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Dawn - 08:10 Dec 10, 2025
Thailand and Cambodia accused each other of targeting civilians in border attacks on Wednesday, as US President Donald Trump said he would make a phone call to stop the fighting and salvage a ceasefire he brokered in July. The two Southeast Asian nations have each blamed the other for the clashes that started on Monday, and remain at odds on a diplomatic solution to the border tensions that have been simmering for months. Thailand’s foreign minister said in an interview on Tuesday that he saw no potential for negotiations, adding the situation was not conducive to third-party mediation, while a top adviser to Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet told Reuters his country was “ready to talk at any time”. Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening, Trump listed a number of wars that he claimed he helped stop, including between Pakistan and India, and Israel and Iran, before commenting on the renewed conflict in Southeast Asia. “I hate to say this one, named Cambodia–Thailand and it started up today an... -
Dawn - 07:26 Dec 10, 2025
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) granted 10-day protective bail to YouTuber Rajab Butt and TikToker Nadeem Mubarak, also known as Nani Wala, on Wednesday in multiple cases related to gambling apps, cybercrime and other allegations after they surrendered before the court. Justice Raja Inam Ameen Minhas approved the bail after the social media influencers appeared before the IHC after reaching Pakistan from the United Kingdom. The development comes a day after the IHC granted protective bail to the two till December 10 (today), in response to a petition filed by Butt and Mubarak’s relatives, to ensure the content creators were not arrested upon their arrival in Pakistan. Their counsel informed the court yesterday that Butt and Mubarak had been abroad for several months and feared arrest upon landing at Islamabad International Airport. He argued that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and other departments had registered several cases against them, but under the law the petitioners were entitled to seek relief... -
Dawn - 04:31 Dec 10, 2025
ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary committee on Tuesday directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to prepare a report on tax rates for mobile phones, covering policy options, economic impact, international comparisons, and proposed revisions. The directive came from the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue, chaired by MNA Naveed Qamar, who expressed displeasure over rising taxes on mobile phones, noting that these institutions have wrongly classified mobile phones as luxury items. The chairman urged both the FBR and Tax Policy Office to review current tax rates on mobile phone imports under the personal baggage and registration schemes. Mr Qamar said the report should be prepared by March 2026, enabling the committee to examine the matter comprehensively ahead of the next budget. MNA Qasim Gilani criticised the heavy taxes on mobile phones, noting that consumers are forced to pay taxes again if their phones are lost or stolen. He highlighted that... -
Dawn - 02:48 Dec 10, 2025
BERLIN: More than 250 human rights groups and other NGOs renewed pressure on the German government on Tuesday to take in hundreds of Afghans stranded in Pakistan who had been offered sanctuary by Berlin. The organisations, including Amnesty International, Save the Children, Human Rights Watch and church groups, urged the government to bring the roughly 1,800 Afghans to Germany from Pakistan before the end of the year. Those affected must be evacuated in the coming weeks to protect them from deportation back to Afghanistan, the groups said. The Afghans were accepted under a refugee scheme set up by the previous German government, but have been stuck in Pakistan since conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz took office in May and froze the programme. Around 350 people on the scheme have been able to come to Germany after winning legal challenges against the government in German courts. UNHCR survey shows only 1.2m of 2m Afghans in Pakistan are registered According to the open letter sent to the German governm... -
Dawn - 01:29 Dec 10, 2025
ON Human Rights Day, the pitiful state of basic liberties in Pakistan — which is combating militancy, climate shocks and a damaged economy — conveys that the country has little to celebrate. Additionally, an outdated criminal justice system and institutional overreach contribute to civil rights violations. What lies ahead for Pakistan’s children is the more pressing aspect. Not only are millions without essential services — food, education and health — they are also forced into labour and illicit trade. Even their existence is ignored by the state: The Human Rights Review noted that only 42pc of children under five were registered at birth. Pakistan, with some 26m children out of school, has allowed the education emergency to persist. Education statistics show that 40pc of children have only a slim chance of acquiring a primary education. This is worsened by the displacement and destruction wrought by both extreme weather patterns and turmoil in KP and Balochistan. According to a World Bank report, poverty ca... -
Dawn - 19:18 Dec 09, 2025
A sit-in led by Aleema Khan, the sister of incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan, continued on Tuesday night near Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail after she was once again denied a meeting with the ex-premier. The sit-in continued into the night, with party leaders and supporters present on Adiala road as of midnight. Senior party members, including PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja and PTI KP Provincial President Junaid Akbar Khan, also joined the demonstration earlier tonight. The PTI has made multiple attempts to meet the incarcerated party founder, being denied an audience each time by jail authorities despite a court order allowing meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, last week, the authorities allowed Uzma Khan, another one of Imran’s sisters, to meet her incarcerated brother. After the visit, she said he was “perfectly fine”. Speaking in video statements as she made her way to the prison today, Aleema alleged that the state had been breaking the law, while maintaining that the PTI had done nothing ... -
Dawn - 19:13 Dec 09, 2025
A High Court judge in the United Kingdom has ordered YouTuber Adil Raja to publicly apologise to Brigadier (retd) Rashid Naseer following a defamation case. Raja, who runs a YouTube channel and has positioned himself as a whistleblower, was accused of making multiple defamatory statements on social media, including allegations of corruption, electoral interference, judicial manipulation, and human rights abuse, all of which Brigadier (retd) Naseer strongly denied. Judge Richard Spearman KC directed that the apology must remain on Raja’s social media accounts and website for 28 days. The court also ordered Raja to pay £50,000 in damages and £260,000 in legal costs by December 22. The order was issued after Raja lost a defamation case in October, in which the court ruled that allegations he made against Brigadier (retd) Naseer were unfounded. The judge had earlier directed Raja to publish a summary confirming that the statements were defamatory and that the retired military official had succeeded in his claim. ... -
Dawn - 19:02 Dec 09, 2025
The sun burned with a fierce, summer-like intensity on the winter morning but it couldn’t temper the spirit of the competitors gunning for glory at the National Games on Tuesday. The open field at the athletics venue hummed with simultaneous action — discus flying in one sector, hurdlers pacing in another. On the track, athletes bobbed and stretched, their shadows short under the midday blaze. In the stands, a scattered crowd fanned themselves, eyes darting between events. The pool offered some respite from the blazing sun as swimming began at the Games on a day headlined by Commonwealth Games gold medallist Inam Butt extending his remarkable legacy by clinching his 18th national title — the most by any wrestler — and a national record for discus thrower Faryal Farooq. Faryal’s feat was the culmination of a four-years effort; those long days of lonely training meeting minutes of razor-edged opportunity. Through her first four throws, she was nowhere near the mark. The record, it seemed, would elude her once m... -
Dawn - 19:02 Dec 09, 2025
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday said that the country’s economy cannot be run with force and suggested that the federal government allow provinces to collect taxes to bolster the economy. Speaking to journalists after meeting with the business community at the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Bilawal also suggested that the provinces could directly collect sales tax, in view of independent reports about a Rs3 trillion leakage. “Wherever you need our help at the level of the president of Pakistan, our governors, we are ready to do so for your district-wise economic uplift plan,” the PPP chief said. “The prime minister also desires to work for this, but the difference between their approach and ours is that they believe in centralisation and we focus on decentralisation,” he added. Bilawal acknowledged the business community’s concerns about high tax rates, but maintained that his party believes in collecting more taxes to strengthen the economy. “Though the goal i... -
Dawn - 18:12 Dec 09, 2025
A new national assessment by the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative (PAQI) has found that local emission sources are the primary contributors to the hazardous air quality levels in Pakistan’s major cities. This emerged on Tuesday. The PAQI is an independent research and advocacy organisation committed to addressing air pollution in Pakistan. The report, Unveiling Pakistan’s Air Pollution: A National Landscape Report on Health Risks, Sources and Solutions, provides the country’s first multi-sectoral emissions inventories and concludes that urban smog is overwhelmingly generated within Pakistan’s own airsheds. “Toxic air pollution reduces the life expectancy of the average Pakistani by 3.9 years,” the report states. The report draws on satellite-derived aerosol datasets, chemical transport modelling and PAQI’s nationwide real-time monitoring network, the largest open-data air-quality system in Pakistan, to map the sources, scale, and health impacts of PM2.5 across the country’s largest cities. PM2.5 is a cancer-ca... -
Dawn - 17:17 Dec 09, 2025
It was the late 1990s on a crisp December morning in Karachi, the cloudless blue sky and glossy pool smiling at each other. Swimmers hunched over the edge of the pool before diving in as three technical officials standing behind with manual stopwatches clutched between their index finger and palm. Races concluded and left gold medallists and photo-finishers alike clueless on whether they had set a personal best time or age-group record. They simply had to wait for the results to be announced several minutes later, which translates to eons in the mind of an athlete. Except it wasn’t the 1990s — it was 2025, and swimming at the 35th National Games embodied the phrase “back to the future”. Sindh had finally caught up to the other provinces and installed touchpads in a 50m swimming pool in Karachi as per rules mandated by the Pakistan Swimming Federation. But no sooner had the imported touchpads and display boards been installed that they went kaput. Rumours of faulty technical equipment circulating the night bef... -
Dawn - 17:02 Dec 09, 2025
After securing protective bail from the Islamabad High Court (IHC), content creators Rajab Butt and Nadeem Mubarak, also known as Nani Wala, are scheduled to arrive in Pakistan on Tuesday night to surrender to the authorities in ongoing legal cases. The content creators are no strangers to legal trouble. In September this year, Butt was booked by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) for allegedly promoting online gambling apps on social media. Nadeem was also booked by the NCCIA for allegedly promoting gambling apps on his social media, but he was also arrested in September for displaying a fake registration number – ‘IK-804’ – on his car. On being quizzed, he couldn’t satisfy the police with regard to displaying the fake registration number, IK-804, which is said to be the prisoner number allotted to incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan. The two, who are travelling from London, are set to arrive at Islamabad Airport later tonight and are expected to surrender themselves on December 10 (tomorr... -
Dawn - 16:37 Dec 09, 2025
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday termed his meeting with the Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto “extremely productive and gratifying”, as the two pledged to expand bilateral trade ties. Speaking during a ceremony held for the signing of several memoranda of understanding between Indonesia and Pakistan, PM Shehbaz detailed the pair’s discussions and said, “What we have decided is […] to promote our bilateral trade, culture, interact in the field of medical health, education, and vocational training.” He assured the Indonesian president that Pakistan would “work closely” with Indonesia to achieve the decided targets. The premier noted that Pakistan’s current bilateral trade with Indonesia stood at $4.5 billion, out of which more than 90 per cent accounted for palm oil imports. “We have discussed how to take corrective measures to balance this balance of trade through agricultural exports from Pakistan, through exports of IT-led initiatives,” adding that the “trade gap” can be filled in many other are... -
Dawn - 16:29 Dec 09, 2025
The Punjab Assembly on Tuesday adopted a resolution to ban incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) founder and former prime minister Imran Khan and his party for being “anti-state”. The development comes days after Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry assailed Khan for creating and spreading an “anti-army” rhetoric, stating that such narratives were now out of the realm of politics and had become a “national security threat”. Since then a war of words continued between the leaders of ruling party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and PTI over the presser, with Defence Minister Khawaja Asif saying Imran had used “harsh language” in the past for members of the opposition, insisting that the party had no right to object to the comments by the military’s spokesman, while the opposition party emphatically deplored “ridiculous” remarks by the military spokesperson against ex-premier Imran Khan, saying he was “not a security threat”. PML-N MPA Tahir Pervaiz move... -
Dawn - 14:43 Dec 09, 2025
Global technology giant Microsoft announced on Tuesday plans to invest $17.5 billion to help build India’s artificial intelligence infrastructure, with CEO Satya Nadella calling it “our largest investment ever in Asia”. Several global corporations have announced large investments this year in the South Asian nation, which is projected to have more than 900 million internet users by year’s end. “To support the country’s ambitions, Microsoft is committing US$17.5B (billion) – our largest investment ever in Asia – to help build the infrastructure, skills, and sovereign capabilities needed for India’s AI first future,” Nadella said in a post on X. Nadella made the announcement on social media after he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, thanking the leader for “an inspiring conversation on India’s AI opportunity”. In a statement, Microsoft said the investment would be spread over four years. “Together, Microsoft and India are poised to set new benchmarks and drive the country’s leap from digital public... -
Dawn - 13:56 Dec 09, 2025
The United States will allow Nvidia’s H200 processors, its second-best artificial intelligence chips, to be exported to China and collect a 25 per cent fee on such sales, US President Donald Trump said on Monday. The decision appears to settle a US debate about whether Nvidia and rivals should maintain their global lead in AI chips by selling to China or withhold the exports, though Beijing has told companies not to use US technology, leaving it unclear whether Trump’s decision would lead to new sales. Nvidia shares rose 2pc in after-hours trading after Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, following a 3pc rise during the day on a report by Semafor. Trump said in his post that he had informed President Xi Jinping of China, where Nvidia’s chips are under government scrutiny, about the move and that he “responded positively.” He said the US Commerce Department was finalising details of the arrangement and the same approach would apply to other AI chip firms such as Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. Trump... -
Dawn - 13:39 Dec 09, 2025
As militant attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa surge, the provincial police force has asked the government to grant a special allowance to its personnel, which would cost around Rs4.2 billion per month. Attacks on police personnel have increased by around 56 per cent during the current year. In this regard, the Central Police Office (CPO) moved a summary to KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi. The summary stated that the provincial government prioritised the enhancement of police capacity and welfare in view of militancy and security challenges. “Due to the government’s focused efforts and effective administrative measures, not only has the law and order situation improved, but the government’s overall public image has also strengthened,” the summary read. The summary further stated that special financial incentives, such as a militancy allowance, were being provided to police personnel in view of the grave risks, operational responsibilities, and constant exposure to threats they face on a routine basis. It added tha... -
Dawn - 13:12 Dec 09, 2025
Fresh clashes along the Thai-Cambodia border are being met with grim resignation by civilians, as they flock again to makeshift shelters still standing from the last bout of combat. Displaced children chased each other on the tarmac of Thailand’s Chang International Circuit race track, where hundreds of families were sheltering in vast silo-shaped tents. “I want the government to deal with this decisively so it stops for good,” said handyman Boonsong Boonpimay at the racecourse in Buriram city, 70 kilometres from the fraught frontier. “Otherwise we’ll have to keep living like this — unable to work and constantly on edge,” the 51-year-old told AFP. Thailand and Cambodia have a long-standing dispute over portions of their boundary dating back to their colonial-era demarcation. Residents rest inside a temple after they evacuated following clashes along the Cambodia-Thailand border, in Siem Reap province on December 9. — AFP Five days of combat in July killed dozens of people and displaced around 300,000 on both ... -
Dawn - 12:40 Dec 09, 2025
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) declared on Tuesday a petition seeking the verification of Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri’s degree maintainable and sought a reply from the judge on the matter within three days. The petition questioning the legitimacy of the LLB degree of the IHC judge and seeking a judicial determination on whether he lawfully held office as a high court judge was filed by lawyer Mian Daud. The court had reserved its decision on the maintainability of the plea in July last year. The case against Justice Jahangiri centres on a letter that began circulating last year on social media, purportedly from the University of Karachi’s controller of examinations, regarding the judge’s law degree. A two-member IHC bench, comprising Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and Justice Muhammad Azam Khan, issued the verdict today after hearing arguments on the matter. During the hearing, Ahmed Hassan Shah, who was representing the District Bar Association, contended that the matter should be referred to the Is... -
Dawn - 12:34 Dec 09, 2025
An annual survey released by Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) on Tuesday showed that the police is perceived as the most corrupt government sector in Pakistan, followed by the tender and procurement sector, and then the judiciary. According to a press release issued by TIP, the National Corruption Perception Survey aims to gauge the perception of the public on important governance issues. This year’s survey showed that 24 per cent of 4,000 people (1,000 from each province) surveyed believed police to be the most corrupt sector, with the highest level of perception of corruption in Punjab at 34pc, followed by 22pc in Balochistan, 21pc in Sindh, and 20pc in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Screengrab from the Transparency International 2025 National Corruption Perception Survey shows results of this year’s survey. The department has consistently ranked the most corrupt in previous surveys conducted by TIP. Screengrab from the Transparency International 2025 National Corruption Perception Survey showing results from...
5707 items