Pakistan

Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) Bilal Bin Saqib announced that Pakistan is set to launch its first “stablecoin” as part of its drive to make virtual assets a part of the economy. The PVARA is an autonomous federal body governed by a multi-stakeholder board including the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and the chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue. Its mandate is to curb illicit finance, protect consumers and unlock opportunities in fintech, remittances and tokenised assets, while fostering Shariah-compliant innovation through regulatory sandboxes. A stablecoin, according to Bloomberg, is a digital token whose value is intrinsically linked to a physical currency, such as the US dollar, making it more stable than other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.­ Speaking at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai, the crypto czar said that Pakistan will “definitely launch” a stablecoin, adding that the country is wor...

Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry on Friday assailed incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan for creating and spreading an “anti-army” rhetoric, stating that such narratives were now out of the realm of politics and had become a “national security threat”. At the beginning of his press conference in Rawalpindi, he talked about a “creeping national security threat” that had become necessary for the military to address. “That threat emanates from a delusional mindset of a delusional person who has become captive to his own ego, thinking that his wishes are bigger than those of the state of Pakistan,” Lt Gen Chaudhry said, in an apparent reference to incarcerated PTI founder, Imran Khan. “His ego, his wishes, and frustrations have grown to such an extent that he thinks that the world would cease to exist without him.” The DG ISPR added that it would be “a bit strange to see it coming from me, but the narrative that person is pushing is no more about politics now but...

The federal government on Friday decided to intensify its crackdown against passengers attempting to travel abroad using fake documents. Recently, several incidents have been reported of travellers being offloaded from flights at various airports, despite possessing valid travel documents. The actions came after a crackdown on migrant smuggling following last year’s Greece boat tragedy that claimed several Pakistani lives. The interior minister subsequently declared that anyone attempting to travel on incomplete or bogus documents would be stopped under all circumstances. In a special meeting held in Islamabad under the chairmanship of Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Chaudhry Salik Hussain, it was decided to make the protector issuance system foolproof with reforms to be introduced in the immigration system to facilitate passengers. The federal ministers sought final recommendations within seven days. ‎An effective crackdown was ordered against those involved in the...

Dear Auntie, I am currently facing a hugely confusing situation. I like a guy and we plan to get married soon, but my mother doesn’t like him a lot because he doesn’t earn enough. Another issue is that, while we get along well, both of us have a dominant nature. This often results in arguments which, at times, result in shouting encounters, followed by long spells of virtually no communication between us. Sometimes, when we’re having these arguments, my mother often overhears and tries to convince me to leave him for good. I am scared that, even though I like him, what if we split up after getting married? Then my family may not support me and I will be left on my own to deal with the situation. Auntie, please advise what I should do. I don’t want to leave him but, at the same time, I am scared of the repercussions if things turn ugly. It’s pertinent to mention that he has a stable career with a sound future, and I am also a working girl though, once we’re married, I want him to be the primary breadwinner. Re...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi began summit talks in New Delhi on Friday, as New Delhi rolled out the red carpet for the Russian leader and Modi told him India supported peace efforts in Ukraine. Putin is on his first visit to India in four years, aiming to boost trade with the top buyer of Russia’s arms and seaborne oil as Western sanctions squeeze their decades-old ties. The visit comes at a time when New Delhi is engaged in talks with the US for a trade deal to cut punitive tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on its goods over India’s Russian oil purchases. Moscow has been India’s top arms supplier for decades and has said that it wants to import more Indian goods in an effort to grow trade to $100 billion by 2030, which so far has been skewed in its favour due to New Delhi’s energy imports. Since European countries cut their reliance on Russian energy after Russia invaded Ukraine nearly four years ago, India ramped up its purchases of discounted Russian crud...

Lawyer Imaan Mazari and her spouse, Hadi Ali Chatha, on Friday handed over their list of defence witnesses as proceedings resumed in the controversial tweets case before Additional Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka in the District and Sessions Courts, Islamabad. At the start of the hearing, Chatha filed a fresh application requesting the court to allow both accused to record their statements under Section 342 of the Criminal Code of Procedure (CRPC) and to present witnesses in their defence. The court issued a notice to the prosecution on the application and briefly adjourned the hearing until 10am. When proceedings resumed, Chatha argued the application himself, stating that the 342 statement submitted by the state counsel was not theirs and had been filed without the accused being informed. He maintained that during cross-examination, the state counsel was given a questionnaire of 33 questions, which was later used to prepare a 342 reply that the defence does not accept. Chatha also informed the court th...

All government departments would be held responsible and held accountable if any citizen fell in a manhole, said Minister of Local Government and Housing Town Planning Nasir Hussain Shah while speaking to the media in Sukkur. The body of the boy, who drowned in an open manhole near Nipa in Gulshan-i-Iqbal on Sunday night, was found on Monday, around 15 hours after the incident occurred. The child’s tragic death, particularly the lack of cooperation from relevant civic agencies to launch an immediate search, had angered relatives and area residents, who staged a protest on University Road on Sunday night and again during the day on Monday. “All government departments, including KMC, Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC), Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, as well as the administration, including police, deputy commissioner and assistant commissioners of relevant areas, would be responsible, if such kind of incidents happen again,” the minister said, adding that no excuses from officials would be enter...

The Foreign Office on Friday said it was unaware of media reports claiming that Pakistan and Afghanistan had held talks in Saudi Arabia.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has moved to withdraw 57 cases linked to the May 9 incidents, with the provincial Law Department forwarding its recommendations to the cabinet for approval.

Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry on Friday warned that a single individual had become a national security threat, asserting that no one would be allowed to incite the public against the Pakistan Army.

India’s government is reviewing a telecom industry proposal to force smartphone firms to enable satellite location tracking that is always activated for better surveillance, a move opposed by Apple, Google and Samsung due to privacy concerns, according to documents, emails and five sources. A fierce privacy debate erupted in India this week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was forced to rescind an order requiring smartphone makers to preload a state-run cyber safety app on all devices after activists and politicians raised concerns about potential snooping. For years, the Modi administration has been concerned that its agencies do not get precise locations when legal requests are made to telecom firms during investigations. Under the current system, the firms are limited to using cellular tower data that can only provide an estimated area location, which can be off by several meters. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Reliance’s Jio and Bharti Airtel, has propo...

Cloudflare, a content delivery network (CDN) and domain name server (DNS) service, said on Friday it had fixed an issue with its dashboard related Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The outage had sent shares down 4.5 per cent in premarket trading. In updates posted on its status page, the company said it was investigating issues with Cloudflare Dashboard and related APIs. Minutes later, it said a fix had been implemented and it was monitoring the results. On 9:20 UTC, it said the incident had been resolved. Detailing the incident, Cloudflare said: “A change made to how Cloudflare’s Web Application Firewall parses requests caused Cloudflare’s network to be unavailable for several minutes this morning.” The company clarified that “this was not an attack; the change was deployed by our team to help mitigate the industry-wide vulnerability disclosed this week in React Server Components.” Canva, an online graphic design tool, in a post on X, initially informed its users that the issues were impacting its ...

The Ministry of Defence on Friday officially notified Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir as the country’s first chief of defence forces (CDF), a day after President Asif Ali Zardari approved the appointment on the advice of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The notification, a copy of which is available with Dawn, said: “In exercise of the powers conferred under Article 243 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, read with Section 8A of the Pakistan Army Act, the president on the advice of the prime minister, is pleased to appoint Field Marshal Asim Munir (NI) M as the chief of army staff, concurrently the chief of defence forces for a tenure of five years.” A separate notification issued by the ministry also notified Zardari’s approval of the prime minister’s advice regarding the leadership of the air force. “In exercise of the powers conferred by Article 243 of the Consitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, read with Section 10B of the Pakistan Air Force Act, 1953, ...

Member of the National Assembly Naveed Qamar said on Thursday that the speaker of the house did not have the right to decide who would be the leader of the opposition, as it was the prerogative of the parliamentarians. After receiving approval from the incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan, the PTI in October formally nominated Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai and Allama Raja Nasir Abbas to lead the opposition in the NA and Senate, respectively. However, the government has not yet formally recognised the nominations, with NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq terming the matter “sub judice”. In an interview with Nadir Guramani on the Dawn News TV programme Doosra Rukh on Thursday evening, Qamar said that it was not the authority of the speaker to decide not to act upon the nomination. “At one time it was definitely the entitlement of the speaker,” he said, referring to 2002, when Maulana Fazlur Rehman was made the opposition leader instead of the PPP’s Amin Fahim, even though the PPP had a grea...

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Friday condemned police action against Aurat March activists in Karachi a day earlier, calling on authorities to respect people’s access to civic spaces. On Thursday, a rights activist was ‘briefly detained’ from outside the Karachi Press Club (KPC), ahead of a press conference by Aurat March over the alleged abduction of two Baloch girls. The organisers said classical dancer and human rights activist Sheema Kermani was also manhandled by police, while other women participants were also “mistreated” by female officers on their way to the press club. Journalist Zofeen Ebrahim was also barred from attending the press conference, which was eventually held at the KPC. In a post on social media platform X today, the HRCP said it condemned the police obstruction of Aurat March’s scheduled press conference and the brief detention and manhandling of activists and reporters, including Kermani. “We are also alarmed that journalist Ebrahim was barred from entering the pr...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held a telephone call with his Malaysian counterpart, Anwar Ibrahim, on Friday, expressing solidarity and offering “all possible” assistance to the southeast Asian country in the aftermath of recent cyclone-induced floods, according to state broadcaster PTV News. Monsoon rains paired with two tropical storm systems dumped record deluges across Sri Lanka, and parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand, and northern Malaysia last week. The death toll from the floods and landslides in all affected areas has surpassed 1,000. Today, PM Shehbaz, “on behalf of the people and government of Pakistan, extended heartfelt condolences to the Malaysian prime minister over the precious loss of lives and damage to property due to rains, flooding, and massive landslides triggered by the recent storm,” a post on PTV News’ X account said. PM Shehbaz expressed his condolences over the loss of lives and prayed for the swift recovery of citizens who had been injured or displaced, the state broadc...

Aleema Khan, sister of PTI founder Imran Khan, has alleged that the incarcerated former premier is being kept in solitary confinement and subjected to torture.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Thursday announced changes that sharply reduced the maximum validity period for employment authorisation documents (EADs) for several categories of foreign nationals, citing security concerns and legislation signed earlier this year. The move, the latest in a sweeping immigration crackdown by the administration of US President Donald Trump, took place just two days after it halted immigration applications for citizens from 19 nations. Under the new rules, the maximum validity period for initial and renewal EADs has been shortened from five years to 18 months for categories including refugees, asylum seekers, those granted withholding of deportation or removal, and applicants with pending adjustment-of-status or relief applications. Additional categories, including those paroled as refugees, granted temporary protected status (TPS) or under entrepreneur parole, will see the validity of their work permit reduced to one year or the end date of the...

Former special assistant to the prime minister Mirza Shahzad Akbar, who currently resides in the United Kingdom (UK), was declared a proclaimed offender on Friday in a case pertaining to alleged controversial statements made on social media platform X. The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) had registered the case against Akbar in July this year over allegedly defamatory and controversial remarks shared on his social media account. According to the court order, issued by Judicial Magistrate Muhammad Abbas Shah, the decision was taken after Akbar failed to appear before the court despite multiple summons. The order also directed the authorities concerned to issue an arrest warrant for Akbar to ensure his production before the court. The order noted that the accused did not cooperate with the investigation and remained absent during the legal proceedings. A challan in the case has already been submitted to the court. With the proclamation order now in place, law enforcement authorities are expect...

The Ministry of Defence on Friday issued the formal notification appointing Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir as Pakistan’s first Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), following approval from President Asif Ali Zardari.