Pakistan

KARACHI: For the second consecutive day, rescue workers on Saturday carried out a search operation to recover an 11-year-old boy feared to have drowned after being swept away while swimming in a major water line in Scheme 33. The boy, Zahid Mohammed Khan, was swept away around 2pm on Friday while swimming in the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC)’s line in Scheme-33 near Al-Azhar Garden. Lifeguards from Rescue 1122 and the Edhi Foundation searched until Friday night, but were unable to recover the boy. Subsequently, the operation was paused due to a lack of visibility. On Saturday, Rescue 1122 Spokesperson Hassanul Haseeb Khan told Dawn that officials resumed the search operation at two separate locations, near Samama Shopping Mall and Continental Bakery in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, with the help of the district administration but the boy was not found. He referred to other incidents that had occurred in the vicinity in the recent past, saying the bodies were later recovered at the aforementioned location...

The US State Department has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it says are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including AI startup DeepSeek, to steal intellectual property from US artificial intelligence labs, according to a diplomatic cable seen by Reuters. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models”. “A separate demarche request and message has been sent to Beijing for raising with China,” the document states. Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones as part of an effort to lower the costs of training a powerful new AI tool. This week, the White House made similar accusations. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. OpenAI has warned US lawmakers that DeepSeek was targeting the ChatGPT maker and the nation’s l...

The Foreign Office (FO) said on Saturday that Pakistan had successfully launched an indigenous electro-optical satellite from China’s Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre, terming it a “significant milestone”. “The Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) has successfully launched its indigenous electro-optical satellite (EO-3) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre, marking another significant milestone in the nation’s space capabilities,” it said in a statement posted on the social media platform X. “Beyond its core imaging mission, EO-3 carries advanced experimental payloads aimed at validating next-generation space technologies. These include a multi-geometry imaging module for enhanced imaging accuracy, an advanced energy storage system, and an onboard AI-powered data processing unit to enable real-time analysis and intelligent decision support,” it said. It said that the addition of EO-3 to Pakistan’s Earth Observation satellite fleet “significantly enhances national capabilities i...

ISLAMABAD - The federal government on Friday once again jacked up the prices of petrol and high speed diesel by Rs 26.

ISLAMABAD: A local court on Saturday rejected the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency’s (NCCIA) request for the physical remand of journalist Fakharur Rehman and instead sent him to jail on judicial remand. Rehman was arrested a day earlier under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca). According to an NCCIA first information report (FIR) dated April 20, the journalist was one of the nine accused of spreading “false and misleading information against state institutions” through the social media platform X. On Saturday, Rehman was produced before the court of District Magistrate Yasir Mahmood. During the hearing, defence counsel Ahad Khokhar argued that the prosecution had failed to clearly establish the extent of Rehman’s alleged role. He maintained that the journalist had merely quoted statements made by a religious scholar in a post on X and had not expressed any personal opinion. The defence further contended that thousands of social media users had shared the video in question, wondering why ...

ISLAMABAD: State-run Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) has approved a revised bid of $18.4 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) from TotalEnergies for delivery between April 27 and 30, while rejecting all other bids, it emerged on Saturday. TotalEnergies had initially bid $18.88 per mmBtu but later revised its offer downward to $18.4 following negotiations. After internal consultations, the authorities rejected all other bids for the first half of May, anticipating the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. On Friday, PLL had received four bids at $17.997 to $18.88 per mmBtu for delivery between April 27 and May 8. A total of four bids were received from three bidders, and three were declared the lowest. Vitol Bahrain’s bid of $18.54 per mmBtu was declared the lowest for the May 1–7 delivery window, while OQ Trading was the lowest bidder at $17.997 per mmBtu for the May 8–14 period. However, both bids were rejected. PLL had on Thursday floated urgent tenders for the import of three LNG cargoes for delivery between ...

India will bid to host the 2038 Asian Games in Ahmedabad, the country’s Olympic chief told Reuters on Saturday, in its latest push to stage elite multi-sport events. The world’s most populous nation will stage the 2030 Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad and is also bidding for the 2036 Olympic Games in the western Indian city. “Indian Olympic Association has already sent an expression of interest to OCA (Olympic Council of Asia) for organising the 2038 Asian Games in Ahmedabad,” IOA President P. T. Usha told Reuters by telephone from China. “I met the OCA president and other functionaries here and they are all happy and want to support us.” Former Olympian Usha is in China to attend the Asian Beach Games in Sanya. “They had an EC (executive committee) meeting here where they discussed it. They will be sending an evaluation committee to India very soon,” she added. India hosted the inaugural Asian Games in 1951 in New Delhi and again in 1982 in the capital city. The country hosted the 2010 Commonwealth Games, whi...

The Taliban government said on Saturday that Afghans who fled to Qatar, fearing reprisals over their collaboration with US forces, may return home “with full confidence”. The administration of US President Donald Trump, which has made a sweeping crackdown on immigration a signature policy, had given a March 31 deadline to close a camp where more than 1,100 Afghans were staying at a former US base in Qatar. Afghans have been going through the base for processing while seeking to move to the United States, fearing persecution by Taliban authorities for having worked with US forces before they withdrew and the Western-backed government collapsed in 2021. “According to media reports, a number of Afghan nationals who had been awaiting US visas in the State of Qatar have been asked to choose between the repatriation to Afghanistan or resettlement in a third country,” foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a statement posted on X. “Afghanistan constitutes the shared homeland of all Afghans and it invi...

Ishaq Dar held a telephone conversation with Badr Abdelatty to review the regional situation and ongoing peace initiatives.

Abbas Araghchi met with Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on Saturday in a high-level diplomatic engagement aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and Iran.

ISLAMABAD: The path for the launch of 5G in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) has been cleared as policy directives for trials have been approved, with four telecommunication operations expected to begin testing soon. The GB Council, chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has approved the summary to launch 5G test trials in the region; the approval is expected to be received by the telecom sector regulator in the coming week. GB Caretaker Information Technology Minister Ghulam Abbas said the council’s secretariat had prepared a summary seeking the approval of policy directives for 5G trials. He said that the summary had been endorsed by the ministries of Law and IT. He said that after the prime minister’s approval, the summary will now be sent back to the IT ministry. “The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is the telecom sector regulator. The IT ministry will authorise the PTA to initiate the 5G test trials,” Abbas said. The 5G spectrum auction was held in the country last month on March 10, but GB and Azad J...

ISLAMABAD: Four members of a family, including a woman and a teenager, were gunned down in the capital’s suburbs, a police official said on Saturday. According to the police official, the incident occurred in a house located in the Jhangi Syedan area, adjacent to Sectors I-15 and I-18 of Islamabad. The police official said people in the neighbourhood heard gunshots in the morning and informed police about the incident. Upon reaching the spot, a police team found four bodies on the first floor of the house, with two victims on separate beds and one on the floor. All victims sustained bullet injuries on their heads, the police official said. The victims were identified as Mula Khalil; his wife, Shamim Bibi; their 14-year-old son, Musa Khan; and Habib Majid, believed to be Shamim Bibi’s brother. Police shifted the bodies to a hospital for medical-legal procedures. The reason behind the killing was yet to be ascertained, but police suspected it could be an incident of so-called honour killing. Preliminary investi...

A petition has been filed in the Lahore High Court challenging the recent increase in petroleum prices, arguing that the decision has placed an undue burden on the public.

Jury selection is to begin on Monday in a high-profile legal battle between billionaire Elon Musk and artificial intelligence (AI) startup OpenAI, which he accuses of betraying its non-profit mission. The clash in a courtroom across the bay from San Francisco pits the world’s richest man against a startup that Musk once backed and now competes against in the booming AI sector. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a formidable rival to the Grok chatbot made by Musk’s xAI lab. While the lawsuit filed by Musk is part of a feud between him and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, it spotlights a debate over whether AI should ultimately benefit the privileged few or society as a whole. Court filings lay out how Altman tried to convince Musk to back OpenAI in 2015, acting as a co-founder for a non-profit lab whose technology “would belong to the world”. Musk pumped some $38 million into the lab before he left. OpenAI is now valued at $852 billion, with Microsoft among its backers, and is preparing to go public on the stock market. Th...

Security forces thwarted an attempted attack in the Dhadar area of Balochistan, killing several militants in an exchange of fire, officials said on Saturday.

Tight security arrangements were in place in Islamabad’s Red Zone on Saturday as a high-level Iranian delegation was in town amid intensifying diplomatic activity around the US-Iran conflict. Araghchi arrived in Islamabad late on Friday, carrying Tehran’s formal response to proposals conveyed earlier by the US through Pakistan. The Islamabad police have said that the Red Zone and Extended Red Zone will be “completely closed to all types of traffic” and issued an alternative traffic plan for the public. Dawn takes a look at some of the scenes from key roads in Islamabad, where security personnel stand guard and barricades are placed as part of stringent security. Police personnel keeps watch in the Red Zone area of Islamabad on April 25, 2026. — AFP A security personnel diverts traffic at a closed road in the Red Zone area of Islamabad on April 25, 2026. — AFP An army trooper keeps watch in the Red Zone area of Islamabad on April 25, 2026. — AFP An army trooper stands guard at a closed road in the Red Zone are...

Gul Plaza’s three facades were clearly damaged in the stage II and III January 18 fire which killed 70 people, but when a building inspector came afterwards, he held back. “It was impossible to go inside,” he said, “the heat was too intense even after two days.” That same month, one after another, three other market fires erupted in Karachi, intensifying the feeling of anger and helplessness that the city had turned into a tinderbox because of years of neglect. The bodies just keep piling up. The preventable deaths from urban negligence — fires, open manholes, building collapses, electrocution, rains, bad road design — all speak to the systemic weakening of Karachi. At least 300 have been reported in newspapers so far in 2026 by rough count. Many of these deaths are evidence of the failure of vertical expansion of informality. You cannot allow floor upon floor, shop upon shop, to be slowly added to urban spaces and infrastructure that was never designed to support such density in the first place. Neither the ...

WASHINGTON: The US Department of Justice has filed a civil case seeking to revoke the citizenship of a Pakistani-born physician convicted of sexually exploiting a minor and later concealing the offences during his naturalisation process. The doctor, Hassan Sherjil Khan, allegedly began contacting an 11-year-old girl online in 2007 or 2008 and continued communicating with her for several years, according to a statement issued by the department. Prosecutors say the doctor coerced the minor into sending sexually explicit images and engaging in live video sexual activity. The conduct continued until around 2013. The Justice Department further alleges that the accused travelled abroad to engage in sexual acts with the victim when she was 15. Despite this, he applied for US citizenship in August 2012 without disclosing his involvement in the offences and was granted naturalisation in May 2013. The victim later disclosed the abuse, after which the doctor was arrested in September 2015. He was charged with coercion a...

President Asif Ali Zardari will undertake an official visit to China from April 25 to May 1 at the invitation of the Chinese government.

The US Senate will vote as soon as next week on a Democratic-led effort to prevent US President Donald Trump from launching an attack on Cuba, Senate aides said on Friday, responding to the Republican’s threats to take military action against the island. Democratic Senators Tim Kaine, Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego introduced the Cuba War Powers Resolution last month. Under Senate rules, the Senate’s Republican leaders must allow it to come up for a vote. “The president’s saber rattling toward Cuba makes clear where his sights are next,” Schiff said in a statement when the resolution was introduced. Exact timing of the vote has not yet been announced, but aides said they expected it before May 1. Under Trump, US forces have launched strikes on boats off Venezuela and gone into Caracas to seize President Nicolas Maduro, and, with Israel, waged war on Iran since February 28, all without authorisation from Congress. Trump has since said “Cuba is next,” while touting US military action in Venezuela and Iran. He di...