Dawn

Found 5493 news

  • Arshad Nadeem focused on World Championships as post-surgery rehab mars upcoming competitions
    Dawn - 11:56 Jul 24, 2025
    Javelin ace Arshad Nadeem could miss two upcoming Diamond League championships next month as he undergoes post-surgery rehabilitation in London, in the hopes of a full recovery ahead of the Tokyo World Athletic Championships this September. The Olympic champion was set to travel to England this month to prepare for the World Championships, ahead of the Diamond League meet in Silesia, Poland on August 16 and Zurich, Switzerland on Aug 27-28. Last week, however, he underwent surgery on his calf muscle to address a recurring injury. The interventional procedure was done by Dr Ali Bajwa at Spire Hospital in Cambridge, United Kingdom. View this post on Instagram “We are now doing rehab work with a physiotherapist in London,” Arshad Nadeem’s coach, Salman Butt, told Dawn.com. “This is a two-week plan before we test ourselves for going back to regular workouts,” Butt added. “We are trying to achieve good form for the World Championship in Tokyo and maybe compete in one competition before Tokyo if Arshad regains good...
  • Microsoft says some SharePoint server hackers now using ransomware
    Dawn - 08:49 Jul 24, 2025
    A cyber-espionage campaign centred on vulnerable versions of Microsoft’s server software now involves the deployment of ransomware, Microsoft said in a late Wednesday blog post. In the post, citing “expanded analysis and threat intelligence”, Microsoft said a group it dubs “Storm-2603” is using the vulnerability to seed the ransomware, which typically works by paralysing victims’ networks until a digital currency payment is made. The disclosure marks a potential escalation in the campaign, which has already hit at least 400 victims, according to Netherlands-based cybersecurity firm Eye Security. Unlike typical state-backed hacker campaigns, which are aimed at stealing data, ransomware can cause widespread disruption depending on where it lands. The figure of 400 victims represents a sharp rise from the 100 organisations catalogued over the weekend. Eye Security says the figure is likely an undercount. “There are many more, because not all attack vectors have left artefacts that we could scan for,” said Vaisha...
  • India expulsions to Bangladesh unlawful, target Muslims: HRW
    Dawn - 08:44 Jul 24, 2025
    India has pushed hundreds of ethnic Bengali-speaking Muslims into Bangladesh without due process, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday, accusing the government of flouting rules and fuelling bias on religious lines. The Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long taken a hardline stance on immigration — particularly from Muslim-majority Bangladesh — with top authorities referring to them as “termites” and “infiltrators”. Critics also accuse the government of sparking fear among India’s estimated 200 million Muslims, especially among speakers of Bengali, which is widely spoken in both eastern India and Bangladesh. HRW, a New York-based nonprofit, said that India forcibly expelled more than 1,500 Muslim men, women, and children to Bangladesh between May 7 and June 15, quoting Bangladeshi authorities. “India’s ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is fuelling discrimination by arbitrarily expelling Bengali Muslims from the country, including Indian citizens,” Elaine Pearson, Asia director ...
  • BCCI makes volte-face, decides to attend ACC meeting virtually
    Dawn - 06:32 Jul 24, 2025
    NEW DELHI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in a U-turn has decided to attend the Asian Cricket Council’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday, the Hindustan Times reported on Wednesday. The ACC meeting taking place in Dhaka will decide the fate of this year’s Asia Cup, which India is scheduled to host in September. Sources within the BCCI have confirmed that the board has indeed decided to attend Thursday’s meeting virtually. “Yes, we have decided to attend the meeting virtually,” a BCCI source told the Hindustan Times on the condition of anonymity. Earlier, amid rising political tension between India and Bangladesh, the BCCI decided not to visit Dhaka and threatened to boycott the all-important AGM of the game’s Asian body. The meeting on Thursday is set to determine the status of the Asia Cup, which is supposed to be played in T20 format. If the tournament gets the go-ahead, it will most likely be played in the UAE, with India maintaining its hosting rights. Considering the fact that th...
    Tags: BCCI
  • Punjab IGP told to review Crime Control Department encounters
    Dawn - 06:07 Jul 24, 2025
    LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday directed Punjab Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr Usman Anwar to review the encounters being carried out by the newly-created Crime Control Department (CCD). Earlier, in compliance with the court’s order, the police chief appeared before LHC Chief Justice Aalia Neelum in connection with a woman’s petition against the killing of her son in an alleged CCD encounter. A report submitted by the IGP stated that the suspect was being taken away after a recovery, when the police vehicle’s tyre punctured and his accomplices launched an attack. It said the suspect was killed by the firing of his own accomplices. The chief justice said the IGP was summoned after the SHO concerned failed to satisfy the court. She found the IGP’s report complete and satisfactory. However, the chief justice questioned, “Whenever there is firing on a police vehicle, how does the bullet directly hit a suspect? Why it never hits a constable or the police vehicle?” She mentioned that the LHC ...
  • SC denounces use of ‘infertility claims’ to target women
    Dawn - 05:39 Jul 24, 2025
    • CJP-led bench slams petitioner for attacking wife’s ‘womanhood’; imposes Rs500,000 fine as demonstration of disapproval for his conduct • Rules that infertility, even if present, is no ground to deny woman dower or maintenance ISLAMABAD: The Supr­e­me Court on Wednesday denounced the distressing and sorrowful social practice of ‘weaponising’ infertility, or even the mere suspicion of it, against women. “This social prejudice routinely results in courts of law becoming venues for humiliating a woman under the guise of litigation,” regretted Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi. The CJP, who was part of a two-judge bench alongside Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, was remarking on a case filed by one Saleh Muhammad against a March 3, 2025, judgement of the Peshawar High Court (PHC), regarding a dispute over dower claims, dowry articles and maintenance of the respondent, Mehnaz Begum. “This court cannot but record in the strongest possible terms its disapproval of the manner in which the respondent — a...
  • Pakistan, Afghanistan sign trade agreement
    Dawn - 05:29 Jul 24, 2025
    ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Afghanistan on Wednesday signed an Early Harvest Programme (EHP) to reduce tariffs on eight agricultural items for one year, laying the foundation for a broader preferential trade agreement (PTA) between the two countries. The EHP, which takes effect on Aug 1, will remain in force for one year and is renewable. It also allows for the future inclusion of additional items, making it the first tangible step towards launching negotiations on a comprehensive PTA. The agreement was signed by Pakistan’s Commerce Secretary, Jawad Paul, and Afghanistan’s Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mullah Ahmadullah Zahid, who was accompanied by a delegation of senior technical officials. The Afghan delegation arrived in Islamabad on Monday night to hold detailed negotiations with Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce. Under the agreement, tariffs on four Afghan agricultural exports to Pakistan — grapes, pomegranates, apples, and tomatoes — and four Pakistani exports to Afghanistan — mangoes, kinnows, b...
  • Columbia University to pay over $200m to resolve Trump probes
    Dawn - 04:39 Jul 24, 2025
    Columbia University said on Wednesday it will pay $200 million to the US government after President Donald Trump threatened to pull federal funding over what he said was its unwillingness to protect Jewish students. In a sweeping deal that will restore the prestigious New York institution’s federal monies, Columbia has pledged to obey rules that bar it from taking race into consideration in admissions or hiring, among other concessions. “Columbia University has reached an agreement with the United States government to resolve multiple federal agency investigations into alleged violations of federal anti-discrimination laws,” a statement said, adding that the $200m would be paid over three years. The university will also pay $21m to settle investigations brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it said. “Under today’s agreement, a vast majority of the federal grants which were terminated or paused in March 2025 will be reinstated and Columbia’s access to billions of dollars in current and fut...
  • Pakistani passport still ranked among ‘weakest’ despite improvement
    Dawn - 03:22 Jul 24, 2025
    KARACHI: While the passports of other Asian countries have emerged as the most powerful in the world, Pakistan’s travel document continues to be ranked among the ‘weakest’ in the world, with visa-free access available to only 32 destinations. According to the Henley Passport Index for 2025, Pakistan currently ranks 96th on the list — ahead of the war-torn nations of Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Although still quite low, the country’s ranking has improved slightly; in 2024, the Pakistani passport was tied with Yemen as the fourth-worst in the world for the fourth consecutive year. The Henley Passport Index compares the visa-free access of 199 different passports to 227 travel destinations, and ranks all the world’s passports based on the number of destinations their holders can enter without a prior visa. Singapore, Japan and South Korea top the list; Afghanistan placed at the bottom If no visa is required, then that passport is given a score value of 1. The same applies if you can obtain a vis...
  • Mostly children among 13 dead in KP monsoon spell over last 48 hours: PDMA
    Dawn - 19:11 Jul 23, 2025
    At least 13 people died, including nine children, and three were injured over the last 48 hours in monsoon rain-related incidents across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said in a damage report on Wednesday. Monsoon rains, which fall across the region from June to September every year, continue to lash many parts of the country, prompting authorities to release an urban flooding warning for several cities. The monsoon death toll since the end of June surged to 234, according to the National Disaster Mana­gement Authority (NDMA). Heavy rains triggered flash floods in several districts of KP and Gilgit-Baltistan, damaging homes and increasing water levels in rivers and streams. Over the last 48 hours, Swat has recorded the highest toll as six children and one woman died owing to flash floods and a house collapsing, while a woman and child were injured, the KP PDMA report said. Three people died in Buner, which experienced heavy rain with thunder and lightning. A woman and ...
    Tags: PDMA
  • World’s top court paves way for climate reparations
    Dawn - 19:05 Jul 23, 2025
    The world’s highest court on Wednesday declared that states are obligated under international law to tackle climate change and warned that failing to do so could open the door to reparations. In a historic ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said climate change was an “urgent and existential threat” and states had a legal duty to prevent harm from their planet-warming pollution. Countries breaching their climate obligations were committing a “wrongful act”, the court said in its advisory opinion, which is not legally binding but carries significant moral, political and legal weight. “The legal consequences resulting from the commission of an internationally wrongful act may include … full reparations to injured states in the form of restitution, compensation and satisfaction,” said ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa on behalf of the 15-judge panel. This would be on a case-by-case basis where a “sufficient direct and certain causal nexus” had been shown “between the wrongful act and the injury”, the court...
  • FM Dar calls for unconditional ceasefire, unrestricted humanitarian access amid Gaza food crisis
    Dawn - 18:52 Jul 23, 2025
    Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday urged the United Nations Security Council and the international community to bring about an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, along with unrestricted humanitarian access amid a food crisis in the besieged territory. Gaza’s population of more than two million people is facing severe shortages of food and other essentials, with residents frequently killed as they try to collect humanitarian aid at a handful of distribution points. The UN on Tuesday said Israeli forces have killed over 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid in Gaza since the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operations. An officially private effort, the GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel halted supplies into the Gaza Strip for more than two months, sparking famine warnings. GHF operations have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people waiting to collect rations in the Pal...
    Tags: Gaza
  • Zubair Habib reappointed as CPLC chief for 3-year term
    Dawn - 18:33 Jul 23, 2025
    The first meeting of the newly established Executive Council of Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) reappointed Zubair Habib as the head of the CPLC for the next three years, it emerged on Wednesday. He previously served as CPLC chief as well, being appointed in October 2015 when its board accepted the resignation of former chief Ahmed Chinoy and appointed Habib in his place. “The Sindh home minister in consultation with the executive council directed the CPLC chief Zubair Habib to continue his position,” said an official statement issued today. Habib told Dawn.com that previously, the CPLC worked under the police rules. The Sindh Assembly had passed the Police Act in 2019 under which the CPLC was declared as a statutory body, under which its new configuration was required. Previously, the Sindh governor was the head of the advisory council, but now the home minister would be its chairman. Similarly, the home minister would be the head of the executive council, whose members included the home secretary, ...
  • Lower Kurram and Sadda tribes sign year-long peace agreement
    Dawn - 18:17 Jul 23, 2025
    The tribes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lower Kurram and Sadda regions signed a peace agreement on Wednesday for a year in a jirga held at the Sadda Frontier Corps Fort that was attended by many local notables. In March, tribal leaders in Kurram district came to terms on an eight-month peace agreement ahead of Eidul Fitr. Violence stemming from decades-old land disputes had claimed at least 130 lives in the fragile district, with multiple efforts to establish peace between tribes. A ceasefire agreement was reached following months of conflict in January. Kurram Deputy Commissioner (DC) Ashfaq Khan, who chaired the jirga, told Dawn.com that after a long law and order situation in the district, the efforts of the administration, security forces, police and tribal leaders brought positive results and “a peace agreement was signed between the local tribes of Lower Kurram and Sadda for a year.” The jirga was held at Sadda FC Fort between prominent tribal chiefs of the Ahle Sunnat and Tori Bangash tribes, including the ...
  • Imran’s sons meet Trump aide to kick off US campaign to free father
    Dawn - 18:08 Jul 23, 2025
    Incarcerated PTI Founder Imran Khan’s sons met with United States President Donald Trump’s key aide Richard Grenell on Tuesday as they kicked off a campaign calling for their father’s release from prison. Imran’s sons — Sulaiman Khan, 28, and Kasim Khan, 26 — called attention to their father’s incarceration for the first time publicly in May. Earlier this month, Imran’s sister Aleema Khan said Sulaiman and Kasim will go to the US before coming to Pakistan as part of a movement calling for the ex-premier’s release. Imran, imprisoned since August 2023, is serving a sentence at the Adiala Jail in a £190 million corruption case and also faces pending trials under the Anti-Terrorism Act related to the protests of May 9, 2023. Grenell, US special presidential envoy for special missions — known for publicly calling for Imran’s release — posted on X that he had met with Sulaiman and Kasim in California, urging them to “stay strong”. “There are millions of people around the world who are sick of political prosecutions...
    Tags: Imran
  • Pakistan ready for ‘meaningful dialogue’ with India, PM Shehbaz reiterates in talks with UK envoy
    Dawn - 17:57 Jul 23, 2025
    Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday reiterated Pakistan’s willingness for a “meaningful dialogue” with India on all outstanding issues, state media Radio Pakistan reported. The April 22 attack in occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam killed 26 people, sparking a military confrontation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan as New Delhi blamed it on Islamabad, which strongly denied the allegations while calling for a neutral investigation. A US-brokered ceasefire ended the war. Pakistan previously invited India to a comprehensive dialogue to address all contentious issues, including the Kashmir dispute and the water distribution. During a meeting with British High Commissioner Jane Marriott today, PM Shehbaz appreciated the UK’s role in de-escalating tensions during the Pakistan-India standoff and reiterated that Pakistan was ready for a meaningful dialogue with India on all outstanding issues. He welcomed the British government’s decision to resume PIA flights to the UK. He said, “This [decision] would go a lo...
  • British families receive ‘wrong remains’ of Air India plane crash victims: report
    Dawn - 17:22 Jul 23, 2025
    Families in the United Kingdom have received the “wrong remains” of victims of an Air India plane crash last month, which left 260 people dead, according to a media report on Wednesday. The families are suffering “fresh heartache because the remains of their loved ones were wrongly identified before being flown home”, British publication The Daily Mail reported. It said relatives of one of the victims had to abandon “funeral plans after being informed that their coffin contained the body of an unknown passenger rather than their family member”. In another case, the “commingled” remains of more than one person killed in the crash were mistakenly placed in the same casket, it added. A lawyer representing several families and UK media said relatives of a British victim received a casket that contained mixed remains. The family of a separate victim received the remains of another person, according to James Healy-Pratt, who is representing 20 British families who lost loved ones in the disaster. Healy-Pratt told t...
  • Pakistan and Bangladesh agree on visa-free entry for diplomats, pledge stronger security cooperation
    Dawn - 14:51 Jul 23, 2025
    Pakistan and Bangladesh on Wednesday agreed in principle to grant visa-free entry to holders of diplomatic and official passports, along with a pledge to stronger security cooperation. The two countries were once one nation but split following a bloody civil war, which saw the territory previously referred to as ‘East Pakistan’ seceding to form the independent nation of Bangladesh. In the years since the split between Pakistan and Bangladesh, Dhaka’s leaders — especially the ousted regime of Sheikh Hasina — stayed firmly in the Indian camp, preferring to maintain close ties with New Delhi and keeping Islamabad at arm’s length. However, ever since a popular uprising that saw Hasina’s government toppled in August of last year, with the deposed premier fleeing to her old ally India, there has been a thaw in ties between the two capitals, with trade and bilateral relations seeing a marked improvement. In May, Bangladesh High Commissioner to Pakistan Iqbal Hussain Khan said that the visa regime between Pakistan an...
  • FM Dar urges cooperative diplomacy over confrontation amid growing global turbulence
    Dawn - 14:51 Jul 23, 2025
    Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar called for an inclusive dialogue and cooperative diplomacy over confrontation amid growing turbulence across the world during his United States visit on Wednesday. Dar arrived in New York on Monday to attend “high-level signature events” of Pakistan’s United Nations Security Council (UNSC) presidency, including a conference on Palestine. Addressing a reception today hosted by Pakistan’s Mission in New York on the occasion of Pakistan’s UNSC presidency, Dar stressed: “We believe that global peace and security can only be achieved through multilateralism, peaceful settlement of disputes, inclusive dialogue, and respect for international law.” The deputy PM pointed out: “At the core of Pakistan’s foreign policy is our firm commitment to multilateralism and the United Nations. “The purposes and principles enshrined in the UN Charter, especially peaceful settlement of disputes and non-use or threat of force are foundational to the UN. They are indispensable for ...
  • Balochistan couple murder: Quetta ATC extends tribal leader’s physical remand by 10 days
    Dawn - 14:22 Jul 23, 2025
    A Quetta anti-terrorism court on Wednesday extended the physical remand of tribal leader Sardar Sherbaz Satakzai, one of the main suspects in the ‘honour’ killing of a man and a woman, for 10 more days. The viral video of the murder showed a group of men leading a couple out of vehicles and into a desert before gunning them down with pistols and shooting the bodies. Political figures and activists said it was an ‘honour’ killing incident. Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said on Sunday that he had directed the provincial police to take immediate action, following which one suspect was apprehended. Sardar Satakzai is one of the main suspects in the case and was presented before the Quetta ATC on Monday before being handed over to the Serious Crimes Investigation Wing (SCIW) on a two-day physical remand on the judge’s order upon the police’s request. He was presented in the ATC today before Judge Muhammad Mubeen, who accepted the police request and granted Satakzai’s physical remand for another 10 days,...
    Tags: Quetta

5493 items