Gwadar Port declared now tax-free

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ISLAMABAD - The government on Wednesday declared Gawadar Port as
Tax-Free Zone. Mian Manzoor Wattoo, Minister for Industries and
Production, disclosed this while addressing a press conference. He
said that the industries to be established at Gawadar would export 50
per cent of the production while remaining 50 per cent would be sold
in local markets. He said that committee under the chairmanship of
Prime Minister on Wednesday declared Gawadar Port as Tax Holiday Zone.
The members of the committee were Advisor to Finance, Secretary
Commerce and Industries, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue and
Additional Chief Secretary Balochistan.
He said that the decision would help improve economy, provide jobs to
the people and boost developmental and trade activities. He also said
that trade with China, Afghanistan, Iran and Middle East through
Gawadar Port would usher a new era of commercial activity.
He also informed that government had achieved surplus wheat production
of 8 million tons against targeted of 6.5 million ton and that would
reach around 9 million tons as the procurement was still in process.
He also said that the government had paid Rs 27 billion as a subsidy
on fertilisers and also provided high yielding seeds to the farmers.
He said that in Kharif season, the country needed 30 million ton of
urea and 25.5 million ton was available as local production while 4.5
million would be imported.
"We are giving Rs 20.88 billion urea subsidy for the Kharif season as
Rs 16.50 billion on the import of urea bags while Rs 4.38 billion to
the local manufactures of urea," he said.
He said that government would try to control the black marketing of
urea and strict action would be taken against the hoarders.

Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei said US is training terrorists

TEHRAN: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Iran's supreme leader accused
Washington on Tuesday of training "terrorists" in the Kurdish region
of neighbouring Iraq.
"Behind our western border, the US is training terrorists. It is
spending money and handing out weapons to be used against the Islamic
republic" of Iran, he said in a televised speech in the western
Iranian province of Kordestan.

"The Americans have dangerous plans for (Iraqi) Kurdistan … Their
plans are not aimed at defending the Kurdish people, but they want to
control them," he said in the city of Saqaz.

"Our Kurdish friends on the other side of the border have told us that
the US officers are paying the Kurdish youth on the Qandil hills in
exchange for information," he said.

"They pay money to create mercenaries. It is unworthy of Kurdish
youth," Khamenei added.

The border region with Iraq has often seen deadly clashes between
Iran's armed forces and the Kurdish separatists.

Iranians have targeted the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an
Iranian Kurdish separatist group which has launched attacks on Iran
from rear-supply bases in the Kurdish mountains of northern Iraq.

The group is closely allied with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
which has launched similar attacks against Turkey.

On February 4, the US Treasury included PJAK as a "terrorist" group,
while the PKK too is blacklisted as a terror group by both the
European Union and the United States.

The PKK took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority
southeast in 1984, triggering a conflict that has claimed some 44,000
lives.

Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey all have significant ethnic Kurdish minorities.