support.
Federal immigration officials said he was deported in 2018 but returned to the US illegally sometime after that.
