DAWN Editorial
THE Punjab government’s contentious plans to build new canals to facilitate corporate farming in the province under the Green Pakistan Initiative in complete disregard for Sindh’s objections to the project have intensified the water conflict between the two provinces. The heat generated by the debate on the controversial scheme in the Senate on Tuesday is only a trailer of things to come unless a resolution of the conflict is found, and soon. The plan has already triggered protests across Sindh, bringing opposing political parties, civil society groups and nationalist organisations onto one platform to vehemently oppose it.
As the lowest riparian in the system, Sindh is rightfully worried about the new irrigation schemes due to insufficient water availability in the Indus basin system. On paper, as pointed out by a JUI-F senator during the debate, the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord has nearly 117 MAF water to distribute among the federating units, but in reality the water available in the system for apportionment is always far short of it. No wonder the Indus delta is struggling with the disastrous consequences of shrinking annual average ecological flow below Kotri Barrage, which has decreased to 14 MAF between 1999 and 2022 from 40.69 MAF between 1976 and 1998. Rapid climate change is exacerbating these shortages and their impact on agriculture and ecology of the province. Shortages apart, some of these schemes also face certain legal and technical issues since the water availability for these canals is not sanctioned in the 1991 accord. These issues could be overcome easily if surplus water was available in the system. But this is not the case, with climate change often resulting in lower-than-normal rainfall, causing drought or drought-like conditions across the country. Thus, the argument made by PML-N Senator Irfan Siddiqui in the upper house that the water accord permitted Punjab to build new canals using its permissible allocated share does not have a leg to stand on. The only way for the PML-N government to prevent this issue from getting out of hand is to heed the advice of lawmakers and others and bring the matter to the CCI for discussion and decision. Arbitrary decisions on such issues as the ones related to water sharing by the centre have done enough damage to interprovincial harmony. Continuation of this practice will further harm the federation.
Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2025
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A UK judge is due on Thursday to sentence a teenager who brutally murdered three young girls in a stabbing spree last year that sparked the country’s worst riots in over a decade.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty earlier this week to the killings, as well as to 10 counts of attempted murder and possessing a blade, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, northwest England.
He also admitted production of a biological toxin, ricin, as well as possessing an Al-Qaeda training manual.
Judge Julian Goose is scheduled to sentence the teenager at Liverpool Crown Court from 11:00am (1100 GMT), after his guilty plea Monday halted his impending trial. Goose has warned that he faces a long custodial sentence.
Rudakubana’s multiple appearances in court to date have been marked by his uncooperative behaviour, with the defendant repeatedly refusing to speak and declining to stand in court on Monday, where he muttered “guilty” to each of the charges.
Family members of the victims are expected in court for the sentencing.
The teenager’s rampage last July shocked the UK, triggering anti-immigrant riots in more than a dozen English and Northern Irish towns and cities, amid viral misinformation that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible.
Rudakubana was in fact born in Cardiff to parents of Rwandan origin, and lived in Banks, a village northeast of Southport.
His Christian church-going parents, both ethnic Tutsis, came to Britain in the years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, according to UK media.
The attack has not been treated as a terror incident and he was never charged with terrorism offences — prompting criticism from some.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed Tuesday to update terror legislation “if the law needs to change”, to recognise what he called the new threat of individuals intent on “extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake”.
Meanwhile, interior minister Yvette Cooper announced a public inquiry would probe how police, courts and welfare services “failed to identify the terrible risk and danger to others that he posed”.
Failures
Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were killed in the attack in the seaside resort near Liverpool on July 29, 2024.
Ten others were wounded, including eight children, in one of the country’s worst mass stabbings in decades.
The unrest linked to the killings lasted nearly a week.
Rioters attacked police, shops and hotels housing asylum seekers as well as mosques, with hundreds arrested and charged at the time and over the subsequent months.
Authorities blamed far-right agitators for fuelling the violence, including by sharing misinformation about the attacker.
Following Monday’s guilty plea and the lifting of court reporting restrictions, new information has emerged about Rudakubana.
He had been referred three times to the government’s nationwide anti-extremism scheme, Prevent, over concerns about his obsession with violence.
Prevent aims to “stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism” or help rehabilitate those already involved in terror, according to the interior ministry.
He had also been excluded from school, with reports suggesting that when he was 13 he was bullied and had started carrying a knife.
Social workers reportedly required a police escort when visiting him at the family home because of the perceived threat he posed.
Reports also said authorities had long known of his interest in atrocities and mass murders after he was found doing research on a school computer. Starmer branded the apparent decision that Rudakubana did not meet the threshold for intervention by Prevent as “clearly wrong”.
Meanwhile, Cooper has pledged stronger measures to tackle knife sales online, calling it “a total disgrace” that Rudakubana was able to buy one from Amazon despite being 17 and having a conviction.
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ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani diplomats on Wednesday expressed concern that US engagement with Pakistan would remain limited under President Donald Trump’s second term, citing Washington’s policies toward India and China and strategic divergences that continue to strain relations between the two countries.
Speaking at a roundtable organised by the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), titled Trump 2.0: Implications for Pakistan, prominent former diplomats discussed the shifting dynamics of US-Pakistan relations in the context of growing India-US cooperation and the intensifying US-China rivalry, according to a readout of the discussion provided by the think-tank.
The panel included former foreign minister Jalil Abbas Jilani; Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, who has represented Pakistan in the US, India, and China; Masood Khalid, a former envoy to China; and Dr Qamar Cheema, executive director of the Sanober Institute.
The experts criticised Washington for viewing Islamabad primarily through the lens of its ties with India and China, rather than recognising its independent strategic significance.
Pakistan’s strategic location, makes it a key player in regional and global geopolitics, the readout noted, adding that maintaining goodwill between Washington and Islamabad is essential for future engagement. However, experts feared that a lack of shared strategic priorities continues to impede the development of a substantial, long-term partnership between the erstwhile allies.
The panelists underscored that Pakistan has distinct relationships with both the US and China, each shaped by unique dynamics and priorities. They lamented Washington’s tendency to shape its approach to Pakistan based on its ties with China and India, arguing that this perspective disregards Pakistan’s independent value in the global arena.
The discussion also touched on US support for India as a counterbalance to China in the Indo-Pacific. The diplomats highlighted how New Delhi has strategically leveraged the perceived threat from China to strengthen its position, securing advanced Western military equipment and forging closer ties with Washington.
They pointed to India’s inclusion in the Quad alliance and its participation in foundational agreements such as COMCASA, LEMOA, and BECA, which have bolstered its strategic partnership with the US.
The panel also criticised continued sanctions against Pakistan despite its adherence to stringent nuclear safety and security standards, viewing these measures as discriminatory. They concluded that while the US continues to deepen its strategic alignment with India, meaningful engagement with Pakistan under Trump’s administration is unlikely to progress without a shift in Washington’s regional policies.
Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2025
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GENEVA: Saving the world’s shrinking glaciers is a “survival strategy” for the planet, the UN said on Tuesday, a day after President Donald Trump announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
United Nations agencies launched an appeal to scale up efforts to rescue the world’s 275,000 glaciers, which are rapidly melting away as the planet warms.
The UN’s educational, scientific and cultural agency Unesco, and its World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) weather, climate and water agency, pointed to the essential role these giant ice masses play, providing fresh water to more than two billion people globally.
“The preservation of glaciers is essential for our ecosystems, our economies and our planetary health,” the WMO’s deputy chief Ko Barrett said as the agencies launched the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. “Urgent and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are vital,” she told the gathering in Geneva.
“But unfortunately we are heading in the wrong direction as levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases continue to rise.”
The world’s glaciers currently cover approximately 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 square miles).
Glaciers and ice sheets play a crucial role in regulating the global climate and store approximately 70 percent of the world’s fresh water, which is essential for billions of people, the agencies said.
‘Survival strategy’
“Preserving our glaciers is therefore not just an environmental issue,” Barrett said.
“It is a survival strategy for both people and the planet.”
But from the Alps to the Himalayas, these resources are melting away at an increasing pace under the effect of man-made climate change, sparked essentially by greenhouse gas emissions.
Tuesday’s launch came after Trump announced he was withdrawing the United States — the world’s second-largest emitter after China — from the Paris Agreement.
Critics warn that the move undermines global cooperation on reducing fossil fuel use and could embolden major polluters like China and India to weaken their commitments.
Global average temperatures already hit record highs in 2024, while over the past two years they temporarily surpassed a critical 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold for the first time.
In 2023, glaciers suffered their largest volume loss in five decades, according to WMO.
“Counterfactual industries and regimes around the world would deny” climate change, John Pomeroy, a professor at Canada’s Saskatchewan University, told Tuesday’s event. But they “cannot deny their culpability in the destruction of glaciers that is occurring before our eyes”, he said.
“Glaciers don’t care if we believe in science. They just melt in the heat.” Pomeroy warned that “restoring glaciers will take decades”.
To do so would require “urgent policy changes” and “expanding measurements” to swiftly detect changes and provide early warnings of droughts and floods. Stefan Uhlenbrook, head of the WMO’s hydrology, water and cryosphere unit, described the situation as “really dramatic”. Fifty Unesco World Heritage sites are home to glaciers.
Published in Dawn, January 22th, 2025
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