Dawn
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Dawn - 03:57 Aug 03, 2026
LAHORE: The city traffic police have initiated verification of the criminal record of 348,000 commercial vehicle drivers following reports that they were involved in 48 percent of the total fatal road crashes. The decision was taken during a high-level meeting, where official data pertaining to repeated crashes and unsafe driving history of commercial and public service vehicles was presented. Chaired by Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Syed Abdul Raheem Shirazi, the meeting reviewed the growing trend of commercial vehicle-related crashes and formulated a strategy to address the underlying causes. SP Headquarters Fakhar Bashir Raja had been assigned a special mandate to conduct an in-depth analysis of crash patterns and recommend evidence-based interventions to prevent future fatalities. A traffic police spokesperson said that the meeting was informed that Lahore had approximately 8.2 million registered vehicles, including 348,000 commercial vehicles, representing nearly five percent of the city’s total registered... -
Dawn - 03:44 Aug 03, 2026
PALESTINIAN resistance group Hamas recently made a major concession by agreeing to give up its weapons. It should be remembered that along with its political activities, the movement has an armed wing dedicated to the liberation of Palestine. The group’s weapons will be surrendered to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the Palestinian technocratic body formed under US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace. In essence, Hamas has thrown the gauntlet to Israel: it is ready to surrender its weapons, but will the Zionist state end its occupation of Gaza? This remains the million-dollar question. Mr Trump was upbeat about the development, saying that Israel was “very happy” about it. However, while there had been no official reaction from Tel Aviv at the time of writing, most Israeli politicians, including some in the cabinet, have decried the move, calling for the destruction of Hamas. It will be interesting to see whether Israel honours its end of the deal and vacates occupied Palestinian te... -
Dawn - 03:37 Aug 03, 2026
THESE days we are repeatedly told that the Pakistani state has been soft on anarchy for far too long. This is the considered and stated position of many state officials as well as of many supporters of those in power. Common people may hold any number of positions that one finds distasteful but the same sentiments being voiced by those in power invite both scrutiny and concern. For the last three years, there has been much chatter about turning Pakistan into a ‘hard state’. No one has given an adequate definition of what this entails, but based on disparate statements and impulses, we can gather this has something to do with protecting the rights of the state and the decision-makers who staff it. These rights are being obtained via a frequently violent trade-off with the rights of the people of Pakistan. The projected consequence of such a trade-off is that protest of all shades becomes a privilege. Demands can only be voiced with due approval through vetted content and NOCs. Speech is to be regulated via def... -
Dawn - 03:34 Aug 03, 2026
KARACHI: Police investigators probing the death of a 25-year-old former IBA student and aspiring businessman have found that Mir Raza Ali Khan was facing financial losses in his business, but they doubt the theory that he took his own life, even though the evidence collected so far points to suicide, it emerged on Sunday. They are, however, hopeful of “resolving the case within a very short time”. The aspiring businessman’s body, bearing a gunshot wound to his chest, was recovered from bushes near Shahi Qila in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, opposite the University of Karachi, two days after he went missing and was allegedly kidnapped from his home in PECHS, Block-2. One official familiar with the investigation so far told Dawn, on condition of anonymity, that certain things had emerged during the course of the investigation, prompting investigators to focus more on the possibility of suicide than murder. Detectives trace former IBA student and entrepreneur’s final movements; financial losses emerge as key focus in probe... -
Dawn - 03:31 Aug 03, 2026
PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s approval rating has hit an all-time low according to the latest Economist/YouGov poll. The survey found 62 per cent of Americans disapprove of the president’s performance while 63pc say the country is headed in the wrong direction. These are Trump’s worst numbers since he returned to the White House last year. The results align with findings of other polls, which show he has fallen out of favour with the majority of Americans. The slide isn’t just about an unpopular war with Iran. Trump’s management of the economy is also driving public discontent. The first 18 months of the mercurial leader’s second term have been defined by disruption at home and abroad. His ‘America First’ unilateralism has meant military strikes on multiple countries and upending of the global trading system. It reflects contempt for international law and other nations’ sovereignty. For a president who promised to end wars, not start them, his record is the opposite. Trump assumed American power could browbeat oth... -
Dawn - 03:27 Aug 03, 2026
In the afternoon of Feb 22, 67-year-old Bulal Maharjan, a farmer on the outskirts of Kathmandu, was sitting on his porch chopping cauliflower leaves to feed his chickens. Hearing a loud thud as a parked motorcycle toppled, he turned and watched in horror as a leopard leapt away from the fallen vehicle and lunged at him, piercing its sharp canines into his forehead, its claws lacerating his hands. Within seconds, neighbours swarmed in, and the leopard ran into a nearby house. They eventually trapped the animal inside. After nearly two hours of panic that saw two more people injured trying to control the distressed big cat, forest division officials managed to sedate it and bring the situation under control. Maharjan still can’t shake off memories of the attack. “For three days straight, I couldn’t even sleep. Every time I began to doze, the scene of this attack would jolt me up!” he says. “I think we should just get rid of this animal. Period.” Conflicts with people are growing as expanded forest land and clim... -
Dawn - 03:24 Aug 03, 2026
LONDON: Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has signalled his support for a written Constitution for the UK, which unlike most countries, does not have one authoritative document. Since entering office just two weeks ago, the former mayor of Greater Manchester has made devolution of power to regional authorities a focus of his administration. “In the end, I think it does start to point towards a new constitutional settlement,” Burnham said of his devolution plans. Calling for a “new clear set of principles about how this country should be run”, Burnham said there was a need for a written Constitution – something he has called for before he was prime minister. “It’s wrong that people are left arguing for things that are just fundamental… and the lack of a Constitution disempowers places in that situation,” said Burnham. Unlike most countries around the world, Britain does not have a written constitution. Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2026 -
Dawn - 03:14 Aug 03, 2026
MOSCOW: A homemade bomb carried by a woman killed at least three people and injured 21 near an upscale restaurant in central Moscow on Saturday evening, authorities said, amid unconfirmed speculation on social media that the attack may have been linked to the war in Ukraine. The explosion occurred just before 8pm close to an Italian restaurant located in one of Moscow’s seven Stalin-era skyscrapers at Kudrinskaya Square, the police said. Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAK) said an unidentified woman carrying an improvised explosive device had tried to get into the restaurant but had been stopped by a security guard. NAK said the woman, the guard and a customer at the Balzi Rossi Italian restaurant had been killed instantly in the blast that followed. REN TV cited a source on Sunday as saying that two people who had been taken to hospital had later died of their wounds, bringing the death toll to five, though there was no official confirmation. The channel said six people remained in a serious con... -
Dawn - 03:06 Aug 03, 2026
AGIOS KONSTANTINOS: North America and Europe have been ravaged by wildfires this summer after a period of record-breaking heatwaves and little rain conditions that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change. In Greece, two firefighting helicopters collided while helping to control a huge wildfire on Sunday that has destroyed more than 100 homes northwest of Athens, while a fresh blaze forced evacuations on the popular tourist island of Kefalonia. State broadcaster ERT reported that one crewmember had been found safe, while rescuers were searching for the second. Television footage showed one of the helicopters explode and plunge to the ground in flames after an apparent rotor collision. Helicopters collide in Greece as tourist destinations evacuated; blazes in Spain, France show signs of easing; flames roar through Spokane as Washington state declares emergency Meanwhile, destructive blazes in France and Spain showed signs of easing over the weekend, but several wildfires have broken out in Greece... -
Dawn - 02:55 Aug 03, 2026
KARACHI: At least four people were injured as a scuffle and chaos marred a meeting of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) at the party’s headquarters in Bahadurabad near Char Minar on Sunday evening. According to party officials, the clash broke out between supporters of two rival groups within the party. A police officer, requesting anonymity, told Dawn that police were present at the scene and the situation was under control. He added that, so far, no one had approached the New Town police to lodge a complaint. The official added that police contingents had rushed to the scene to prevent the situation from deteriorating further. Another police official told Dawn that at around 7:20pm, an MQM-P meeting was underway at the party’s temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad, where senior leaders were present. He said the situation escalated after Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui left the meeting, with a scuffle breaking out between workers belonging to groups led by Anis Qaimkhani and Mustafa Kamal, and those s... -
Dawn - 02:51 Aug 03, 2026
LAHORE: The Provincial Management Service (PMS) officers’ association has opposed the Punjab government’s decision to create 101 Additional Assistant Commissioner (AAC) posts, calling it a “mala fide move” aimed at “weakening” the PMS cadre. The association said the AAC posts were abolished decades ago and their revival was “unnecessary and unjustified”, especially after the establishment of the Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (PERA) force. The association’s executive committee meeting chaired by president Qamar Zaman Qaisrani decided that an association delegation would meet the Punjab services secretary and the additional chief secretary to explain its concerns and demands on Monday (today). “If PMSA concerns are not addressed, it will launch the first phase of protest by wearing black armbands across the province from Tuesday (tomorrow).” The association said that creating new posts would place an additional burden on the national exchequer and be seen as a direct attempt to undermine the PMS ... -
Dawn - 02:50 Aug 03, 2026
“The times, they are a-changin,” is a 1964 iconic song by legendary Bob Dylan. Times have even changed and evolved in the world of work, even in the Pakistani industrial relations ecosystem. Gone are the days when ego-centric labour leaders wielded influence on members, energising them with demagoguery and rabble-rousing. Gone are the days when they would exert their self-generated importance to browbeat and intimidate employers. Within a few years, they faded away in the sunset. They rarely developed their successors. Narcissism prevailed over pragmatism. A new cadre of labour leaders gradually came to the fore, but by that time the worker movement had lost steam, and the number of labour unions across the country had substantially declined; today, only about one per cent of enterprises have registered unions. This new cadre faced, and is still facing, a difficult task in motivating workers to form unions and display brotherhood. They are reasonably successful in stimulating unions in the public sector but h... -
Dawn - 02:46 Aug 03, 2026
Pakistan is set to import one million tonnes of wheat as the federal government finds strategic reserves insufficient to meet the provinces’ requirements. More surprisingly, Punjab — the country’s only wheat-surplus province — has also sought 1m tonnes. Wheat imports are not unusual for Pakistan. The country has imported wheat in several financial years over the past decade to bridge supply gaps or rebuild strategic reserves. What makes the current decision unprecedented, however, is its timing. It comes barely three months after harvest, despite repeated official claims, made until only a few weeks ago, that 29.8m tonnes of domestic production, along with over 2m tonnes of carryover stocks, would be sufficient to meet the country’s annual requirements. Adding to the puzzle, poultry feed mills are not consuming wheat this year because maize — the poultry sector’s preferred feed grain — is considerably cheaper. Moreover, the border with Afghanistan has remained closed to both formal exports and cross-border sm... -
Dawn - 02:45 Aug 03, 2026
• Balochistan Chief Minister’s Inspection Team tasked with determining causes, fixing responsibility for negligence • Four mines sealed as separate departmental inquiry launched QUETTA: The Balochistan government has ordered a high-level inquiry into the deadly coal mine disaster in Sorange that claimed the lives of 34 miners, assigning the investigation to the Chief Minister’s Inspection Team (CMIT) to determine the causes of the tragedy and identify those responsible. On the directives of Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Sarfraz Bugti, the CMIT, headed by its chairman Bashir Ahmed Bangulzai, will conduct an on-site investigation into the July 30 accident. The inquiry has been tasked with establishing the actual cause of the incident, reviewing the performance of the relevant authorities, fixing responsibility for any negligence, and proposing measures to prevent similar accidents in the future. According to an official notification issued on Sunday, the CMIT has been directed to submit its findings and recomm... -
Dawn - 02:37 Aug 03, 2026
Pakistan today faces a double-barreled water emergency: first, the drying up of surface storage; and second, the relentless depletion of groundwater resources. The country is frequently cited as facing severe water stress, with an estimated storage capacity of only about 30 days compared with an international benchmark of 120 days. In March 2025, Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs fell to or near dead level, and Sindh faced about a 50 per cent water shortage at the start of the kharif season; the Indus River System Authority described depletion to dead levels as a common or usual occurrence in that season. Geopolitical treaty tussles aside, a major challenge in Pakistan’s water sector is that within its own borders, institutional paralysis, siltation of the dams, and huge losses in conveyance are sucking the country’s freshwater into the sea. Nasa’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment identifies the Indus Basin as one of the world’s most stressed aquifers, and the rate of depletion is fast, particularly in cen... -
Dawn - 02:15 Aug 03, 2026
ISLAMABAD: Key leaders of coalition partners, reacting to Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s proposal to overhaul the country’s governance structure and create new provinces, urged him to first implement the National Action Plan (NAP), arguing that Pakistan’s governance failures stem from constitutional violations rather than the existing federating units. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif responded to Mr Naqvi’s remarks in a post on X, in which he also referred to the DG ISPR’s comments. “Mohsin Naqvi sahib expressed his views on the dire state of the system. I more or less personally agree with these views,” Mr Asif wrote, describing the interior minister as a “powerhouse”. He added that, as a political worker, he believed the country’s political evolution had been “held captive to factional and personal interests for decades” and needed to be freed. The federal minister advised Mr Naqvi to begin the overhaul process by implementing NAP through his own ministry. He also urged Mr Naqvi to bring about a “revo... -
Dawn - 00:01 Aug 03, 2026
ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority member (tariff and finance) has questioned regulatory and accounting inconsistencies of the national grid’s recently-cleared revenue requirement of Rs332 billion, citing what she described as the ‘mirror image’ of receivables and non-transferred assets. Nepra member Amina Ahmed pointed out the financial inconsistencies in a detailed dissenting note on a recent 2-1 majority ruling of the regulator, approving a three-year combined revenue requirement for National Grid Company (NGC) at Rs332bn for FY2022-23, FY2023-24 and FY2024-25 for incorporation into consumer-end tariffs through use-of-system charges (UoSC) The NGC (formerly National Transmission & Despatch Company or NTDC) had sought a total of Rs478bn revenue requirement for three years under the multi-year tariff regime. This included Rs112bn for FY23, followed by 45pc rise to Rs163bn for FY24 and another 25pc rise to Rs203bn for FY25. In a majority decision issued a few days ago, Nepra allowed ... -
Dawn - 19:25 Aug 02, 2026
KARACHI: At least four people were injured as a scuffle and chaos marred a meeting of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) at the party’s headquarters in Bahadurabad near Char Minar on Sunday evening. According to party officials, the clash broke out between supporters of two rival groups within the party. A police officer, requesting anonymity, told Dawn that police were present at the scene and the situation was under control. He added that, so far, no one had approached the New Town police to lodge a complaint. The official added that police contingents had rushed to the scene to prevent the situation from deteriorating further. Another police official told Dawn that at around 7:20pm, an MQM-P meeting was underway at the party’s temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad, where senior leaders were present. He said the situation escalated after Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui left the meeting, with a scuffle breaking out between workers belonging to groups led by Anis Qaimkhani and Mustafa Kamal, and those s... -
Dawn - 18:29 Aug 02, 2026
As rescuers recovered the body of climbing legend Nirmal Purja on Sunday, grief rippled hundreds of kilometres away in Nepal at the school where he first displayed the grit that would make him world-famous. At the Small Heaven School in Chitwan district, friends, teachers and students gathered around a framed photograph of the 43-year-old British-Nepali climber, adorned with flowers. Lighting candles, they shared with AFP their memories of the boy they knew long before he became one of the most celebrated figures in modern mountaineering. “When he was missing, we were praying for him and spent sleepless nights,” Dhiraj Bahadur Panta, a school friend of Purja, told AFP, his voice quivering with emotion. “It was not only me and my friends. I think people all over the world who knew him… prayed for him. But it was his fate; no one could avoid it.” Purja was killed alongside nine other climbers after they were caught in a deadly avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak on Thursday. News of his death has prompted heartf... -
Dawn - 17:43 Aug 02, 2026
At least 14 people, including police officials, were martyred and 22 others injured in a suicide attack on Swat’s Kabal police station on Sunday, police said. Swat police spokesperson Nasir Iqbal Karimi, while speaking to Dawn, confirmed the death toll. Malakand Division Deputy Inspector General of Police Fida Hussain told AFP that police officers were among those martyred. He added that 22 people had been wounded and another body, suspected to be that of the bomber, had been brought to hospital. According to the Swat District Police Officer (DPO) Umar Khan, the suicide bomber detonated explosives after police personnel attempted to stop and search him at the entrance of the police station. The DPO said that the police remained on high alert. “Security forces have cordoned off the area, and an investigation is underway to collect further evidence,“ he added. The explosion occurred near the gate of Kabal police station while hundreds of people were participating in a public demonstration at nearby Kabal Chowk ...
12682 items