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Pakistan climbing season reaches new heights

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  • Pakistan enjoys bumper climbing season with around 1,400 foreign mountaineers bidding to scale its lofty peaks.
  • There were 57 expeditions planned for 23 Pakistan peaks this season.
  • Secretary of Alpine Club of Pakistan Karrar Haidri says climbers this year include 90 women.

SKARDU: Pakistan is enjoying a bumper climbing season with around 1,400 foreign mountaineers bidding to scale its lofty peaks — including hundreds on the 8,611-metre (28,251-feet) K2, the world’s second-highest.

“It is a record number,” Raja Nasir Ali Khan, tourism minister of the Gilgit-Baltistan region, told AFP.

The country is home to five of the world’s 14 mountains higher than 8,000 metres, and climbing them all is considered the ultimate achievement of any mountaineer.

Karrar Haidri, secretary of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, told AFP there were 57 expeditions planned for 23 Pakistan peaks this season — with 370 climbers having a crack at K2, known as “the savage mountain”.

Besides being far more technically difficult to climb than Everest, weather conditions are notoriously fickle on K2, which has only been scaled by 425 people since 1954.

More than 6,000 people have climbed Everest since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reached the top in 1953 — some of them multiple times.

Haidri said climbers this year include 90 women — including at least two Pakistanis aiming to become the country’s first to scale K2.

Russian Oxana Morneva is leading a team on the mountain, having failed in her own attempt in 2012 when she was forced back after injuring her knee.

“My rope was broken by falling rocks,” she told AFP.

She said she had no apprehension about returning.

“When we go to the mountain we have to be peaceful inside, and we have to know what we are doing,” she added.

Around 200 climbers will attempt to scale the 8,051-metre Broad Peak, while similar numbers will try Gasherbrum-I (8,080 metres) and Gasherbrum-II (8,035 metres).

A 36-year-old Norwegian climber, Kristin Harila, is also aiming to reach the world’s 14 highest mountain summits in record time.

Having already climbed seven peaks of over 8,000 metres, Harila hopes to match, if not beat, Nepali adventurer Nirmal Purja’s ambitious six months and six days record.

The summer climbing season that started in early June lasts until late August.

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23 police officers were hurt in an altercation with PTI employees on Attock’s Ghazi Barotha Bridge.

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Law enforcement officials said that the wounded soldiers were taken right away to local hospitals for medical care. The situation worsened after police officers were allegedly beaten overnight by workers in a truck that was supposedly carrying KP Chief Minister and PTI leader Ali Amin Gandapur.

“The altercation happened when the convoy tried to cross the bridge in spite of security restrictions,” the police said. More troops have been sent in to control the situation and bring the peace back.

Investigations are still being conducted to find the people who started the violence. Law enforcement officials have promised that those responsible will face severe consequences.

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The public rejects repeated calls for protests and sit-ins because PTI wants to disrupt daily life. Ahsan

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The public rejected the elements continually calling for protests and sit-ins, according to Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, and the PTI’s performance today will also fail.

Speaking at a news conference in Lahore, the planning minister stated that the government is responsible for protecting people and property, and that the necessary precautions have been taken in this regard.

Because of its effective economic policies, Pakistan is on the path to prosperity and development, according to Ahsan Iqbal. He stated that a five-year strategy for economic advancement will be unveiled shortly by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

But the demonstrators have a sinister plan to sabotage this advancement for their own ends, he claimed.

PTI intends to disrupt everyday life and restore law and order in the nation, he claimed. However, he stressed, the law will not be taken into one’s own hands, and those who break it would face harsh consequences.

The PTI founder has been sentenced by the courts, according to Ahsan Iqbal, and his release can only occur legally—not through a sit-in or protest. According to him, the PTI founder will need to use the legal system to cleanse his name in every case.

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Strengthening Bilateral Relations: A Delegation of 68 Belarusians Arrives in Islamabad

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Foreign Minister Maksim Ryazanov has led a high-level Belarusian delegation that has arrived in Islamabad.

Of the 68 members of the group, eight were ministers and forty-three were business leaders.

At the airport, the team was cordially received by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Belarus, Sajjad Haider Khan, was also in attendance, as was Shafqat Ali Khan, additional secretary for foreign affairs.

It is anticipated that Belarus and Pakistan will sign a number of memoranda of understanding and agreements.

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