Lahore (APP): Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Syed Asim Munir Thursday visited Lahore Garrison, laid a wreath at the Martyrs’ Monument, and paid solemn tribute to the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the motherland.

According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the COAS was given a detailed briefing on the operational preparedness of the formation.

Addressing the officers and soldiers at the Corps Headquarters, the COAS lauded the troops for their services to the nation and appreciated their professionalism.

The Army Chief underscored that inimical forces and their abettors had unleashed digital terrorism and were trying hard to create division between the Armed Forces and the people of Pakistan through peddling lies, fake news and propaganda. “However, the designs of all these forces will be defeated with the support of the nation,” he added.

The COAS asserted that every soldier and officer of the Pakistan Army “puts his duties and responsibilities first, regardless of any other affiliations or preferences and continues to render extreme sacrifices on daily basis”.

He said that May 9 would undoubtedly remain a black day in the history of Pakistan when deliberately indoctrinated and insidiously guided miscreants attacked the symbols of the state and national unity, disgracefully desecrating the Shuhada (martyrs) monuments.

“Due to these deplorable acts of criminally orchestrated violence, enemies of Pakistan were provided the opportunity to mock the state and the nation,” he added.

The COAS deplored that now the same plotters were brazenly and shamelessly trying to twist the narrative and implicate the state in the despicable endeavour.

“This mindset is precisely the reason why there can be no compromise or deal with the planners and architects of this dark chapter in our history.”

He said those gullible elements, who did not understand the real motive behind the criminal enterprise and were used as cannon fodder for the political ambitions of the masterminds, had already been accorded reasonable benefit of doubt on the direction of Supreme Court of Pakistan.

“However, the real leaders who present themselves as victims now will be held accountable for their actions, particularly when there is irrefutable evidence of their involvement and complicity in organised violence and sabotage,” he added.

The COAS reassured the officers and soldiers of Pakistan Army that no one would be allowed to disrespect the Shuhada, their families or the institution.

Planners, abettors, facilitators and culprits of 9th May would be brought to justice according to the law of the land and “our patience not to respond to daily provocations in this regard made in brazen violation of the Constitution has limits and it must never be misconstrued as weakness”, he added.

Later, the COAS while inaugurating the Jinnah Library at Lahore Garrison, stated,”We being the constructive forces have rekindled the memory of Quaid by building this public library over the piles of ash and rubble created by the destructive forces.”

Earlier on his arrival, the COAS was received by the Commander Lahore Corps.

Islamabad: The federal government broke all records by borrowing Rs6 trillion from banks in 10 months.

According to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the government has borrowed 5.96 trillion rupees (on cash basis) from the local banking sector in the first 10 months, i.e. from July 1, 2023 to 26th April 2024, which is 124% more than the loan of 2.66 trillion rupees during the same period last year.

The government repaid a net loan of Rs735 billion to the State Bank during this period. It is pertinent to mention that the government cannot borrow directly from the central bank under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mandate.

The loans taken from scheduled banks in the current financial year have already exceeded the Rs3.7 trillion loan taken in the entire financial year 2023.

Overall, the net debt of the public sector for budget support in the 10 months of FY2020-24 was Rs5 trillion, which was Rs.3.74 trillion in FY23.

This spring is a very good time to be a bird.

In forests across the Midwest and Southeast, the ground is about to erupt with billions of loud, protein-packed cicadas. They’ll buzz about for a few weeks as they search for mates, providing snacks for pretty much every living creature in the forest, from songbirds and swans to frogs and even fish.

This is an especially big year for these red-eyed bugs: Brood XIX and Brood XIII — which pop up every 13 years and 17 years, respectively — are emerging at once. The last time such an event happened was the spring of 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president. It will be hundreds of years before it happens again.

While the insect explosion will be brief, it will shape forests for years to come. The binge-fest that birds enjoy during these periods supersize their families and, in turn, shift the eating and hunting patterns of many other species. These effects send ripples throughout the ecosystem. As one recent study put it, pulses of periodical cicadas can “rewire” entire forest food webs. Call it the butterfly cicada effect.

Why billions of cicadas erupt all at once

For most of their lives — either 13 or 17 years, depending on the brood — periodical cicadas live several inches underground, slurping up sap from plant roots with their straw-like mouths. Then, when the soil temperature hits about 64 degrees Fahrenheit, they emerge, typically after sunset. Cicadas in more southern states, like Alabama, usually emerge in April or early May, whereas those in colder states like Illinois tend to appear later in the spring.

The teenage insects then march up plants, trees, and fences, where they metamorphose into winged adults. That’s when giant groups of males start singing loudly to attract females (you know, lady bugs). During these events, a single acre of land can have more than 1 million cicadas on it. That’s roughly 2,700 pounds of bugs.

Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Sean Rayford/Getty Images

This mass eruption, scientists believe, is strategic. “They effectively satiate their predators,” Louie Yang, an entomologist at the University of California Davis, told me a few years ago, when the famous Brood X emerged.

The cicada defense strategy is to flood the forests so that predators become so full they literally can’t stomach another bite. That leaves plenty of insects left to mate and lay eggs that will become the next generation of cicadas.

This approach seems to work for cicadas, and it’s an absolute delight for birds.

Birds lose their minds during cicada outbreaks

Birds can be fussy about their food. Some prefer plants, like the trumpeter swan, while others specialize in seeds or small insects, like chickadees.

Those preferences get tossed out during cicada explosions. The birds stop what they’re doing and go to town on the bug buffet. During the Brood X emergence in 2021, researchers documented more than 80 different avian species feeding on cicadas, including small birds that couldn’t fit them in their mouths.

Dan Gruner

“We saw chickadees — tiny, tiny little birds — grab the cicada and drag it to the ground with their body weight and then peck it apart,” said Zoe Getman-Pickering, an ecologist at University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the research.

She also saw purple martins, which typically catch small insects like winged ants and flies from the air, go after loads of cicadas. “There was one family of purple martins that got 23 cicadas into their nest in three hours or so,” Getman-Pickering said.

This feeding frenzy can seriously benefit some birds. Simply put, more food can lead to more babies.

“Following emergences, you do tend to get an increase in a lot of the apparent avian predator populations,” Walt Koenig, an ornithologist at Cornell University and research zoologist emeritus at UC Berkeley, told me in 2021.

One analysis he co-authored, based on 37 years of data, linked cicada eruptions to a population bump in a number of species including red-headed woodpeckers and common grackles.

Remarkably, many of these knock-on effects lasted for years, Koenig said. The number of blue jays, for example, was significantly higher even three years after the cicada eruptions.

“These results indicate that, at least in some species, the effects of cicada emergences are detectable years after the event itself,” Koenig and his co-authors wrote.

Fat caterpillars, rejoice

It’s not just birds that are benefitting. During big emergences, avian predators are eating so many cicadas that they eat much less of everything else — including caterpillars. That means caterpillars get a rare reprieve from the constant threat of attack, at least from birds.

Researchers have actually measured this. In the years surrounding Brood X, Getman-Pickering and her collaborators filled forests in Maryland with fake caterpillars made of clay. They then measured how many of them had signs of bird strikes — beak marks indicating that birds tried to eat them.

Martha Weiss

In May, when Brood X was emerging, the portion of caterpillars with strike marks fell dramatically, from about 30 percent in a typical year to below 10 percent during the emergence, according to her study, published in 2023.

She also looked at real caterpillars. Remarkably, the number of them roughly doubled in the forests she studied during the emergence, relative to the two following years. “It was pretty staggering how many caterpillars that we saw,” Getman-Pickering said.

A lot of them were extra plump, too, like the spiny larvae of the dagger moth. When there are few cicadas, the juiciest caterpillars are often picked off first; they’re much easier for birds to spot. But during cicada eruptions, caterpillars are free to eat and grow at their leisure.

“The biggest, most visible caterpillars benefited immensely from the release from predation,” she said.

John Lill

Trees might prefer life without cicadas

A surge in caterpillars, meanwhile, has effects of its own. These animals famously eat leaves. So when birds eat fewer of them, the caterpillars chew their way through more of the forest canopy.

Getman-Pickering’s recent study measured this too: In the summer of 2021, after Brood X debuted, oak trees experienced “a spike in cumulative leaf damage,” the paper states. A doubling of the number of caterpillars meant a doubling of the damage, she said.

It’s not clear what that ultimately means for forest health. Previous studies have shown that cicadas themselves, however, can harm trees. After breeding, females carve slits into branches and lay eggs, which often damages the wood.

Research by Koenig, of Cornell, found that oak trees produced fewer acorns in a year with a cicada emergence, and in the following year. Older studies have also shown that emergences can slow the rate of tree growth.

The long-term picture is hazier. Unpublished data from Karin Berghardt and Kelsey McGurrin, researchers at the University of Maryland, shows that trees seem to bounce back from the harm caused by egg-laying. There’s also some research suggesting that cicada carcasses could actually fertilize the forest floor.

Ultimately, what all of these studies show is that cicadas can transform entire ecosystems in just a few short weeks. Think about that the next time you walk through the woods: The birds, the butterflies, the trees themselves are all shaped, in some way, by one very weird bug.