Pakistan

I had never set foot in a zoo before; I now wish I hadn’t. As a mom of two feline monarchs who rule my home and a self-appointed custodian of strays that stumble into my orbit, my lessons in love have come padded in fur and whiskers. Cats, after all, love without surrendering their sovereignty. They teach you that affection can be fierce yet uncompromising of selfhood. That dignity breathes in freedom. And if dignity breathes in freedom, naturally, captivity is its slow suffocation. Few places advertise that suffocation as boldly as cages built in the name of leisure and ‘education’. So when my editor assigned me a story on the Karachi Zoo, I knew it wouldn’t be one of those breezy reporting days, neatly filed away before lunch. This one would sit heavy. But journalism, inconveniently faithful to reality, does not make exceptions for personal aversions. Zoos exist whether I approve or not, and my job was to bear witness. So, I went (a naïve corner of my heart clung to the hope of encountering some grace). I d...

Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry is set to hold an important press conference at the Corps Headquarters in Peshawar, where he is expected to address matters related to national security, the border situation, and recent developments across the country.

Human remains found in Japan have been identified as those of a six-year-old girl missing since the massive earthquake and tsunami of 2011, police said on Friday. The disaster killed 15,900 people, with 2,520 people still listed as missing as of the end of February, according to the National Police Agency. Teeth and fragments of jaw were discovered in February 2023 in the northern region of Miyagi, a spokesman for the local police told AFP. “After dental and DNA identification analyses, it was confirmed the remains belong to Natsuse Yamane, female, who was six years old at the time,” he said. The girl had been at her home in Yamada, a town around 100 kilometres away in Iwate Prefecture, when the tsunami swept her away, the spokesman added. She had been listed as missing ever since. The remains were found by construction workers sifting through material amassed in a clean-up of coastal areas, the Asahi Shimbun daily reported. The child’s family issued a statement of thanks. “We are very happy to have been cont...

Adviser to the Chief Minister on Information, Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif, has said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) remains on the frontline in Pakistan’s fight against terrorism.

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Friday said that Pakistan’s recent engagement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was “constructive”, adding that there appeared to be no “showstoppers” so far. An IMF mission led by Iva Petrova met with Pakistan’s economic team in Karachi and Islamabad from September 24 to October 8 to review the implementation of the $7 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and $1.1bn Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF). A day earlier, the Fund said that “significant progress” had been made towards finalising a staff-level agreement on the second review under the 37-month EFF and the first review of the 28-month RSF. “Programme implementation remains strong, and broadly aligned with the authorities’ commitments,” the IMF had said. Today, the minister virtually addressed a high-level business delegation from Saudi Arabia, which arrived in Pakistan on October 7, and said, “We have had very constructive engagement with the [IMF] mission here. “We have a few outstanding issu...

India will reopen its embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul that was shut four years ago, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Friday. India had closed its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban seized power following the withdrawal of US-led Nato forces in 2021, but opened a small mission a year later to facilitate trade, medical support, and humanitarian aid. About a dozen countries including China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkiye have embassies operating in Kabul, although Russia is the only country to have formally recognised the Taliban administration. New Delhi’s announcement came as Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi began talks with Jaishankar on what is the first visit to India by a Taliban leader since 2021. “India is fully committed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Afghanistan,” Jaishankar told Muttaqi in his opening remarks. “Closer cooperation between us contributes to your national development, as well as regional stability and resilien...

In a major intelligence-based operation (IBO) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district on Thursday, two terrorists were killed including one reported to be the mastermind behind the killing of four officials in April, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in a statement A press release by the CTD issued yesterday said that it had “killed two most-wanted terrorists during a successful intelligence-based operation in Bannu district”. “The mastermind of the martyrdom of four CTD officials is also among those killed,” it added. According to the press release, the CTD had received confidential information that terrorists belonging to the banned organisation Fitna-al-Khawarij were planning a “major terrorist operation” on Company Road within the limits of Domail police station. Fitnah-al Khawarij is the term the state uses to refer to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Per the statement, the CTD’s Special (SWAT) team surrounded the area immediately along with the district police. “Upon seeing the operation...

Air pollution in the provincial capital has reached a critical level, with Lahore now ranked as the second most polluted city in the world.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has predicted mainly dry weather conditions across most parts of the country over the next 24 hours, with cold temperatures expected in hilly areas during the night and early morning hours.

ISLAMABAD - Lanzhou University (LZU), China, and the Sindh Agriculture University (SAU), Tandojam have signed a landmark five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at strengthening academic collaboration, scientific innovation, and joint research in agricultural sciences and climate resilience.

ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Thursday said the nation was united in its resolve to eradi-cate ter­rorism from the country and the government and Armed Forces will take all measures to crush the violence perpetrated from across the border.

ISLAMABAD - Coalition partners, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pak­istan Muslim League (Nawaz), yesterday cooled down the po­litical heat with an agreement to ceasefire after days of verbal war.

ISLAMABAD - Incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan directed its party’s lawmakers to quit the standing committees of the Punjab Assembly, interim party chairman Gohar Ali Khan said on Thursday.

ISLAMABAD: After Starlink, a European giant and a Chinese company, Amazon’s satellite broadband initiative — Project Kuiper — has expressed interest in rolling out its services in Pakistan. In a meeting with Minister for IT and Telecom Shaza Fatima Khawaja, a delegation from Amazon outlined plans to launch Project Kuiper in Pakistan by the end of 2026. The delegation, led by Mostafa Mousa — Project Kuiper’s lead for Licensing and Regulatory Affairs in Europe, the Middle East and Africa — also included Jeff Kietzemen and Hisham Alshaer. The IT minister welcomed the delegation, stressing that this development signals growing confidence among global tech giants in Pakistan’s expanding digital economy. She noted that the entry of Project Kuiper would create new opportunities for affordable, high-speed internet, particularly in remote and underserved communities where traditional connectivity options remain limited. Project Kuiper is Amazon’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network, which plans to deploy 3,236 sat...

ISLAMABAD - Seven Indian-sponsored Khwarij have been killed by security forc­es during an intelligence-based operation in Daraban area of Dera Ismail Khan.

LAHORE - Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif on Thursday officially launched Punjab’s first-ever high-tech farm mechanization financing program portal through a digital initiative.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have signed on Thursday a land mark agreement to strengthen cooperation concerning anti-corruption, anti-money laundering and recovery of stolen assets.

ISLAMABAD - An eight-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court conducted hearing of the petitions of various Bar Councils/Associations, former Chief Justice of Pakistan Jawad S Khawaja, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, Jamaat-e-Islami, Sunni Ittehad Council, and of Chairperson Tehreek-i-Tahaffuz Ayeen-i-Pakistan Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar.

BRIDGETOWN - Pakistan’s presence at the 68th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPC) in Bridgetown, Barbados carried a unique distinction this year, as three members of the Gillani family represented all legislative houses of Pakistan at the prestigious international forum.

• Governor House claims it has not received resignation letter, CM Sectt insists it was delivered • Gandapur denies being offered his job back, says he won’t accept it • Atta Tarar accuses PTI of ‘enabling terrorists’, sees effort to ‘promote militancy’ behind Sohail Afridi’s nomination PESHAWAR: Despite Imran Khan’s inst­ructions, Ali Amin Gandapur technically re­­mains the chief minister of Khyber Pakh­tun­khwa until his resignation is accepted by the provincial governor. His resignation letter, which was shared with the media the previous night, has apparently gotten lost in red tape, with Governor House denying having ever received it. Officials at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat told Dawn that Mr Gandapur’s resignation had been delivered to the Governor House on Wednesday night. A copy of the letter seen by Dawn showed that it was received by the governor’s staff at 10:57pm. However, KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, who was in Islamabad on Thursday, and other officials at the Governor’s Secre­tariat rema...