Asia
Japan launches intel satellite to watch N. Korea, disasters
Japan successfully launched a rocket Thursday carrying a government intelligence-gathering satellite on a mission to watch movements at military sites in North Korea and improve natural disaster response.
The H2A rocket, launched by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., successfully lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan, carrying the IGS-Radar 7 reconnaissance satellite as part of Tokyo’s effort to build up its military capability, citing growing threats in the East Asia.
The satellite later successfully entered its planned orbit, Mitsubishi Heavy said.
The Intelligence Gathering Satellite can capture images on the ground 24 hours a day and even in severe weather conditions. Japan launched the IGS program after a North Korean missile flyover of Japan in 1988 and aims to set up a network of 10 satellites to spot and provide early warning for possible missile launches. The satellites can be also used for disaster monitoring and response.
“The government will maximize the use of IGS-Radar 7 and other reconnaissance satellites to do the utmost for Japan's national security and crisis management,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a statement Thursday as he praised the successful launch.
Read more: Ship sinks between S. Korea and Japan; 11 found unconscious
Kishida’s government in December adopted a new national security strategy, including possessing long-range cruise missiles as a “counterstrike” capability that breaks from the country’s exclusively self-defense-only postwar principle, citing rapid weapons advancement in China and North Korea.
Possible counterstrikes that aim to preempt enemy attacks would require significant advancement in intelligence gathering and cybersecurity capability, as well as significant assistance from Japan's ally, the United States, experts say.
The Mitsubishi Heavy-operated, liquid-fuel H2A rocket has recorded 40 consecutive successes since a failure in 2003.
Mitsubishi Heavy and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are co-developing their new flagship H3 rocket as the successor to the H2A, which is set to retire in 2024. The first launch of H3 is set for February.
Cash-strapped Pakistan's rupee plunges amid talks with IMF
Cash-strapped Pakistan’s currency plunged Thursday against the dollar after the government indicated it was ready to comply with tough conditions set by the International Monetary Fund for the next tranche of its bailout package.
Pakistan is seeking a crucial installment of $1.1 billion from the fund — part of its $6 billion bailout package — to avoid default. Talks with the IMF on reviving the bailout stalled in the past months.
The rupee closed at 230 to the dollar on Wednesday. It slipped further, trading at 255 for $1 within hours of the market reopening Thursday. The government did not immediately comment on the developments.
Analyst Ahsan Rasool says the rupee’s decline is a sign that Pakistan was close to securing the much-needed loan from the IMF.
The rupee's slide comes days after Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif said his government was ready to adhere to the “tough conditions of the IMF" to revive the $6 billion bailout package, which has been on hold for the past several months.
Read more: Pakistan orders malls to close early amid economic crisis
Pakistan is currently grappling with one of the country’s worst economic crisis amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves. That has raised fears that Pakistan could default, although Sharif insists it pulled the country from the brink of the default when it took over last year.
Sharif has blamed Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government for the economic malaise. Khan was ousted in a no-confidence in Parliament in April, and has since been campaigning for early elections.
India marks national day with Egyptian president as guest
Tens of thousands of people endured a winter chill and mist on Thursday as they gathered to watch a parade in the Indian capital showcasing the country's defense capability and cultural heritage on a newly revamped ceremonial boulevard.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi looked on as an official guest at India’s Republic Day event, which marked the anniversary of the adoption of the country’s constitution on Jan. 26, 1950, nearly three years after it won independence from British colonial rule.
A 144-member band and marching contingent from the Egyptian Armed Forces also joined battalions of the Indian military and police in the parade.
El-Sissi, in a blue suit and matching tie, was flanked by Indian President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wore a saffron-and-yellow–colored turban symbolizing Hindu nationalist colors.
Scores of women, men, schoolchildren and folk dancers in colorful dresses performed cultural and fusion dances down the boulevard amid big cheers from the crowd.
Howitzer guns, tanks, supersonic cruise missiles, anti-tank missiles and armored personnel carriers were displayed at the parade, with hundreds of men from police and military battalions marching along. Stunt performers on motorbikes also joined from the presidential palace.
Other participants included a camel-mounted regiment with its mustachioed riders led by a shiny brass band with tubas.
Read more: 76th Independence Day of India celebrated in Dhaka
The 90-minute parade ended with a flypast featuring 75 air force fighters, including Rafale jets, transport planes and helicopters.
Rajpath Avenue, built by India's former British rulers, was redeveloped as part of India’s 75th-anniversary celebrations of independence the past two years. It is lined on both sides by huge lawns, canals and rows of trees, and has been renamed "Kartavayapath” (Boulevard of Duty).
Workers who helped refurbish the boulevard, their families and maintenance workers were seated in front of the main dais during the parade as part of this year's theme: “Participation of the Common People."
India traditionally invites foreign leaders to witness the parade. Former French President Francois Hollande was the guest of honor in 2016 and former U.S. President Barack Obama viewed it in 2015. Ten Southeast Asian leaders watched the parade in 2018.
Top UN woman urges Muslims: Move Taliban into 21st century
The highest-ranking woman at the United Nations said Wednesday she used everything in her “toolbox” during meetings with Taliban ministers to try to reverse their crackdown on Afghan women and girls, and she urged Muslim countries to help the Taliban move from the “13th century to the 21st.”
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, a former Nigerian Cabinet minister and a Muslim, said at a news conference that four Taliban ministers, including the foreign minister and a deputy prime minister, spoke “off one script” during meetings with her delegation last week.
She said the officials sought to stress things that they say they have done and not gotten recognition for — and what they called their effort to create an environment that protects women.
“Their definition of protection would be, I would say, ours of oppression,” Mohammed said.
Those meetings in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and the Islamic group’s birthplace in Kandahar were followed by a visit this week by U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths and heads of major aid groups. They are pressing the Taliban to reverse their edict last month banning Afghan women from working for national and international non-governmental groups.
Speaking from Kabul on Wednesday, Griffiths said the focus of the visit was to get the Taliban to understand that getting aid operations up and running and allowing women to work in them was critical. The delegation’s message was simple — that the ban makes the groups' work more difficult, he said.
“What I heard from all those I met (was) that they understood the need as well as the right for Afghan women to work, and that they will be working on a set of guidelines which we will see issued in due course, which will respond to those requirements,” Griffiths said.
Mohammed said her delegation, including the head of UN Women, which promotes gender equality and women’s rights, pushed back against the Taliban, including when they started talking about humanitarian principles.
“We reminded them that in humanitarian principles, non-discrimination was a key part … and that they were wiping out women from the workplace,” she said.
As a Sunni Muslim, like the Taliban officials, Mohammed said she told the ministers that when it comes to preventing girls’ education beyond sixth grade and taking away women’s rights, they are not following Islam and are harming people.
In one setting, Mohammed said, she was told by a Taliban official she didn't name that “it was haram (forbidden by Islamic law) for me to be there talking to them.” These conservatives won’t look straight at a woman, she noted, so she said she played “that game” and didn’t look directly at them either.
“I gave as much as I think they gave, and we did push,” she said.
Mohammed said the Taliban have said that in due course the rights taken away from women and girls will come back so the U.N. delegation pressed for a timeline. “What they would say was ‘soon,’” she said.
The Taliban took power for a second time in August 2021, during the final weeks of the U.S. and NATO forces’ pullout from Afghanistan after 20 years of war.
Mohammed said the Taliban, who have not been recognized by a single country, want international recognition and Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations, which is currently held by the former government led by Ashraf Ghani.
“Recognition is one leverage that we have and we should hold onto,” Mohammed said.
Before arriving in Kabul, Mohammed’s delegation traveled to Muslim majority countries, including Indonesia, Turkey, Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, where she said there was wide support against the Taliban bans.
She said there is a proposal for the U.N. and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation to host an international conference in mid-March on women in the Muslim world.
“It’s very important that the Muslim countries come together,” she said. “We have to take the fight to the region … and we need to be bold about it and courageous about it because women’s rights matter.”
Griffiths, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, and his delegation, including the heads of Care International and Save the Children U.S., did not travel to Kandahar, where the ban on Afghan women working for NGOs was issued on the orders of the reclusive Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzdaza.
Griffiths acknowledged Akhundzada’s top status but said there are many important voices among Taliban officials across the country.
“I don’t think it’s a simple matter of simply asking one man to take responsibility and to change an edict,” he said. “There is a collective responsibility for this edict, and I hope we’re building up a collective will to compensate for its ban.”
Save the Children’s Janti Soeripto said that there were meetings with eight ministries in two days and that some among the Taliban seemed to understand the need to reverse the ban.
“There’s resistance, they don’t want to be seen doing a U-turn,” she said. “If people don’t see the consequences as viscerally as we see them, people will feel less inclined.”
Mohammed said it is important for the U.N. and its partners to work more in some 20 Afghan provinces that are more forward leaning.
“A lot of what we have to deal with is how we travel the Taliban from the 13th century to the 21st," she said. “That's a journey. So it's not just overnight."
She said the Taliban told her delegation that it is putting forward a law against gender-based violence, which she called “a big plus” because rape and other attacks are increasing in Afghanistan.
“I want to hold the Taliban to champion implementing that law,” she said.
Mohammed said it is important to maximize whatever leverage there is to bring the Taliban back to the principles underpinning participation in the “international family.”
“No one objects to a Muslim country or Sharia (law),” she said. “But all of this cannot be re-engineered to extremism and taking views that harm women and girls. This is absolutely unacceptable, and we should hold the line.”
Sri Lanka says debt-restructuring talks making progress
Debt-stricken Sri Lanka’s Central Bank chief said Wednesday that the country is making good progress in talks with its creditors to obtain financial assurances for debt restructuring, an important step toward finalizing an International Monetary Fund rescue plan.
Sri Lanka is bankrupt and has suspended repayment of its $51 billion foreign debt, of which $28 billion must be repaid by 2027.
It has reached a preliminary agreement with the IMF for a $2.9 billion rescue package over four years. Its completion hinges on assurances on debt restructuring from creditors that include China, India and the Paris Club, a grouping of major creditor nations.
India announced last week that it has given its assurance to the IMF to facilitate the bailout plan. India has extended $4.4 billion in official credit to Sri Lanka, excluding other forms of lending.
Read more: Bangladesh not turning into Sri Lanka : FM
“Other bilateral creditors, Paris Club, China and small bilateral creditors are in the process of issuing financial assurances,” Sri Lankan Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe said.
The “process is making very good progress,” Weerasinghe told reporters at his office, saying the country hopes to receive “the necessary financial assurances from all our creditors in a very short period.”
Sri Lanka borrowed heavily from China over the past decade for infrastructure projects that include a seaport, airport and a city being built on reclaimed land. The projects failed to earn enough revenue to pay for the loans, a factor in Sri Lanka’s economic woes.
China accounts for about 10% of Sri Lanka’s loans after Japan and the Asian Development Bank. However, its assent for restructuring its loans is crucial.
Sri Lanka's economic crisis and resultant shortages of food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas sparked riots last year, forcing the president to flee the country and later resign.
Read more: Sri Lanka's government cuts expenses as economy tanks
Sri Lanka has since shown some signs of progress, with shortages reduced and day-to-day functions restored. However, daily power cuts continue due to fuel shortages and the government is struggling to find money to pay government employees’ salaries and conduct other administrative functions.
It announced this month that it is cutting 6% from the budgets of each ministry this year and plans to downsize the military, which had swelled to more than 200,000 personnel due to a long civil war. The government plans to reduce the military’s size by nearly half by 2030.
BBC film on India's PM Modi, 2002 riots draws government ire
Days after India blocked a BBC documentary that examines Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role during 2002 anti-Muslim riots and banned people from sharing it online, authorities on Wednesday were scrambling to halt screenings of the film in colleges and universities and restricting its clips on social media, a move that has been decried by critics as an assault on press freedom.
Jawaharlal Nehru University in the capital, New Delhi, cut off power and the internet on campus on Tuesday before the documentary was scheduled to be screened by a students’ union, saying it would disturb the peace on campus. The students nonetheless watched the documentary on their laptops and mobile phones after sharing it on messaging services like Telegram and WhatsApp.
The documentary has caused a storm at other Indian universities too.
Authorities at the University of Hyderabad, in India’s south, have begun a probe after a student group showed the banned documentary earlier this week. In the southern state of Kerala, workers from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party held demonstrations on Tuesday after some student groups affiliated with rival political parties defied the ban and screened the film.
The two-part documentary “India: The Modi Question” has not been broadcast in India by the BBC, but India’s federal government blocked it over the weekend and banned people from sharing clips on social media, citing emergency powers under its information technology laws. Twitter and YouTube complied with the request and removed many links to the documentary.
The first part of the documentary, released last week by the BBC for its U.K. audiences, revives the most controversial episode of Modi’s political career when he was the chief minister of western Gujarat state in 2002. It focuses on bloody anti-Muslim riots in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
The riots have long hounded Modi because of allegations that authorities under his watch allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed. Modi has denied the accusations, and the Supreme Court has said it found no evidence to prosecute him. Last year, the country's top court dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim victim questioning Modi's exoneration.
The first part of the BBC documentary relies on interviews with victims of the riots, journalists and rights activists, who say Modi looked the other way during the riots. It cites, for the first time, a secret British diplomatic investigation that concluded Modi was “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity.”
The documentary includes the testimony of then-British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who says the British investigation found that the violence by Hindu nationalists aimed to “purge Muslims from Hindu areas” and that it had all the “hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing.”
Suspicions that Modi quietly supported the riots led the U.S., U.K. and E.U. to deny him a visa, a move that has since been reversed.
India’s Foreign Ministry last week called the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative” that lacks objectivity and slammed it for “bias” and “a continuing colonial mindset.” Kanchan Gupta, a senior adviser in the government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, denounced it as “anti-India garbage.”
The BBC in a statement said the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a wide range of voices and opinions.
“We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond,” the statement said.
The second part of the documentary, released Tuesday in the U.K., “examines the track record of Narendra Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019,” according to the film’s description on the BBC website.
In recent years, India’s Muslim minority has been at the receiving end of violence from Hindu nationalists, emboldened by a prime minister who has mostly stayed mum on such attacks since he was first elected in 2014.
The ban has set off a wave of criticism from opposition parties and rights groups that slammed it as an attack against press freedom. It also drew more attention to the documentary, sparking scores of social media users to share clips on WhatsApp, Telegram and Twitter.
“You can ban, you can suppress the press, you can control the institutions … but the truth is the truth. It has a nasty habit of coming out,” Rahul Gandhi, a leader in the opposition Congress party, told reporters at a press conference Tuesday.
Mahua Moitra, a lawmaker from the Trinamool Congress political party, on Tuesday tweeted a new link after a previous one was taken down. “Good, bad, or ugly — we decide. Govt doesn’t tell us what to watch,” Moitra said in her tweet, which was still up Wednesday morning.
Human Rights Watch said the ban reflected a broader crackdown on minorities under the Modi government, which the rights group said has frequently invoked draconian laws to muzzle criticism.
Critics say press freedom in India has declined in recent years and the country fell eight places, to 150 out of 180 countries, in last year’s Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. It accuses Modi’s government of silencing criticism on social media, particularly on Twitter, a charge senior leaders of the governing party have denied.
Modi’s government has regularly pressured Twitter to restrict or ban content it deems critical of the prime minister or his party. Last year, it threatened to arrest Twitter staff in the country over their refusal to ban accounts run by critics after implementing sweeping new regulations for technology and social media companies.
The ban on the BBC documentary comes after a proposal from the government to give its Press Information Bureau and other “fact-checking” agencies powers to take down news deemed “fake or false” from digital platforms.
The Editors Guild of India urged the government to withdraw the proposal, saying such a change would be akin to censorship.
Philippine plane crash kills 2, another carrying 6 missing
A Philippine air force plane crashed Wednesday on a farm northwest of Manila, killing the two people on board, while a search was continuing for a private aircraft carrying six people that went missing the previous day in the mountainous north.
The SF-260 plane was on a training flight from Sangley airport in Cavite province south of Manila when it plummeted into a rice field in Bataan province, air force spokesperson Col. Maria Consuelo Castillo said.
Police investigator Edgardo Delos Santos told The Associated Press by telephone from the crash site that the bodies of the two men were pulled from the wreckage and that witnesses saw the plane rapidly descending apparently out of control before crashing in the rice field.
Read more: Nepal begins national mourning after 68 killed in deadly plane crash
The air force grounded other SF-260s, which are used for training and in counter-insurgency operations, Castillo said. An investigation would be done to determine the cause of the crash, the air force said.
The Philippine military, one of the most underfunded in Asia, has struggled for years to modernize its air force and navy in particular despite funding problems while battling decades-old Muslim and communist insurgencies and defending Philippine territorial waters and claims in the disputed South China Sea.
Separately, a single-engine Cessna plane carrying six people lost contact with airport tower personnel about four minutes after takeoff on what was to be a 30-minute flight Tuesday in northern Isabela province, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said.
Read more: Passenger's video captures last moments before Nepal crash
A full-scale search and rescue was continuing Wednesday, the civil aviation agency said. It didn't identify those who were on the plane.
The Philippine air force said its helicopters could not take off to join the search in Isabela because of bad weather.
Ship sinks between S. Korea and Japan; 11 found unconscious
Ships searching in wind-whipped waters between South Korea and Japan have picked up at least 12 of the 22 crew members from a cargo ship that sank early Wednesday. Officials said only one of them remained conscious, but they did not immediately confirm any deaths.
South Korean and Japanese coast guard vessels and aircraft as well as two commercial cargo ships were continuing to search for the 10 missing crew members but the efforts were being slowed by strong winds and waves, South Korean officials said.
The 6,551-ton Jin Tian sank about three and a half hours after it sent a distress call at around 11:15 p.m. Tuesday in Japan's exclusive economic zone, Japanese coast guard spokesperson Shinya Kitahara said.
The vessel, which was Hong Kong registered and carrying lumber, sank about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Nagasaki, Japan, and about 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of South Korea’s Jeju island.
Read more: Vessel with 11 lakh litre fuel sinks in Meghna river
The captain last communicated with the coast guard through a satellite phone around 2:41 a.m., saying crew members would abandon the ship, minutes before it sank, Jeju island coast guard officials said.
Six crew members were picked up by South Korean coast guard vessels, while a cargo ship picked up five and a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force vessel picked up one, according to Jeju’s coast guard.
According to South Korean and Japanese officials, 14 crew members are Chinese and eight are from Myanmar.
South Korean officials didn’t immediately confirm where the rescued crew members would be taken for treatment or whether the 11 who were unconscious were likely to survive their injuries if they weren’t already dead.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno confirmed the rescue of at least five crew members, who he said were all Chinese nationals, but didn’t provide details about their health conditions.
Kitahara said the cause of the ship’s sinking was not immediately known and there were no signs that it collided with another vessel. He said the arrivals of Japanese patrol boats and aircraft were delayed by rough weather following the sinking.
Read more: Lighter vessel sinks in Bay: 12 missing crew members rescued
Officials at Jeju’s coast guard say a strong wind warning was issued for the area earlier on Wednesday but was later lifted. Winds were blowing at around 16 meters (yards) per second in the area as of 7 a.m., creating waves that were 3 to 4 meters (yards) high. The area’s water temperature was then around 18.5 degrees Celsius, the South Korean officials said.
Pakistan's premier apologizes to nation for power outage
Pakistan’s prime minister on Tuesday apologized to the nation for a major, daylong power outage that disrupted normal life across the country and drew criticism from millions who were left without electricity amid the harsh winter weather.
Monday's blackout engulfed schools, factories and shops, and many among Pakistan's 220 million people were without drinking water as pumps powered by electricity also failed to work. In key businesses and institutions, including main hospitals, military and government facilities, backup generators kicked in.
Power was mostly restored, though some parts of the country still experienced blackouts on Tuesday.
“On behalf of my government, I would like to express my sincere regrets for the inconvenience our citizens suffered due to power outage yesterday," tweeted Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
“On my orders an inquiry is underway to determine reasons of the power failure," he said adding that the probe will uncover who was responsible.
Read more: Lights out in Pakistan as energy-saving move backfires
At a press conference earlier Tuesday, Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir defended the government’s handling of the collapse of the grid and lauded engineers and technicians for their efforts to boot up the system. He made no reference to the fact that an energy-saving measure by the government had backfired.
Authorities had turned off electricity during low-usage hours on Sunday night to conserve fuel, according to an energy-saving plan. Efforts to turn power back on early on Monday morning led to the system-wide meltdown.
“Today, at 5:15 in the morning, power was fully restored,” Dastgir said Tuesday. He blamed the outage on a technical glitch but also floated a “remote chance" that it was caused by hackers targeting the country's grid systems.
The minister also expressed faith in Sharif's three-member committee, which is expected to complete a preliminary investigation within days. “We will fully cooperate" with it, he said.
Read more: Pakistan orders malls to close early amid economic crisis
He cautioned that some regions may still face “routine power outages" this week as Pakistan's two nuclear power plants and coal plants have yet to come fully online.
The outage was reminiscent of a massive blackout in January 2021, attributed at the time to a technical fault in Pakistan’s power generation and distribution system. Pakistan gets at least 60% of its electricity from fossil fuels, while nearly 27% of the electricity is generated by hydropower. The contribution of nuclear and solar power to the nation’s grid is about 10%.
Fawad Chaudhry, a senior leader at the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party on Monday criticized the government for mismanaging the country's economy and said the outage was a reflection of the government's incompetence.
Grappling with one of its worst economic crisis in recent years amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves, Pakistan is currently in talks with the International Monetary Fund to soften some conditions on a $6 billion bailout. Sharif's government say the harsh conditions will trigger further inflation hikes.
The IMF released the last crucial tranche of $1.1 billion to Islamabad in August but since then, discussions between the two parties have oscillated due to Pakistan’s reluctance to impose new tax measures.
Lights out in Pakistan as energy-saving move backfires
Much of Pakistan was left without power for several hours on Monday morning as an energy-saving measure by the government backfired. The outage spread panic and raised questions about the cash-strapped government’s handling of the crisis.
Electricity was turned off across the country during low usage hours overnight to conserve fuel across the country, leaving technicians unable to boot up the system all at once after daybreak, officials said.
The outage was reminiscent of a massive blackout in January 2021, attributed at the time to a technical fault in the country's power generation and distribution system.
Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir told local media on Monday that engineers were working to restore the power supply across the country, including in the capital of Islamabad, and tried to reassure the nation that power would be fully restored within the next 12 hours.
According to the minister, during winter, electricity usage typically goes down overnight. “As an economic measure, we temporarily shut down our power generation systems" on Sunday night, he said.
When engineers tried to turn the systems back on, a “fluctuation in voltage" was observed, which “forced engineers to shut down the power grid" stations one by one, Dastgir said.
He insisted that this was not a major crisis, and that electricity was being restored in phases. In many places and key businesses and institutions, including hospitals, military and government facilities, backup generators kicked in.
Karachi, the country's largest city and economic hub, was also without power Monday, as were other key cities such as Quetta, Peshawar and Lahore.
Read more: Pakistan's politics of conspiracy will not stop
Imran Rana, a spokesman for Karachi's power supply company, said the government's priority was to “restore power to strategic facilities, including hospitals," airports and other places.
Pakistan gets at least 60% of its electricity from fossil fuels, while nearly 27% of the electricity is generated by hydropower. The contribution of nuclear and solar power to the nation's grid is about 10%.
Pakistan is grappling with one of the country's worst economic crisis in recent years amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves. This has compelled the government earlier this month to order shopping malls and markets closed by 8:30 p.m. for energy conservation purposes.
Talks are underway with the International Monetary Fund to soften some conditions on Pakistan’s $6 billion bailout, which the government thinks will trigger further inflation hikes. The IMF released the last crucial tranche of $1.1 billion to Islamabad in August.
Since then, talks between the two parties have oscillated due to Pakistan's reluctance to impose new tax measures.