KARACHI: Senior member of the Dubai royal family, Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, will invest around 15 percent of the equity requirement of a coal-to-gas and coal-to-liquid (C2L) processing facility to be set up in Pakistan’s southern Thar desert, officials said on Wednesday.
Al Maktoum group of private companies mainly focuses on energy, infrastructure, mining, LNG terminal development, oil and gas commodity trading and education and agriculture projects. His business is also a key strategic stakeholder in Oracle Power PLC, a United Kingdom-based power and natural resource project developer.
The exact cost of the project is not yet decided but Al Maktoum will invest 15% of the equity requirement, Naheed Memon, CEO of Oracle Power, told Arab News.
“He is also an investment partner in our projects in Pakistan in Thar; he has committed to invest 15% of the equity requirements,” Memon said on the sidelines of a stakeholder consultative conference held in Karachi to deliberate upon a coal conversation policy for Thar deposits.
The Thar desert is home to the largest lignite coal reserves in the world at an estimated 175 billion tons - the equivalent of 50 billion tons of oil and 2000 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to the Geological Survey of Pakistan.
Four Pakistani leading coal mining and power generation companies are planning to convert huge deposits of coal into gas and liquid in the Thar desert in southern Sindh province, as the country moves to ban new coal-fired power plants.
Last years, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan told a virtual gathering of global leaders: “We have decided we will not have any more power based on coal … We have already scraped two coal power projects which were supposed to produce 2600 megawatt of energy. By 2030, 60 percent of all energy produced in Pakistan will be clean energy.”
Chinese companies are financing and building most of Pakistan’s coal plants through the over $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship of China’s belt and road initiative.
Memon said coal to gasification was a “new technology very dependent on international commodity prices of oil and gas and required substantial investment.”
She said investment requirements were similar to coal mining for power generation; the gasification process also involved mining of coal and then its conversion into syngas, or synthesis gas, by installing gasification units.
“Approximately we are talking about $2 billion to $3 billion to produce, for example, two million ton of urea - that is the kind of money we are looking at,” said Memon, whose company is operating along with China National Coal Development company (CNCDC), in Thar.
Participants at Wednesday’s conference called for a comprehensive coal gasification policy to kickstart projects in the country.
“We have proposed to the government of Pakistan that an appropriate framework be put in place,” Memon said, adding: “The utilization could be for line gas, urea, and liquid petroleum base products for this sort of development to take place a policy has to be put in place.”
Nadeem Babar, a special advisor on petroleum, assured the participants that all energy policies would be made in consultation with stakeholders.
“We have not made any energy policy without consulting the stakeholders during two and half years of our tenure and the process will continue,” he said, addressing the conference. “We need to convert our energy sector into commodity … the government gives great importance to coal gasification and conversion into liquid petroleum”.
Pakistan currently has four coal-fired power plants worth $6.7 billion, with three using imported coal. The combined capacity of these plants set up under CPEC is 4,620 MW.
In the last five years, the share of coal-based power in Pakistan’s energy mix has gradually increased from almost negligible to more than 20%, according to the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA).
The share of coal-based electricity generation in total thermal generation during the fiscal year 2019-20 was 31.84%, up from 18.71% in 2018-19. The utilization of coal-based power plants during fiscal year 2019-20 was almost 66% of total installed capacity of coal-based power plants, NEPRA data showed.
Coal utilization is set to expand further as five more power plants, built under the CPEC umbrella at a cost of more than $3.3 billion, are scheduled to commence operations by the end of 2026. Among these upcoming power plants, four will use Thar coal, according to the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB).
Dubai’s Al Maktoum to invest 15% equity requirement in Pakistan coal conversion project
https://arab.news/g5bj3
Dubai’s Al Maktoum to invest 15% equity requirement in Pakistan coal conversion project
- Exact cost of the coal-to-gas and coal-to-liquid processing facility not yet decided but Al Maktoum will invest 15% of equity requirement
- Last years, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said his government had decided not to generate any more power using coal
Children in Pakistan among millions under threat as vaccine coverage faltering — study
- Cases of polio, long eradicated in many areas thanks to vaccination, have been rising in Pakistan and Afghanistan
- Researchers say setbacks threaten WHO goal of essential vaccines for 90 percent world’s children, adolescents by 2030
PARIS: Efforts to vaccinate children against deadly diseases are faltering across the world due to economic inequality, Covid-era disruptions and misinformation, putting millions of lives at risk, research warned Wednesday.
These trends all increase the threat of future outbreaks of preventable diseases, the researchers said, while sweeping foreign aid cuts threaten previous progress in vaccinating the world’s children.
A new study published in The Lancet journal looked at childhood vaccination rates across 204 countries and territories.
It was not all bad news.
An immunization program by the World Health Organization was estimated to have saved an estimated 154 million lives over the last 50 years.
And vaccination coverage against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, polio and tuberculosis doubled between 1980 and 2023, the international team of researchers found.
However the gains slowed in the 2010s, when measles vaccinations decreased in around half of the countries, with the largest drop in Latin America.
Meanwhile in more than half of all high-income countries there were declines in coverage for at least one vaccine dose.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
Routine vaccination services were hugely disrupted during lockdowns and other measures, resulting in nearly 13 million extra children who never received any vaccine dose between 2020 to 2023, the study said.
This disparity endured, particularly in poorer countries. In 2023, more than half of the world’s 15.7 million completely unvaccinated children lived in just eight countries, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the study.
In the European Union, 10 times more measles cases were recorded last year compared to 2023.
In the United States, a measles outbreak surged past 1,000 cases across 30 states last month, which is already more than were recorded in all of 2024.
Cases of polio, long eradicated in many areas thanks to vaccination, have been rising in Pakistan and Afghanistan, while Papua New Guinea is currently enduring a polio outbreak.
“Routine childhood vaccinations are among the most powerful and cost-effective public health interventions available,” said senior study author Jonathan Mosser of the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
“But persistent global inequalities, challenges from the COVID pandemic, and the growth of vaccine misinformation and hesitancy have all contributed to faltering immunization progress,” he said in a statement.
In addition, there are “rising numbers of displaced people and growing disparities due to armed conflict, political volatility, economic uncertainty, climate crises,” added lead study author Emily Haeuser, also from the IHME.
The researchers warned the setbacks could threaten the WHO’s goal of having 90 percent of the world’s children and adolescents receive essential vaccines by 2030.
The WHO also aims to halve the number of children who have received no vaccine doses by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.
Just 18 countries have achieved this so far, according to the study, which was funded by the Gates Foundation and the Gavi vaccine alliance.
The global health community has also been reeling since President Donald Trump’s administration drastically slashed US international aid earlier this year.
“For the first time in decades, the number of kids dying around the world will likely go up this year instead of down because of massive cuts to foreign aid,” Bill Gates said in a separate statement on Tuesday.
“That is a tragedy,” the Microsoft co-founder said, committing $1.6 billion to Gavi, which is holding a fund-raising summit in Brussels on Wednesday.
Pakistan says Trump still deserves Nobel for halting India clash, Iran-Israel fighting
- Islamabad says US president helped end conflicts with India and between Iran and Israel
- Defense minister urges Trump to now work on implementing two-state solution for Palestine
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif on Tuesday defended Islamabad’s decision to recommend United States President Donald Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, citing his role in brokering two ceasefires in under two months.
The government last week announced it would formally nominate Trump for what it called his “decisive diplomatic intervention” during last month’s military standoff with India, a brief but intense escalation in which the nuclear-armed rivals exchanged missile, drone and artillery strikes before the US brokered a truce on May 10.
The standoff, which killed nearly 70 people on both sides, renewed fears of a wider conflict between Pakistan and India, who have fought three full-scale wars, mostly over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Indian officials have denied that Trump played any role in securing the May 10 ceasefire, but Pakistan insists his behind-the-scenes push was key to defusing the crisis.
The nomination, however, has sparked public criticism after Trump last week launched strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in retaliation for attacks on Israeli targets. The region narrowly avoided further escalation when Washington subsequently said it had brokered a ceasefire between Iran and Israel on Monday, ending nearly two weeks of missile and drone attacks that killed over 200 Iranians and about 30 Israelis.
“I believe that within just a month and a half, President Trump has managed two ceasefires,” Asif told Independent Urdu in an interview. “So, our endorsement for his Nobel Prize, it’s not just about one but two ceasefires that has further strengthened our case for it.”
Asif also credited Trump for preventing a wider regional war in the Middle East and urged him to build on the momentum by reviving efforts for a two-state solution in Palestine.
“And I would take it a step further that President Trump should now work toward a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he said.
While reports of violations continued to emerge after the Iran-Israel ceasefire was announced, the truce has largely held under heavy US pressure. Trump, who campaigned on pledges to act as a “peacemaker” and quickly resolve conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza — both still ongoing five months into his presidency — has called the Iran-Israel truce a personal diplomatic triumph.
Trump has also claimed credit for mediating a deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda to defuse tensions over rebel groups operating near their border. He has also previously offered to mediate the decades-old Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan and has sought to portray himself as a mediator in the long-running Serbia-Kosovo conflict.
UN estimates 2.5 million refugees will need resettling in 2026 from Pakistan, other countries
- The largest refugee populations likely to be resettled were Afghans, Syrians, South Sudanese, Rohingya from Myanmar, and Congolese
- Part of the decline in resettlement is linked to the US, long the world’s biggest resettler of refugees, which has now shut its doors
GENEVA: An estimated 2.5 million refugees worldwide will need to be resettled next year, the UN said Tuesday, at a time when the United States but also other nations are shrinking resettlement access.
UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, said the needs were down slightly from this year, when around 2.9 million refugees are estimated to need resettlement.
“This is mainly due to the changed situation in Syria, which has allowed for voluntary returns,” UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo told reporters in Geneva.
“We are seeing some people pull out of resettlement processes in favor of plans to go home to rebuild,” she added.
Mantoo said that in 2026, the largest refugee populations likely to need to be resettled were Afghans, Syrians, South Sudanese, Rohingya from Myanmar, and Congolese.
Most of the refugees will need resettling from major host countries including Iran, Turkiye, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Uganda, she said.
The announcement came as the UNHCR’s resettlement efforts face towering hurdles.
“In 2025... resettlement quotas are expected to be the lowest in two decades, falling below the levels seen even during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many countries paused their programs,” Mantoo said.
Part of the decline is linked to the United States — long the world’s biggest resettler of refugees — which has now slammed its doors shut.
Shortly after returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump halted the US refugee resettlement program.
Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden had embraced the program designed to facilitate legal resettlement of vetted refugees, resettling over 100,000 refugees in the United States last year.
Mantoo stressed though that the problem was not with just one country.
“We have indications that a number of countries are reducing or adjusting quotas,” she said.
Stressing that resettlement among other things “offers a concrete alternative to dangerous journeys,” Mantoo urged countries to “sustain their programs and increase their intake.”
In recognition that the needs far outstrip the available spots, she said that the international community had set itself a goal of resettling 120,000 refugees in 2026.
“Recent history shows that this is achievable,” she said.
Last year, she said that despite the challenges, the UNHCR supported the resettlement of 116,000 refugees globally.
“Every place is invaluable for those fleeing danger.”
Earlier this month UNHCR said a record 123.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes at the end of 2024.
But that figure dropped to 122.1 million by the end of April this year, as Syrians began returning home after years of turmoil.
PM hosts Pakistani delegates for successfully presenting Islamabad’s case on India crisis
- Pakistan, India engaged in a military conflict last month that saw the neighbors attack each other with drones, missiles and artillery
- Pakistani delegates this month visited key capitals to apprise them of India’s unilateral moves, including suspension of key water treaty
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday hosted a dinner in honor of a Pakistani delegation, led by former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, that presented Islamabad’s stance on recent crisis with India before key world capitals.
Pakistan and India engaged in a four-day military conflict last month that saw the two neighbors attack each other with drones, missiles and artillery in their worst fighting in decades.
The conflict had raised fears of a full-blown war between the nuclear-armed neighbors who agreed to a United States-brokered ceasefire on May 10, with the conflict killing nearly 70 people on both sides.
Bhutto-Zardari led Pakistan’s mission to the US, United Kingdom and Europe to apprise the world powers of Indian unilateral actions, including the suspension of a World Bank-brokered water-sharing treaty with Pakistan.
“The delegation presented the events from Pahalgam to the Indus Waters Treaty [suspension] in the right perspective and in a good manner,” Sharif said. “I hope that with the guidance, cooperation and suggestions of all of you, we will overcome all internal and external challenges.”
Other members of the Pakistani delegation included Sherry Rehman, Musadik Malik, Hina Rabbani Khar, Bushra Anjum Butt, Faisal Sabzwari, Khurram Dastgir and Jalil Abbas Jilani.
On Monday, Bhutto-Zardari said Islamabad had defeated New Delhi on the “battlefield, in diplomacy, and in the war of narratives.”
“India has two options: share water fairly or we will deliver water to us from all six rivers [of the Indus basin],” Bhutto-Zardari said, while addressing the lower house of Pakistan parliament.
“The attack on Sindhu [Indus river] and India’s claim that the IWT has ended and it’s in abeyance, firstly, this is illegal, as the IWT is not in abeyance, it is binding on Pakistan and India but the threat itself of stopping water is illegal according to the UN charter.”
His comments followed a statement from Indian interior minister Amit Shah in which he said they would take the water that was flowing to Pakistan to the Indian state of Rajasthan by constructing a canal.
“Pakistan will be starved of water that it has been getting unjustifiably,” Shah told Times of India newspaper.
The IWT grants Pakistan rights to the Indus basin’s western rivers — Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab — for irrigation, drinking, and non-consumptive uses like hydropower, while India controls the eastern rivers — Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — for unrestricted use but must not significantly alter their flow. India can use the western rivers for limited purposes such as power generation and irrigation, without storing or diverting large volumes, according to the agreement.
Islamabad is also exploring a legal challenge to India’s decision to hold the treaty in abeyance under international law.
Last month’s conflict between Pakistan and India was triggered by a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam town.
India accused Pakistan of backing the assault that killed 26 tourists on April 22 and suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, which ensures water for 80 percent of Pakistani farms, among a slew of punitive measures.
Islamabad denied the allegation and offered to join a credible, international probe into the Kashmir attack, followed by its own set of diplomatic measures against New Delhi.
Pakistan PM discusses Middle East crisis with Saudi Crown Prince, calls for de-escalation
- Heightened tensions after Iranian missile attack on US base in Qatar spark fears of wider Gulf conflict
- Sharif also holds third call with Iranian president in as many days, urges diplomacy to restore peace
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday spoke by phone with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss the situation in the Middle East amid escalating tensions between Iran and Israel.
The call followed Israeli and United States strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory missile attack on a US base in Qatar on Tuesday. Qatar condemned the Iranian strikes as a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty, raising fears the crisis could draw in other regional powers if not defused.
During the call, Sharif said Pakistan supported immediate de-escalation of the Iran-Israel conflict and its peaceful resolution through dialogue and diplomacy.
“While referring to last night’s attacks, he called for adherence to international law and the UN Charter principles by all sides,” Sharif’s office said after the telephone discussion with the Saudi Crown Prince. “In this context, the Prime Minister reaffirmed Pakistan’s unwavering support for the Kingdom’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Sharif also praised the Saudi crown prince’s efforts to restore calm, describing them as reflective of the kingdom’s leadership role in the Muslim world and its position as a peacemaker, according to his office.
The crown prince, for his part, appreciated Pakistan’s show of solidarity and acknowledged Islamabad’s constructive role in supporting a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
“His Royal Highness said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was fully committed to efforts aimed at fostering lasting peace and stability in the Middle East,” Sharif’s office said.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump said Israel and Iran had agreed to a “complete and total ceasefire” to be phased in over 24 hours. However, Israel warned of possible missile launches from Iran early Tuesday, and the launches began after 4am local time in Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran would halt its attacks if Israel ended its airstrikes.
It was unclear how the latest developments would affect the planned ceasefire.
Separately on Tuesday, Sharif held a third phone call in as many days with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and again urged dialogue and diplomacy to restore peace in the region.
The crisis has left Islamabad navigating a delicate balance between ties with Iran, other Gulf partners and the United States, which remains one of Pakistan’s largest trading partners and a major source of military and economic assistance.
“The prime minister said that Pakistan was closely following the rapidly evolving situation in the Middle East,” Sharif’s office said after the call with Pezeshkian. “He reiterated Pakistan’s support for Iran at all diplomatic forums, including at the UN Security Council and the OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation], while calling for adherence to international law and the UN Charter principles.”
