Pakistan | News

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Health Dr Muk­htar Ahmad Bharath on Wednesday warned that Pakistan’s population could reach 400 million by 2040, stressing that public awareness and individual responsibility were essential to address the country’s rapid population growth. Speaking at a ceremony at the Basic Health Unit (BHU) in Tarlai, Dr Bha­rath said effective measures for maternal and child healthcare and family planning had become an urgent national priority. He added that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had constituted a national council to curb population growth and strengthen policy interventions in the sector. The minister said parents should carefully consider whether they had the necessary resources to provide their children with adequate nutrition, quality education, timely immunisation, access to healthcare and proper upbringing before planning their families. He emphasised that a healthy and prosperous society could only be built when every child enjoyed their fundamental rights. Highlighting the i...

Pakistan has welcomed Kuwait’s ratification of a 2023 defence cooperation agreement between the two countries, the Foreign Office (FO) said on Wednesday. In a statement responding to media queries, FO spokesperson Dr Tahir Andrabi said the agreement marked “another important milestone in the longstanding defence partnership between the two brotherly countries, dating back to the early 1980s”. “It also reflects the shared resolve of both sides to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation and elevate their security partnership,” Andrabi was quoted as saying. The statement added that the pact provides a comprehensive institutional framework to broaden defence cooperation, encompassing military training, joint exercises, exchanges of expertise and “other mutually agreed areas of collaboration”. “It will further enhance institutional linkages between the armed forces of both countries and consolidate the longstanding defence ties between Pakistan and Kuwait,” the statement read. The FO added that Pakistan a...

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday reaffirmed Pakistan’s full solidarity with Kuwait and strongly condemned recent attacks on Kuwait and other Gulf countries amid the ongoing regional conflict.

Dr Rajeh Tami Albugamy has been sworn in as Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Pakistan.

The title is Pakistan’s third in the tournament’s history

GLASGOW: Fatima Zahra made history on Tuesday by becoming the first woman boxer from Pakistan to secure a Commonwealth Games medal after cruising into the 60kg semi-finals with a unanimous points victory over New Zealand’s Jordan Wilson. The 22-year-old outclassed Wilson 5-0 in the quarter-final, with all five judges awarding her the contest to guarantee at least a bronze medal under the competition’s format, where losing semi-finalists receive bronze. Pakistan’s women’s boxing team only made its international debut in 2016 and, a decade later, the country’s flag is now assured of being raised during the women’s 60kg medal ceremony later this week. “We are developing in boxing, but it’s the sign that we are going in the right direction,” Fatima said after her landmark victory. “This is our first step. We are hoping for the gold as well, and this medal will mean a lot for Pakistan boxing as well.” Fatima controlled the three-round bout from the outset, winning 29-28 on four judges’ scorecards and 30-27 on the ...

Pakistan crumbled for the second consecutive day to the West Indies pace attack, losing the first Test of a two-match series by 90 runs on the fourth day in Trinidad on Tuesday. Set a tricky target of 211 on a deteriorating surface, the tourists were never in contention and were all out for 120 off 40.2 overs just after tea. It could have been worse. When they subsided to 71 for nine, Pakistan seemed doomed to their lowest Test innings total against the West Indies. Bowling hero Mohammad Abbas hung around with captain Babar Azam to put on 49 runs for the last wicket before Jayden Seales ended the match by trapping Abbas leg-before for 23, finishing with figures of five for 20. Babar remained unbeaten on 58. Pakistan will go into the second and final Test a few miles away at Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain, starting Sunday, on the back of four consecutive defeats and an extended abysmal run of 13 losses in their last 17 Tests. This was also the eighth consecutive Test loss away from home. Their capitulation...

• 89pc of Pakistan’s population trapped in deadly combination of extreme heat, lack of access to air conditioning • Chicago University study says 377,000 lives projected to be lost each year by 2050, including 150,000 in Pakistan ISLAMABAD: As extreme heat events become more frequent, most poor countries lack the resources to power the cooling systems needed to adapt to rising temperatures, resulting in 10 times more deaths compared to their wealthier counterparts. According to a new study by the Climate Impact Lab, headquartered at the University of Chicago, climate-driven temperature changes are on track to cause about 430,000 more deaths annually by 2050, and cooling systems can play a major role in preventing these deaths. Areas in 18 countries—home to 676 million people— are trapped in a deadly combination of extreme heat and lack of cooling, described as a ‘mortality-cooling trap’ (MCT) by the study. As many as 377,000 lives are projected to be lost each year starting in 2050 due to warmer temperatures ...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday said the government was “confident” that trade between Pakistan and the United States could double to $20 billion over the next five years. Dar made the remarks while addressing a delegation of US congressmen and businessmen in Islamabad. The gathering included US congressmen Ryan Zinke and Michael James Baumgartner, who are on a visit to Pakistan. Addressing the event, Dar called strong and mutually beneficial economic ties “the true measure of a mature strategic partnership and friendship”. Noting that the US is Pakistan’s largest single-country export destination, he said that goods trade between the two countries in the last fiscal year reached $9.4bn. “While encouraging this figure … we are confident that we can double bilateral trade to $20bn over the next five years by fully harnessing the complementarity of our economies,” the deputy premier said. He said the Pak-US partnership was “mutually rewarding”, as Pakistan remained among the larg...

Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah will visit Pakistan from July 28 to 29 at the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, the Foreign Office said on Monday.

There is a silence smothering the landscape of Pakistan and it is a silence borne from fear. The state grows more authoritarian each day, its mistrust for the voice of its people multiplying. The views of the masses, the printing presses, the online spaces, are met with charge sheets and FIRs. Silence has become the only guarantee of safety from the wrath of a system bent on gagging criticism. As the EU GSP+ assessment for Pakistan puts it: “limitations to the freedom of expression and access to information remain serious and persistent.” It is tempting to label this problem as regime specific. After all, the coalition government demonstrates open contempt for dissent: the Law Minister warns of uttering anything against foreign policy, 27 YouTube channels of journalists are asked to be permanently blocked, and the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) is the latest innovation given free rein to label any opposition as anti-state. You are counted lucky if you get a sliver of due process rather than...

At the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Kuwait, will undertake an official visit to Pakistan from 28 to 29 July 2026.

Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah will undertake an official visit to Pakistan from July 28 to 29. In a statement issued on Monday, the Foreign Office (FO) said, “At the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the foreign minister of the State of Kuwait, will undertake an official visit to Pakistan from July 28 to 29, 2026.” During the visit, FM Al-Sabah would hold talks with FM Dar, it added. “The two sides will review the entire spectrum of bilateral relations and exchange views on regional and international developments of mutual interest,” the FO said. According to the FO, Kuwait’s top diplomat was expected to pay a courtesy call on the leadership of Pakistan. The FO added that the visit reflected the shared resolve of Pakistan and Kuwait to further strengthen their enduring partnership and expand cooperation for the mutual benefit of both countries. On July 18, FM Dar held a telephonic conversation with his Ku...

ISLAMABAD: Petroleum Minister Ali Pervez Malik on Monday hinted at a decline in petrol and diesel prices following the clearance of Pakistan’s oil cargoes stuck at the Bab-al-Mandeb chokepoint due to Houthi attacks. “Today’s good news is that our ships stuck at Bab-al-Mandeb have come out safely,” the minister said, adding that crude oil, diesel and petrol prices were easing in the global market. The minister, who spoke to journalists after talks with the Oil Tankers Contractors Association (OTCA), said the government had put in place a transparent pricing formula that would hopefully lead to an improvement in prices. He said the formula, based on the weekly average of the international market, was being operated by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra), and that if not today, prices would start declining from tomorrow, depending on the weekly average. Responding to a question about whether the government could return to weekly or fortnightly pricing after the current crisis was over, the minister said,...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday told the global Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) that the country has entered a decisive phase in its decades-long fight against polio, claiming the virus has been pushed into a shrinking number of high-risk areas but cautioned that persistent insecurity in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remains the biggest obstacle to reaching every child. The IMB — an independent oversight body of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative — met from July 20 to 23 to assess global eradication efforts, with a particular focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan, the world’s only two countries where wild poliovirus remains endemic. During a high-level review meeting of the IMB in Geneva, Pakistani officials claimed that the country’s strategy was delivering results, while acknowledging that failure to eliminate transmission from the remaining hotspots could jeopardise years of progress. Pakistan informed the board that it had reduced polio cases by 99.8 per cent since the early 1990s, when an estimated 20,00...

A popular far-right Australian politician failed on Monday to overturn a racial vilification finding that was handed down after she told a Muslim senator to go back to Pakistan. Senator Pauline Hanson has emerged as one of Australia’s most popular politicians, wooing voters with calls for strict immigration curbs, mass deportations of “illegal migrants” and enhanced free speech protections. Hanson took aim at Pakistan-born Australian lawmaker Mehreen Faruqi in 2022 over comments made in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death. Faruqi, a left-leaning Greens senator, said she could not mourn the “leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised people”. Hanson replied on social media: “When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country. You took citizenship, bought multiple homes, and a job in a parliament. It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan.” The Federal Court of Australia found in 2024, in response to a complaint from...

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar on Sunday claimed that authorities had exposed an anti-Pakistan social media propaganda network allegedly linked to India's intelligence agency, asserting that the banned Joint Action Committee had connections with Indian elements.

Relentless monsoon rains continued to batter different parts of Pakistan, claiming 19 more lives and leaving 25 people injured in rain-related incidents over the past 24 hours.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has appointed seasoned career diplomat Ali Asad Gilani as its new Ambassador to China, replacing Ambassador Khalil Hashmi, who has completed his three-year tenure in Beijing, in a move aimed at sustaining the momentum in the strategic partnership between Islamabad and Beijing amid deepening political, economic and.

ISLAMABAD: As efforts continue to prevent the conflict in the Gulf from widening, Iran on Friday called for expanding strategic cooperation with Pakistan, describing Islamabad’s diplomatic engagement as an important contribution to regional peace and stability. “Pakistan has played a constructive diplomatic role in facilitating negotiations and advancing efforts towards regional peace and stability,” Iran’s Ambassador to Pakistan Reza Amiri Moghadam said while delivering the keynote address at a roundtable discussion, organised by the Centre for International Strategic Studies. “Strengthening our bilateral cooperation is essential for addressing contemporary security challenges in West Asia,” he said. The discussion, titled Pakistan-Iran Relations and Strategic Stab­i­lity in West Asia, brought together diplomats, academics, defence analysts and researchers to examine the future trajectory of Pakistan-Iran relations against the backdrop of an increasingly volatile regional security environment. Opening the di...