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Dawn - 00:31 Jul 03, 2026
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has resumed direct flights between Lahore and Manchester after six years, with the first flight from Punjab’s provincial capital taking off on Thursday. According to a statement issued by PIA, PK-709 departed from Lahore with 325 passengers on board. An inaugural ceremony was held at Lahore airport, where PIA Chief Operating Officer Khurram Mushtaq saw off the passengers, the statement said. Hours ago, the first flight destined for Lahore left Manchester on Wednesday night. The PIA statement said the resumption of flights on the Lahore-Manchester route would help strengthen “people-to-people ties” between the two countries. PIA now operates five weekly flights between Pakistan and Manchester, the statement said, adding that these included four flights from Islamabad and one from Lahore. Pakistani flights had been banned from flying to the European Union, the United Kingdom and the US in June 2020, after one of its aircraft crashed in Karachi, killing nearly 100 people on ... -
Dawn - 18:44 Jul 02, 2026
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will visit Iran and Turkiye from July 3 to July 5, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Tahir Andrabi confirmed on Thursday. Addressing a weekly briefing, Andrabi said that during his visit to Iran, the premier would participate in the funeral of late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in US-Israeli strikes on February 28. The FO spokesperson said PM Shehbaz will travel to Iran first for Khamenei’s funeral. Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, cabinet members and senior officials will accompany the premier on his visit. “The prime minister will convey condolences on behalf of the people and government of Pakistan to the Iranian leadership and the bereaved families while reaffirming solidarity with the brotherly nation in their hour of profound grief,” he said. PM Shehbaz will then visit Istanbul at the invitation of Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Andrabi said. He added that the premier will “hold discussions on the entire gamut of bilateral re... -
Dawn - 18:34 Jul 02, 2026
LAHORE: Police in the provincial capital on Thursday registered a case against five suspects on charges of kidnapping for ransom and sexually assaulting two foreign women. The Police Emergency Helpline 15 received a call from Spain, made by the father of one of the women, reporting the incident. The alleged victims, who are nationals of the Netherlands and Venezuela, had come to Pakistan to visit their ‘friends’. DIG Faisal Kamran told Dawn that police acted accordingly, dispatched a team of senior officials, recovered the women, arrested four suspects and lodged an FIR. He said the suspects had been tracked and apprehended with the help of the Punjab Safe City Authority’s cameras installed in the city. The recovered foreign women were later produced before a judicial magistrate at Cantonment Courts to record their statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. A women’s counsel for the victims was also present in the courtroom during the recording of their statements. The victims narrated th... -
Dawn - 18:06 Jul 02, 2026
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said on Thursday it was closely monitoring internet traffic disruptions caused by a fault in the SEA-ME-WE 5 (SMW5) international submarine cable system, which was likely to cause intermittent degradation in service quality and connectivity. The telecom authority added that Transworld Associates (TWA) is coordinating with the SMW5 consortium to “identify the root cause of the fault” and determine the estimated time for restoration. According to its website, TWA is the only private-sector operator with exclusive ownership of submarine fibre-optic cable systems. “In the meantime, internet traffic is being rerouted through alternate international links to minimise the impact and ensure service continuity to the greatest extent possible,” the statement added. Meanwhile, TWA customers received an SMS apologising for the inconvenience and stating that there was a “technical fault” in one of its submarine cables. “Our technical teams are effectively working a... -
Dawn - 17:34 Jul 02, 2026
Germany’s ruling coalition has agreed on sweeping tax, labour and pension reforms, including scrapping the right to obtain sick notes by telephone to reduce worker absenteeism in the country. “We are working to increase the flexibility of our businesses,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday during a press conference in Berlin after lengthy talks between his centre-right CDU/CSU alliance and their coalition partners, the centre-left SPD. “We are working to cut red tape. We are working to protect our welfare state, and we are working to ease the burden on employees and companies by lowering taxes,” said Merz, who had promised a “great leap forward” for German growth. The package includes income tax cuts worth 10 billion euros ($11.4bn), to be financed by higher taxes on those earning more than 250,000 euros a year. And changes to the pension system will eventually see the retirement age rise past 67. “The highest earners in this country will take on a larger share” of the tax burden, said Finance Minister a... -
Dawn - 16:22 Jul 02, 2026
At the entrance to the vast religious complex where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s body is set to lie in state from Saturday, dozens were hard at work under an intense heatwave to prepare for the assassinated supreme leader’s grand funeral. Security was on high alert ahead of the start of the funerary activities for Iran’s ruler for three decades, with dozens of personnel stationed at the main entrance to the Grand Mosalla, methodically stopping each car in the vicinity. Passengers must present a special permit to enter the premises, which have yet to be opened to the public. A man uses a hose during preparations for a funeral ceremony for Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated on February 28 in Israeli and US airstrikes, at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla, in Tehran, Iran on July 2, 2026. — Reuters AFP obtained special access on Thursday, as a handful of curious bystanders watched the preparations from just outside the complex. Within, the walls were draped in massive portraits of ... -
Dawn - 15:30 Jul 02, 2026
India’s Adani Group and Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company (IHC) are looking to invest $11.5 billion in a massive aluminum project in the eastern state of Odisha, the Indian conglomerate said on Thursday. The two parties signed a memorandum of understanding with the Odisha state government, Adani said in a statement, with the proposed investment set to be India’s “largest foreign direct investment in the metallurgy sector”. The statement said the Odisha project will see Adani Enterprises Limited and an IHC subsidiary form a 50/50 joint venture. The project itself will consist of a refinery that can produce four million metric tonnes of aluminium per year, a smaller-capacity aluminum smelter and a 4,000-megawatt captive power plant. The project is expected to create 53,500 jobs, with 35,000 during construction and another 18,500 once operations begin, an official said at the MoU signing ceremony. Odisha, home to some of India’s largest bauxite reserves used to produce aluminum, accounts for 54 per... -
Dawn - 15:15 Jul 02, 2026
Hundreds of rescuers in Venezuela cheered and embraced Thursday after pulling a 43-year-old man alive from the ruins of a collapsed building eight days after deadly twin earthquakes, AFP journalists witnessed. With the official death toll nearing 2,300 and huge numbers of people still missing, the rescue of security guard Hernan Gil after so long under the rubble was greeted as a miracle. Gil was brought out on a stretcher after a painstaking operation to extract him from the collapsed seven-story building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area almost entirely razed to the ground in the June 24 catastrophe. “This is truly a miracle,” Gil’s wife Gusbimar Gonzalez told AFP before his rescue. “I’m completely amazed because it’s the first time I’ve seen so many countries come together like this to save a single person,” she said. Rescue teams from seven countries — Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico — worked around the clock over the past three days to reac... -
Dawn - 15:06 Jul 02, 2026
ISLAMABAD: The government on Thursday decided to extend the Murree Expressway by 70 kilometres to Muzaffarabad during a National Highway Authority (NHA) meeting chaired by Communications Minister Abdul Aleem Khan. Work on the road has been ongoing under Khan’s tenure, including when he visited the expressway last November to review beautification, rehabilitation and improvement works along the route. According to the communications ministry, Khan presided over the meeting to review the authority’s financial close and map out strategic infrastructure priorities for the current fiscal year. In a decision aimed at boosting regional connectivity, the minister announced a 70km extension of the Murree Expressway (N-75) to Muzaffarabad. The expansion will effectively connect Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to Pakistan’s main motorway and expressway network, providing residents with a modern, high-speed and safer travel facility. The minister said the extension marked the beginning of a modern era of safe transit for th... -
Dawn - 14:50 Jul 02, 2026
MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Supreme Court on Thursday deferred hearing on the Election Commission’s application seeking ex parte ad interim relief against a high court order directing the provisional registration of PTI as a political party. A full court comprising Chief Justice Raja Saeed Akram, Justice Raza Ali Khan and Justice Khalid Yousaf Chaudhary ruled that the application would be heard along with the Election Commission’s petition for leave to appeal (PLA) after the latter completes scrutiny in the court’s registry. On June 23, the AJK High Court had directed the commission to provisionally register PTI as a political party, effectively suspending the commission’s May 16 decision rejecting the party’s registration application. Challenging the order, the Election Commission filed a petition for leave to appeal (PLA) in the Supreme Court along with an application under Rules 1 and 2 of Order VI of the Supreme Court Rules, 1978, seeking ex parte ad interim relief pending the appeal. A... -
Dawn - 14:33 Jul 02, 2026
ISLAMABAD: Ninety-nine members of the National Assembly, or 30 per cent of the House, attended all 15 sittings of the 28th session, while six MNAs, or 2pc, did not attend any sitting, a Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) report released for the budget session revealed. The 15-sitting session from June 10 to 24 had 333 members, with three general seats vacant. Overall, 234 MNAs, or 70pc, skipped at least one sitting, the report stated. The 13th sitting, which saw voting on demands for grants and consideration of a standing committee report on the budget for FY27, recorded the highest attendance of 75pc, with 300 MNAs present. Statistics of MNAs’ attendance during the 28th National Assembly session from June 10 to 24, based on NA data. — screengrab from Fafen report According to Fafen, 191 members were present between eight and 14 sittings, while as many as 37 members attended between one and seven sittings. Statistics of MNAs’ attendance during the 28th National Assembly session from June 10 to 24, based o... -
Dawn - 13:45 Jul 02, 2026
Since DeepSeek shocked markets early last year with its cheap but powerful AI model, global consumers have been faced with a choice: Chinese offerings with lower prices and less capability or OpenAI or Anthropic, which have poured billions into development. A model called GLM-5.2, launched last month by Beijing-based startup Z.ai, may finally be closing that gap in terms of Western interest. GLM-5.2 has Silicon Valley buzzing with its coding and agent capabilities, or the ability to execute complex tasks with minimal prompting, that almost rival leading US offerings at a fraction of the cost, in what some experts are calling a “mini DeepSeek moment.” It has quickly climbed the usage charts on third-party AI developer platforms like OpenRouter, where it now ranks above Anthropic’s models, while executives from cloud data platform Snowflake’s CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy to venture capitalist Marc Andreessen have lauded its abilities. “We now have a Chinese open-weight model that is as good as the currently availabl... -
Dawn - 13:24 Jul 02, 2026
Thousands of miles from North America, where the FIFA World Cup is bringing together football fans from countries that are otherwise at odds, one of football’s least heralded nations is experiencing its own moment of unity. In a stadium in the ancient city of Sanaa, hundreds have turned out to watch a match between two teams from areas controlled by different factions in Yemen’s 12-year-old civil war. Since May, a truce signed in 2022 has seemed firm enough to allow a resumption of the professional Yemen National League for the first time since 2014. Fans cheer during a football match in Sanaa, Yemen on June 28, 2026. — Reuters Photos are taken and pennants are exchanged between the captains of Wahda Sanaa, whose city is under the control of the Houthi militia, and Shaab Hadramout, whose province is controlled by a regional coalition and separatists. The referee starts the match. A Wahda Sanaa player grabs his head in frustration at missing a chance — and fans in garish wigs and face paint whistle their disma... -
Dawn - 13:11 Jul 02, 2026
An 11-year-old boy drove his parents’ truck into a Buddhist procession in Thailand on Thursday, killing nine monks and seriously injuring around 10 others, police and local authorities said. A group of 35 monks and five lay followers were walking along a roadside in northeastern Mukdahan province during a pilgrimage when the incident occurred. “I saw a boy driving a pickup truck, approaching. At that moment I was chanting ‘Buddho, Buddho’ (a meditation mantra),” one monk, identified as Phra Sompong, said in a video posted online by local rescue workers. “Then suddenly the truck hit at full speed and crashed us,” he said. “Luckily another monk and I managed to jump out of the way in time,” he added. “The first nine monks in line survived. But others who were hit were thrown into the air.” Police said five monks died at the scene and three more in hospital. The Mukdahan provincial office later announced the death of a ninth monk. Health authorities had earlier said four monks were in a critical condition and 10... -
Dawn - 13:05 Jul 02, 2026
LAHORE: A child was killed and at least five people were injured after the roof of an under-construction building collapsed in Lahore’s Baghbanpura neighbourhood on Thursday, police said. An update issued by the Baghbanpura police said an eight-year-old boy died, while four men and a child were injured. Speaking to the media, Baghbanpura Station House Officer (SHO) Rizwan Khan said the school administration was expanding its 14-marla building by constructing a two-marla structure. “During the construction of the aforesaid area, rubble from the roof fell on the road, killing a young boy and injuring a bike rider along with the construction workers,” he added. Footage showed multiple women, who were reportedly from the adjacent school, being taken away in a police van. However, the SHO denied that anyone had been taken into custody, saying the teachers were taken away to prevent any unfavourable situation considering public sentiment. In an earlier statement, Rescue 1122 said seven of its vehicles and 25 person... -
Dawn - 13:01 Jul 02, 2026
KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) sought on Thursday a detailed report from the provincial health secretary and police chief after a citizen filed a petition, citing reports of an HIV outbreak allegedly resulting from the reuse of contaminated syringes and medical negligence at a Karachi hospital. The petition, filed by Tariq Mansoor, was taken up by a two-member SHC bench comprising Justice Adnanul Karim Memon and Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry. In its written order, seen by Dawn, the bench noted that the plea arose from “the reported HIV outbreak at Kulsum Bai Valika SESSI Hospital, SITE, Karachi, allegedly caused by the reuse of contaminated syringes and gross medical negligence, resulting in the infection of approximately 84 to over 200 children, with several reported fatalities”. The order noted that the medical facility was a “public hospital functioning under the Sindh Employees Social Security Institution (SESSI) and was “responsible for providing medical facilities to insured workers and their depend... -
Dawn - 12:55 Jul 02, 2026
BANNU: Two separate attempts by terrorists to destroy civilian infrastructure in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district were foiled on Thursday. The terrorists targeted a government girls’ school and a bridge in the district. According to local sources, explosives planted at the school partially damaged the building. Security forces responded promptly and prevented what could have been a major incident. Terrorists also planted explosives under a bridge in an attempt to destroy it and disrupt movement in the area. According to officials, a barrel filled with explosives was placed beneath the bridge. Upon receiving information about the device, security forces reached the site, where a bomb disposal unit successfully defused it. Security forces said around 50kg of explosives had been planted beneath the bridge. They added that investigations into both incidents had been launched, while law enforcement agencies had intensified search operations and intelligence-based efforts in the region to apprehend those involve... -
Dawn - 11:25 Jul 02, 2026
LAHORE/PESHAWAR: Rain-related incidents claimed the lives of two men in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday, while Punjab witnessed two deaths in the last 24 hours due to similar occurrences, authorities said. According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), a fresh monsoon spell across the country was set to begin from July 1 and continue till July 6. Two deaths from a roof collapse incident in Mansehra took the number of lives lost since July 1 to nine, data from the KP Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) showed. At around 2am, torrential rain in Mansehra caused the roof of a temporary mud-and-wood shelter to collapse, claiming the lives of two shepherds and injuring four others, PDMA said. Providing a breakdown of the total deaths since Wednesday, PDMA said they included four men, four children and a woman. Meanwhile, the 23 injured comprised 11 men, as many minors and a woman. Two lives were lost each in Khyber and Mansehra, while Buner, Haripur, Nowshera, Shangla and Upper Dir saw one de... -
Dawn - 09:52 Jul 02, 2026
South Asia teeters precariously upon a powder keg of existential volatility, ironically fuelled by water itself. This dangerous moment has been propelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagitious and untenable proclamation that the waters of the Indus basin belong exclusively to India. One reaches this sombre conclusion after reading the incisive column by Ahmar Bilal Soofi, titled “Dams on Chenab — a target?”. A leading jurist, Soofi has consistently advocated rigorous legal remedies against Modi’s malevolent suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 — an act tantamount to de facto abrogation, devoid of legitimacy under the principle of pacta sunt servanda. This assertion by New Delhi not only repudiates solemn treaty obligations but weaponises a vital shared resource, imperilling the agrarian lifelines of downstream Pakistan. India’s hypocrisy Indian policy discourse seeks to cloak accelerated projects on the Chenab, including the colossal Sawalkote endeavour, under the guise of legitimate uppe... -
Dawn - 08:55 Jul 02, 2026
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said on Thursday that an agreement had been signed with Saudi Arabia for the construction of a modern cricket stadium in Jeddah. In a post on X, the cricket board said the agreement was signed by PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi and Saudi Arabian Cricket Federation (SACF) chief Prince Saud bin Mishal bin Mohammad Al Saud. Naqvi is currently in Saudi Arabia on an official visit. “For the first time in history, a strategic agreement has been signed between the PCB and the SACF for the construction of a modern cricket stadium in Jeddah,” he said. “The PCB will build a cricket stadium as per international standards and with state-of-the-art facilities. All the facilities will be according to the standards of the International Cricket Council (ICC),” the statement said. It further said that the two boards would jointly work on infrastructure development, technical expertise, stadium planning and operational standards. It said the project would play a key role in enabling Saudi Arabia to h...
12400 items