Pakistan

The Gilgit-Baltistan Election Commission on Tuesday froze the regional government’s financial and administrative powers, citing ‘growing public concern’ over pre-poll manipulation, ahead of the assembly’s term ending next month A notification issued by the commission today said the assembly’s tenure was to expire on November 24 and it was the commission’s constitutional duty to organise and conduct general elections and local government elections in GB, along with making all necessary arrangements to ensure that they were conducted honestly, justly, fairly and in accordance with law, while safeguarding the process from corrupt practices. “The general public has expressed genuine concerns about appointments, upgradations, and transfers of government officers and officials across various departments during this sensitive pre-election period. These actions have given rise to apprehensions that they may be politically motivated, potentially weakening public trust in the fairness and integrity of the election proc...

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has, for the first time, publicly confirmed that Pakistan carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan earlier this month targeting Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in Kabul and other cities.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday extended his heartfelt congratulations to Ms Sanae Takaichi on her election as Prime Minister of Japan.

Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari claimed on Tuesday that three civilians were killed during the operation in Muridke that dispersed Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) protesters. The TLP, which began a protest march in Lahore earlier this month, was planning to reach Islamabad and stage a demonstration in support of Gaza and Palestine outside the US embassy. The march and sit-in, which reached Muridke, quickly turned into violent clashes between protesters and police before the protesters were dispersed, leading to a crackdown on the party and its supporters. Addressing a press conference in Lahore today, the Punjab information minister said “false stories” were being perpetuated about the operation in Muridke. “Three civilians were martyred in Muridke. These were people who were passing by or standing off to the side,” she said, adding that 48 civilians and 110 police officers were also injured. Eighteen out of 110 have sustained firearm injuries, she said. The minister also said that police vans had b...

The Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) has announced that the new moon of Jamadi ul awwal, 1447 AH, is expected to be born on October 21 at 17:25 PST.

Lahore and Karachi were among the top five most polluted cities in terms of air quality on Tuesday, according to monitoring platform IQAir. In past few years, air pollution has become one of the most pressing public health and environmental crises facing Pakistan. Various cities of the country, most notably Lahore, deal with smog especially in the winter months. The phenomenon is attributed mainly to industrial emissions, vehicular pollution, stubble burning and air movement. Ranked the world’s third most polluted city yesterday, Lahore rose to the second spot today with an air quality index (AQI) reading of 234 at 11am, categorised as “very unhealthy”. The provincial capital trailed just behind New Delhi, which had an “hazardous” AQI of 489. Karachi recorded an AQI of 182 at 11am, falling in the “unhealthy” range and just barely behind Kuwait’s capital at 183. India’s Mumbai came in at fifth with an AQI of 169. World’s 10 most polluted cities as ranked by IQAir, as of 11am on Oct 21, 2025. — screngrab via IQ...

As Lahore gears up for another smog season, an imposing new fleet of green trucks is making rounds across the city. Branded as “Anti-Smog Guns”, they spray a fine mist into the air in hopes of settling pollution. Launched under the banner of Climate Resilient Punjab, the fog cannons promise cleaner skies. They look like action. Do they deliver? The science says no. A 2023 study from China tracked air along a road segment before and after a mist cannon passed. PM2.5 rose by up to 13 per cent about 25–35 minutes later, as the extra water accelerated chemistry that formed more fine particles. In other words, the cannon didn’t clean the air. It primed the air to make more pollution. In Lahore, each fog cannon costs over Rs45 million, according to news reports. The machines were imported from China and formally handed over to the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a high-profile event attended by senior government leadership. Running one unit continuously can consume up to 360,000 litres of water pe...

Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar on Tuesday remarked that the Supreme Court’s regular and constitutional benches (CBs) were “branches of one tree” as an eight-member CB heard arguments on petitions challenging the 26th Amendment. The Amendment was passed by Parliament during an overnight session in October last year, with the PTI claiming seven of its lawmakers were abducted to gain their favour as the party opposed the legislation. The Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) also alleged its two senators were being pressured, with both later defying party line to vote in the tweaks’ favour. The legislation, which altered judicial authority and tenure, has been a lightning rod for debate, with both opposition parties and legal experts questioning its impact on the judiciary’s independence. The tweaks took away the SC’s suo motu powers, set the chief justice of Pakistan’s (CJP) term at three years and empowered a Special Parliamentary Committee for the appointment of the CJP from among the three most senior SC ju...

French police stepped up the hunt on Tuesday for thieves who stole priceless royal jewels from the Louvre museum in a spectacular daylight robbery. As the museum remained closed for a second day on Monday, officials said 60 investigators were working on the theory that an organised crime group was behind the raid in which nine pieces of jewellery were taken. A crown covered in more than 1,300 diamonds was dropped in the streets of Paris as the robbers fled. Detectives scoured video camera footage from around the Louvre as well as from main highways out of Paris for signs of the four robbers who escaped on scooters on Sunday morning. “There are a lot of videos, and this is one of the investigators’ lines of work,” said Interior Minister Laurent Nunez. But as disappointed tourists rebooked tickets to the world’s most visited museum, the heist — which lasted just seven minutes —also reignited a row over the lack of security in French museums, after two other institutions were hit last month. Justice Minister Ger...

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has made mask-wearing mandatory for Traffic Police personnel and Clean Punjab (Suthra Punjab) teams across the province due to worsening smog conditions.

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday formally inaugurated the province’s first Mobile Police Station and Licensing Unit, marking a significant step toward citizen-friendly policing and public service delivery.

Three lesser-known opposition parties on Tuesday withdrew an application filed with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) seeking to be registered as an alliance under the name of Tehreek-i-Tahaffuz-i-Ayeen-i-Pakistan (TTAP), while also distancing themselves from the request itself. The matter gained traction as the proposed name is already the name of an opposition alliance led by Mehmood Khan Achakzai. The applicants, who also sought the allocation of a joint election symbol, included Pakistan Aman Tehreek Chairman Ali Sher Yousafzai, Pakistan Falahi Tehreek Chairman Fazal Aman Khan, and Pakistan Welfare Party Chairman Muhammad Farooq. The TTAP — which saw the move as an attempt to take away its title and sabotage its resistance movement — had formed a legal team to defend its position before the ECP, with Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar appearing before the commission today. The matter was heard by a three-member ECP bench headed by the member from Balochistan, Shah Mohammad Jatoi. During the hearing, the Pakist...

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to conduct upcoming local government elections in Punjab under the newly approved Local Government Act, replacing the 2022 framework.

The United Nations has welcomed the ceasefire agreement reached between Pakistan and Afghanistan on Sunday, expressing hope that both countries will resolve their outstanding issues through diplomatic dialogue.

Another case of the poliovirus has been reported in Pakistan, bringing the total number of infections this year to 30, according to sources at the National Institute of Health (NIH).

An Islamabad district and sessions and court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister and PTI leader Ali Amin Gandapur on a 2016 liquor and weapons recovery case over his continued absence from the proceedings. Senior Civil Judge Mubashir Hassan Chishti presided over the proceedings and directed that Gandapur — who did not show up today — be arrested and presented before the court. The hearing was adjourned till October 28. The case dates back to October 30, 2016, when Islamabad police said they had recovered five Kalashnikov rifles, a pistol, six magazines, a bulletproof vest, alcohol and three tear gas shells from then-KP revenue minister Gandapur’s car outside Bani Gala, where the residence of incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan is located. The incident had taken place against the backdrop of authorities preventing PTI supporters from reaching Bani Gala on Imran’s call to execute a plan to ‘lockdown’ the capital later on November 2. Gandapur had rejected police claims,...

ISLAMABAD: As people around the world struggled with several popular apps due to a massive outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday, users in Pakistan expressed frustration after another alleged ‘cable fault’ degraded internet speeds on certain internet service providers (ISPs) in Karachi and across the country. The widespread outage of Amazon’s cloud services unit took down many popular internet services, impacting streaming platforms, messaging services such as Reddit and Snapchat, and some banks and businesses. Also affected were Amazon’s Shopping, Prime Video service and Disney+, as well as Perplexity AI, the Fortnite game, Airbnb, Duolingo, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood. Mobile telephone services and messaging apps Signal and Whatsapp were also affected in Europe, according to Downdetector, a website monitoring internet problems. Some UK banks, such as Lloyd’s were also impacted, and pointed to Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the problem. After few hours of disruptions, sys...

Lahore’s air quality is expected to deteriorate sharply on Tuesday as smog drifts in from India’s capital, Delhi, which recorded a “hazardous” Air Quality Index (AQI) of 535 at 8:40 am, according to Swiss monitoring firm IQAir.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Tuesday that one new case of wild poliovirus had been confirmed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Torghar, taking the tally of cases for this year to 30. Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic. Despite global efforts to eradicate the virus, challenges such as security issues, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation have slowed progress. A statement from the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at Islamabad’s NIH said the latest case of poliovirus was detected in a 12-month-old boy from Ghari union council in Torghar, marking the second case in the district this year. “With this detection, the total number of polio cases in Pakistan in 2025 has reached 30 – including 19 from KP, nine from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan,” it said. The statement added that during the month of September, the Pakistan Polio Programme collected 127 sewage samples across 87 districts in the cou...

A district and sessions court in Islamabad on Tuesday issued non-bailable arrest warrants for former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister and PTI leader Ali Amin Gandapur in a case pertaining to the recovery of liquor and illegal weapons.