Pakistan

China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran on Thursday welcomed Pakistan and Afghanistan’s agreement to a 48-hour ceasefire after the two neighbours witnessed a fresh round of deadly cross-border clashes that threatened to escalate into a wider conflict. China’s foreign ministry said today it supported countries in exercising restraint and realising a full and lasting ceasefire. “China stands ready to continue to play a constructive role for continued improvement in the two countries’ relations, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry, told a regular press briefing. Iran also welcomed the ceasefire between its eastern neighbours, urging dialogue and diplomacy after days of deadly clashes. In a statement, foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei expressed concern over civilian casualties and called for stronger regional cooperation to combat terrorism, while reaffirming Tehran’s readiness “to assist in any effort to maintain calm and reduce tensions between the two neighbouring Muslim countries”. Meanwhile, Fore...

In north central Nigeria’s Muslim-majority state of Kwara, where religious traditions shape daily life, a group of girls are challenging cultural norms by playing soccer. They’ve embraced the game’s team spirit, competitive thrill, plus the highs and lows of winning and losing, all whilst trying to ignore the disapproval of those who consider it unsuitable for women who choose to dress modestly. As Maryam Muhammed laces up her boots and heads to soccer training at a local school in Ilorin, she feels the sweltering heat — made worse by her hijab and leggings — as well as the scorn from some in the local community. Muhammed, 17, regularly hears taunts as she walks to her training sessions with the Model Queens Football Academy. “They tell me I won’t achieve anything. But I believe I will achieve something big,” she said. Despite the discomfort, it is important to her to cover up when she plays rather than wear shorts and a t-shirt. “Sometimes it feels like I want to open the hijab, but I must not expose my hair...

India said on Thursday that its energy priority was the interest of its citizens, after United States President Donald Trump said New Delhi had promised it will stop buying Russian oil. New Delhi neither confirmed nor denied it was shifting policy towards Russia. “It has been our consistent priority to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer in a volatile energy scenario,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement. “Our import policies are guided entirely by this objective.” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has previously defended buying oil from Russia, a historic partner of India, despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump in August raised tariffs on Indian exports to the US to 50 per cent, with Trump’s aides accusing India of fueling Russia’s war in Ukraine. “Ensuring stable energy prices and secured supplies have been the twin goals of our energy policy,” Jaiswal added. “This includes broad-basing our energy sourcing and diversifying as appropriate to meet market con...

PAKISTAN burns $130 million every single day on the health and economic consequences of breathing poisoned air. This $47.8 billion annual toll represents 5.88 per cent of GDP lost to healthcare costs, productivity losses, and 22,000 premature deaths. Over 11 million children under five are regularly exposed to hazardous air quality, with 1.8 million people in Punjab alone suffering health consequences during smog episodes. This crisis stems from 25 years of policy drift. While Pakistan drafted the National Environmental Policy (NEP) in 2005 and Climate Change Policy in 2012, it lacked clarity of purpose and implementation resolve. During these lost decades, all major Asian economies invested systematically in public transportation, clean technologies and inclusive propoor policies, leaving Pakistan dangerously behind. Current approaches remain trapped in outdated administrative and punitive measures instead of systematic, integrated solutions. This reactive approach has proven ineffective against a crisis req...

At least 15 people were killed — all from the same family — when a Punjab-bound truck overturned in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swat district early morning on Thursday, according to a Rescue 1122 official. Malakand Rescue 1122 Spokesperson Shafiqa Gul said in a statement, “At least 15 members of the same family were killed and eight others sustained injuries when a truck overturned near tunnel No. 3 of the Swat Motorway on Thursday morning.” The dead and injured include men, women and children, she said. “The family was from the Gabral area of the Bahrain tehsil and were travelling to Punjab when the tragic incident occurred,” the statement said. Rescue teams rushed to the site of the incident and carried out relief operations alongside the Motorway police, according to the spokesperson. She further said that the injured had been taken to the District Headquarters Hospital, Batkhela. “Doctors at the hospital confirmed that 15 people had lost their lives,” she said, adding that four of the injured were in critical co...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday said Islamabad was ready to talk if Kabul agreed to fulfil Pakistan’s “justified” conditions following recent hostilities between the two countries. Pakistan and Afghan­istan on Wednesday agreed to a temporary ceasefire after a fresh round of deadly cross-border clashes that threatened to escalate into a wider conflict. Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) said the ceasefire, implemented at the Taliban’s request and with mutual consent, took effect at 6pm local time on October 15 and would last for 48 hours. The announcement followed sustained hostilities between the two countries over the weekend. Addressing the federal cabinet today after the latest round of conflict, the premier stated that the Afghan side had requested a ceasefire and made a formal request. “Yesterday we decided the temporary 48-hour ceasefire [and] the message has been sent that if they want to fulfil our justified conditions through talks, then we are ready. The ball is in their court.” He added that ...

China has voiced support for Pakistan and Afghanistan’s ongoing efforts to maintain restraint and implement a comprehensive, lasting ceasefire following recent cross-border clashes.

New York’s Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday apologised to the New York Police Department (NYPD) for remarks he made in 2020 during the height of the George Floyd protests. “I apologise for the language that I used, and I spoke to them about the fact that I want to work with them to deliver public safety because what we’re seeing in the city right now is we’re asking officers to do nearly everything we can think of,” Mamdani said in an interview on US media outlet Fox News. “We used to ask officers to focus on serious crimes. Now we’re asking them to focus also on the mental health crisis, to focus also on homelessness. In one year alone, the NYPD receives 200,000 mental health calls,” he added. Fox host Martha MacCallum said officers she spoke with had requested a public apology from Mamdani. He responded: “I’ll apologise to police officers right here, because this is the apology that I’ve been sharing with many rank-and-file officers. I apologise because of the fact that I’m looking t...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday said that the Muslim World League was playing a highly significant role at the global level in promoting the true image of Islam and advocating for the collective interests of the Muslim Ummah.

Thirty-four Khwarij belonging to Indian Proxy Fitna Al Khwarij were killed in multiple engagements in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province over the last few days.

Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Australian High Commissioner Neil Hawkins held a meeting on Thursday to discuss ways to strengthen Pakistan-Australia relations and enhance cooperation across multiple sectors, particularly border management, coast guard collaboration, and efforts to combat human trafficking.

The joint military exercise Dostarym-V between the armies of Pakistan and Kazakhstan is currently underway at the Special Operations School, Cherat, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has commended the security forces for successfully eliminating multiple India-backed Khawarij terrorists during operations in various areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday granted protective bail to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi until November 18.

Justice Inam Amin Minhas of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has warned that principals of educational institutions will be held accountable if drugs are found being supplied within their premises.

For a generative artificial intelligence system to learn how to write an autopsy report, human workers must sort and annotate thousands of crime scene images. The precarious work of training AI, which generally pays just a few dollars, has sparked a movement for better wages and conditions stretching from Kenya to Colombia. “You have to spend your whole day looking at dead bodies and crime scenes… Mental health support was not provided,” Kenyan national Ephantus Kanyugi told AFP. Labellers “need to spend time with these images, zoom into the wounds of dead people” to outline them so they can be fed into the AI, the 30-year-old added. Kanyugi, who has worked on image labelling since 2018, is the vice-president of the Data Labelers Association (DLA), an 800-strong labour group based in Nairobi. The DLA plans to unveil a code of conduct this month aimed at major labelling platforms, calling for improved conditions for workers. Kenya has no law regulating data-annotation work — like many countries around the worl...

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Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif met Federal Minister for Railways Hanif Abbasi to discuss matters related to Pakistan Railways and the overall political situation in the country.

Police in Okara have registered a case against a rickshaw driver for playing a song by renowned Pakistani singer Naseebo Lal, under the Punjab Sound Systems (Regulation) Act, 2015.

Flawed engineering and inadequate testing contributed to the catastrophic implosion of a private submersible during a 2023 expedition to the Titanic wreckage, the US National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday. Its report comes after a US Coast Guard investigation in August outlined a litany of issues with operator OceanGate’s conduct, as well as design flaws in its Titan submersible, that led to a “preventable tragedy” in which all five passengers were killed. “We found that OceanGate’s engineering process for the Titan was inadequate and resulted in the construction of a carbon fibre composite pressure vessel that contained multiple anomalies and failed to meet necessary strength and durability requirements,” NTSB’s report said. “Because OceanGate did not adequately test the Titan, the company was unaware of the pressure vessel’s actual strength and durability, which was likely much lower than their target. “Additionally, OceanGate’s analysis of Titan pressure vessel real-time monitoring data was...