Pakistan

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif on Friday visited Kahna to meet the families of children who lost their lives in the recent tuition centre roof collapse, offering condolences and announcing financial assistance for the affected families.

Egypt have reached the FIFA World Cup knockout stage for the first time in their history, with Mohamed Salah once again at the heart of their success. But while the Pharaohs have long embraced him as their greatest modern footballer, can this campaign persuade the rest of the world to view him the same way? There was once an Egyptian king who ruled on the banks of the River Mersey. For nine years, Liverpool’s faithful sang his name as Mohamed Salah cemented his place among the club’s greatest players. Back home, however, Salah never wore a crown. He carried something heavier — the hopes of a nation that had spent decades searching for a place among football’s elite. On Friday, in the city of Dallas, Texas, those hopes will accompany Egypt into unfamiliar territory. For the first time in their history, the Pharaohs will play a FIFA World Cup knockout match, with the man who conquered Anfield now attempting to add another defining chapter to a career that has already transformed Egyptian football. Egypt had nev...

ISLAMABAD: Internet services across Pakistan have returned to normal after a fault in the SEA-ME-WE 5 (SMW5) international submarine cable system was repaired, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said on Friday.

TEHRAN: Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir arrived in Tehran on Friday to attend the funeral prayers of Iran's late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

LAHORE: A Lahore court on Thursday handed over four suspects to police on a five-day physical remand in connection with the alleged abduction and rape of two foreign women in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) area.

India is investigating a data breach at Tata Electronics that exposed documents linked to Apple’s unreleased iPhone 18 Pro, the country’s IT secretary said on Thursday in the government’s first public comments on the incident. Sensitive lists of components and suppliers as well as photos of iPhone 18 Pro models are among files that were posted on the dark web by a ransomware group that stole data from Tata Electronics, Apple’s Indian supplier. “We are investigating,” S. Krishnan, secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, told reporters. Krishnan said the incident had been reported to India’s Computer Emergency Response Team, the main agency responsible for computer security issues. The breach threatens the carefully negotiated, highly sensitive business of building the iPhone, which Apple assembles using a collection of suppliers worldwide. Apple is expected to release its iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max in September. The leak contains at least six files that expose which companies are pr...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday directed a ban on the production and use of substandard syringes to prevent infectious diseases. The directives came as the premier chaired a meeting in Islamabad on measures taken to prevent the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C, the Prime Minister’s Office said (PMO). According to the statement, he said that action should be taken against individuals and hospitals found using illegal syringes or guilty of criminal negligence in preventing their use. He further ordered the formation of a special committee of experts to control infectious diseases, whose recommendations should be presented after consultations with the provinces. He also directed the law ministry to propose amendments to the legal and regulatory framework. “Formulating a comprehensive strategy at the national level and ensuring its effective implementation is the solution to the problem,” he said. Shehbaz also instructed the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, in consultation with the medical devices indu...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif departed from Islamabad on a one-day official visit to Iran to attend the funeral of Iran's late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has forecast rain, windstorms and thunderstorms in Kashmir, upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, northeastern Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan on Friday, while most other parts of the country are expected to experience hot and dry weather.

Palestinian Mohammad Salameh was building a home for his family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where his recently engaged son was meant to start married life. Instead, before construction was complete, a group of Israeli settlers seized the property. Video filmed earlier in the week and verified by Reuters showed at least six settlers moving around on the roof of the two-storey house, which sits below a nearby hill. Salameh said appeals to the Israeli military and police brought no help. Now he fears his home, which like many others in the Palestinian territory is surrounded by Israeli settlements and smaller outposts, is lost forever. Other houses in the area could suffer the same fate, he said. “Only God knows, if there is law and order then they will leave,” Salameh said. “If they succeed in taking one, then the rest will follow.” Reuters was unable to reach the settlers for comment. One of them could be seen walking on the house’s roof on Thursday. An Israeli settler sits on the roof of the Palestinia...

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Friday urged parents not to leave their children unattended and to ensure their safety when sending them out of the house. The statement comes after the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Sargodha and a roof collapse incident at a private tuition centre in Lahore, which claimed the lives of 14 children. The chief minister spoke about both incidents in a televised address to the National Paigham-i-Aman Committee on Friday. Citing the Sargodha incident, CM Maryam recalled that the child had gone to a shop alone, after which the shopkeeper murdered her and hid her body. “It was a spot of blood on the foot of her slipper which led to the identification of the murderer,” she recalled, adding that she had taken notice of the incident immediately and directed authorities to apprehend the suspect. “I can provide transport, health and other facilities; however, if you are not safe within your houses, then I believe I have not succeeded in my position as the chief ministe...

LAHORE: A court on Friday granted police five-day physical remand of four suspects arrested for the alleged abduction and sexual assault of two foreign women. On Thursday, police had booked five suspects on charges of kidnapping for ransom and sexually assaulting two foreign women, who were nationals of the Netherlands and Venezuela. Subsequently, four of them were arrested. According to the FIR, the women were abducted by five suspects, including a close relative of a senior political personality, who demanded ransom and subjected them to sexual assault during their captivity. On Friday, the investigating officer from the Defence C police station produced four of the suspects, with their faces covered with masks, before Judicial Magistrate Azhar Mehmood at the Cantonment Courts. At the outset of the hearing, the magistrate instructed the suspects to remove their masks. A public prosecutor asked the magistrate to grant police 14-day physical remand of the suspects. He said the prime suspect had been identifie...

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) announced on Friday that internet services in the country were back to normal after issues with the SEA-ME-WE 5 (SMW5) international submarine cable system were resolved. In a statement, the authority said that the fault in the cable system, which had led to widespread connectivity issues in the country on Thursday night, had been resolved, adding that internet traffic had returned to normal. It said Transworld Associates’ (TWA) international transit capacity has been restored. According to its website, TWA is the only private-sector operator with exclusive ownership of submarine fibre-optic cable systems. Subsequently, internet service provider Nayatel said that “international traffic has returned to normal”. “Our teams continue to closely monitor the network to ensure service stability,” it said. On Thursday night, the PTA had said that a technical fault along the SMW5 route was affecting data traffic. It had said that “some internet users may experience interm...

Source: FBR THE first year of Pakistan’s unified agriculture income tax regime has exposed a stark gap between policy ambition and revenue collection, with provincial tax authorities collecting barely 2 per cent of the agricultural income declared by taxpayers during fiscal year 2025-26. The figures raise fresh questions about the effectiveness of the landmark reform introduced last year under a fiscal restructuring programme backed by the International Monetary Fund. Despite a harmonised legal framework and uniform tax rates across all four provinces, provisional data shows that around 445,000 taxpayers declared Rs306 billion in agricultural income in tax year 2025, while provincial governments provisionally collected only Rs5.62bn in agriculture income tax (AIT) during the outgoing fiscal year. Structural weaknesses, weak enforcement, political considerations and the influence of large landowners continue to undermine the provinces’ ability to collect AIT. Although the four provinces agreed on a harmonised ...

WASHINGTON/UNITED NATIONS: The United States has reiterated its support for Pakistan’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks, while the United Nations struggles to maintain consensus on its core global counterterrorism framework. “The Pakistani people have suffered greatly at the hands of terrorists,” the US State Department said, according to a statement reported by Reuters. Washington “supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks” as an intermittent conflict between Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan continues, the State Department added. The remarks come after Pakistan on Sunday night acted against terrorist infrastructure along the Afghan border, in response to a terrorist attack on a local headquarter of the Pakistan Rangers Sindh in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar area. In February, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker had expressed similar support for Islamabad, saying Washington “continues to monitor the situation closely” and backs Pakistan...

El Niño will quickly develop into a strong event between July and September, fuelling the likelihood of extreme weather, the United Nations weather and climate agency warned on Friday. The World Meteorological Organisation said El Niño had already set in, and would quickly gain strength, as it warned countries to brace for impact. El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon that warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes in winds, pressure and rainfall patterns. It typically takes place every two to seven years and lasts around nine to 12 months. Conditions oscillate between El Niño and its opposite La Niña, with neutral conditions in between. The WMO’s monthly Global Seasonal Climate Update points towards “a rapid development into a strong El Niño event during July-September”. The UN agency classifies El Niño events as weak, moderate, strong or very strong, meaning it is set to reach the third-highest level out of four. “El Niño conditions have deve...

MOHMAND: Two cops, including an additional station house officer (SHO), were martyred when Fitna al Khawarij terrorists attacked a police patrol in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Mohmand district on Thursday night, according to police. Fitna al Khawarij is a term the state uses for terrorists belonging to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. A police statement said the attack occurred near the Warsak Lift Canal in the Machni area within the jurisdiction of Ekkaghund police station, where a police mobile patrol came under heavy gunfire from the armed terrorists. It said Additional SHO Zaitullah and Elite Force constable Noor Zeb embraced martyrdom while responding to the onslaught. Meanwhile, the vehicle’s driver, Zahir, sustained serious injuries and was taken to Peshawar for further medical treatment after receiving initial care. The statement said the personnel responded swiftly and effectively, forcing the attackers to retreat. It added that according to verified official sources, several terrorists were reportedl...

• ECC approves 175,000 tonnes from 2026-27 crop • Defines ‘forced labour’ in line with ILO 1930 convention • Passco gets Rs4.188bn severance package ISLAMABAD: The government on Thursday decided to supply 175,000 tonnes of 100 per cent fresh indigenous wheat to Pakistan Army and approved defining ‘forced labour’ in compliance with requirements of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The decisions were taken at a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet, which also approved a Rs4.188bn severance package to the erstwhile Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) and auction of 8,198 tonnes of flood-damaged wheat. The Ministry of Defence had sought allocation of 175,000 tonnes of 100pc indigenous wheat only from 2026-27 crop, saying wheat flour was the main staple food in the army and had a direct bearing on the morale of troops deployed in challenging environments ranging from glacial to desert terrains. For the last four years, Passco had been supplying ...

• No reward points under SDRP • TTCIS also discontinued; banks to keep transfers free for users KARACHI: The State Bank has abolished the incentives paid to banks for increasing remittances, after the amount grew to a level that came under the IMF’s radar. The SBP issued a circular on Thursday announcing that the Sohni Dharti Remittance Programme (SDRP) had been discontinued. “No further reward points under SDRP will be awarded from the start of FY27, from July 1, 2026,” the SBP said. Accordingly, eligible transactions processed up to June 30, 2026, will be reported to 1LINK for the awarding of points under the scheme. Reward points already awarded and accumulated till June 30, 2026, will remain redeemable till the end of FY27, or June 30, 2027. “Thereafter, SDRP will become completely non-functional effective from July 1, 2027,” the SBP said. Meanwhile, the State Bank also discontinued the Telegraphic Transfer Charges Incentive Scheme, another incentive for banks. “It is informed that the TTCIS is discontinu...

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has resumed direct flights between Lahore and Manchester after six years, with the first flight from Punjab’s provincial capital taking off on Thursday. According to a statement issued by PIA, PK-709 departed from Lahore with 325 passengers on board. An inaugural ceremony was held at Lahore airport, where PIA Chief Operating Officer Khurram Mushtaq saw off the passengers, the statement said. Hours ago, the first flight destined for Lahore left Manchester on Wednesday night. The PIA statement said the resumption of flights on the Lahore-Manchester route would help strengthen “people-to-people ties” between the two countries. PIA now operates five weekly flights between Pakistan and Manchester, the statement said, adding that these included four flights from Islamabad and one from Lahore. Pakistani flights had been banned from flying to the European Union, the United Kingdom and the US in June 2020, after one of its aircraft crashed in Karachi, killing nearly 100 people on ...