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UMERKOT, SINDH: A dozen growers in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh are successfully using modern methods and machines to protect their chilli crops against fungal contamination in a region that is highly vulnerable to climate change and ranked among the top five in the world for chilli cultivation and production. Around 150,000 acres (60,700 hectares) of farms in Pakistan produce 143,000 tons of chilli annually, making the country the fourth largest for chilli production worldwide. Sindh, which produces 126 million tons, contributes around 88 percent of the country’s total chilli production. But floods that wreaked havoc across Pakistan last year, on the back of several years of high temperatures, have left chilli farmers struggling to cope. In a country heavily dependent on agriculture, the more extreme climate conditions are hitting rural economies hard, farmers and experts say, underscoring the vulnerability of swathes of South Asia’s population to changing weather patterns. In recent years, contamination by aflatoxin — a toxic byproduct of a mold that tends to spread in drought-stressed crops during production, harvest, storage or processing — has also hit chilli crops in Sindh. Dr. Muhammad Siddique Depar, the principal scientific officer at the government’s Arid Zone Research Center (AZRC) Umerkot, said chillies traditionally needed to be air-dried outdoors for two weeks but increasingly higher daytime Chili Cleaning Machine With Dryer
temperatures and inconsistent dew were creating favorable conditions for aflatoxin growth during the process of drying. The rest of the damage was done by dust in the outdoors, which collected on the chillies as they dried. “Over the past three years or so, AZRC has installed a foreign-donated red chilli drying machine, a solar tunnel, and a chilli dehydrator drying and washing machine,” Depar said, explaining the modern methods being used by twelve growers to combat aflatoxin contamination. Compared to two weeks in the open air, chillies can dry in four days inside a solar tunnel and within 30 hours with a dryer. Both methods also prevent the chilli crop from being exposed to dust, which is the main reason for a decline in quality, Depar added. “After the area’s [12] growers utilized these facilities for drying fresh chilli crops, achieving better results compared to open-sky drying, we can say it proved to be a successful model,” the researcher said.
But the machines are not adequate to meet the demands of the region’s farmers. Four red chilli dryer units and two chilli washing units were donated by the Korea Program for International Cooperation in Agricultural Technology to AZRC Umerkot. The total capacity of the KOPIA chili drying units is 20 maunds, or approximately 800 kilograms. In addition, one unit each of a solar tunnel and a solar-cum-gas-dryer were installed at AZRC Umerkot under a Pakistan Agricultural Research Council agriculture-linkage program project titled Post-harvest Processing of Chilies for Producing Quality Produce. The project started in 2018 and ended in 2020. Now, Umerkot’s chilli growers want the government to scale up the new methods to save local chillis from contamination. “I availed the AZRC red chilli drying facilities and it saved me time and quality,” farmer Javed Rajar told Arab News.
“However, I am still dependent on traditional methods too as AZRC did not have that capacity to dry all my chilli crops. The issue is that for large scale production these machines are not enough.” He called on the government to act promptly to protect the region’s famous Lungi chilli crop. “Lungi chilli is renowned for its unique taste globally,” the grower said. “However, environmental conditions are either causing a decline in its production or it is being replaced by hybrid varieties. The government needs to act promptly by establishing large-scale chilli drying units to support local farmers and boost Lungi’s exports.” Official figures show Pakistan’s dried red chilli exports have declined in the last few years, mainly due to aflatoxin. As per the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), Pakistan exported 2,751 metric tons of dried red chillies in 2019, which declined to 1,665 metric tons in 2022. But officials are optimistic that with innovation, chillis can be protected from toxins in the future during the drying process. “Using modern techniques helps us to manage the phytosanitary and meet food safety requirements of other [importing] countries by addressing the issues of aflatoxin and pesticide residues,” Dr. Mubarik Ahmed, a consultant for agriculture and food at TDAP, told Arab News. “TDAP is planning to help local chilli farmers in developing more drying units.”
ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar arrived in Dubai on Wednesday where he will attend the World Climate Action Summit being held this week during the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 28.
World leaders, business luminaries and civil society members are descending on Dubai this week for the opening of the United Nations’ annual climate change conference (COP28), which will run from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 and look to address some of the most-pressing issues related to what experts say is a rapidly accelerating climate crisis.
Pakistan, one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change, has set up its own pavilion and will use the conference to remind wealthy countries of their “crucial” responsibility in supporting climate-vulnerable nations and the need for “equity and justice” in global climate policies, the planning ministry in Islamabad said in a handout last week.
Last year’s summit in Egypt came on the heels of record floods in Pakistan that killed over 1,700 people and caused more than $30 million in damages to the economy. This year’s conference comes as Pakistan, while only contributing 0.9 percent to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, remains one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change.
A deal to create a “loss and damage” fund was hailed as a breakthrough for developing country negotiators, headed by Pakistan, at COP27 in Egypt last year, overcoming years of resistance from wealthy nations. But since the summit, governments have struggled to reach consensus on the details of the fund, such as who will pay and where the fund will be located.
“The Prime Minister will head the Pakistani delegation at the 28th Conference of Parties,” Kakar’s office said in a statement after he was received at Dubai’s Al-Maktoum Airport by UAE Minister for Justice Abdullah Sultan bin Awad Al Nuaimi, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UAE and other diplomatic staff.
“The Prime Minister will attend the World Climate Action Summit on December 1 and 2.”
Kakar plans to use the conference to call for the early operationalization of the loss and damage fund and argue for the inclusion of developing countries in the fund, not just least developed states.
A special UN committee tasked with implementing the fund met for a fifth time in Abu Dhabi earlier this month, following a deadlock in Egypt last month, to finalize recommendations that will be put to governments when they meet in Dubai next week. The goal is to get the fund up and running by 2024.
Prior to arriving in Dubai, the prime minister was in Kuwait where he signed ten major investment deals. Earlier this week he also signed multibillion dollar investment and bilateral cooperation agreements with the UAE.
NEW YORK CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that a “far greater” number of children have been killed by Israel in Gaza in a matter of weeks during the current conflict than the total number of children killed “during any year, by any party to a conflict since I became secretary-general.”
The people of Gaza are in the midst of “an epic humanitarian catastrophe before the eyes of the world. We must not look away,” he added.
As he welcomed the ongoing, last-minute negotiations taking place in an attempt to extend the truce in the war, Guterres once again stressed the need for “a true humanitarian ceasefire.”
Speaking during a meeting of the Security Council, he said it is imperative that the people of the region are given “a horizon of hope” in the form of efforts to move in a “determined and irreversible” way toward a two-state solution.
“Failure will condemn Palestinians, Israelis, the region and the world to a never-ending cycle of death and destruction,” he added.
The high-level Security Council meeting, which took place on the annual UN-organized International Day for Solidarity with the Palestinian People, was chaired by Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi. China holds the rotating presidency of the 15-member council this month.
“We should work toward a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire with the greatest urgency and as the utmost priority,” Wang said.
“What happened between Palestine and Israel over the decades shows, time and again, that resorting to military means is definitely not a way out.”
He added that China hopes the pause in military operations over the past few days will not prove simply to be a brief hiatus before a new round of violence, warning that “resumed fighting would only, most likely, turn into a calamity that devours the whole region.”
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, lamented the lack of any international mechanism for ensuring accountability for actions during the war, and the Security Council’s inability to take any steps to prevent Israeli violations of the rules of war and international law.
Prince Faisal called for the ongoing implementation of Security Council Resolution 2712 and for efforts to build on it to achieve “a comprehensive and immediate ceasefire.” The resolution, adopted by the council on Nov. 15, calls “for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip … to enable … full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access.”
Israel’s representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan, accused the foreign ministers “of some Arab countries” of coming to New York to support a “terror organization that aims to annihilate Israel.”
He equated calls for a ceasefire with support for Hamas and its “continued reign of terror” in Gaza. “Don’t you see the contradiction here?” Erdan asked council members. “Calling for both a ceasefire and peace is a paradox.” He added that “more food, water and medical supplies will not bring us closer to a solution.”
Prince Faisal asked the council: “What will help us reach a solution, according to Israel? More bloodshed? More death?”
Urging Israel to heed Arab calls for peace, he added: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia presented an Arab peace plan in 1982. We also had the Arab Peace Initiative in Beirut in 2002. And the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) recognized the State of Israel in 1993.
“Where is the Israeli peace plan? Where is the Israeli recognition of the State of Palestine? We are peace-loving nations and peace has always been our strategic choice, but we also want it to be the choice of Israel as well.”
Prince Faisal said the time has come for the world to recognize an independent Palestinian state, and called for Palestine to be granted full membership of the UN. Currently it has observer state status.
He also called for an international peace conference to take place, under the auspices of the UN, with the aim of developing and implementing a two-state solution.
He told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York: “The danger is that if … this truce expires we will return to the killing at the scale that we have seen, which is unbearable. So we are here to make a clear statement that a truce is not enough. What is needed is a ceasefire.”
The prince added that a glimmer of hope can be found in the fact that public opinion worldwide is beginning to shift as people become increasingly aware of “the unfolding catastrophe” in Gaza, and that violence is not the answer.
Asked whether Arab nations should help ease the current pressure on Palestinians and their suffering by taking them in as refugees, he said they “do not want to leave their land. We won’t encourage them or force them to leave their land and we are not going to work with anyone who has that agenda.
“The Palestinians have a right to their land, and they have a right to live in safety and security and dignity on their land, and that is what we will push for and work toward.”
Riyad Maliki, the Palestinian foreign minister, told the Security Council that anyone who is still not sure about whether they oppose the war in Gaza or the need for it to end should “check their humanity.”
The current truce must become “a permanent ceasefire,” he said, because “the massacres cannot be allowed to resume.”
He added: “Our people are faced with an existential threat. Make no mistake about it. With all the talk about the destruction of Israel, it is Palestine that is facing a plan to destroy it, implemented in broad daylight.”
The US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said her country has urged Israel “to take every possible measure to prevent civilian casualties as it exercises its right to safeguard its people from acts of terror.” The use of civilians as human shields by Hamas “does not lessen Israel’s responsibility,” she added.
ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar on Wednesday arrived in Dubai to attend the United Nations climate conference scheduled to be held between Nov. 30 and Dec. 12, with the participation of around 70,000 people, including global leaders, academics and youth representatives. According to officials in Islamabad, Pakistan will set up its own pavilion and focus on critical issues to help countries across the world build climate resilience together. Mitigating the impact of climate change has become a major priority for the government after the country was hit unprecedented monsoon rains and floods that caused massive infrastructure and agricultural losses last year. Kakar will attend the COP28 conference where he will spearhead Pakistan’s delegation and present its case. Minister for Justice of the United Arab Emirates H.E. Abdullah Sultan bin Awad Al Nuaimi, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UAE and the Pakistani diplomatic staff welcomed the Prime Minister at Dubai’s Al-Maktoum Airport,” said a brief statement issued after the Pakistani PM’s arrival. “The Prime Minister will attend the World Climate Action Summit on December 1 and 2,” it added. Kakar, who is on a week-long visit to the Middle East to sign multibillion-dollar deals, is accompanied by Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani, Finance Minister Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Climate Change Minister Ahmed Irfan Aslam and Energy Minister Muhammad Ali. The Pakistani delegation plans to call for an early operationalization of the loss and damage fund to help countries vulnerable to climate change deal with natural disasters caused by erratic weather conditions. It also intends to argue for the inclusion of developing countries in the fund, diverging from developed nations’ focus only on the least developed states. Prior to arriving in Dubai, the prime minister held some vital meetings with the top Kuwaiti leaders and witnessed the signing of ten major investment deals in the Gulf country.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s central bank on Wednesday announced the Saudi decision to extend the term of a $3 billion deposit for yet another year to help the economy of the South Asian state which has been striving for increased foreign investment.
The Saudi authorities extended the financial support in November 2021 under an agreement signed between the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) to support Pakistan’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves.
The SBP also announced the deposit’s extension last year, saying that Saudi Arabia had agreed to continue its financial assistance to Pakistan.
“The Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has extended the term for the deposit of USD 3 billion maturing on 05 December 2023 for another one year,” the central bank said in a brief statement.
“The extension of the term of the deposit is a continuation of the support provided by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which will help to maintain the foreign currency reserves of Pakistan and contribute to the economic growth of the country,” it added.
The announcement comes at a time when Pakistan’s interim Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar is on a week-long visit to the Gulf region where the country has signed multibillion-dollar deals with the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
Earlier this year, Pakistan managed to secure a short-term loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) amounting to $3 billion in a move that was widely viewed as an attempt to stave off sovereign debt default.
The international lender recently conducted the country’s economic review under the same facility and is likely to release the next tranche of $700 million in December.
The IMF has also raised concerns about Pakistan’s external financing.
The Saudi decision to extend the term of its deposit with the SBP is likely to help Pakistan’s economy in the same context.
“The $3 billion rollover is an important move in securing $25 billion in gross financing needs estimated by Pakistan for FY-24,” former adviser to the finance ministry, Khaqan Najeeb, explained the significance of the development while speaking to Geo News.
KARACHI: Pakistan’s southern Karachi port city witnessed a huge rally on Wednesday, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds in support of the residents of Gaza on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The United Nations General Assembly designated November 29 for this observance by adopting a resolution in 1977. This year’s Palestinian solidarity day comes at a time when more than 15,000 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and ground offensive in Gaza since October 7. As millions around the world protested against Israel’s ongoing war in major cities, civil society groups and organizations in Karachi also initiated the call for Wednesday’s rally, which garnered support from businesspeople, journalists, artists, traders, and political leaders. “We are here to express solidarity with Palestinians and condemn Israel for killing innocent people in Gaza,” Fahim Zaman, former administrator of Karachi and one of the rally’s organizers, told Arab News. He demanded a total cease-fire, compensation for the dead and wounded Palestinians, reconstruction of Gaza and a trial for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the International Criminal Court. Most rally participants carried placards with slogans like “Free Palestine,” “Cease-fire Now,” “Save Gaza,” and “End Palestinian Genocide.”
Drying Machine Chili Veteran journalist and writer Ghazi Salahuddin said there was increased global awareness regarding the Palestine issue. “Everyone knows about Gaza,” he said. “Everyone knows about the issues at stake.” “I think this conflict has brought like-minded people worldwide together in a larger kind of movement,” he continued. Eman Al Hajj, a Palestinian woman at the march, voiced the shared responsibility to support Palestine. “It’s our duty toward our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Gaza to be part of this march and to raise our voices to stop the genocide and the war,” she said. Laila, another participant who did not share her full name, stressed the importance of continuous protest. “We should protest until Palestine is free,” she said. “We must fight for the freedom of all oppressed people around the world.” Notable politicians, including Karachi’s mayor Murtaza Wahab, former Sindh governor Muhammad Zubair, Jamaat-e-Islami leader Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman, Awami National Party’s Shahi Syed and Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Kishwar Zehra, also participated in the rally.