Pakistan

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan yesterday expressed deep concern over the recent developments contributing to an escalation in regional tensions, urging all sides to exercise restraint and take immediate steps towards de-escalation.

Law minister calls on OIC states to ensure women lead the digital future, warning AI must not deepen inequality

Islamabad - Turkiye’s Minister for Family and Social Services Mahinur Özdemir Gökta called on Minister for Human Rights Azam Nazeer Tarar in Islamabad on Sunday.

LAHORE: Pakistan’s Olympic gold medallist Arshad Nadeem is determined to repeat history at the Commonwealth Games starting later this month. The 29-year-old Arshad, who won the javelin throw gold medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham with a record throw of 90.18 metres, leaves for Switzerland on Monday to participate in an international contest prior to the July 23-Aug 2 Commonwealth Games being staged in Glasgow. Speaking after his final training session at the Punjab Stadium in Lahore on Sunday, Arshad said that he had prepared well for the Commonwealth Games. “I am going to feature in an event in Switzerland before a major competition like the Commonwealth Games. I participate in an event before any big contest, which gives me an idea about my strength and preparation [for the forthcoming major event],” the Mian Channu-born athlete, whose 92.97-metre throw at Paris 2024 remains an Olympic as well as Asian record, said. Recalling the memories of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, the star athlete sai...

ISLAMABAD - The Minister of Labour and Social Security of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Ouzhan Hasipolu, yesterday called for recognition of the TRNC as a sovereign state, stressing that the Turkish Cypriot people should have equal international status and the right to represent themselves at global forums.

A VIEW of the crumbling roof of one of the rooms at the ART Centre in Larkana, which is in a state of disrepair.—Dawn LARKANA: The Anti­ret­roviral Treatment (ART) Centre at Chandka Medical College (CMC) Children’s Hospital registered 73 new HIV-positive cases among children in June alone, with most patients belonging to different parts of Khairpur district, raising concerns over the growing burden on the facility and the shortage of healthcare staff. Officials at the centre said around 20 follow-up patients visit the facility daily. They pointed out that the centre was functioning without a pharmacist and required additional junior doctors to cope with the increasing caseload. The ART Centre operates under the Directorate of Communicable Disease Control (CDC). During a visit, Dawn observed that a portion of the ceiling plaster had fallen in the area where doctors and support staff perform their duties. Prof Dr Shanti Lal, head of the Department of Paediatrics at CMC Children’s Hospital, said routine HIV scre...

Selling started immediately after market opening, with the benchmark index falling down 1,849.37 points by 9:39am

LAHORE - Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif on Sunday placed all relevant departments on high alert following the onset of the monsoon season as she directed commissioners, deputy commissioners and field officers across the province to remain fully prepared to deal with any emergency.

ISLAMABAD - The two-day 9th Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ministerial Conference on Women commenced in Islamabad yesterday, bringing together more than 190 delegates from 57 OIC member states to discuss strategies for advancing women’s socio-economic and political empowerment.

Couple reveals matchmaking app has crossed 20,000 members since launch

KARACHI: The funeral pray­ers in absentia for flight engineer Muhammad Arif Siddiqui, one of the five crew members of a cargo plane that crashed in the Arabian Sea on July 7, were offered near his residence in Gulistan-i-Jauhar on Sunday. A K2 Airways Boeing 737-400 cargo aircraft, en route from Sharjah to Karachi, had crashed in the Arabian Sea, about 300 kilometres west of Karachi. Rescuers found the wreckage in a deep-sea search operation. Five crew members, including two pilots, two engineers, and one support staffer, were on board the aircraft, and their bodies have still not been found. On Sunday, a large number of people offered funeral prayers in absentia for Siddiqui, which was led by his son, Abdul Rafay. Moving scenes were witnessed during and after the funeral prayers. People demanded that the government intensify efforts to locate the bodies of the victims. JI leader slams ‘inadequate efforts’ to locate bodies of five K2 Airways crew members City leadership of the Jamaat-i-Islami also attended th...

KHYBER: Around 70 medical students, who had been stranded in Afghanistan since the closure of the Torkham border, returned home late on Saturday evening. Family members of the students said their academic sessions at various medical institutions in Afghanistan had ended a few weeks ago and they were eager to return to their cities. They said the students had reached the Afghan side of the Torkham border a few days earlier but were not allowed to cross into Pakistan due to restrictions on pedestrian movement that have been in place since October last year. According to their relatives, the students contacted several local elders and political leaders to facilitate their return. Sherin Khan Afridi, senior vice president of the Awami National Party (ANP) in Khyber district, played a key role in securing their return. The matter was taken up with government authorities and political leaders in Islamabad by Awami National Party leaders. Following official instr­uctions from Islamabad, the stranded students were al...

• Federal cabinet yet to decide on proposals despite Drap recommending price revisions for 105 hardship-category medicines over two years ago • Prolonged shortages creating opportunities for illegal suppliers to fill the gap, chemists’ body warns KARACHI: The prolonged shortage of more than 100 essential medicines, including life-saving drugs for cancer, heart disease and other serious illnesses, has created space for counterfeit and substandard products, as the federal government continues to delay, for more than two years, a decision on revising prices that manufacturers say no longer cover production costs, market sources and officials said on Friday. At the heart of the crisis, they said, was the prolonged delay in deciding the prices of essential medicines. More than two years after the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) recommended price revisions for 105 hardship-category medicines, the federal government has yet to approve the proposals. Drap’s drug pricing committee concluded that the risin...

BARELY had the dust settled on the IMF’s insipid report on governance than the World Bank launched, with much fanfare, its latest prescription — this time on fiscal federalism. The bank’s report presents itself as a fresh diagnosis of Pakistan’s malfunctioning intergovernmental system, when actually there is little that is either new or thought-provoking about it. In fact, the report comes across as an overwhelmingly technocratic exercise. It catalogues institutional weaknesses, distils lessons from selected federations and decentralised systems, and recommends clearer expenditure assignments, stronger provincial revenue mobilisation, NFC Award reforms, more transparent fiscal transfers, effective intergovernmental coordination and empowered local governments (LG). In principle, few would disagree. The problem is that the report treats the recommendations as technical solutions to what are essentially political problems, thus displaying only a superficial appreciation of Pakistan’s political economy, the cons...

GILGIT: PPP candidate Mohammad Naseem and Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (IPP) candidate Moha­mmad Dilpazeer, from the GBA-17 Diamer-III and GBA-15 Diamer-I constituencies, respectively, retained their seats after re-polling was held at nine polling stations on Sunday. According to unofficial results, after re-polling at eight stations in GBA-17 Diamer-III, PPP candidate Mohammad Naseem won the seat by securing 10,714 votes, while his opponent, JUI-F candidate Rehmat Khaliq, bagged 6,990 votes. Meanwhile, after re-pol­ling at one female polling station in GBA-15 Dia­mer-I, according to the Forms 47 and 48 issued by the Election Commission, IPP candidate Mohammad Dil­pa­zeer secured 6,033 votes, while his opponent, JUI-F candidate Waliur Rehman, received 4,639 votes. Earlier, in the GB Assembly elections held on June 7, PPP’s Mohammad Naseem from GBA-17 Diamer-III was declared the returned candidate, while independent candidate Mohammad Dilpazeer from GBA-15 Diamer-I was also declared successful. Dilpazeer later jo...

ISRAEL’S genocidal war on Gaza has now exceeded a thousand days. It continues despite the ceasefire brokered by the US last October. Death and destruction have been on an epic scale. More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 21,000 children. Thousands remain missing. Gaza lies in ruins with 80 per cent of it devastated. Over 200 journalists have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli army. Israel has expanded its control of more territory in Gaza, ignoring UN warnings that “this increases deadly risks for Palestinians”. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is still catastrophic. Even as Israeli strikes continue in violation of the ceasefire, the world has moved on — its focus fixed instead on the US-Iran conflict and talks for a negotiated deal. Regional powers too have pulled away. Gaza has been relegated to the sidelines. This has left the peace plan in limbo and disarray. Now Hamas is trying to change that and seize the attention of the international community. Last week, it a...

PRIME Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s latest call to banks to expand lending to SMEs is nothing new. Every government over the last three decades has made a similar appeal. Ambitious targets are announced, committees are formed and banks are urged to finance sectors that generate employment and exports. However, little changes. No doubt, raising SME lending’s share of private sector credit from 7pc to 10pc within two years and increasing the number of SME borrowers from 310,000 to 750,000 under the new Access to Finance Plan initiative are worthwhile aims. But are the banks incentivised enough to make these goals a reality? That question lies at the centre of the chronic financing gap for SMEs. Together, Pakistan’s estimated 5m SMEs contribute nearly 40pc of GDP, a quarter of exports and around 80pc of non-agricultural employment. But barely 300,000 businesses have access to formal bank credit. Banks often explain this failure in terms of risk. Their arguments are not without merit. Most SMEs lack audited financial...

• Workers hailing from Punjab killed after terrorists opened fire on shops in Washuk • PM flays India-backed terror outfits, slams killing as ‘barbaric, cowardly’ act • Seven more terrorists killed in Operation Shaban • CM Bugti reviews operation, visits Hanna Urak • 108 suspects held across Balochistan QUETTA: Five workers hailing from Punjab were gunned down in Mashkel town of Balochistan’s Washuk district on Sunday, drawing condemnation from the Centre and the provincial government, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denouncing the killing as “extremely barbaric”. The incident came as Operation Shaban and other counterterrorism operations are ongoing in the province, where security forces have claimed the elimination of 109 terrorists since July 5. Washuk Deputy Commissioner Abdul Majeed Sarparah told Dawn the incident took place in Mashkel town, close to the Pakistan-Iran border, when armed terrorists on motorcycles opened fire on shops where labourers from Punjab were working. Police said the five men su...

Actor documents family getaway through solo portraits, candid moments and beach-ready outfits

ISLAMABAD: A government-constituted inquiry committee has held all three key stakeholders — the contractor, consultant and employer (Wapda) — responsible for the cofferdam collapse at the 1,530MW Tarbela-5 Extension Hydropower Project, citing post-contract unauthorised design changes as one of the main reasons for the incident. The collapse has contributed to at least a two-year delay and more than 285 per cent cost escalation in the project, whose cost has risen from Rs82 billion to Rs317bn. As a result, the project’s levelised generation cost over 30 years may rise to around Rs27-28 per unit — the country’s highest so far for renewable energy — making it economically unviable and unsustainable, according to the Planning Commission. The project, which involves $700m in loans from the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, is now targeted for completion by end-June 2028 instead of 2026. Inquiry body holds Wapda, contractor, consultant responsible as project cost rises from Rs82bn to Rs317bn ...