Pakistan | Pakistan

Pakistan and Portugal on Thursday reviewed the full range of bilateral relations and discussed ways to strengthen political engagement and cooperation in trade and investment, labour mobility, agriculture, renewable energy, information technology, education, tourism, culture, and people-to-people exchanges.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office has said that tensions between Iran and the United States are not in the interest of anyone and urged both sides to exercise restraint.

The Foreign Office (FO) on Thursday urged the United States and Iran to “end violence” and resume technical-level talks, while noting that the Pakistan-mediated interim peace deal was “facing challenges”. Addressing a weekly press briefing, FO spokesperson Tahir Andrabi noted that the implementation of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding signed between the US and Iran last month was “facing challenges”. He affirmed that “Pakistan will continue to encourage all sides to end violence and resume technical-level talks in accordance” with the MoU and the joint statement issued by mediators Pakistan and Qatar on June 20 following the direct talks in Switzerland. “We hope all parties will remain committed to the path of dialogue and diplomacy in resolving their outstanding issues,” Andrabi added. The remarks come as the warring parties continued to trade attacks on Thursday, with the US hitting Iran’s coastal defences and missile sites and Iran retaliating by targeting American military sites in neighbouring G...

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) organized Summer Camp 2026 for students from across Pakistan.

GILGIT-BALTISTAN has emerged as Pakistan’s climate ground zero. For decades, the country’s climate emergency was narrated from its floodplains: Sindh’s submerged villages, Punjab’s swollen tributaries, the 2010 and 2022 disasters. These were the consequences of a deeper story. The origin has abruptly moved upstream. GB is no longer the water tower that occasionally leaks. It is where the Indus system’s first disasters now begin, not where they arrive. Heatwaves once confined to Sindh’s cities and Punjab’s plains now reach the Upper Indus Basin (UIB). In June 2026 alone, the Met Office issued its second Glof (glacial lake outburst flood) alert of the month, warning that sustained high temperatures across GB and KP were accelerating glacier and snowfield melt to the point that existing lakes were expanding and new ones forming in real time. This follows a pattern of near-annual escalation: in August 2025, a Glof from the Shishper glacier tore through Hassanabad Nullah in Hunza, severing the Karakoram Highway, i...

The 24-year-old will represent Pakistan at Miss World for the first time in the pageant's 73-year history

Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee on Wednesday announced that the crescent moon of Safar has been sighted in Pakistan, and Thursday, July 16, will be observed as the 1st of Safar.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistanis residing abroad who hold an invalid, expired or cancelled National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP) will no longer be allowed to board flights to Pakistan, official sources said on Wednesday. According to official sources, the government has issued immediate directives to all zonal directors of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to convey the decision to every airline operating inbound flights to Pakistan. A government official told Dawn that the practice of allowing travel on invalid NICOPs had been going on for a long time and that it had been decided to stop it with immediate effect. “Airlines should be instructed to verify the validity of NICOPs prior to boarding and refuse carriage to any passenger presenting an invalid, expired or cancelled NICOP,” the official said. He added that passengers travelling on a foreign passport with an expired or otherwise invalid NICOP would not be allowed to board flights to Pakistan unless they held a valid Pakistani visa. The offic...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday met with the secretary general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Nurlan Yermekbayev, and reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to advancing its objectives, the Foreign Office (FO) said. In a post on X, the FO said that Dar received Yermekbayev, with the two holding a “productive exchange” on the SCO priorities and ways to further strengthen cooperation among member states in key areas, including economy, transport, and connectivity. “They also exchanged views on regional and international developments. The secretary general commended Pakistan’s constructive contributions to promoting regional peace, stability, and cooperation,” the FO said. “The secretary general shared his perspective and proposals for further enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the SCO, and briefed DPM Dar on preparations for the forthcoming SCO Council of Foreign Ministers Meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan,” it said. According to the FO, DPM Dar reaffirmed Pa...

The state’s desire to count is never entirely innocent. British India turned censuses, land records and irrigation maps into technologies of rule: enumeration made people and property legible, while the canal colonies linked land settlement, water allocation and revenue to a powerful bureaucracy. Pakistan inherited that administrative apparatus. Yet the same numbers that can help a state extract can also help citizens see what is changing and demand a response. The Agricultural Census 2024 deserves to be read in that critical but constructive spirit. It is Pakistan’s seventh agricultural census and the first to combine agriculture, livestock and farm machinery in one digital exercise. This 2024 census is the first to combine agriculture, livestock and farm machinery in one digital exercise Fieldwork was carried out in two phases between September 2024 and February 2025. It was sample-based rather than a literal count of every farm. (This was a different approach from work done before 2010 and from that of met...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan reaffirmed its commitment to the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, emphasizing the need for a more responsive and effective UN capable of addressing the priorities of developing countries, during a meeting between Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and United Nations.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) process during a meeting with the association’s Secretary-General Golam Sarwar in Islamabad on Tuesday, according to the Foreign Office (FO). A statement posted by the FO on social media said that Sarwar called on FM Dar at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad. The foreign minister commended Sarwar’s efforts to promote regional cooperation and “reaffirmed Pakistan’s steadfast commitment to the Saarc process”, the statement said. Dar underscored the need for a “revitalised Saarc, guided by the principles of its charter, to advance regional connectivity, sustainable development, and the collective well-being” of South Asia, while highlighting the region’s demographic and economic potential. Meanwhile, the secretary general thanked the foreign minister for Pakistan’s constructive role in promoting regional and global peace and appreciated the country’s consistent supp...

Pakistan and Turkiye have agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation in social protection, family welfare and poverty alleviation, besides expediting the finalisation of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the relevant ministries of the two countries.

WASHINGTON: Pakistan on Monday backed Saudi Arabia at an emergency UN Security Council briefing on Yemen, reaffirming Islamabad’s support for the kingdom’s security and territorial integrity and calling for all parties concerned to resolve differences through dialogue and diplomacy. Yemen has been gripped by conflict since the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, triggering a Saudi-led military intervention in support of the beleaguered government the following year. The UN Security Council briefing came after an attack by the Yemeni government on an international airport in Sanaa on Monday. The Yemeni government said it wanted to prevent an Iranian plane from landing in Sanaa after it failed to convince a Houthi delegation, which went to Tehran for assassinated Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral, to board a Yemen flag carrier’s flight instead. Hours after the airport attack, Saudi Arabia said it intercepted ballistic missiles fired at the country’s south by Houthis. Monday’s flare-up ...

Islamabad assumes chairmanship of OIC Ministerial Conference on Women Dar says Pakistan investing in girls’ education Gilani urges OIC to take concrete steps for women’s empowerment.

ISLAMABAD: While the government is pushing to replace petrol-powered motorcycles with electric two-wheelers, a sub-committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Industries was informed on Monday that Pakistan lacks a dedicated regulatory authority for e-motorcycles, while the absence of a comprehensive lithium battery policy has encouraged the sale of substandard batteries. Soon after the meeting began, sub-committee convener Dr Mehreen Bhutto expressed concern over the fragmented regulatory framework, noting that too many ministries and departments were involved in overseeing different aspects of the e-motorcycle sector. The committee was told that manufacturing licences are issued by the Engineering Development Board (EDB) under the Ministry of Industries and Production, while quality standards for e-motorcycles and their batteries are certified by the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA), which falls under the Ministry of Science and Technology. Charging infrastructure, the l...

KHYBER: Pakistani customs authorities on Monday issued gate passes to as many as 26 World Food Programme (WFP) containers carrying food and essential supplies at the Torkham border to cross into Afghanistan. Since October 2025, the Torkham border — a key trade route between Pakistan and Afghanistan — has been closed due to the “escalating security situation” along the border. Customs clearing agents, who had earlier in the day submitted Goods Declaration (GD) documents to the customs authorities, told Dawn that the containers were issued gate passes for crossing into Afghanistan late in the evening, despite the fact that the gates had officially been closed for any cross-border movement. The agents said that the containers were made to wait throughout the day as officials awaited a final “nod” from the higher authorities after the containers arrived at the Torkham import terminal early on Monday morning. They said that the authorities had informed them that all cleared vehicles would be allowed to proceed to ...

Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister (DPM/FM), Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, on Monday, met the Candidate for the position of United Nations Secretary-General, Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, and reiterated Pakistan’s unwavering support for the central role of the UN in international affairs.

Pakistan assumes chairmanship of the 9th OIC Ministerial Conference on Women

The Lawyers’ Movement of 2007-2009 is considered one of the most significant episodes of civic mobilisation in the country’s history. What began as a dispute over the suspension of the chief justice of Pakistan evolved into a nationwide campaign to challenge Gen Musharraf’s rule The reinstatement of a handful of deposed judges was symbolic. Its true importance lay in restoring the Constitution, ending a decade of dictatorship, facilitating the return to democratic governance, and reaffirming the principle that political authority must derive from the will of the people, rather than from unelected centres of power. The conventional explanation given for the movement’s success focuses on lawyers, judges, and political parties. All three groups played a role, but this reasoning overlooks a fundamental factor: the movement’s ability to transform a constitutional dispute into a compelling national narrative. Understanding why that happened explains why no comparable lawyers’ movement exists today, despite continui...