U.K. lifts years-long ban on Pakistani airlines after improvement in air safety standards
ISLAMABAD — Britain has lifted a years-long ban on Pakistani airlines following improvements in the country's aviation safety standards, the British diplomatic mission in Islamabad said Wednesday.
The U.K.'s Air Safety Committee imposed the ban after Pakistan's aviation minister in June 2020 disclosed that nearly one-third of the country's pilots had cheated on their licensing exams. The claim came after a Pakistan International Airlines crash killed 97 people on May 24, 2020, in the southern city of Karachi.
Wednesday's announcement follows a broader international recognition of Pakistan's efforts to improve air safety. Earlier this year, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency also lifted its five-year-long ban, allowing the national flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines to resume direct flights to Europe.
British High Commissioner Jane Marriott said that after 'extensive engagement' between the U.K.'s Air Safety Committee and the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, restrictions on Pakistani airlines have now been lifted. U.K. diplomatic missions in Commonwealth countries are known as high commissions and are equivalent to embassies.
However, Marriott said individual airlines will still need to apply for operating permits from the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority.
'I'm grateful to aviation experts in both the U.K. and Pakistan for their collaborative work to meet international safety standards,' she said. 'While it will take time for flights to resume, once the logistics are in place, I look forward to using a Pakistani carrier when visiting family and friends.'
The high commission emphasized that decisions on delisting countries or carriers from the U.K. Air Safety List are made through an independent safety process overseen by the Air Safety Committee.
With more than 1.6 million people of Pakistani heritage living in the U.K., and thousands of British nationals residing in Pakistan, it said the move will help families to reconnect and potentially boost bilateral trade ties.
Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif welcomed the decision.
Speaking at a televised news conference on Wednesday, he attributed the ban to what he described as 'baseless' remarks made by former aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan. He said Khan's claim tarnished the country's image and triggered significant financial losses for Pakistan International Airlines.
Munir Ahmed, The Associated Press
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
43 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Higher US tariffs part of the price Europe was willing to pay for its security and arms for Ukraine
BRUSSELS (AP) — France's prime minister described it as a 'dark day' for the European Union, a 'submission' to U.S. tariff demands. Commentators said EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen's handshake with President Donald Trump amounted to capitulation. The trouble is, Europe depends mightily on the United States, and not just for trade. Mirroring Trump, Von der Leyen gushed that the arrangement she endorsed over the weekend to set U.S. tariff levels on most European exports to 15%, which is 10% higher than currently, was 'huge.' Her staff texted reporters insisting that the pact, which starts to enter force on Friday, is the 'biggest trade deal ever.' A month after NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte ingratiated himself with Trump by referring to him as 'daddy,' the Europeans had again conceded that swallowing the costs and praising an unpredictable president is more palatable than losing America. 'It's not only about the trade. It's about security. It's about Ukraine. It's about current geopolitical volatility. I cannot go into all the details,' EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told reporters Monday. 'I can assure you it was not only about the trade,' he insisted, a day after 'the deal' was sealed in an hour-long meeting once Trump finished playing a round of golf with his son at the course he owns in Scotland. The state of Europe's security dependency Indeed, Europe depends on the U.S. for its security and that security is anything but a game, especially since Russia invaded Ukraine. U.S. allies are convinced that, should he win, President Vladimir Putin is likely to take aim at one of them next. So high are these fears that European countries are buying U.S. weapons to help Ukraine to defend itself. Some are prepared to send their own air defense systems and replace them with U.S. equipment, once it can be delivered. 'We're going to be sending now military equipment and other equipment to NATO, and they'll be doing what they want, but I guess it's for the most part working with Ukraine,' Trump said Sunday, sounding ambivalent about America's role in the alliance. The Europeans also are wary about a U.S. troop drawdown, which the Pentagon is expected to announce by October. Around 84,000 U.S. personnel are based in Europe, and they guarantee NATO's deterrent effect against an adversary like Russia. At the same time, Trump is slapping duties on America's own NATO partners, ostensibly due to concerns about U.S. security interests, using Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, a logic that seems absurd from across the Atlantic. Weaning Europe off foreign suppliers 'The EU is in a difficult situation because we're very dependent on the U.S. for security,' said Niclas Poitiers at the Bruegel research institution in Brussels. 'Ukraine is a very big part of that, but also generally our defense is underwritten by NATO.' 'I think there was not a big willingness to pick a major fight, which is the one (the EU) might have needed with the U.S.' to better position itself on trade, Poitiers told The Associated Press about key reasons for von der Leyen to accept the tariff demands. Part of the agreement involves a commitment to buy American oil and gas. Over the course of the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its fourth year, most of the EU has slashed its dependence on unreliable energy supplies from Russia, but Hungary and Slovakia still have not. 'Purchases of U.S. energy products will diversify our sources of supply and contribute to Europe's energy security. We will replace Russian gas and oil with significant purchases of U.S. LNG, oil and nuclear fuels,' von der Leyen said in Scotland on Sunday. In essence, as Europe slowly weans itself off Russian energy it is also struggling to end its reliance on the United States for its security. The Trump administration has warned its priorities now lie elsewhere, in Asia, the Middle East and on its own borders. That was why European allies agreed at NATO's summit last month to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more on defense over the next decade. Primarily for their own security, but also to keep America among their ranks. The diplomacy involved was not always elegant. 'Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,' Rutte wrote in a private text message to Trump, which the U.S. leader promptly posted on social media. Rutte brushed off questions about potential embarrassment or concern that Trump had aired it, saying: 'I have absolutely no trouble or problem with that because there's nothing in it which had to stay secret.' A price Europe feels it must pay Von der Leyen did not appear obsequious in her meeting with Trump. She often stared at the floor or smiled politely. She did not rebut Trump when he said that only America is sending aid to Gaza. The EU is world's biggest supplier of aid to the Palestinians. With Trump's threat of 30% tariffs hanging over European exports — whether real or brinksmanship is hard to say — and facing the prospect of a full-blown trade dispute while Europe's biggest war in decades rages, 15% may have been a cheap price to pay. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. 'In terms of the economic impact on the EU economy itself, it will be negative,' Poitiers said. 'But it's not something that is on a comparable magnitude like the energy crisis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or even COVID.' 'This is a negative shock for our economy, but it is something that's very manageable,' he said. It remains an open question as to how long this entente will last. ___ Mark Carlson in Brussels contributed to this report.
Globe and Mail
44 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
U.S. dollar shedding its tariff risk premium
The dollar's surge since the U.S.-European Union trade deal seems a little counterintuitive at first glance, but the rally suggests the greenback may be shedding its elevated trade risk premium - whether Washington wants that or not. The weekend's U.S.-EU agreement averted a likely protracted trade war by halving threatened U.S. import tariffs on European goods in return for market access and investment commitments. It mirrored a similar deal made with Japan last week, though it covers four times as much U.S. trade. But, curiously, news of the Japan deal last Tuesday pushed the yen higher, initially at least. There was no such boon for the euro on Monday - as it tumbled over 1 per cent through the day against a resurgent dollar. Some people pointed to disquiet within Europe about whether the bloc rolled over too easily, only to end up with tariffs some 14 percentage points higher than they were at the start of the year anyway. Others focused on the impact of likely exaggerated European investment and spending pledges. But something else seemed to be stirring in a broader worldwide dollar rally that went way beyond the euro, a possible unwinding of the risk premium that had been built into the currency since April to account for Washington's seemingly chaotic tariff swipes and possible reactions. With EU, Japan and UK deals in the bag and intense talks under way with China, Canada and Mexico, Washington has essentially defused tensions surrounding the looming August 1 trade deal deadline. And the agreements completed now cover a combined 60 per cent of all U.S. trade. The China standoff will likely rumble on but negotiations are under way in Stockholm and standing pacts will likely be extended, with Beijing's hand weakened by trade deals elsewhere. What's more, the Trump administration appears to have successfully managed all this with a minimum of retaliation and limited economic damage to date. The effective U.S. tariff rate is set to end somewhere between 15 per cent and 20 per cent. That may be a possible drag on growth at home and abroad, but tariff income is flattering U.S. government revenues at a relatively low cost. Any U.S. consumer inflation fallout coming down the pike will keep the Federal Reserve cautious for longer about interest rate cuts - but that too may be a lift for the dollar if it's more responsive to the rates picture again. 'In terms of domestic political dynamics, Donald Trump is winning the trade war,' AXA Group Chief Economist Gilles Moec wrote on Monday. Assuming this is the beginning of the end of the year's big tariff shock, businesses and markets may finally have some degree of certainty about the months ahead and allow a lot of paused planning and activity to resume - even if at measurably higher costs. Fading recession risks further on that, the dollar should again start to revert to more normal behavior tracking relative interest rates and economic signals rather than Truth Social posts. Uncertainty is always hard to quantify, but there are a few ways investors have been capturing it. A closely followed trade component of the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index series - the Baker-Bloom-Davis model - skyrocketed to unprecedented levels in April. But it has since subsided to its lowest point since January and is less than a quarter of April's peak. U.S. stocks have clearly bounced back from the April shock, hitting record highs once again, as recession signs have failed to appear and the artificial intelligence theme has charged forward. Treasury yields, however, do remain elevated by the debt-raising fiscal bill and stubborn Fed stance. But volatility gauges for both equities and Treasuries are back near their respective lows for the year. And the dollar, the one clear loser all year, is clawing back ground. Crucially, its recent separation from transatlantic yield trends is slowly being re-established. After April 2, the 2-year yield gap boomed about 40 basis points wider in favor of U.S. Treasuries and remains more than 20 bp wider since that day. But rather than follow that gap in lockstep as usual, the dollar went the other way and lost over 6 per cent - a critical reflection of a building risk premium amid foreign investor concern, hedging and capital switching. Selling has petered out in recent weeks, and Monday's 1-per-cent dollar index surge was another indication of a more positive bias that could persist with the big yield premium so large. Whether a recovering dollar is what Mr. Trump actually wants is a different question. The running assumption all year has been that Mr. Trump favored a weaker dollar as a way of narrowing U.S. deficits and boosting exports, and Trump addressed the issue on Friday. 'It doesn't sound good, but you make a hell of a lot more money with a weaker dollar - not a weak dollar but a weaker dollar - than you do with a strong dollar,' he said. If the dollar now shows signs of bouncing back sharply, political pressure on the Fed to counter it with much lower interest rates will remain intense. Be smart with your money. Get the latest investing insights delivered right to your inbox three times a week, with the Globe Investor newsletter. Sign up today.
Toronto Star
2 hours ago
- Toronto Star
India says 3 militants killed in Kashmir were behind massacre that sparked clash with Pakistan
NEW DELHI (AP) — India's home minister said Tuesday that three suspected militants killed in a gunfight in disputed Kashmir the day before were responsible for the gun massacre in the region that led to a military clash between India and Pakistan earlier this year. Amit Shah said the three men were Pakistani nationals who were killed Monday in a joint operation by the military, paramilitary and police on the outskirts of Kashmir's main city of Srinagar. Shah made the remarks in India's lower house of the parliament. The Associated Press couldn't independently verify the details.
