Iran’s hydroelectric generation
up by 1.9 per cent
ISLAMABAD (APP): The Iranian Energy Ministry announced that the country’s hydroelectric power plants have generated over 11.5 million MW since March showing nearly 1.9 percent of growth in comparison with the same period last year. Iran has increased the output capacity of its hydroelectric power plants by 1.9 percent since the beginning of current Iranian calendar year (March 21), Fars news agency reported. Hydroelectricity is the term which refers to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water.

Hydropower is produced in 150 countries, with the Asia-Pacific region generating 32 percent of global hydropower in 2010. China is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 721 terawatt-hours of production in 2010, representing around 17 percent of domestic electricity use.

System being developed to curb
grey traffic
ISLAMABAD (APP): Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MoIT) is in process of developing an operating system to curb grey traffic and provide effective solutions for reducing revenue loss. The system will consist of four major building blocks whose purpose will be to collect data, analyse it, report in a meaningful format and use the results to monitor the traffic. The system will be installed at the Pakistan Internet Exchange (PIE). National ICT Research and Development Fund - a subsidiary of the Ministry is executing the project in collaboration with Comsats Institute of IT (CIIT), Islamabad at a cost of Rs.13.51 million.
Officials on Sunday said the project called the Automatic Monitoring
and Detection System (AMDS) for grey traffic is being executed in two phases. In the first phase, training will be provided and then a real-time system will be installed at PIE.
The process will begin at the CIIT campus, after which the project will proceed towards step two when the system will be installed. After the installation, it will be tested in a real-time environment before being properly launched.
Grey routes can be identified in terminating networks. Normally, heavy load in certain network areas or short voice calls or incomplete call information indicates grey traffic.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) defines Grey telephony as
use of illegal gateway exchanges to bypass legal PTCL gateways and terminate/originate international traffic, including through VoIP gateways, GSM gateways, WLL phones,mobile SIMs or other related equipment.
This traffic may then be distributed onwards using WLL and mobile numbers.Grey telephony causes an estimated loss of over Rs.3 billion annually.

Rice export increases 8.32pc
in five months
ISLAMABAD (APP): Rice exports during first five months of current financial year registered an increase of 8.32pc as compared to the same period of last year. During the period from July-November, 2014 about 1,303,644 metric tons of rice worth $738.602m exported which witnessed an increase of 8.32pc as compared to the exports of corresponding period of last year. Rice exports during the first five months of last financial year were recorded at 1,160,586 metric tons valuing $681.859m. Exports of basmati rice grew by 6.01 pc and about 219,428mts of basmati rice worth $ 247.193m exported as compared to the exports of 214,447mts valuing $233.182m of same period last year.

 From July-November, 2014, exports of others rice also increased by 9.52 percent and reached at 1,084,216 metric tons valuing $491.409 million which was recorded at 946,139 metric tons costing $448.677 million in same period of last year. Meanwhile, the exports of fish and fish preparations swelled by 0.67 percent as country earned $148.500 million by exporting 58,008 metric tons of fish and fish products.
Fish and fish preparations exports during the first five months of last financial year were recorded at 56,457 metric tons costing $147.514 million. However, the data reveled that overall food exports from the country during last five months remained on down track and decreased by 0.35 percent when it compared with the exports of same period last year.
In first five months of current financial year country managed to earn $1.611 billion by exporting the different food staff which was stood at $ 1.66 billion during the same period of last year.
Meanwhile, the data reveled that on-month on month basis, the food group exports remained on up track an swelled by 21.94 percent in month of November as compared to the exports of the October current year.

USF provides 543,839 broadband
connections in remote areas
ISLAMABAD (APP): Universal Service Fund (USF) has provided 543,839 broadband connections during one year under a programme launched to accommodate remote areas of the country. The other objective of specifically running broadband programme was to increase proliferation. According to Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MoIT) here on Sunday, several Educational Broadband Centres at Higher Secondary Schools have been established under this programme.Subsidies are also being provided to telecom operators to support telecom infrastructure development in unserved and under-served areas which are not commercially viable otherwise.
Similarly, USF has been tasked by MoIT to expedite laying of optical fibre across Pakistan which will support infrastructure requirement necessary for proliferation of broadband services.
The Ministry also plans to establish 500 Universal Telecenters across four provinces of Pakistan, FATA and ICT, for people in underserved and semi-urban areas. The distribution of Telecenters amongst provinces and regions will be as per NFC award formula.
The project is in final stages of planning and will be implemented inphases starting next year. National ICT R&D Fund,established under MoIT, has been tasked to fund projects aimed at producing local content and relevant applications.
With regard to Next Generation Mobile Services (3G/4G), licenses have been issued under which mobile broadband proliferation is expected to be significantly enhanced.  To ensure availability of latest state of the art wireless broadband services across the country, reasonable roll out obligations have been included in the licenses.
So far around 50 cities and towns have 3G coverage while 4G services are available in seven cities.

‘Irresponsible’ non-OPEC output behind oil price plunge: UAE
ABU DHABI (AFP): “Irresponsible” levels of output by producers from outside the OPEC oil cartel is among the main causes of the slump in prices, the United Arab Emirates energy minister charged Sunday. “One of the main causes is irresponsible production by some producers from outside the organisation, some of whom are newcomers,” Suhail al-Mazrouei told an energy forum in Abu Dhabi. Mazrouei said the sharp drop in prices will impose a “major economic burden” on oil producing countries, insisting nonetheless that OPEC’s decision last month to maintain output levels was “correct.”

“OPEC’s decision, which aims to provide the market with time to rebalance, is correct, strategic and useful to the global economy,” he said at the forum organised by the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The OPEC decision will “lead to stability in oil prices,” he said.
World prices have fallen almost 50 percent since June, mainly due to a supply glut, the weak global economy and a strong US dollar.