Pakistan

The Pakistani rupee remained largely stable against major international currencies on Monday as the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) released the latest interbank exchange rates, reflecting continued resilience in the foreign exchange market.

.

.

Rawalpindi has yet to establish flood relief camps, complete desilting of Leh Nullah

.

Talks between the CDA chief, WASA officials fail to resolve the row

MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Supreme Court on Monday suspended, until July 2, the operation of an AJK High Court order granting interim relief to the PTI in its dispute with the Election Commission over the party’s registration. On June 23, the AJK High Court had directed the Election Commission to provisionally register PTI as a political party, effectively suspending the commission’s May 16 decision rejecting the party’s registration application. The short order was announced by a three-member bench headed by senior puisne judge Syed Shahid Bahar and comprising Justices Sardar Muhammad Ejaz and Khalid Rasheed Chaudhry. The interim order was passed by Chief Justice Raja Saeed Akram on an application filed by the Election Commission under Rules 1 and 2 of Order VI of the Supreme Court Rules, 1978, seeking ex parte ad interim relief during the pendency of its petition for leave to appeal (PLA) against the high court’s June 23 order. PTI counsel Yasir Safeer Mughal appeared before the court an...

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) on Monday forecast the onset of monsoon rains during the first week of July, with widespread rain, windstorms, and thunderstorms expected across most parts of the country under the influence of a westerly wave and strong moisture inflows from the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

Russia is grinding its way into Kostiantynivka, a key stronghold in Ukraine’s eastern “fortress belt” long coveted by the Kremlin, even as its gains across the rest of the 1,200-kilometre front line have largely stalled. Fighting has begun to seep into the city itself. Small groups of Russian soldiers are attempting to infiltrate its outskirts, senior Ukrainian commanders said last week, suggesting close-quarters assaults could follow. Kostiantynivka is the southernmost of four key settlements forming a defensive line central to Ukraine’s effort to hold the heavily industrialised Donetsk region. The push towards it underscores Moscow’s enduring manpower advantage, even as Ukrainian mid-range drone strikes on logistics have weakened its fighting capabilities, analysts said. “The effect [of mid-range strikes] hasn’t been so great that it would have forced the Russians to suspend their offensive,” said Emil Kastehelmi of the Black Bird conflict analysis team in Finland. “So even though Russia has been taking inc...

Turkiye must be included in all of Europe’s defence and security structures, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, a week ahead of a key Nato summit in Ankara. His remarks come as Europe seeks to revamp its defences in light of the threat from Russia and the risk of a US pullback from Nato, as the military alliance gears up for a key summit in the Turkish capital on July 7-8. “Turkiye’s indispensable contributions to European security are sometimes overlooked,” Erdogan told parliamentary delegates from all 32 Nato member states in Istanbul, saying Turkiye wanted “to participate in all defence and security initiatives” on the continent. At issue is Turkiye’s access to the European Union’s 150-billion-euro ($176bn) Security Action for Europe (Safe) initiative, a scheme key to strengthening European defence capabilities. Although Turkiye is technically eligible to access the Safe initiative, it requires approval from all 27 EU members — something Greece has threatened to block. “We expect your support, ...

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday dismissed contempt of court petitions filed by PTI founder Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, after observing that the powers of attorney required to pursue their appeals had been signed, while granting the defence a final two-week adjournment to commence arguments in the appeals against their conviction in the £190 million graft reference. An accountability court in Islamabad had sentenced Imran and Bushra to 14 and seven years in prison, respectively, on Jan 17, 2025 in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) reference, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case. On Monday, an IHC division bench comprising Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfaraz Dogar and Justice Muhammad Asif heard the appeals against the couple’s sentences. Barrister Salman Safdar, Salman Akram Raja and other members of the defence team appeared before the court. The PTI founder’s sister, Aleema Khan, and several party leaders were also present during the proceedings. At the outset, the be...

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday expressed displeasure over the absence of a senior counsel during the hearing of a petition challenging the freezing of Moonis Elahi's assets and his declaration as a proclaimed offender.

The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) Lahore has arrested two suspects allegedly involved in blackmailing and harassing women by threatening to leak their private photos and videos on social media.

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif on Monday directed the Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (PERA) to adopt a people-friendly approach, warning that arrogance, misuse of authority, and corruption would not be tolerated within the force.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar asserted on Monday that the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) between India and Pakistan could not be unilaterally revoked or altered, stressing that the people of Pakistan had a right to Indus waterways under the “legally enforceable treaty” that remained in force. He said this while addressing a press conference alongside Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik in Islamabad. Tarar’s statement comes at a time when water and the IWT remains a contentious issue between India and Pakistan, following New Delhi’s unilateral abeyance of the accord last year — a move that followed a brief military conflict between the two sides in May 2025. More recently, Indian Water Minister CR Patil said his country was working to ensure “not a single drop of water” would flow into Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan has maintained that any attempt to change the flow of cross-border waterways would be considered an “act of war”. At the outset of the press briefing, Tarar said the world had endorsed that wate...

Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said on Monday that the Afghan chargé d’affaires was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mofa) and issued a strong demarche over the terrorist attack on a Rangers facility in Karachi. On Saturday night, terrorists attacked the local headquarters of the Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar area, during which three security personnel were martyred and four were injured, according to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). ISPR said the attack was carried out by terrorists “belonging to Indian proxy Jamaatul Ahrar” (JuA), adding that three terrorists were killed in retaliatory action while one was arrested, whom it identified as an Afghan national. Andrabi confirmed Islamabad’s summoning of the envoy in a statement on Monday, in response to media queries regarding Pakistan’s demarche to the Afghan Taliban regime. He added that a “similar demarche” was conveyed by Pakistan’s Ambassador Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani to the Afghan Ministry of Fore...

In today’s day and age, terrorism is not merely enabled by ideology and technology but also most effectively by an epistemic strategy that sacralises the ideological lineaments of the terrorists’ main creed. A concrete indication of this trend is the Taliban government’s use of sophisticated strategic communication tools through epistemic proxies like the Al Mirsaad, a web-based publication funded and directed by Taliban regime’s General Directorate of Intelligence’s media wing. Recently, the Al Mirsaad’s credentials as a Taliban mouthpiece were exposed by a report, “Heretics, Adversaries, & Legitimacy” by the Durand Despatch, an independent digital news organisation that specialises in security and counter-terrorism affairs in Afghanistan and South Asia. The analysis of the Al Mirsaad’s 137 articles, published between October 2025 and March 2026, identified a pattern of deification of the internationally isolated and delegitimised Taliban regime. The Taliban’s messaging strategy It appears that the Taliban r...

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) have yet to finalize a power-sharing formula for the Gilgit-Baltistan government, as negotiations continue over the allocation of ministerial portfolios.

Minister of State for Finance Bilal Azhar Kayani chaired a meeting to review the progress of ongoing development projects in Jhelum, directing officials to ensure their timely completion.

Azerbaijan on Monday denounced a decision by its ally Israel to recognise the World War I massacres of Armenians as a genocide, a move widely seen as a rebuke by Israel to Turkiye. Azerbaijan and Israel are allies but Baku’s closest foreign partner is Turkiye and the Caucasus country hinted that the move by Israel could hit their bilateral relations. The recognition by Israel — announced on Sunday — was of “serious concern”, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said in a statement. Armenia has long sought international recognition that the mass killings under the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917 amounted to a genocide, in which 1.5 million people died. Turkiye strongly denies the accusation of genocide and says that both Armenians and Turks died as a result of World War I. It puts the death toll in the hundreds of thousands. More than two dozen countries, including the United States, France and Germany, recognise the killings as a genocide. “Such actions do not contribute to reconciliation or mutual understanding,” ...