Pakistan Senate committee backs local rival to Visa, Mastercard
ADNAN AAMIR
ISLAMABAD -- Members of an influential Pakistani Senate committee are calling for all debit cards in the country to be issued under the nation's domestic payment scheme, potentially threatening international peers such as Visa and Mastercard in a key South Asian market.
The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue last week urged the country's central bank to mandate the use of PayPak for all local debit and credit cards.
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Yomiuri Shimbun
37 minutes ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
How Pakistan Shot down India's Cutting-Edge Fighter Using Chinese Gear
ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, August 2 (Reuters) – Just after midnight on May 7, the screen in the Pakistan Air Force's operations room lit up in red with the positions of dozens of active enemy planes across the border in India. Air Chief Mshl. Zaheer Sidhu had been sleeping on a mattress just off that room for days in anticipation of an Indian assault. New Delhi had blamed Islamabad for backing militants who carried out an attack the previous month in Indian Kashmir, which killed 26 civilians. Despite Islamabad denying any involvement, India had vowed a response, which came in the early hours of May 7 with air strikes on Pakistan. Sidhu ordered Pakistan's prized Chinese-made J-10C jets to scramble. A senior Pakistani Air Force (PAF) official, who was present in the operations room, said Sidhu instructed his staff to target Rafales, a French-made fighter that is the jewel of India's fleet and had never been downed in battle. 'He wanted Rafales,' said the official. The hour-long fight, which took place in darkness, involved some 110 aircraft, experts estimate, making it the world's largest air battle in decades. The J-10s shot down at least one Rafale, Reuters reported in May, citing U.S. officials. Its downing surprised many in the military community and raised questions about the effectiveness of Western military hardware against untested Chinese alternatives. Shares of Dassault which makes the Rafale, dipped after reports the fighter had been shot down. Indonesia, which has outstanding Rafale orders, has said it is now considering purchasing J-10s – a major boost to China's efforts to sell the aircraft overseas. But Reuters interviews with two Indian officials and three of their Pakistani counterparts found that the performance of the Rafale wasn't the key problem: Central to its downing was an Indian intelligence failure concerning the range of the China-made PL-15 missile fired by the J-10 fighter. China and Pakistan are the only countries to operate both J-10s, known as Vigorous Dragons, and PL-15s. The faulty intelligence gave the Rafale pilots a false sense of confidence they were out of Pakistani firing distance, which they believed was only around 150 km, the Indian officials said, referring to the widely cited range of PL-15's export variant. 'We ambushed them,' the PAF official said, adding that Islamabad conducted an electronic warfare assault on Delhi's systems in an attempt to confuse Indian pilots. Indian officials dispute the effectiveness of those efforts. 'The Indians were not expecting to be shot at,' said Justin Bronk, air warfare expert at London's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think-tank. 'And the PL-15 is clearly very capable at long range.' The PL-15 that hit the Rafale was fired from around 200km (124.27 mi) away, according to Pakistani officials, and even farther according to Indian officials. That would make it among the longest-range air-to-air strikes recorded. India's defense and foreign ministries did not return requests for comment about the intelligence mistakes. Delhi hasn't acknowledged a Rafale being shot down, but France's air chief told reporters in June that he had seen evidence of the loss of that fighter and two other aircraft flown by India, including a Russian-made Sukhoi. A top Dassault executive also told French lawmakers that month that India had lost a Rafale in operations, though he didn't have specific details. Pakistan's military referred to past comments by a spokesperson who said that its professional preparedness and resolve was more important than the weaponry it had deployed. China's defense ministry did not respond to Reuters' questions. Dassault and UAC, the manufacturer of the Sukhoi, also did not return requests for comment. 'SITUATIONAL AWARENESS' Reuters spoke to eight Pakistani and two Indian officials to piece together an account of the aerial battle, which marked the start of four days of fighting between the two nuclear-armed neighbors that caused alarm in Washington. The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters. Not only did Islamabad have the element of surprise with its missiles' range, the Pakistani and Indian officials said, but it managed to more efficiently connect its military hardware to surveillance on the ground and in the air, providing it with a clearer picture of the battlefield. Such networks, known as 'kill chains,' have become a crucial element of modern warfare. Four Pakistani officials said they created a 'kill chain,' or a multi-domain operation, by linking air, land and space sensors. The network included a Pakistani-developed system, Data Link 17, which connected Chinese military hardware with other equipment, including a Swedish-made surveillance plane, two Pakistani officials said. The system allowed the J-10s flying closer to India to obtain radar feeds from the surveillance plane cruising further away, meaning the Chinese-made fighters could turn their radars off and fly undetected, according to experts. Pakistan's military did not respond to requests for comment on this point. Delhi is trying to set up a similar network, the Indian officials said, adding that their process was more complicated because the country sourced aircraft from a wide range of exporters. Retired U.K. Air Mshl. Greg Bagwell, now a fellow at RUSI, said the episode didn't conclusively prove the superiority of either Chinese or Western air assets but it showed the importance of having the right information and using it. 'The winner in this was the side that had the best situational awareness,' said Bagwell. CHANGE IN TACTICS After India in the early hours of May 7 struck targets in Pakistan that it called terrorist infrastructure, Sidhu ordered his squadrons to switch from defense to attack. Five PAF officials said India had deployed some 70 planes, which was more than they had expected and provided Islamabad's PL-15s with a target-rich environment. India has not said how many planes were used. The May 7 battle marked the first big air contest of the modern era in which weaponry is used to strike targets beyond visual range, said Bagwell, noting both India and Pakistan's planes remained well within their airspaces across the duration of the fight. Five Pakistani officials said an electronic assault on Indian sensors and communications systems reduced the situational awareness of the Rafale's pilots. The two Indian officials said the Rafales were not blinded during the skirmishes and that Indian satellites were not jammed. But they acknowledged that Pakistan appeared to have disrupted the Sukhoi, whose systems Delhi is now upgrading. Other Indian security officials have deflected questions away from the Rafale, a centerpiece of India's military modernization, to the orders given to the air force. India's defense attaché in Jakarta told a university seminar that Delhi had lost some aircraft 'only because of the constraint given by the political leadership to not attack (Pakistan's) military establishments and their air defenses.' India's chief of defense staff Gen. Anil Chauhan previously told Reuters that Delhi quickly 'rectified tactics' after the initial losses. After the May 7 air battle, India began targeting Pakistani military infrastructure and asserting its strength in the skies. Its Indian-made BrahMos supersonic cruise missile repeatedly sliced through Pakistan's air defenses, according to officials on both sides. On May 10, India said it struck at least nine air bases and radar sites in Pakistan. It also hit a surveillance plane parked in a hangar in southern Pakistan, according to Indian and Pakistani officials. A ceasefire was agreed later that day, after U.S. officials held talks with both sides. 'LIVE INPUTS' In the aftermath of the episode, India's deputy army chief Lt. Gen. Rahul Singh accused Pakistan of receiving 'live inputs' from China during the battles, implying radar and satellite feeds. He did not provide evidence and Islamabad denies the allegation. When asked at a July briefing about Beijing's military partnership with Pakistan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters the work was 'part of the normal cooperation between the two countries and does not target any third party.' Beijing's air chief Lt. Gen. Wang Gang visited Pakistan in July to discuss how Islamabad had used Chinese equipment to put together the 'kill chain' for the Rafale, two PAF officials said. China did not respond when asked about that interaction. The Pakistani military said in a statement in July that Wang had expressed 'keen interest in learning from PAF's battle-proven experience in Multi Domain Operations.'
Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Sanctions Bill Targets China for Enabling Putin's War in Ukraine
Bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate on Friday would force the Trump administration to impose economic penalties on China for supporting Russia's war machine, targeting Moscow's most important sponsor as the president intensifies efforts to end the war in Ukraine. The bill introduced by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) would require the administration to target Chinese 'entities and individuals' that have helped sustain the Russian defense industry despite enormous battlefield losses and widespread Western sanctions imposed since the start of the war. 'To finally bring Putin to the negotiating table and end this war, the United States must hold Chinese companies, CEOs, and banks accountable for this activity,' Shaheen, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's top Democrat, said in a statement singling out the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The bill is among the efforts by Ukraine's supporters in Congress seeking to take advantage of President Donald Trump's recent pivot away from Moscow, where the Russian leader has spurned his efforts to broker a peace deal. Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin and on Tuesday set a 10-day deadline for the Kremlin to stop the fighting, warning that a failure to comply would invite punishing new sanctions. On Friday, Trump said on social media that he had directed the Pentagon to dispatch two nuclear submarines to 'the appropriate regions.' The president's Truth Social post was aimed at Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia's security council, who has ridiculed Trump's ultimatum. In a statement, the White House said: 'The Constitution vests the president with the authority to conduct diplomacy with foreign nations. Any sanction package must provide complete flexibility for the president to continue to pursue his desired foreign policy.' The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did the Russian Embassy. While courting Putin earlier this year, Trump complained publicly about Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, while baselessly accusing the government in Kyiv of perpetuating the war. The president's change in tone has provided cover for Republican defense hawks, such as Cornyn, to push more aggressively against Russia. 'By imposing sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals who advance Putin's aggression, this legislation would deliver a significant blow to bad actors in Beijing and Moscow alike and bring us one step closer to President Trump's goal of ending the war in Ukraine,' Cornyn said in a separate statement. China has been one of Russia's closest backers in the conflict following a summit between the two countries' leaders, who promised a 'no limits' partnership shortly before the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago. Chinese firms have supplied an estimated 70 percent of the equipment Russia has needed to refill its supply of missiles, drones and other munitions throughout the war, said a Democratic congressional aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive matter. China has avoided sending direct lethal support, in part out of concern that the U.S. and its allies would impose financial penalties on Beijing, the aide said. Still, in July, the European Commission levied its first sanctions on Chinese firms 'for supplying goods used on the battlefield.' North Korea and Iran also have come to Putin's aid, allowing the Russian military to replenish its substantial combat losses. While unlikely itself to pass, the bill presents a more tailored option next to a severe sanctions package on Russia introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut). That bill, which has 84 co-sponsors, would impose 500 percent tariffs on countries that continue to buy Russian uranium and gas, all but cleaving them from the U.S. economy. The legislation introduced Friday would also direct the administration to work with U.S. allies on further sanctions to limit China's support for Russia and to assess whether to target Chinese defense firms. While the Trump administration has made concessions to China while negotiating a trade deal and a potential summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters he raised the issue of Beijing's support for Russia's war in trade talks this week. 'The Chinese take their sovereignty very seriously,' Bessent said. 'We don't want to impede on their sovereignty, so if they'd like to pay a 100 percent tariff, pay it,' Bessent said of the possible penalty.
Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Trump Calls on the Federal Reserve Board to Take Full Control of the Central Bank from Powell
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday called for the Federal Reserve's board of governors to usurp the power of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, criticizing the head of the U.S. central bank for not cutting short-term interest rates. Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump called Powell 'stubborn.' The Fed chair has been subjected to vicious verbal attacks by the Republican president over several months. The Fed has the responsibility of stabilizing prices and maximizing employment. Powell has held its benchmark rate for overnight loans constant this year, saying that Fed officials needed to see what impact Trump's massive tariffs had on inflation. If Powell doesn't 'substantially' lower rates, Trump posted, 'THE BOARD SHOULD ASSUME CONTROL, AND DO WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS HAS TO BE DONE!' Two of the seven Fed governors, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, issued statements Friday saying they see the tariffs as having a one-time impact on prices and the job market as most likely softening. As a result, the two dissented at the Fed meeting on Wednesday and pushed for slight rate cuts relative to what Trump was seeking. Even though Trump, who nominated Waller and Bowman, has claimed the U.S. economy is booming, he welcomed their arguments and what he called their strong dissents. After the Fed announced later Friday that governor Adriana Kugler will step down next week, Trump said Powell should follow her lead and leave, too. 'She knew he was doing the wrong thing on Interest Rates. He should resign, also!' Trump said on social media. Friday's jobs report showed a rapidly decelerating economy, as just 73,000 jobs were added in July and downward revisions brought down the June and May totals to 14,000 and 19,000, respectively. Trump sees the rate cuts as leading to stronger growth and lower debt servicing costs for the federal government and homebuyers. The president argues there is virtually no inflation, even though the Fed's preferred measure is running at an annual rate of 2.6%, slightly higher than the Fed's 2% target. Trump has called for slashing the Fed's benchmark rate by 3 percentage points, bringing it down dramatically from its current average of 4.33%. The risk is that a rate cut that large could cause more money to come into the economy than can be absorbed, possibly causing inflation to accelerate. The Supreme Court suggested in a May ruling that Trump could not remove Powell for policy disagreements. This led the White House to investigate whether the Fed chair could be fired for cause because of the cost overruns in the Fed's $2.5 billion renovation projects. Powell's term as chair ends in May 2026, at which point Trump can put his Senate-confirmed pick in the seat.
