QUETTA : The death toll from a major explosion in a mosque in Pakistan rose to 59 on Saturday, as the government pledged to arrest those involved and accused an Indian intelligence agency of involvement.
On Friday, an explosion rocked a mosque in Mastung in the southern province of Baluchistan, after an attacker blew himself up near a police car where people were gathering in a procession to commemorate the Prophet’s birthday.
Officials in Pakistan have long said that India sponsors violent groups in their country, accusations that New Delhi has always denied.
“Civilian, military and all other institutions will jointly carry out (an operation) against the elements involved in the Mastung suicide bombing,” Balochistan Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti told media in the capital, Quetta.
“RAW was involved in the suicide attack,” he added, referring to the Research and Analysis Wing, an Indian intelligence agency. He did not provide details or any evidence of his involvement.
Waseem Baig, health sector spokesman in Baluchistan, said that seven others had died in hospital since yesterday, Friday, raising the death toll. He added that a number of other injured people are still in critical condition.
Yesterday, a second attack on a mosque in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north of the country killed at least five people. On Saturday, the police began taking the necessary measures to investigate the incident, saying that they had sent the suicide attacker’s DNA for analysis.
No group claimed responsibility for either attack.
The Pakistani Taliban, which has carried out some of the most violent attacks inside the country since its founding in 2007, denied responsibility for carrying out the two bombings.
180 association and business leaders call for a boycott of “COP28”: Organizing the climate conference in Dubai is “a dangerous matter”
Paris : In a petition they published in the French newspaper Le Monde, a group of 180 people involved in the climate struggle (association leaders and businessmen) denounced “the control of carbon energy lobby groups over the COPs,” calling on countries to reformulate the model of these conferences and place them under United Nations protection.
The signatories of the petition considered that the twenty-eighth session of the Conference of the Parties , which will be held on November 30 in Dubai, is “a disastrous option to combat climate change,” calling on public authorities, non-governmental organizations, associations, scientists and business leaders not to support and condone their presence in this theater “in a country that does not It thrives only thanks to the extraction of fossil fuels,” adding that “behind the beautiful environmental ambitions declared by the UAE, the country ranks above all seventh in the world in extracting black gold and is the fifth largest emitter of carbon dioxide on the planet. Abu Dhabi plans to increase its production of barrels by 25% by 2027! It is clear that the country lives through and for oil, and organizing a UN climate conference there is not only ridiculous, but also dangerous.
The group of 180 people involved in the climate fight went on to say that carbon energy lobby groups have for years dominated the COPs, passing their propaganda and influencing discussions. Indeed, at the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm El Sheikh, the presence of 600 fossil fuel lobbyists succeeded in thwarting the most ambitious proposals and nullifying any concrete measures.
And with this new COP in Dubai, the drift turns into a caricature: the event will be chaired by the head of the UAE's largest fossil fuel company – Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber – just weeks after it was revealed in the British press that the UAE has been lying for a decade about its methane emissions. This eliminates the need to find justifications or alternatives for using this greenhouse gas.
They noted that in October 2022, during the International Oil Expo in Abu Dhabi, the President of COP28 called for a climate strategy that includes oil in the coming decades. “The world needs all possible solutions: not oil or gas, solar energy, wind energy, or nuclear energy, but all of these solutions at the same time.” The tone is set, the script is written: This COP will not be able to meet the challenges and emissions reduction targets, making this expensive meeting ineffective and useless, say the signatories of this petition.
Worse still - according to them - is that by organizing such a summit amid great fanfare in a country that defends carbon emissions, the entire battle against climate change loses credibility. How can we convince Western societies to question the uses of Dubai? How can we convince the population of developing countries to review their growth model based on the fifth country most involved in global warming? Impossible, because it is inappropriate, say the petitioners in Le Monde newspaper.
However, this model of an international summit bringing together public authorities, NGOs, associations and companies has proven its value: the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference (COP21), in Paris, remains an unparalleled success in building political consensus on a global scale – signatories say On the petition - but if the COP was able to reach consensus and ambitious goals in the past, it is now distorted and monopolized by supporters of the status quo. However, the fight against global warming cannot be based on a simple prestige tool devoid of its content. So far, the sum of the commitments made by countries takes us to a rise of 3.2 degrees Celsius in 2100. We are therefore far from the 1.5 degrees Celsius level set by the Paris Agreement. We can't afford the COP for nothing.
The signatories of the petition called on countries to rebuild this major climate event to prepare economic models that are workable and compatible with our climate and environmental goals, saying that in the future, the Conferences of the Parties must be a tool protected by the United Nations, as the high risks mean that it is no longer possible for a country, Because it is financially capable of organizing this event, being able to bear the costs of the bleaching operation under the auspices of the United Nations without guarantees and without a commitment to environmental conservation. The work is enormous, but activists, diplomats and business people have been calling for years to revamp these conferences to make them more transparent, fairer and more coherent.
The signatories of the petition considered that by boycotting the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai and adopting the empty chair policy, they were anticipating an electric shock. These essential meetings to chart the difficult path that will limit the impact of climate anomalies on humanity, must support the promotion of ideal practices and countries, and move away from the caricature that is announced and repeated, which the United Arab Emirates put forward this year, according to them, calling on companies, managers, communities, elected officials and organizations. Non-governmental organizations and associations to join them.
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