Pakistan

The federal government has implemented new regulations for Umrah arrangements under the Hajj and Umrah Act 2024, introducing measures aimed at improving transparency, strengthening oversight, and protecting the interests of pilgrims.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday formally appointed the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as the financial and transaction adviser for the outsourcing of Islamabad International Airport’s operations. Last week, the Privatisation Commission Board reviewed the terms of a transaction advisory services agreement (TASA) with the lender and gave its approval. The TASA was signed by Privatisation Commission Director General Shahid Dayo and ADB Country Director Emma Fan, an official announcement said. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Privatisation and Privatisation Commission Chairman Muhammad Ali, Privatisation Commission Secretary Usman Akhtar Bajwa, Privatisation Division Secretary Hammad Shamimi and ADB Deputy Country Director Syed Hussain Haider witnessed the signing. Under the agreement, ADB would provide comprehensive transaction advisory services, including technical, financial, legal, environmental and commercial expertise, to support the structuring and implementation of the transaction in accordance with intern...

Jacobabad municipal chief removed as committee flags procurement violations worth millions

FIR lodged as BDU confirms Russian-made device used in the attack

Azad Jammu and Kashmir Home Secretary Chaudhry Guftar Hussain said on Wednesday that the proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) had carried out coordinated campaigns using “baseless claims and propaganda” to incite people against the state. Hussain, addressing the media, stated that the banned organisation had resorted to using women and children as “human shields” after its leaders showed indifference towards the party and failed to uphold their promises. The home secretary said the actions of the JAAC were not only unethical but also violated “Kashmiri values”. “Distracting students from their education means playing with their futures.” JAAC promoted anti-state narratives, antagonised people against the Pakistan Army, attempted to damage Pakistan and AJK’s historical relationship, restricted people’s movement by blocking roads and disrupted the lives of ordinary citizens, the home secretary added. “All these actions prove that JAAC’s actual purpose is not to protect the rights of the people but to ...

LAHORE: The Lahore district administration sealed a private water park in Batapur on Monday after a nine-year-old girl allegedly got stuck in a drainage pipe and died due to the alleged negligence of park officials, it emerged on Wednesday. Batapur police arrested three officials of Sozo Water Park after registering a criminal case against them. The incident occurred on Monday, when the park administration allegedly began draining a swimming pool without first evacuating the children who were still swimming in it. Police said the powerful suction created by a high-capacity drainage pump pulled the nine-year-old girl into the pool’s drainage pipe, where she became trapped. Rescue teams searched for the child for around 40-50 minutes before she was found stuck inside the drainage pipe. She could not be revived. Following the incident, the district administration immediately sealed the water park and suspended all activities. A district administration spokesperson said the facility had been sealed on the day of ...

Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, on Wednesday, reaffirmed that increasing domestic oil and gas production remained a key priority of the Government’s energy security agenda and assured full support to provide a secure and enabling environment for the sector.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has introduced revised travel regulations requiring Pakistani dual nationals to carry either a valid National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP) or a Pakistani visa when travelling to the country.

On a Saturday evening this month, an 11-year-old girl left her home for a friend’s birthday party in a small town in eastern India. She never returned. She was kidnapped, raped, bundled into a sack and thrown into a pond by a gang of men while still alive, according to a local investigating police officer. A health and physical education textbook of an 11-year-old girl who was raped and killed last week, is kept inside her parents’ house in a town near Kolkata, West Bengal, India on July 11, 2026. —Reuters/File The assault was the latest example of the brutal sexual violence that is endemic across India, with over 80 rapes reported to police every day, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. Many more assaults go unreported because of victim blaming and shaming, activists say. Deep-seated patriarchy and misogyny, understaffed police forces and severe judicial delays contribute to many perpetrators believing they can escape punishment for assaulting women. That sense of impunity feeds into th...

The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark index snapped a two-day losing streak on Wednesday, gaining more than 1,700 points to settle above the 175,000 mark. The KSE-100 index rose by 1,766.97 points (1.02 per cent) over the course of the day after a volatile session. It closed at 175,285.78 points, up from its previous close of 173,518.81. The index started with a steep rise, hitting its intraday high of 176,701.38 points at 10:02am — 3182.57 points up from the previous close. By 10:14am, it came down a little but was still up 2,664.88 points. It then reversed its initial gains, with the index up 1,091.77 points at 12:54pm. It stayed well above the previous close, however, hovering above the 174,000 mark between 12:30pm and 2pm, before rising steadily to settle above 175,000 points by the market’s close. Mettis Global, a web-based financial portal, said the KSE-100 index was rebounding from the previous session’s steep losses as investors engaged in value buying after heavy selloffs. Awais Ashraf, direc...

PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said on Wednesday that the situation in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) since last month was “very concerning”, and the longer it persisted, the more harm would be caused to the Kashmir cause and Pakistan’s reputation. Bilawal expressed these views while addressing his party’s office bearers and ticket holders in AJK, where he arrived on Tuesday for an unscheduled visit ahead of July 27 elections in the region. AJK has been seized by protests and deadly clashes between law enforcers and protesters from the recently proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) ahead of the polls. The matter at the centre of the tensions is JAAC’s demand for the abolition of 12 seats in the region’s Legislative Assembly that are reserved for refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir who settled in mainland Pakistan after 1947. Addressing his party’s workers against this backdrop, Bilawal said, “If someone uses inappropriate language against Kashmiris, we will be heartbroken.” He added...

LAHORE: A sessions court on Wednesday issued a notice to the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) on a petition seeking the registration of a case against Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman for allegedly making a controversial statement about security personnel. Fazl made the statement during a recent party rally in Punjab’s Kasur, where he spoke about the security situation and terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. In this context, he referred to the frequent mention of soldiers’ martyrdom, adding that security personnel were drawing salaries to fight for the country. The petition, filed by citizen Mohammad Waqar, was heard by Additional District and Sessions Judge Malik Latif. Advocate Mudassar Chaudhry, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, submitted that his client had watched a speech by the JUI-F chief on social media in which he allegedly made derogatory remarks about Pakistan’s martyrs. The counsel argued that the speech hurt the petitioner’s sentime...

Trade pact cuts tariffs on thousands ‌of goods and expands market access for services firms and professionals

The National Savings has announced the results of the 107th draw of the Rs750 Prize Bond, held in Lahore in July 2026, with the winning bond numbers officially released.

Italian prime minister hails verdict

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Ombudsperson for Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace has imposed a Rs500,000 fine on an employee for subjecting a female colleague to an online campaign of gender-based harassment.

KARACHI: An anti-corruption court on Wednesday granted the investigating officer additional time to submit the charge sheet in the alleged Rs8.

Warns against tax collection from tribal areas, challenges authorities to visit the region, witness ground realities

Pakistan’s recent diplomatic efforts for achieving sustainable peace in the deserve to be assessed not by whether they produced an immediate US-Iran agreement, but by what they strategically accomplished. First, it helped create diplomatic space at a critical moment, reducing the risk of a disastrous regional escalation. Second, it contributed to bringing Washington and Tehran into direct high-level engagement after nearly five decades of estrangement, demonstrating that dialogue remained possible even amid military confrontation. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the process helped identify the real sticking point around which any future negotiations must ultimately be built. Whenever tensions between the United States and Iran dominate international headlines, the debate almost invariably revolves around Iran’s nuclear programme. Yet, this focus often obscures the deeper strategic issue that has repeatedly frustrated diplomatic efforts. The nuclear file is important, but it is not the decisive obstacle. ...

Ransomware group World Leaks has posted on the dark web a huge cache of files related to India’s largest nuclear plant, including purported blueprints of parts of its facilities and supplier details — information it ​labelled as coming from Reliance Group. The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, located in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, is the largest of India’s seven nuclear plants and central to Prime Minister ‌Narendra Modi’s ambitious plans to expand the country’s atomic energy capacity. Indian businessman Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group, one of the plant’s contractors, told Reuters in a statement that there had been a “partial breach” of its data on a server hosted by third-party Indian data centre service provider Yotta, and that the government had been informed about the incident. Reliance did not disclose what data had been breached. The data breach could pose a “serious” risk to the safety of the plant, says Nickolas Roth, a senior director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which ​advises governments and...