Pakistan

.

Patients struggle to access life-saving treatment as critical care infrastructure falls short of the province's healt

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti has announced a civil award for ward boy Abdul Razzaq in recognition of his courage during a recent acid attack incident at Sandeman Hospital in Quetta.

Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Tariq Fazal Chaudhry has alleged that efforts are being made to undermine free and fair elections in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

LAST week, Russian President Vladimir Putin talked on several geopolitical issues in St Petersburg, which also define Moscow’s approach to China, India and Pakistan. The most interesting statement he made was that he does not believe Pakistan was under the control of China; he said that Pakistan is a large country that has multifaceted ties with different states. Perhaps he was trying to justify Moscow’s recent defence-related talks, which the Taliban regime’s defence minister, Mullah Yaqoob, used as a counter-response to the Pakistani air strikes inside Afghanistan. Putin’s message between the lines was that, as Pakistan has multifaceted ties with China, the US, and even Russia, Moscow takes the same approach in engaging with nations. After all, Russia is the only country in the world that has recognised the Taliban regime. There is little doubt that Pakistan has found its geopolitical strength through cultivating a multi-vector approach and hardly portrays itself as a passive client in its relations with th...

MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir Supreme Court has observed that any amendment in the region’s constitution was “not a concession to be wrested” from the government, as the court issued its advice on a presidential reference, which emerged on Sunday. The advisory opinion came in response to a reference filed by acting AJK President Chaudhry Latif Akbar under Article 46-A of the Interim Constitution Act, 1974 after the recently proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) demanded the abolition of 12 refugee seats in the legislative assembly ahead of the July 27 elections. The 12 seats are reserved for refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, who settled in mainland Pakistan after 1947. JAAC alleges that these seats were often used by mainstream Pakistani political parties to influence the formation of governments in Muzaffarabad. The presidential reference had sought answers to five key questions over the constitutional status of the refugee seats, the legislature’s competence to introduce a...

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has chaired a meeting of the party’s parliamentary group from Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), where the prevailing political situation in the region was reviewed in detail.

A delegation-level meeting between the government and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was held on Sunday to discuss reservations and concerns regarding the upcoming federal budget.

The return of Pakistani pilgrims after the completion of Hajj is progressing smoothly, with more than 34,000 pilgrims having arrived back in the country so far.

KHYBER: The Peshawar-Torkham Highway was reopened on Sunday following a temporary closure by Sultan Khel tribesmen protesting the handling of ‘targeted killings’ in their area by Zaka Khel elders and government authorities. Two Sultan Khel residents were gunned down by unidentified assailants on Friday evening — in the same area where two policemen had been targeted over the last few months. The fresh violence prompted Sultan Khel residents from the Zaka Khel tribe to block the Peshawar-Torkham Highway by staging a protest on Saturday. The road closure also temporarily suspended the repatriation of Afghan families via the Torkham border. Murad Hussain, a leading figure among the protesters, told Dawn on Sunday that a negotiating committee comprising young Sultan Khel tribesmen was formed to hold talks with government functionaries to find ways to restore peace in the Landi Kotal tehsil, while also securing the main Peshawar-Torkham Highway from nighttime terrorist movement reported in the area. The committee ...

At least one person was killed and five others wounded in multiple shooting attacks in Israel on Sunday, authorities said, with one of the perpetrators killed. Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom said a man about 35 years old had died of gunshot wounds. The service also “provided medical treatment and evacuated to hospitals five injured people, including two in serious condition and three in moderate condition, with penetrating injuries to their bodies”, it added. Police said they had located a vehicle suspected of involvement and killed a suspect believed to be responsible near the town of Kokhav Yair, a few kilometres away from the occupied West Bank. Rescuers said attacks also took place in the nearby towns of Tzur Natan and Tzur Yitzhak. Israel’s military told AFP that one perpetrator had been killed and searches were ongoing for a second. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had “held a situational assessment and is monitoring the deadly shooting attack”. Far-right National Sec...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister Meena Khan Afridi was prevented from travelling abroad at Bacha Khan International Airport on Sunday, according to media reports.

Punjab has introduced a QR-based Panic Button system to enhance passenger safety and strengthen emergency response across the province’s public transport network.

Peshawar - Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Muhammad Sohail Afridi on Saturday said the provincial government was pursuing a comprehensive strategy to achieve food self-sufficiency and would enhance funding for the food sector in the upcoming budget.

The enormous costs of Israel’s multi-front war and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to turn his country into a “super-Sparta” of the Middle East are driving up the defence budget and raising fears of cutbacks in education and healthcare. The total cost of the series of interconnected regional conflicts that began with Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 stood at 405 billion shekels ($138bn) as of late April, according to the governor of the Bank of Israel, Amir Yaron. “That’s a huge figure, more than 17 per cent of GDP,” he said during a recent economic conference in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. Just the military campaign against Iran, which began with a wave of US-Israeli strikes on February 28, incurred an additional cost of 35bn shekels ($12bn) for the state up until a ceasefire took effect on April 8, according to an initial estimate by the finance ministry. Following the adoption of the 2026 budget in late March, the government noted the defence ministry’s budget had more than do...

A top White House artificial intelligence policy adviser on Saturday said he will leave his position at the end of June, marking the exit of a leading figure helping craft policies for frontier technologies. “This journey has been the privilege of a lifetime,” the adviser, Sriram Krishnan, posted on social media platform X. Krishnan did not give a reason for leaving, but wrote in the post he intends to help “tackle some of the large challenges facing America” related to AI. Krishnan has been involved in the Trump administration’s efforts to create a national framework for regulating developments in AI. His departure comes as the president looks at the possibility of the US government acquiring stakes in AI firms. “There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, adding that he planned to meet with AI executives as soon as next week. Trump’s embrace of AI has at times been complicated by security c...

WASHINGTON: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation in the United States, has filed a federal lawsuit against one of America’s largest public school systems, alleging that four Muslim students were unlawfully disciplined because of their religion and ethnic background. The lawsuit accuses Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), a school district serving nearly 180,000 students in the suburbs of Washington, DC, of discriminating against students at the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, one of the nation’s top-ranked public schools. Filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, the suit claims that school officials violated the students’ constitutional rights and federal civil rights laws by suspending them over a social media video while allowing similar conduct by other student groups to go unpunished. The case stems from a video posted in October 2025 by members of the school’s Muslim Student Association (M...

Pakistan is expected to face a spell of intense heat from June 7 to June 12, with temperatures likely to rise sharply in several parts of the country, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD).

Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has said that he delivered a letter and an important message from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Ali Khamenei during a meeting.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said on Sunday that its Lahore unit has arrested four suspects during separate raids for their alleged involvement in hawala/hundi operations and violations of the Copyright Act. An FIA spokesperson told the media that the raids were conducted by the agency’s Lahore Corporate Crime Circle at different locations in the provincial capital. Two suspects were arrested for allegedly running illegal currency exchange and hawala/hundi businesses. During the operation, FIA said it recovered cash worth Rs20.4 million from the suspects, as well as foreign currency, including $1,080, AU$320, AED4,015, £85 and 160 Saudi riyals. Documentary records and digital evidence related to hawala/hundi transactions were also recovered from the suspects’ possession. In separate actions, FIA arrested two other suspects for their alleged involvement in violations of the Copyright Act, 1962. The suspects were found to be in possession of a large quantity of counterfeit products of well-known regis...