Imran Khan leaves for Saudi conference saying #Pakistan ’desperate’ for loans | Reuters
▻https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-saudi-khashoggi-pakistan/imran-khan-leaves-for-saudi-conference-saying-pakistan-desperate-for-loa
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan left for Saudi Arabia to attend an investment conference boycotted by other leaders over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Despite PR duress, Saudi $6bn to Pakistan comes with strings | Asia Times
▻http://www.atimes.com/article/despite-pr-duress-saudi-6bn-to-pakistan-comes-with-strings
Fermer les yeux sur le financement saoudien de groupes armés du Balochistan pakistanais chargés de mener des opérations contre l’Iran en Iran, et amener le Pakistan à s’impliquer plus au Yémen.
Balochistan is of strategic interest to both Iran and Saudi Arabia, bordering the Islamic Republic and located north of the Arabian Sea.
Saudi Arabia has faced allegations of backing anti-Shiite jihadist groups in Balochistan, namely Jundullah and Jaish al-Adl, and a heightened influence could be dangerous for Pakistan’s security.
“If you increase investment, it is not just money that pours in. With the money comes influence,” analyst Siddiqa said.
“It’s hard to imagine a $6 billion gift with no strings attached,” said Michael Kugelman, a scholar on Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
“There’s a very good chance Saudi Arabia placed some type of conditions on this support. Riyadh may have made it quite clear that Pakistan will need to rein in its recent efforts to position itself as a neutral actor in the Saudi-Iranian regional rivalry,” Kugelman said.
“Pakistan has an Iran problem and a Saudi problem. [The Pakistani military] is allowing the Saudis to build up their capacity in Balochistan, which is in effect a certain kind of encirclement around Iran,” said Siddiqa.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have maintained a defense partnership since 1983, though it is very difficult to pinpoint the exact number of Pakistani personnel in the kingdom. According to Kamal Alam of the London-based think tank RUSI, there are at least 1,200 Pakistani trainers in various Saudi security and military sectors.
A source close to the Pakistani military said the number is far higher, however. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he told Asia Times there are upwards of 7,000 Pakistani military personnel in the kingdom.
“One of the big questions coming out of this new deal is whether Riyadh has now asked Islamabad to operationalize that military presence and be willing to join Saudi military efforts in Yemen,” Kugelman said.
“Islamabad has long resisted this ask from Saudi Arabia, but with this financial assistance Islamabad is now getting, Riyadh has more leverage,” he added.
According to a political source briefed on the matter but who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject, the Pakistani armed forces have been under mounting pressure from the Saudis to join the conflict in Yemen.
This is the Longest Sailable Straight Line Path on Earth – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/this-is-the-longest-sailable-straight-line-on-earth
In 2012, reddit user kepleronlyknows posted a map claiming to show the longest straight line a vessel could theoretically sail on earth without hitting land.
The map showed a route from Pakistan, through the Mozambique Channel, around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, and north through the Pacific to eastern Russia.The user provided no details about how he came to his conclusion, writing only “The Longest straight line: you can sail almost 20,000 miles in a straight line from Pakistan to Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia.”
The post generated a lot of interest and led to subsequent attempts to prove and disprove kepleronlyknows’ route, while some others chimed in with their own theories about the longest sailable straight line earth.
Now, some six years later, a pair of researchers have developed an algorithm claiming to solve the problem once and for all. Interestingly, what their models showed looked nearly identical to kepleronlyknows’ original route.
According to the authors, Rohan Chabukswar and Kushal Mukherjee, the longest straight line path on earth can be found using “branch-and-bound” algorithm, which the authors say uses great circles.
“Although it does not look like a straight line on the map, the algorithm using great circles ensures that it is,” Chabukswar and Mukherjee noted.
The line originates in Sonmiani, Las Bela, Balochistan, Pakistan, threads the needle between Africa and Madagascar, between Antarctica and Tiera del Fuego in South America, and ending in Karaginsky District, Kamchatka Krai, Russia. The line also covers an astounding distance of 32,089.7 kilometers (19939.62 miles), further corroborating kepleronlyknows findings.
In their conclusion, researchers Rohan Chabukswar and Kushal Mukherjee write:
“We proposed an innovative approach for relaxation of an optimisation problem for utilising the branch- and-bound algorithm. On the way, we managed to prove that kepleronlyknows was right about the longest sailable straight line path on the Earth.”
papier accessible :
Longest Straight Line Paths on Water or Land on the Earth
▻https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.07389.pdf
Abstract
There has been some interest recently in determining the longest distance one can sail for on the earth without hitting land, as well as in the converse problem of determining the longest distance one could drive for on the earth without encountering a major body of water. In its basic form, this is an optimisation problem, rendered chaotic by the presence of islands and lakes, and indeed the fractal nature of the coasts. In this paper we present a methodology for calculating the two paths using the branch-and-bound algorithm.
et donc…
Figure 9 : Longest Driveable Straight Line Path on Earth.
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_original/mprpooxerddqxbpoyz3i.png 
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_original/btfjeqjrhmixffkksl88.png Cap Saint-Vincent - Détroit de Formose sur terre, en ligne droite
Family of driver killed in Mullah Mansour drone strike files FIR against US - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
▻http://www.dawn.com/news/1261401#Taliban
QUETTA: Family members of deceased taxi driver Muhammad Azam who was killed in an American drone strike in Balochistan earlier this month filed a First-Information Report (FIR) against the United States on Sunday.
“My brother was innocent and extremely poor. He had four children and was the sole bread earner of the family,” Qasim stated in the FIR.
“US officials killed my brother while violating the Pakistani area. I do not know the names of US officials, but I want justice to be served,” the FIR reads.
Reshuffling Eurasia’s energy deck — Iran, China and #Pipelineistan: Escobar
BY PEPE ESCOBAR on JULY 31, 2015 in AT TOP WRITERS, CENTRAL ASIA, EMPIRE OF CHAOS, PEPE ESCOBAR, SOUTH ASIA
Pipelineistan – the prime Eurasian energy chessboard — never sleeps. Recently, it’s Russia that has scored big on all fronts; two monster gas deals sealed with China last year; the launch of Turk Stream replacing South Stream; and the doubling of Nord Stream to Germany.
Now, with the possibility of sanctions on Iran finally vanishing by late 2015/early 2016, all elements will be in place for the revival of one of Pipelineistan’s most spectacular soap operas, which I have been following for years; the competition between the IP (Iran-Pakistan) and TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipelines.
The $7.5-billion IP had hit a wall for years now – a casualty of hardcore geopolitical power play. IP was initially IPI – connected to India; both India and Pakistan badly need Iranian energy. And yet relentless pressure from successive Bush and Obama administrations scared India out of the project. And then sanctions stalled it for good.
Now, Pakistan’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi swears IP is a go. The Iranian stretch of the 1,800-kilometer pipeline has already been built. IP originates in the massive South Pars gas fields – the largest in the world – and ends in the Pakistani city of Nawabshah, close to Karachi. The geopolitical significance of this steel umbilical cord linking Iran and Pakistan couldn’t be more graphic.
Enter – who else? – China. Chinese construction companies already started working on the stretch between Nawabshah and the key strategic port of Gwadar, close to the Iranian border.
China is financing the Pakistani stretch of IP. And for a very serious reason; IP, for which Gwadar is a key hub, is essential in a much larger long game; the $46 billion China-Pakistan economic corridor, which will ultimately link Xinjiang to the Persian Gulf via Pakistan. Yes, once again, we’re right into New Silk Road(s) territory.
Workers in Kazakhstan complete a section of a pan-Central Asian gas pipeline
And the next step regarding Gwadar will be essential for China’s energy strategy; an IP extension all the way to Xinjiang. That’s a huge logistical challenge, implying the construction of a pipeline parallel to the geology — defying Karakoram highway.
IP will continue to be swayed by geopolitics. The Japan-based and heavily US-influenced Asian Development Bank (ADB) committed a $30 million loan to help Islamabad build its first LNG terminal. The ADB knows that Iranian natural gas is a much cheaper option for Pakistan compared to LNG imports. And yet the ADB’s agenda is essentially an American agenda; out with IP, and full support to TAPI.
This implies, in the near future, the strong possibility of Pakistan increasingly relying on the China-driven Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) for infrastructure development, and not the ADB.
Recently, the IP field got even more crowded with the arrival of Gazprom. Gazprom also wants to invest in IP – which means Moscow getting closer to Islamabad. That’s part of another key geopolitical gambit; Pakistan being admitted as a full member, alongside India, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), something that will happen, soon, with Iran as well. For the moment, Russia-Pakistan collaboration is already evident in an agreement to build a gas pipeline from Karachi to Lahore.
Talk to the (new) Mullah
So where do all these movements leave TAPI?
The $10 billion TAPI is a soap opera that stretches all the way back to the first Clinton administration. This is what the US government always wanted from the Taliban; a deal to build a gas pipeline to Pakistan and India bypassing Iran. We all know how it all went horribly downhill.
The death of Mullah Omar – whenever that happened – may be a game changer. Not for the moment, tough, because there is an actual Taliban summer offensive going on, and “reconciliation” talks in Afghanistan have been suspended.
Whatever happens next, all the problems plaguing TAPI remain. Turkmenistan – adept of self-isolation, idiosyncratic and unreliable as long as it’s not dealing with China – is a mystery concerning how much natural gas it really holds (the sixth largest or third largest reserves in the world?)
And the idea of committing billions of dollars to build a pipeline traversing a war zone – from Western Afghanistan to Kandahar, not to mention crossing a Balochistan prone to separatist attacks — is nothing short of sheer lunacy.
Energy majors though, remain in the game. France’s Total seems to be in the lead, with Russian and Chinese companies not far behind. Gazprom’s interest in TAPI is key – because the pipeline, if built, would certainly be connected in the future to others which are part of the massive, former Soviet Union energy grid.
To complicate matters further, there is the fractious relationship between Gazprom and Turkmenistan. Until the recent, spectacular Chinese entrance, Ashgabat depended mostly on Russia to market Turkmen gas, and to a lesser extent, Iran.
As part of a nasty ongoing dispute, Turkmengaz accuses Gazprom of economic exploitation. So what is Plan B? Once again, China. Beijing already buys more than half of all Turkmen gas exports. That flows through the Central Asia-China pipeline; full capacity of 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year, only used by half at the moment.
China is already helping Turkmenistan to develop Galkynysh, the second largest gas field in the world after South Pars.
And needless to add, China is as much interested in buying more gas from Turkmenistan – the Pipelineistan way – as from Iran. Pipelineistan fits right into China’s privileged “escape from Malacca” strategy; to buy a maximum of energy as far away from the U.S. Navy as possible.
So Turkmenistan is bound to get closer and closer, energy-wise, to Beijing. That leaves the Turkmen option of supplying the EU in the dust – as much as Brussels has been courting Ashgabat for years.
The EU pipe dream is a Pipelineistan stretch across the Caspian Sea. It won’t happen, because of a number of reasons; the long-running dispute over the Caspian legal status – Is it a lake? Is it a sea? – won’t be solved anytime soon; Russia does not want it; and Turkmenistan does not have enough Pipelineistan infrastructure to ship all that gas from Galkynysh to the Caspian.
Considering all of the above, it’s not hard to identify the real winner of all these interlocking Pipelineistan power plays – way beyond individual countries; deeper Eurasia integration. And so far away from Western interference.
Pakistan transfers strategic Gwadar port to China - World Socialist Web Site
Où l’on reparle du «collier de perles» chinois qui sert, en partie, à «ceinturer» l’Inde
▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/02/26/gwad-f26.html
Pakistan transfers strategic Gwadar port to China
By Sampath Perera
26 February 2013
On February 18, the Pakistani government transferred operational control of its strategically-located deep-sea port at Gwadar, Balochistan province to China. India, a rival of Pakistan and of China, has expressed concerns over the deal—highlighting the increasingly complex geo-political rivalries stoked by the Obama administration’s policy of “pivot” to Asia.
▻http://www.wsws.org/asset/725031d5-fd7c-4a70-aae9-55cfdc42ab7E/asia-map.PNG?rendition=image480
Child brides blot tribal Pakistan - Al Jazeera English
►http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/10/2012101792934276587.html
Child marriage - known as “swara” in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, “vani” in Punjab, “sang chati” in Sindh, and “vani” and “lajai” in Balochistan - are enacted in disturbingly large swathes of Pakistan and reinforced by customs that treat women as commodities.