Pakistan

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.

Japan got its first woman prime minister on Tuesday after Sanae Takaichi, a China hawk and social conservative, forged an 11th-hour coalition deal. Japan’s fifth premier in as many years will lead a minority government and has a full in-tray, not least a scheduled visit by US President Donald Trump next week. Parliament appointed Takaichi, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, as prime minister on Tuesday, after she unexpectedly won a majority in a first round of voting. She will formally take office after meeting the emperor later. The former heavy metal drummer became on October 4 head of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed almost non-stop for decades but is losing support. Six days later the Komeito party, uncomfortable about Takaichi’s conservative views and an LDP slush fund scandal, quit their coalition. This forced Takaichi to form an alliance with the reformist, right-leaning Japan Innovation Party (JIP), which was signed on Monday evening. JIP wants to lower the consumption tax rate on ...

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has categorically ruled out the possibility of negotiations with the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), clarifying that Islamabad is only engaged in talks with the Afghan Taliban regime.

PESHAWAR: Newly-elected Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mohammad Sohail Afridi on Monday said he believed in the supremacy of the law and would confront the Centre’s every unlawful and unconstitutional step. “A narrative is being built that I will go for confrontation with the federal government. Yes, I will, if anything is done by it against the Constitution. I will continue to speak for the supremacy of the Constitution,” he told a provincial assembly session chaired by Speaker Babar Saleem Swati here. The chief minister said that he wrote letters to the chief justice of Pakistan and federal and provincial governments and even petitioned the Islamabad High Court for ensuring his meeting with detained founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Imran Khan but to no avail. He said he would challenge the federal government over the continued denial of his meeting with Imran and would boycott meetings called by it. Informs assembly that there won’t be any political arrests under MPO in province Mr Afridi said ...

RAWALPINDI: After receiving approval to re­­start flights to the United Kingdom, Pakistan is now preparing to resume direct air links with the United States, Aviation Minister Khawaja Asif said on Monday. Speaking to a private TV channel, Mr Asif indicated progress in discus­­s­i­ons with American aviation authorities. “Hopefully, permission will be granted soon,” he said, adding that the government is working on meeting international standards and enhancing safety protocols, which could lead to expanded global routes. A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) spokesman highlighted the significance of US routes for PIA, emphasising the strong demand for non-stop flights from Pakistanis living in North America. National flag carrier, Etihad enter into codeshare agreement According to an aviation expert, a team from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had recently visited Pakistan to conduct a safety audit. A positive outcome from these audits could result in PIA achieving Category 1 status from the FAA,...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: At least eight alleged terrorists were gunned down by security forces in an operation on Monday, after a team from Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) came under attack near the Kot Lalu area in Daraban, Dera Ismail Khan. The action came in an apparent response to an attack on the SNGPL team, in which security forces reportedly also suffered casualties. However, there was no official word from Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) or other security agencies about their losses until going to press. Sources said the militants were killed after intelligence reports were received about their presence in a nearby jungle, prompting the security forces to launch an offensive in which eight suspects were gunned down. Following the action, the forces cordoned off the area and initiated wide-ranging search-and-clearance operations in the surrounding terrain. Reinforcements were dispatched to secure the site and to pursue the fleeing suspects. Two suspects killed in Swabi encounter; attack on B...

• A Tando Adam ginner is found mixing cotton waste into high-grade lint • Stakeholders say malpractice has pushed textile mills towards costly imports, deepening financial woes • Investigators allege armed men assault PCGA team LAHORE: A startling case of large-scale cotton adulteration has surfaced in Sindh, where a ginning factory in Tando Adam was allegedly found mixing cotton waste into high-grade lint to produce what industry insiders are calling “burger cotton.” According to reports, a four-member monitoring team of the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) — formed to curb such malpractice — raided the factory after receiving credible complaints. However, the operation turned violent when the factory owner allegedly summoned nearly a hundred armed men who assaulted and detained the visiting committee members for several hours on Sunday. The incident has sent shockwaves through the cotton ginning industry nationwide. In protest, an emergency meeting of the PCGA’s monitoring committee and Sindh-base...

Fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi has been named the Pakistan men’s One-day International (ODI) team captain, the country’s cricket board announced on Monday. The national side’s pace spearhead will lead Pakistan in the upcoming three-match series against South Africa. Shaheen replaces Mohammad Rizwan as the Pakistan ODI skipper after the wicket-keeper led the team during a disastrous ICC Champions Trophy campaign before series losses in New Zealand and the West Indies. Rizwan, handed captaincy in 2024, had led the team to series wins in South Africa, Australia and Zimbabwe in his early days as captain, however. But the recent failures apparently were a decisive enough factor for the Pakistan Cricket Board to sack Rizwan. For Shaheen, it’s going to be a second stint as the Pakistan captain, the left-armer having been snubbed after a short spell — five T20Is against New Zealand — at the helm after replacing Babar Azam in late 2023 following Pakistan’s dismal World Cup campaign. The 25-year-old, who has been capt...

ISLAMABAD - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Monday removed the registrar office’s objections on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi’s peti­tion seeking permission to meet PTI founder Imran Khan in Adiala Jail.

ISLAMABAD - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Mon­day gave police three days to recover the deputy director of the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), who was allegedly abducted from the federal capital last week.

LAHORE - The Election Commis­sion of Pakistan (ECP) has released a revised schedule for by-elec­tions in Punjab, with polling set to take place on November 23, 2025.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari yesterday extended warm greetings to the Hindu commu­nity in Pakistan and around the world on the joyous occasion of Diwali — the festival of lights, hope, and renewal.