Pakistan

At least five people, including two cops, were injured on Friday in an accidental firing incident at the residence of Balochistan Governor Jaffar Khan Manndokhail in the province’s Zhob district, police said. Speaking to the media, Zhob Superintendent of Police (SSP) Shaukat Mohmand said that three students and two police officers had been injured in the incident. “The firing happened by mistake and was done by the station house officer’s gunman,” the police officer said. He added that the gunman had dropped his gun on the ground, which had resulted in it going off. The injured students, who had come to meet the governor, were pupils at the Zhob Government Boys Degree College, he added. The official said that the condition of all the injured people was stable and they had been taken to a nearby hospital for medical intervention. According to initial investigations, police have termed the incident an accident, he said, adding that further investigation was underway. Earlier this month, a teenage girl was kille...

A digital reconstruction of a million-year-old skull suggests humans may have diverged from our ancient ancestors 400,000 years earlier than thought and in Asia not Africa, a study said on Friday. The findings are based on a reconstruction of a crushed skull discovered in China in 1990, and have the potential to resolve the longstanding “Muddle in the Middle” of human evolution, researchers said. But experts not involved in the work cautioned that the findings were likely to be disputed, and pointed to ongoing uncertainties in the timeline of human evolution. The skull, labelled Yunxian 2, was previously thought to belong to a human forerunner called Homo erectus. But modern reconstruction technologies revealed features closer to species previously thought to have existed only later in human evolution, including the recently discovered Homo longi and our own Homo sapiens. “This changes a lot of thinking,” said Chris Stringer, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum, London, who was part of the researc...

Rights activist and lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir on Friday filed a grievance letter over “inaction” on her workplace harassment complaint against Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Sarfraz Dogar. Justice Dogar had warned Mazari of a contempt of court case and was reported to have gone as far as passing warning remarks along the lines of “getting a hold of her”. Multiple lawyers’ bodies had issued condemnatory statements and called for the judge’s dismissal from the post of the IHC top judge. On Sept 15, Mazari approached an inquiry committee of the IHC and the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), filing a complaint under Section 4 (procedure for holding inquiry) of the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010. As Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz took cognisance of Mazari’s complaint, the IHC administration stripped the judge of her powers to entertain harassment complaints. Instead, IHC’s Justice Inaam Ameen Minhas was appointed as the competent authority to oversee the case. This promp...

Four suspects implicated in the massive $40 billion Kohistan corruption scandal have approached the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) with requests for a plea bargain.

At least 11 people were killed, and another three were injured after a truck crashed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Dera Ismail Khan, rescue 1122 said on Friday. Speaking to Dawn.com, spokesperson Rescue 1122, Bilal Ahmad Faizi, said that, “Eleven people lost their lives and three were injured as the truck’s brakes failed, causing it to crash in the Dana Sar Daranda area of DI Khan.” “The deceased include five women, a child, and a man,” he said, adding that the three injured were rushed to the District Headquarter Hospital DI Khan.“ He further said that the truck was travelling from the Khanozai area of Balochistan. “Seven of the bodies were also taken to the hospital by the Rescue 1122 team, while four bodies were moved to the hospital by the local people,” he said. The deceased people have not yet been identified. Public Relations Officer of DI Khan Police Yaqoob Khan, in a statement, said, “Police are compiling a report for the identification of the deceased and arranging for the bodies to be handed over to thei...

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) reported that an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 was felt in areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday morning. Pakistan falls on three major tectonic plates — the Arabian, Euro-Asian and Indian — which create five seismic zones under the country. The intersection of multiple fault lines means that tectonic movements remain a frequent occurrence in the region. A report issued by the PMD said that the earthquake originated at 8:17am PKT today, with its epicentre in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan at a depth of 195 kilometres, at a latitude of 36.51 degrees north and longitude of 70.98° east. Shocks were reported by the PMD to have been felt in Chitral, Peshawar and Swat, while the Pukhtunkhwa Times posted on X that “mild” tremors were also felt in Attock, Lower Dir and Upper Dir. At the start of the month, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake in Afghanistan killed over 1,400 people and flattened homes, with tremors jolting KP and Punjab. However, no casualties or damages were re...

ISLAMABAD - Chief Minister of Balochistan, Mir Sarfraz Bugti, and the Prime Minister’s Coordinator on Climate Change, Romina Khurshid Alam have agreed to accelerate the climate agenda through new projects and closer cooperation between provinces and the federal government.

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Friday directed authorities to ensure every possible relief for cancer patients.

KARACHI: Building on the success of the Breathe Pakistan International Climate Change Conference, DawnMedia has announced plans to convene a moot focused on tackling the issue of air pollution. ‘The Air We Breathe’ will be held at the Expo Centre in Lahore on October 11, under the umbrella of Breathe Pakistan — an initiative to combat climate change that aims to mobilise citizens to incorporate environmental sustainability in their daily lives. Air pollution has become one of the most pressing public health and environmental crises facing Pakistan, and Lahore in particular is no stranger to this phenomenon. Once celebrated for its gardens, the city now ranks among the most polluted in the world, with PM2.5 levels far exceeding WHO safety limits, a DawnMedia statement said. “Other major cities — including Karachi, Faisalabad, and Peshawar — face similar challenges, driven by industrial emissions, vehicular exhaust, stubble burning, and poor enforcement of environmental regulations.” “Vulnerable groups — childr...

Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal on Friday said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would open a new era of growth and opportunity, particularly for the country’s youth.

Earthquake tremors were felt in several parts of Pakistan, including Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Islamabad, on Friday morning.

The Balochistan Assembly will convene today (Friday) at 3 p.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and US President Donald Trump discussed regional security and cooperation along the lines of counter-terrorism, among other matters, as the two met for the first time at the Oval Office in Washington in the early hours of Friday morning, according to a press release from the PM Office. The premier was accompanied by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Asim Munir, while the US President was joined by US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as per an earlier statement from the PM office. PM Shehbaz thanked Trump for “his public endorsement of Pakistan’s role in counterterrorism and stressed the need to further enhance cooperation in security and intelligence,” as the two discussed matters of regional security. The premier described Trump as a “man of peace”, lauding his “sincere” efforts in ending conflicts around the world. PM Shehbaz branded Trump’s style of leadership “bold, courageous and decisive,” and thanked the US president for his role in me...

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday hailed Pakistan-China relations as “time-tested, all-weather, and unparalleled in depth and strength.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, accompanied by Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, held a meeting with U.

GILGIT - Yunnan Forestry Technological College (YFTC), China, will host 40 students from Karakoram International University (KIU), Pakistan for a year-long program in forestry and agriculture.

ISLAMABAD - Federal Minister for Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, Dr.

Peshawar - Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Faisal Karim Kundi on Thursday visited Bara in Khyber District, where he met tribal elders and local residents at the hujra of Malik Zahir Shah.

• Govt faces tough task as it seeks flood-related relaxations • Fund questions use of emergency funds, delays in governance reforms • $1bn tranche hinges on progress in review talks ISLAMABAD: An Inter­national Mone­tary Fund (IMF) review mission began its work simultaneously in Karachi and Islamabad on Thursday, holding discussions with authorities on mixed programme performance without the customary opening engagement with Minister for Finance and Revenue Muhammad Aurangzeb, who is currently on a visit to the United States. Sources said the introductory meeting with Mr Aurangzeb, initially scheduled for Sept 25, has now been moved to Monday (Sept 29) in his absence. In the meantime, two IMF teams — one dealing with monetary policy and the other with fiscal policy — are engaged with the State Bank of Pakistan and federal government entities. The mission is expected to stay for about two weeks and will also hold forward-looking discussions, pressing the authorities to expedite implementation of end-December 2...

ISLAMABAD: Foreign assistance inflows to Pakistan almost doubled to $1.377 billion in the first two months (July-August) of the current fiscal year, mainly because of an ongoing umbrella of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This helped the government to start the new fiscal year on a healthy note, unlike last year’s lacklustre beginning in the absence of IMF support. The total inflows, both loans and grants, in the first two months of the current fiscal year amounted to $1.377bn when compared to $714m last year, showing an increase of 93pc. Inflows in August alone amounted to $680m, almost 152pc higher than last year’s $270m in the same month. In July this year, a total of $698m loans and grants flowed into the country compared to $444m in the same month last year, representing a 57pc increase. The $1.345bn in foreign loans and $33m in grants in the first two months of the fiscal year flowing into the country were about 103pc higher and 31pc lower than last year’s $662m loans and $43m grants, respectivel...