Pakistan Bans Entry to Parks, Zoos as Air Pollution Worsens

A vendor carries a bucket of radish across a railway track engulfed in smog in Lahore on November 8, 2024. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP)
A vendor carries a bucket of radish across a railway track engulfed in smog in Lahore on November 8, 2024. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP)
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Pakistan Bans Entry to Parks, Zoos as Air Pollution Worsens

A vendor carries a bucket of radish across a railway track engulfed in smog in Lahore on November 8, 2024. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP)
A vendor carries a bucket of radish across a railway track engulfed in smog in Lahore on November 8, 2024. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP)

Pakistan's Punjab banned entry to many public spaces from Friday, including parks and zoos, as it sought to protect people from severe air pollution in parts of the eastern province.

The provincial capital Lahore has been engulfed in a thick, smoky haze this week and was consistently rated the world's most polluted city by Swiss group IQAir in its live rankings, prompting the closure of schools and work-from-home mandates, Reuters reported.

The Punjab government's Friday order placed a "complete ban on public entry in all parks ... zoos, play grounds, historical places, monuments, museums and joy/play lands" until Nov. 17 in areas including Lahore.

Many parts of South Asia suffer severe pollution as temperatures drop each winter and cold, heavy air traps dust, emissions, and smoke from stubble burning - the illegal practice of burning crop waste to quickly clear fields.

Punjab last week blamed toxic air wafting in from neighboring India - where air quality has also reached hazardous levels - for the particularly high pollution this year.

IQAir rated the Indian capital New Delhi the world's second most polluted city on Friday, with government data indicating that farm fires in the neighboring farming states of Punjab and Haryana were among the major contributors.
To discourage the practice which has been lower this year, India's federal government doubled fines imposed on violators on Wednesday.

Farmers with less than two acres of land will now have to pay 5,000 rupees ($60) for violations. Those owning between two and five acres will pay 10,000 rupees and farmers with more than five acres will pay 30,000 rupees, the environment ministry said.



Palestinian Pottery Sees Revival in War-Ravaged Gaza

Displaced Palestinians walk past a wind and rain-damaged tent, following heavy rainfall north of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 24, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians walk past a wind and rain-damaged tent, following heavy rainfall north of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 24, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Palestinian Pottery Sees Revival in War-Ravaged Gaza

Displaced Palestinians walk past a wind and rain-damaged tent, following heavy rainfall north of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 24, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians walk past a wind and rain-damaged tent, following heavy rainfall north of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 24, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Traditional clay pottery is seeing a resurgence in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians are forced to find solutions for a shortage of plates and other crockery to eat from in the territory ravaged by more than a year of war.

"There is an unprecedented demand for plates as no supplies enter the Gaza Strip," 26-year-old potter Jafar Atallah said in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah.

The vast majority of the Palestinian territory's 2.4 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, by the war that began with Hamas's attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Fleeing bombs amid Israel's devastating retaliatory military offensive, which has destroyed large amounts of civilian infrastructure, everyday items like cups and bowls have often been lost, broken or left behind to perish.

With imports made increasingly difficult by Israeli restrictions and the dangers of delivering aid, Gazans have had to find resourceful ways to meet their needs since the war began.

- Bare-bones -

To keep up with demand, Atallah works non-stop, producing around 100 pieces a day, mainly bowls and cups, a stark contrast to the 1,500 units his factory in northern Gaza made before the war.

It is one of the numerous factories in Gaza to have shut down, with many destroyed during air strikes, inaccessible because of the fighting, or unable to operate because of materials and electricity shortages.

Today, Atallah works out of a bare-bones workshop set up under a thin blue plastic sheet.

He carefully shapes the clay into much-needed crockery, then leaves his terracotta creations to dry in the sun -- one of the few things Gaza still has plenty of.

Each object is sold for 10 shekels, the equivalent of $2.70 -- nearly five times what it was worth before the war led to widespread shortages and sent prices soaring.

Gazans have told AFP they are struggling to find all types of basic household goods.

"After 13 months of war, I went to the market to buy plates and cutlery, and all I could find was this clay pot," said Lora al-Turk, a 40-year-old mother living in a makeshift shelter in Nuseirat, a few kilometers (miles) from Deir al-Balah.

"I was forced to buy it to feed my children," she said, noting that the pot's price was now more than double what it was before the war.

- Old ways -

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas's unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 44,176 people, most of them civilians, according to data from Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

Following each Israeli army evacuation order, which generally precedes fighting and bombing, masses of people take to the roads, often on foot, carrying whatever they can manage.

But with each passing month and increasing waves of displacement, the loads they carry grow smaller.

Many Gazans now live in tents or other makeshift shelters, and some even on bare pavement.

The United Nations has warned about the threat of diseases in the often cramped and unsanitary conditions.

But for Gazans, finding inventive ways to cope with hardship is nothing new.

In this, the worst-ever Gaza war, people are using broken concrete from war-damaged buildings to build makeshift homes. With fuel and even firewood scarce, many rely on donkeys for transport. Century-old camping stoves are reconditioned and used for cooking.

Traditional pottery is another sign of a return to the old ways of living.