Pakistan

GUJRAT: A deportee hailing from Gujranwala was convicted by a local court on Thursday, taking the number of deportees from Libya and Greece sentenced over the past two weeks across three districts to 64. The deportees were handed 10-15 days’ imprisonment on average after summary trials in cases lodged against them by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in its three circles of the region. The courts of special judges central (SJCs) in Gujranwala, Gujrat and Sialkot districts also imposed fines of Rs25,000-50,000 on them after they confessed to illegally crossing the international borders. As per the court decisions, the period of their judicial custody —between 10 and 15 days — has also been considered to count towards their imprisonment, and they were released after the payment of their imposed fines. On Thursday, a special judge central in Gujranwala district convicted a man under section 17(1) (unlawful emigration) of the Emigration Ordinance 1979. The judge handed him a sentence for the period already s...

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Western Europe experienced its hottest June on record last month as a searing heatwave swept across a continent facing increasingly frequent and intense heat extremes, the European Union’s (EU) climate monitor said Thursday. The report comes as a new heatwave is battering Europe this week, following a record-breaking one in June and an unusually early spring hot spell in May. The average temperature in western Europe reached 20.74 degrees Celsius in June, more than 3℃ above the 1991-2020 norm, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. It broke the region’s previous record set in June 2025. “We will see more heatwaves in a warmer world,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which operates Copernicus. “They will be more intense and they will last longer, and they will impact more geographical areas,” Burgess told AFP. It was the second hottest June on record for the world and for Europe as a whole, Copernicus said, as hum...

Pakistan received a record $41.6 billion in workers’ remittances in the last fiscal year (FY26), up by around 8.6 per cent compared to FY25, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday. Adviser to the Finance Minister Khurram Schehzad said the figure was Pakistan’s “highest-ever annual remittances in history”. “This historic milestone reflects the unwavering confidence of overseas Pakistanis and reinforces Pakistan’s external sector resilience, stronger foreign exchange buffers, and improving macroeconomic fundamentals,” he said on X. The adviser termed the inflows a “record achievement”, adding that the growth over the last three years had been “phenomenal, powered by millions of hardworking Pakistanis across the globe”. The latest figures were in line with the government’s expectations that total remittances would surpass the official target by the end of FY26 on June 30. The government had initially projected inflows of $41bn before revising the target to $40bn. While FY26 sa...

Images suggest Lithuania's president received a rare Turkish-made Gumusay .357 Magnum revolver from the 1990s

Belgium’s prime minister was a little surprised on landing back home from Wednesday’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) summit in Turkiye to find that he had a handgun and ammunition in his luggage. After Nato leaders gathered for Wednesday’s fractious summit in Ankara, their host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, handed each an unusual parting gift: a vintage revolver, along with live ammunition indicating it was not just for show. Erdogan wanted to showcase Turkiye’s defence industry, which has become a key export and foreign policy tool. Images shared by the office of Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda showed what appeared to be the Gumusay .357 Magnum, a rare six-shooter produced by Turkish arms maker MKE in the 1990s. It was set in a wooden display box featuring Turkiye’s flag and the Nato logo as well as a placard inscribed “Gumusay, the first revolver-type handgun produced in our country” in Turkish and English. The pistol gifted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Belgium’s P...

The family of Faisal Jatoi, the co-pilot missing with four others after their cargo plane crashed into the Arabian Sea, faced an agonising wait for news on Thursday, as rescuers continued their search. Jatoi was co-piloting a K2 Airways Boeing 737 freighter from Sharjah in the UAE to Karachi on Tuesday night when it went down off Pakistan’s southern coast. Rescuers found the wreckage in a deep-sea search operation on Wednesday. Jatoi’s father-in-law, Ghulam Nabi Bahrani, said the family became alarmed when they could not reach him, and a Google search showed them the word “crash”. “That moment felt like doomsday for us,” Bahrani told Reuters at his home in Karachi. Jatoi has a wife and a two-year-old son. The aircraft, a 27-year-old Boeing 737-400 converted freighter, spent 10 days in Sharjah for repairs after delivering cargo, awaiting a spare part from the United States before the crew could return, Bahrani said. It reported a navigational problem at 9:18 pm on its way to Karachi, the Pakistan Airports Auth...

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has directed all relevant departments to remain fully prepared for the monsoon season, warning that temperatures could rise sharply during July, August and September while the risk of urban flooding remains high.

Teachers injured while intervening as stick-wielding students brawl; campus security tightened

Sources stress Israeli hostilities in southern Lebanon are a ‘key factor’ behind non-implementation of Islamabad MoU

ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday cut its forecast for Pakistan’s economic growth to 3.7 per cent, citing higher energy costs and anticipated pressure on foreign remittances from Pakistanis abroad. In its Asian Development Outlook (ADO) July 2026, the Manila-based lender, however, lowered its growth forecast for developing Asia and the Pacific to 4.9pc for 2026 from 5.5pc in 2025, marking a 0.2-percentage-point reduction from its April projections. “Preliminary data show Pakistan’s economy growing by 3.7pc in FY2026 (ended 30 June 2026), supported by strong industry and services alongside modest agricultural gains. However, the growth forecast is revised down to 3.7pc for FY2027 due to higher energy costs and pressure on remittances”, said the Asian Development Outlook July 2026. ADB had earlier projected a 4.5pc growth rate for the current fiscal year in its April 2026 forecast. It also revised upward its inflation forecast for both FY2026 and the current fiscal year compared to its pre...

KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Thursday handed over a 20-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting and murdering a six-year-old boy to police on a five-day physical remand. The child’s body had been found in an empty plot near Karachi’s Lea Market on the night of July 7, a day after he went missing. Police said that although doctors had collected samples to ascertain sexual assault, the arrested suspect had confessed during the initial probe to kidnapping the boy for that purpose. Napier police presented the suspect at City Courts on Thursday under tight security, with his face covered. The investigation officer (IO) requested a 14-day physical remand, seeking time to interrogate the suspect to arrest his accomplices. The IO also informed the court that a provision related to rape had been added to the case. Subsequently, the court sent the suspect on a five-day physical remand and directed the IO to produce him at the next hearing along with a progress report. On the complaint of the boy’s father, the N...

Beijing flags ‘neo-militarism’ as Tokyo ramps up defence reforms and deepens regional unease

Karachi residents received respite from the recent heat as sea breeze and increased cloud cover lowered temperatures, with the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) forecasting light drizzle and partly cloudy skies over the next three days.