CHINA LAUNCHES THIRD AIRCRAFT CARRIER IN A KEY MILITARY MILESTONE

BEIJING: China on Friday launched its third aircraft carrier in Shanghai, state media reports said, the first designed and built entirely in the country.

The launch of the new carrier called Fujian -- named after the coastal province -- comes against the backdrop of China’s push for maritime influence in the far seas and as its warships attempt to leave their mark in Pacific and Indian Ocean regions.

The launch ceremony was held at the Jiangnan Shipyard of China State Shipbuilding Corporation on Friday morning.

Xu Qiliang, member of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) central committee political bureau and the vice chairperson of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), attended the ceremony.

Fujian, with the hull number “18”, is China’s first catapult-type aircraft carrier to launch fighter aircraft from its deck.

The launch of the carrier marks a major milestone for the Chinese military.

It has significantly more advanced technology than China’s two other carriers, including electromagnetic catapults to launch aircraft off its deck, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The other carriers -- the Liaoning and the Shandong -- use a ski-jump-style ramp for take-offs.

With inputs from agencies

from the list if it successfully passes the onsite visit,” Pleyer told a media briefing after the meeting, referring to the list of countries under increased monitoring. Pleyer said FATF recommended the onsite visit to check that “Pakistan’s reforms are in place and can be sustained into the future”. He added: “The purpose of the onsite [visit] is to verify that everything on the ground is really completed and to check whether it is sustainable and irreversible.”

FATF placed Pakistan in the grey list in June 2018 and gave it a 27-point action plan to curb terror financing. The country was subsequently given another seven-point action plan to counter money laundering last October, after it implemented 26 of the 27 points in the original action plan.

Inclusion in the grey list means a country has to swiftly resolve strategic deficiencies in its procedures to curb terror

FATF PAKISTAN

financing and money laundering within an agreed time frame, and is subject to increased monitoring of all financial transactions. The listing of Pakistan has added to its current economic problems by impeding investments and through greater scrutiny of its financial system.

Pakistan mounted a high-profile effort to convince FATF about its efforts to curb terror financing, with minister of state for foreign affairs Hina Rabbani Khar leading a delegation that participated in the plenary in Berlin. “With this, the process for Pakistan to exit the grey list, according to FATF’S procedures, has started. According to those procedures, a technical evaluation will be sent to Pakistan. We will make all efforts to ensure this team completes its work before the October 2022 plenary cycle,” Khar said in a video message, speaking in Urdu.

Supporters of ousted PM Imran Khan on Friday mounted a sustained social media camdering paign, claiming initially that Pakistan had exited the grey list, and crediting his government for the forward movement at FATF.

Pleyer acknowledged Pakistani authorities had done “a lot of work” and substantially completed the two action plans at a technical level.

Over the past few months, Pakistan demonstrated it is pursuing terrorist financing investigations and prosecutions against senior leaders of Un-designated terror groups and money laundering investigations and prosecutions in line with its risk profile, he said.

“The reforms implemented by Pakistan are good for the stability and security of the country and the region. They will ensure that Pakistan’s authorities can more effectively tackle money laundering and funding of terrorist groups,” Pleyer said.

An FATF statement said that since June 2018, Pakistan’s political commitment to combat terror financing and money launhas led to “significant progress”. “In addition, Pakistan also largely addressed its 2021 action plan ahead of the set times.” FATF said the substantial completion of the two action plans by Pakistan “warrants an onsite visit to verify that the implementation of Pakistan’s reforms has begun and is being sustained, and that the necessary political commitment remains in place”.

Pleyer said the on-site visit, which will be longer than usual as it will cover two separate action plans, will be completed before FATF’S next plenary meeting in Paris in October. “The October plenary can then... make an informed decision whether to delist Pakistan,” he said. He described such visits as part of normal procedure. Whenever a country is placed in the grey list, FATF and the country agree on an action plan. The country carries out certain reforms and completes the action plan.

After Pakistan was included in the grey list in 2018, it was pulled up by FATF several times for repeatedly missing deadlines to implement the initial 27-point action plan. Over the past two years, it has taken steps to prosecute several senior Lashkar-etaiba (LET) leaders, including the group’s founder Hafiz Saeed and his brother-in-law Abdul Rahman Makki, in a string of terror financing cases.

However, experts have noted that little has been done to prosecute leaders of other groups such as Jaish-e-mohammed and the Pakistani Taliban, which have extensive fund-raising operations in the country.

This was the last FATF plenary under the German presidency of Pleyer. Delegates from more than 200 jurisdictions participated in the discussions. FATF expressed its sympathies for the people of Ukraine and deplored the “huge loss of life caused by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine”.