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Dawn - 11:45 Aug 12, 2026
Gold prices rose on Wednesday, supported by reduced bets on Federal Reserve tightening next month as investors awaited key US inflation data that could reshape policy expectations. Spot gold gained 0.6 per cent to $4,391.82 per ounce by 0535 GMT. US gold futures for December delivery rose 0.2pc to $4,451.90. Bullion climbed to a 10-week high on Tuesday before hitting technical resistance at the 100-day moving average around $4,387 and closing lower for the second time this month. “The primary driver for gold is the reduction in pricing of rate hikes by the Fed,” said Kelvin Wong, a senior market analyst at Oanda. “In terms of technical positioning, we started to see a bullish break late last week above that $4,200 level, which also created a positive momentum feedback loop.” Bullion posted its largest weekly gain since January on Friday after weaker-than-expected jobs data led traders to scale back bets on US rate hikes. Traders are now pricing in a 50pc chance of a hike in September, down from 60pc before th... -
Dawn - 11:26 Aug 12, 2026
RAWALPINDI: Rawalpindi police said on Wednesday that they had arrested three cops, who were guards of the Adiala jail, for their alleged involvement in the escape of a prisoner while he was being taken back to Jhelum jail from a court in the garrison city. According to a police statement, Assistant Sub-Inspector Tauqeer Hussain, Head Constable Mahboob Khan and Constable Qasim were arrested on the directives of Rawalpindi City Police Officer Hassan Mushtaq Sukhera. Police said the escape took place in the Mandra area on Tuesday, identifying the prisoner as Hammad, who had a record of involvement in cases of “serious crime”. “The [arrested] cops and the prisoner’s accomplices had plotted to shift him to a private car. When Mandra police tried to stop the suspects, Hammad and his accomplices opened fire on them,” the police statement read, adding that while Hammad escaped, one of his accomplices, identified as Danial, was arrested. A Kalashnikov was also found in his possession, police said. Separately, Gujjar K... -
Dawn - 10:58 Aug 12, 2026
Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry on Wednesday said that the PTI could not “absolve themselves of responsibility” after a man was shot dead by law enforcement officials on Rawalpindi’s Mall Road for allegedly opening fire on security forces. PTV News, quoting security sources, said the alleged assailant was a resident of Khyber district and an “active PTI member”. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar had slammed PTI’s “politics of violence” after state media reported the incident. However, the PTI had distanced itself from the incident, saying it had nothing to do with terrorism and that efforts were being made to link the party to it. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad on Wednesday, Chaudhry said, “For years, the PTI leadership has been told not to perpetuate the politics of hatred and anarchy.” He said that the party was told not to influence the youth with “ideas which could not be removed”. “When a young person fills his mind with such hatred and anarchy, he expresses it somewhere in ... -
Dawn - 10:48 Aug 12, 2026
The American AI company Anthropic announced it will add an invisible watermark to text produced by its Claude chatbot so as to comply with European Union regulations. But the company noted that this mark only means the text was processed by Claude, not that the chatbot actually generated it. The new feature unveiled on Monday in San Francisco will not be visible to humans and will remain in place even after text is cut-and-pasted. But the tool has limitations, Anthropic said. Detecting a Claude watermark means the text may have been processed by Claude but does not confirm the source, the company said in a statement. For example, it said, “Claude may not be the original author. People often use Claude to proofread, translate, summarise, or convert files. The output can carry a Claude mark even if the underlying ideas, text, or data originated from another source.” Conversely, a text that is very short or has been heavily edited may not carry a watermark. When Claude generates a supported file type like .jpg, ... -
Dawn - 08:33 Aug 12, 2026
The Foreign Office (FO) said on Wednesday that Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s visit to Iran was aimed at discussing bilateral relations, security-related matters and regional developments, particularly peace and stability in the region. Addressing a weekly press briefing, FO spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said Naqvi — who arrived in Tehran on Tuesday — was holding meetings with senior Iranian officials. He added that the visit provides the two countries the opportunity to discuss “bilateral relations, security-related matters, and regional development, with a particular focus on efforts to promote peace, stability, and constructive engagement amongst the parties in the region and regional developments”. Naqvi was received in Tehran by his Iranian counterpart, Eskandar Momeni, and later held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iranian media reported. A diplomatic source had told Dawn from Tehran that the principal objective of Naqvi’s visit was to follow up... -
Dawn - 08:30 Aug 12, 2026
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday condemned the attack by Yemen’s Houthis on a commercial vessel in the Red Sea that claimed the lives of three Pakistanis and said Islamabad was in contact with the relevant authorities to ascertain further details. The attack targeted a Tanzania-flagged vessel Tihamah, causing deaths and injuries among its crew. Apart from three Pakistanis, an Indonesian was also killed in the attack. Dar said in a post on X that he had also received reports of a Pakistani being injured in the attack. “We extend our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families,” he said, adding: “Pakistan strongly condemns the Houthi attack on a non-combatant commercial vessel.” “Such attacks endanger innocent lives, constitute a violation of international law, and pose a serious threat to freedom of navigation, maritime security, and the safety of commercial shipping in the Red Sea,” he said. “We are in contact with the relevant Saudi authorities, as well as the internationa... -
Dawn - 05:51 Aug 12, 2026
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he secretly switched planes in Turkiye last month at the direction of the US Secret Service, but that the plane he ultimately flew on was still more vulnerable than Air Force One. Following a Nato summit in Ankara, Trump was transferred from Air Force One to a military plane via a catering truck in an extraordinary deception prompted by an Iranian assassination threat, US media reported. The White House did not disclose the change and it remained a secret until the Washington Post first reported it on Monday. Some media commentators questioned whether the operation left Trump’s aides and journalists travelling with him at risk aboard the plane presumed to be carrying the president. “I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for.” After a day of social media memes portraying Trump as hiding out in the cate... -
Dawn - 04:54 Aug 12, 2026
WASHINGTON: A report by the United States State Department has said that Pakistan needs to strengthen parliamentary oversight of public finances by improving the timely disclosure of budget proposals, government debt and other fiscal information. The State Department’s 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report, an annual assessment, identified several areas where greater transparency and oversight were needed, including the timely publication of the executive budget proposal and fuller disclosure of government debt obligations, particularly those of major state-owned enterprises. “During the review period, the government made its enacted budget and end-of-year report widely and easily accessible to the public, including online,” the report said. At the same time, it noted that Pakistan “did not publish its executive budget proposal within a reasonable period”. The department said timely access to the government’s proposed budget was important for public scrutiny of spending and revenue priorities before the budget was ... -
Dawn - 04:10 Aug 12, 2026
Umair Majeed ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Sardar Mohammad Sarfraz Dogar on Tuesday administered oath to three newly appointed judges, raising the strength of the high court to 10, while three seats remain vacant. The three vacant positions are expected to be filled through transfers in accordance with the decision of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP). Those who took oath were Justice Ayyaz Shaukat, Justice Umair Majeed Malik and Justice Shahrukh Arjumand. Justice Ayyaz Shaukat is an expert in tax, banking and commercial matters, with extensive experience in constitutional, corporate and commercial litigation. He has previously represented clients before superior courts in complex legal disputes. Court’s strength rises to 10, three seats still vacant He had served as advocate general (AG) Islamabad before his elevation to the high court. In March this year, he was appointed chairman of the Pakistan Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority. His experience in public law and... -
Dawn - 03:13 Aug 12, 2026
• Calls off demonstration after registrar assures early hearing of cases • KP CM Afridi voices concern over reports about ex-PM’s health • Urges treatment under supervision of personal physicians ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday staged a protest outside the Supreme Court over the health of incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan and delays in his pending cases, but it called off the demonstration after the court registrar assured party leaders that the cases would be fixed for hearing next week. The party approached the Supreme Court registrar seeking early hearings of Imran’s cases and access for his family members and personal doctors. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, who joined the protest outside the apex court, expressed serious concern over reports regarding Imran’s health, saying the nation had grave reservations about his wellbeing. “We neither politicise Imran Khan’s health, nor has Imran Khan ever raised the issue of his health with the objective of seeking... -
Dawn - 03:12 Aug 12, 2026
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump secretly flew out of Turkiye last month on a smaller plane than previously known due to an assassination threat from Iran, the Washington Post reported on Monday. According to an anonymous US official who spoke to the Post, Trump boarded an Air Force One jet in Ankara on July 8, but then moved into a catering container attached to the plane. The container then ferried him to a smaller C-32A aircraft that flew him to Britain, while media and some officials were led to believe Trump was still on the bigger jet. The Iranian threat had previously been reported by US media as the reason that Trump did not fly out of Turkiye aboard the new Boeing 747-8, gifted to the United States by Qatar, which he had used to fly into the country. Trump, who was in Ankara for a Nato summit, said at the time he would be taking the older Boeing 747 so that members of the US military at an airbase in Britain could tour the new plane. However, several US media outlets, including the New York Time... -
Dawn - 03:01 Aug 12, 2026
ISLAMABAD: Chairperson of the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman has questioned the need for maintaining the Pakistan Climate Change Authority (PCCA), arguing that its mandate, functions and expertise substantially overlapped with those of the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination. Chairing a meeting of the committee on Tuesday, Ms Rehman said the government should reconsider the institutional structure of PCCA, particularly at a time when the ministry of climate change was facing declining budgetary resources. She pointed out that the ministry’s allocation under the Public Sector Development Programme had fallen to Rs2.478 billion from Rs3.5bn, while Rs2.7bn had been allocated in the previous fiscal year. Against this backdrop, she questioned the rationale for establishing a separate authority and sanctioning 24 posts when its core responsibilities appeared to duplicate those already assigned to the ministry. “The question is what additional value is this au... -
Dawn - 02:58 Aug 12, 2026
LAST month, 117 prominent activists and former officials from India and Pakistan wrote an open letter to Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif calling on the two prime ministers to resume engagement as both countries faced shared economic, security and environmental challenges that needed urgent attention. The letter is unlikely to have any effect. The India-initiated absence of a dialogue is not just a consequence of the conflicted India-Pakistan relationship. It is a policy by itself underscoring India’s negative posture towards Islamabad that betrays no hint of a change. Even if the dialogue did take place it might change little. Historically, whether or not India and Pakistan were talking, their relationship showed little variation, as if it had been inoculated against friendship since infancy. Yet the relationship is not doomed forever; its failure is less due to the complexity of issues than to the policy choices by the two sides, especially India. Modi’s hard line on Pakistan is not exceptional. That has be... -
Dawn - 02:47 Aug 12, 2026
THE triangular defence pact signed last week by Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is the most consequential geopolitical development reshaping the strategic landscape of the region and beyond. It has been concluded in the midst of a war that not only affects the region but also has far-reaching implications for the wider world. The three countries span the Middle East, South Asia and Europe. Despite facing diverse security challenges, they are bound together by a common defence pact. While Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were already bound by a bilateral agreement signed last year, Turkiye’s entry has broadened the scope of the pact. The collective strength of these three countries has made the grouping a formidable force in the region. Although the full text of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement has not been made public, it does declare that “any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all”. It also states that the pact is not directed against any country... -
Dawn - 02:44 Aug 12, 2026
• Calls on international community to pressure Israel to halt settlement expansion on Palestinian land • Guterres says Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank have no legal validity and violate international law WASHINGTON: Pakistan on Tuesday urged the international community to persuade Israel to halt new Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands, warning that the situation was approaching a “dangerous tipping point”, as UN Secretary-General António Guterres said all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank had no legal validity and constituted a “flagrant violation” of international law. Britain urged Israel to do more to prevent and prosecute settler violence, while Russia warned that the West Bank was approaching a “point of no return” and risked profound regional destabilisation, as the UN Security Council debated escalating attacks on Palestinians and settlement expansion. “The situation is approaching a dangerous tipping point. Unless this trajectory is reversed, the consequences for the two-stat... -
Dawn - 02:38 Aug 12, 2026
OVER the past few days, Pakistan has been going the extra mile to assure Iran that the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement it signed last week with Saudi Arabia and Turkiye poses no threat to Tehran. In a recent telephone call, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi that the pact is “not an instrument of confrontation”. Moreover, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told the cabinet that the agreement is “entirely for defence purposes”. Tehran seems to have understood the messaging, as the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said his country had no reason to believe the pact was aimed at encircling it, and that it showed that countries of the region could not depend on the American security umbrella. Perhaps the reason for speculation surrounding the deal was the mutual defence component, which says that an attack on one signatory is an attack on all. Considering the targeting of US military assets in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states by Iran during the active phase of hostilities with Ame... -
Dawn - 02:29 Aug 12, 2026
• Six killed as Tanzania-flagged ship attacked in Bab el-Mandeb, says Yemen govt • Houthis claim attack on Saudi ship in Red Sea • US forces ‘disable’ Panama-flagged container ship trying to break blockade DUBAI: Three Pakistanis are said to be among the six people who lost their lives on Tuesday, as three different ships came under attack in the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman, taking simmering tensions in the world’s most key energy trading corridor up another notch. Yemen’s coastguard on Tuesday said strikes by the Houthi rebels on a cargo vessel — identified as the Tihamah — resulted in the death of four sailors and two members of rescue personnel deployed during a rescue mission to evacuate the ship. In a separate incident on Tuesday night, the Saba news agency reported that Houthis attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment in Bab el-Mandeb. However, there was no immediate confirmation from Riyadh. The initial salvo targeting the Tanzania-flagged Tihamah “caused a fire to break out aboard the vessel and... -
Dawn - 02:18 Aug 12, 2026
• Mohsin Naqvi meets Pezeshkian and Araghchi in Tehran • Khawaja Asif says warring sides nearing ‘some sort of an arrangement’ • Tehran sees Islamabad MoU as ‘only legitimate framework’ for resolution of wider war • Trump rails against ‘devious Iranian negotiators’ ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on Tuesday to follow up on the stalled Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), as Islamabad seeks to revive its mediation efforts between Iran and the United States. Naqvi, who arrived in Tehran earlier in the day, was received by his Iranian counterpart Eskandar Momeni, and later held talks with Araghchi. The two interior ministers are also expected to hold detailed bilateral discussions during the visit. A diplomatic source told Dawn from Tehran that the principal objective of Naqvi’s visit was to follow up on the Islamabad MoU and Pakistan’s mediation between Iran and the US, which has remained largely dorman... -
Dawn - 02:13 Aug 12, 2026
• Says proposed judicial commission meant to identify lapses, not for murder investigation • Two more police officials added to investigation team • Four summoned by NCCIA on Sharjeel’s plea against online defamation campaign KARACHI: As the probe into the murder of a young businessman inches forward, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has assured the family of a fair investigation, promising that they will be kept informed at every stage of the process. Talking to the media at the Arts Council Karachi after attending a conference held in connection with National Minorities Day on Tuesday evening, the CM said action would be taken against police and medico-legal authorities over any lapses once the case was resolved. Commenting on the provincial government’s plan to form a judicial commission, the CM clarified that the commission was not intended to investigate the case, as that was the responsibility of the police. “The judicial commission was being formed to identify lapses on the part of the police a... -
Dawn - 01:23 Aug 12, 2026
KARACHI: Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association (PPDA) has issued a 72-hour ultimatum to the government over its failure to fulfil promises made by the petroleum minister to resolve their issues, especially the increase in margin to eight per cent on the retail sale price of petrol. The association warned that if the government failed to meet its demands within 72 hours, petrol pumps across the country would shut down indefinitely from 6am on Saturday (August 15) and would not reopen until those demands were met. PPDA Chairman Malik Khuda Bakhsh, along with senior office-bearers, told a press conference that petroleum dealers would be unable to continue their businesses if the government failed to accept their demands. Mr Malik said that, following a meeting of dealers from across the country, it had been jointly decided to demand an 8pc margin on petrol. Dealers’ patience had run out, and more than 14,000 members were putting pressure on the association to take action. Threaten indefinite nationwide shutdow...
12682 items