Pakistan's PIA suspended in Europe over fake pilot licence scandal

Yahoo – AFP, Ashraf KHAN, June 30, 2020

Pakistan's PIA has been barred from operating in the European Union after the
 state-run carrier grounded nearly a third of its pilots for holding fake or dubious
licences (AFP Photo/FAROOQ NAEEM)

Regulators have barred Pakistan International Airlines from the European Union for six months after the state-run carrier grounded nearly a third of its pilots for holding fake or dubious licences, officials said Tuesday.

The EUAviation Safety Agency (EASA) told PIA "it is still not sure" if all the remaining pilots are properly qualified, and "they have lost their confidence" in the airline, PIA spokesman Abdullah Khan told AFP.

The suspension is the latest fallout for PIA after Pakistan's aviation minister told parliament last week that a government review had found 262 of the country's 860 active pilots hold fake licenses or cheated on exams.

More than half of them were from PIA, and the airline said it would immediately ground 141 of its 434 pilots.

The EASA said it had suspended PIA and a smaller private Pakistan airline "in view of the recent investigation reported on in the Pakistani Parliament which revealed that a large share of pilot licenses issued in Pakistan are invalid".

PIA is filing an appeal, Khan said.

The airline has only flown limited international flights for months as a result of the coronavirus. A resumption of domestic operations last month was followed by a crash blamed on pilot error that killed 98 people.

PIA had recently resumed bookings for five European capital cities, including Paris, Milan and Barcelona.

Flights to Britain, which is no longer in the EU, have also been suspended, Khan said.

The EASA said it suspended PIA "due to concerns about the capability of competent authorities to ensure that Pakistani air operators are in compliance with applicable international standards at all times".

Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed, a senior figure in the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, said PIA's woes had "put the country's reputation at stake".

"The decision of the European Union is the result of successive follies of incompetent rulers," Ahmed said in a statement.

Reforms 'inevitable'

Prime Minister Imran Khan told parliament he would reform PIA and other government institutions.

"I want to tell my nation: We have no other option, reforms are inevitable," he said Tuesday.

Aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan has promised that a restructuring of PIA would be completed by the end of the year.

On May 22, a PIA flight crashed into houses in Karachi, killing 97 people aboard the plane and a child on the ground.

Investigators blamed the pilots, who were chatting about the coronavirus while they first attempted to land the Airbus A320 without putting its wheels down.

Until the 1970s, Pakistan's largest airline was considered a top regional carrier but its reputation plummeted amid chronic mismanagement, frequent cancellations and financial struggles.

PIA, which is helmed by a serving air force officer, currently has a fleet of 31 planes and a payroll of about 14,500 workers.

The high staff-to-plane ratio has seen long-standing accusations the government and the military use the airline to dish out jobs to cronies and retired military officers.

Even before the coronavirus, PIA was in a financial mess, and the EU suspension will only make things worse.

The airline racked up $340 million in losses last year, compared to $266 million in 2018.

Women motorcyclists ditch the side saddle in Pakistan

Yahoo – AFP, May 14, 2018

It is not uncommon to see women on motorcycles in Pakistan -- but usually they are
perched in the dangerous side saddle position behind a male driver (AFP Photo/ARIF ALI)

Perched proudly on their brand new pink motorcycles, the recruits take to the road, the latest batch of women to demolish boundaries set for them by men in Pakistan.

It is not uncommon to see women on motorcycles in Pakistan -- but usually they are sat in the dangerous side-saddle position behind a male driver and, often, several other passengers.

A woman straddling a bike to drive it herself is another thing entirely, an image that is still taboo in many parts of the deeply conservative Muslim country, where gender discrimination is routine.

But as part of a wave of women's empowerment movements, the government of Punjab province is running "Women on Wheels", a campaign that has trained scores of women to ride motorbikes in the last two years while raising awareness of gender-based violence and street harassment.

On Sunday the latest batch of dozens of new riders set out to challenge perceptions 

in Lahore (AFP Photo/ARIF ALI)

The importance of the issue is underscored by recent studies showing that some 75 percent of Pakistani women do not participate in the labour market, mainly due to a lack of transport.

"The aim is to basically empower women for their mobility because economic independence and economic empowerment depends on mobility," Salman Sufi, director general of the Punjab strategic reforms unit, said.

"So we are giving 3,000 bikes, we have trained over 3,500 girls in all of Punjab and this is going to go on until we reach a target of around 10,000 plus."

On Sunday the latest batch of dozens of new riders set out to challenge perceptions in Lahore.

"We're becoming... independent," rider Nageena Waseem said, adding that their new skills will allow them to do "everything which we want. Otherwise we were dependent on another person."

Activist Nighat Dad said the women were "reclaiming these spaces", adding that it was a "big big win for women today".

"Today is a good day for us," agreed another rider, Tallat Shaheen. "The purpose (is) to bring these girls together... (so) that they be independent and can feel confident and can go and work alongside men."

Women motorcyclists are ditching the side saddle in Pakistan, choosing instead to drive themselves in the deeply conservative county where doing so is often taboo https://t.co/Nz5bosz6K0 pic.twitter.com/vbGSdL0MP9

— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 14, 2018

Pakistan and China cooperation to forge trade gateway: senator

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-04-22

A tunnel under construction on the Karakoram Highway connecting Xinjiang
in China with Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region, April 18. (Photo/Xinhua)

Two-way trade between China and Pakistan is expected to swell by 300% to 400% in the next five years along with the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that connects Kashgar city in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to the southwestern Pakistan port of Gwadar via highways, railways and pipelines, Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao reports, citing a Pakistani senator.

"The corridor will greatly benefit both Pakistan and China, as it involves deployments in comprehensive cooperation in the fields of manufacturing, energy, and transportation, etc," Saleem Mandviwalla told the paper when asked which country will benefit more from the project.

The senator also expected Gwadar Port, located at the mouth of the Persian Gulf in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baloschistan, to become the key gateway for Middle East transshipments to China in the coming few years.

President Xi Jinping of China is paying his first state visit for the year to Pakistan to oversee the signing of agreements pertaining to the implementation of the CPEC project, which may serve as a model for China in promoting its Belt and Road Initiative, the paper reported.

With the construction of the economic corridor, Mandviwalla said Pakistan will enjoy significant infrastructure improvement and transfer of manufacturing industries from China, thereby changing his country's economic structure. China's demand for clean energy to support the next decade of economic growth will be fully met by the new oil pipelines constructed under the project, he added.

China-Pakistan trade amounted to US$16.006 billion in 2014, with China enjoying a large trade surplus by recording US$13.248 billion in shipments to Pakistan. But Mandviwalla believes that once Gwadar becomes the gateway for shipments to China from Iran, Afghanistan and other neighboring countries, the trade imbalance will improve drastically.

Mandviwalla told the paper he believes Pakistan will eventually become the cornerstone of the trade gateway for Central Asia and the Middle East after the Gwadar-Xinjiang railways and highways are operational.

Dozens killed as bus collides with oil tanker in Pakistan

At least 57 people, including women and children, have been killed after a bus crashed into an oil tanker in southern Pakistan. The accident led to a fiery blaze, making rescue attempts difficult.

Deutsche Welle, 11 Jan 2015

The overloaded bus was on its way to Shikarpur from Pakistan's commercial capital, Karachi. Senior police officer Rao Muhammad Anwaar said the bus "hit the oil tanker which, according to initial reports, was coming from the wrong direction."

The accident led to a fierce blaze, which was put out by the fire brigade, but not until both the bus and the tanker were completely consumed, Pakistani newspaper The Express Tribune reported. Rescue workers had to cut through heavy machinery to reach the victims, it said.

A few passengers escaped by jumping out of the windows.

As many as 57 people are reported to have died in fiery crash between bus and oil tanker near Karachi, #Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/txIwP4NzoP
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) January 11, 2015

"We have received more than 57 dead bodies but the death toll may rise as most of them are completely burnt and stuck to each other," Semi Jamali, a doctor at Karachi's Jinnah hospital, told news agency Agence France Presse.

Bodies that were badly burnt would have to be identified using DNA tests, Jamali added.

The accident was the second collision within a span of three months. In November, 57 people including women and children were killed when a bus crashed into a goods truck loaded with coal.

Pakistan has a record number of fatal travel accidents, owing mainly to bad roads and reckless driving.

mg/cmk (AFP, AP)

All aboard! Pakistan's first women-only bus

Google – AFP, Gaëlle Lussiaa-Berdou (AFP), 9 March 2014

Pakistani hostess from newly launched Tabeer Women Transport Service

 waits for commuters at bus stop in Islamabad on March 5, 2014 (AFP/File,

Aamir Qureshi)

Rawalpindi — At 7:15 am on a dusty street corner in Rawalpindi, among the dozen rickety minibuses jostling for passengers, a brand-new, bright pink vehicle stands out.

Emblazoned with the words "Ladies Transport", this is Pakistan's first commuter bus solely for women, aimed at those sick of wandering hands and unwanted attention on regular services.

Some see it as a welcome respite, but detractors warn it is reinforcing gender segregation in a highly patriarchal and often misogynistic country.

Sat on one of the minibus's four banquette seats, Azra Kamal, who works at an electronics shop, welcomes the new project, named "Tabeer" -- "fulfilment of a dream" in Urdu.

Her face half-hidden behind a black veil, she tells of obscene comments and other inappropriate gestures she suffered on mixed transport.

"I have a long journey to work and when I get there it's often only me left on board. Sometimes the driver will take advantage to give me his phone number and ask for mine," she said during the 20-odd kilometre ride to her destination in the capital Islamabad.

Others on board described being touched by drivers, conductors and male passengers.

To add to this harassment, the tiny minibuses that ply the roads of the Pakistani capital and its twin city Rawalpindi often have only a few seats, sometimes with only one out of a dozen reserved for women.

"I used to work in a hospital. Often there would be no space on the bus and I would get told off for being late," said Sana.

Today the 21-year-old proudly wears a pink tunic, the uniform of her job as conductor on the women's bus, as she collects the 30-rupee (30-US cent) fare.

- Mobile segregation? -

But the new service has not impressed everyone in a country where the forces of conservatism are seen to be growing in strength.

In a blog post for one of Pakistan's leading English-language newspapers, journalist Erum Shaikh called the project a "complete sham".

"The mere fact that the authorities thought it appropriate to introduce something like this should actually offend women and yet we sit there smile, look pretty and let the big, tough, muscular men build walls around us to 'protect' us," she wrote.

On board the bus, bank worker Misbah agrees.

"I really appreciate the service but we must tackle the root of the problem and make people take harassment seriously," she said.

But the man behind the project, Ali Naqi Hamdani, says it is empowering women in a society where many are not permitted to leave the house without male accompaniment.

"The women here are willing to go out to work, they're willing to go out for education purposes but they don't have such a conducive situation where they can feel secure in public transport," he said.

"So it was very important that you provide them an environment where they step out of their homes, they feel secure before they reach their universities or their offices so they are encouraged to come out."

The Tabeer project has been running for three weeks, with 12 vehicles in the capital, and is hoping to expand to other cities if there is enough demand.

Sana is already dreaming of moving on to drive the bus -- for a shortage of female drivers means that currently the women-only bus has a man behind the wheel.