Pakistan

Saudi Arabia announced that Eidul Fitr would be celebrated on Friday, according to a statement published by state media. “The Supreme Court has decided that tomorrow, Thursday, is the completion of the 30th day of the month of Ramazan, and that Friday is the day of the Blessed Eidul Fitr,” the Saudi Press Agency reported. Across the Muslim world, Ramazan festivities this year were overshadowed by the ongoing war in the Middle East, triggered by the US and Israel’s attack on Iran. The Gulf region has been pummelled with repeated strikes by Iran in a retaliatory blitz, with airports, residential areas, energy installations and military bases targeted with ballistic missiles and drones. Last week, the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) forecast that Eidul Fitr was expected to fall on March 21 as the chances of sighting the Shawwal moon on March 19 were low. However, it said that the final decision would be made by the Central Ruet-i-Hilal Committee. Earlier, the Pakistan Meteorolog...

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Tight measures announced for Chand Raat, Eid congregations and PSL

Court questions evidence, says detention not justified at this stage

Youth pledge to promote harmony, dialogue across provinces through forums

E-Biz portal processes over 44,000 applications as digital push accelerates

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From French tips to 3D designs, women embrace modern beauty trends

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Elon Musk’s social media platform X was back up after a brief outage for thousands of users on Wednesday, according to Downdetector.com. At its peak, there were more than 34,500 reports of issues with X in the US, according to Downdetector, before coming down to 845 reports as of 11:39am ET. The website also showed that 158 users in Pakistan reported issues with the social media platform at 8:21pm. Indian media also reported that the outage affected users in the country. Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources. The actual number of affected users may differ from what is shown on Downdetector, as the reports are submitted by users. X did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment. Last month, the social media platform was briefly hit by international outages.

Information Minister Ataullah Tarar on Wednesday announced that Pakistan has decided on a “temporary pause” in the ongoing Operation Ghazab lil-Haq against the Afghan Taliban in view of Eidul Fitr and at the “request of brotherly Islamic countries”. The information minister made the announcement in a post on the social media platform X. Operation Ghazab lil-Haq was launched on the night of February 26, following unprovoked firing by the Afghan Taliban from across the border. In his post, the information minister said, “In view of the upcoming Islamic festival of Eidul Fitr, upon its own initiative as well as on the request from the brotherly Islamic countries of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the State of Qatar and the Republic of Turkiye, the government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has decided to announce temporary pause amidst ongoing Operation Ghazab lil-Haq against the terrorists and their support infrastructure in Afghanistan.” Tarar said the pause would be applicable from “midnight March 18/19 to m...

Pakistan Airports Authority has announced an extension of the airspace restrictions imposed on India, pushing the closure period forward by another month.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday that the children of incarcerated former premier Imran Khan were “welcome” to visit Pakistan on their National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (Nicop). He made the remarks on X, in response to a post by Imran’s former spouse, Jemima Goldsmith, who had appealed to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif regarding the delay in issuing visas to his sons, Kasim and Sulaiman. “Imran Khan’s phone call will be arranged on Eid day with his children as done in the past as well,” the information minister said. “His children are welcome to visit Pakistan on their Nicop cards as Pakistani citizens for which no visa is required. However, they will fully comply with the laws of Pakistan during their stay,” he said. Kasim and his older brother Suleiman live in London with their mother and will have to travel to Pakistan to meet Imran, who is imprisoned at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail. In her appeal to PM Shehbaz on Monday, Jemima had stated, “My sons Sulaiman and Kasim Khan app...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar arrived in Riyadh on Wednesday for a meeting with the foreign ministers of regional countries, where he will advocate for a “swift end” to the conflict in the Middle East, according to the Foreign Office (FO). The conflict began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. In retaliatory strikes, Iran has targeted US assets and bases in Gulf countries. Amid the hostilities, the FO has termed Pakistan’s role a “bridge builder”. In a statement, FO said Dar had arrived in Riyadh, where he is set to “participate in the Consultative Ministerial Meeting of Foreign Ministers from Arab and Islamic countries, hosted by Saudi Arabia”. Upon arrival, Dar was received by Pakistan’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Farooq and representatives of the Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry, FO said. In a separate statement earlier in the day, the FO said that Dar was travelling to Riyadh at the invitation of Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. It said Dar would at...

On the 19th day of the US-Israeli war against Iran, the conflict is being shaped by two interlocking dynamics wherein the nuclear threshold has not been crossed but is increasingly blurred, while the fighting has spread across multiple theatres. Together, these trends reinforce each other, with each escalation raising the nuclear risk even as the grinding nature of the war makes de-escalation harder. The latest escalation underscores this shift. A strike on the Bushehr nuclear power facility, though limited in immediate damage, has pushed the conflict into a more dangerous phase. The absence of a radiological incident has not diminished the significance of the event. It has instead introduced a new risk regarding the possibility of reciprocal targeting of nuclear-linked infrastructure. Similarly, Trump’s plan for seizing enriched uranium stockpiles carries extreme escalation risks. While any such move would almost certainly trigger Iranian retaliation, there are risks with even attempting to seize those stock...

ISLAMABAD: Despite improved stock covers of petroleum products, foreign exchange constraints have started to crop up in the oil supply chain due to additional costs of skyrocketing global prices, insurance and import premiums, and freight charges. The issue was formally raised at a meeting of the special cabinet committee formed to monitor petroleum prices, presided over by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb. The oil industry complained that credit limits for oil marketing companies (OMCs) in Pakistani currency remained unchanged, despite their foreign exchange requirements increasing more than double since the beginning of the US-Israel war on Iran. These limits were set when petrol and diesel prices in the global market were around $70 and $90 per barrel, which have now gone beyond $132 and $190 per barrel, respectively. Similarly, the situation with insurance costs, import premiums and freight charges has been affected because of longer haul voyages. The import premium has gone above $20 from less than $5...

Iran vowed on Wednesday a “decisive” retaliation for the death of its security chief Ali Larijani, firing off a wave of missiles at Israel which said it killed him in an air strike. A barrage of Iranian missiles killed two people near Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv, while Gulf nations intercepted rockets and drones headed for targets including US bases in the region. Larijani is the most prominent figure of the Islamic republic killed since Israel and the United States launched their attacks on Iran on February 28, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and igniting a war in the Middle East. “Iran’s response to the assassination of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council will be decisive and regrettable,” Iranian army chief Amir Hatami said in a statement. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which said on Wednesday they launched missiles at central Israel as retaliation, warned in a statement that Larijani’s death would spur further attacks. The “pure blood of this great martyr… will b...

The Pakistan Airport Authority (PAA) has extended airspace restrictions on Indian aircraft till April 24, according to a fresh notice to airmen (Notam) issued on Wednesday. The authority said that Pakistan’s airspace would remain closed to all aircraft registered in India. The Notam issued by Pakistan for barring Indian flights in its airspace till April 24, 2026. — PAA website The restriction would also continue to apply to aircraft operated, owned, or leased by Indian airlines or operators, the Notam said, adding that it also covered Indian military flights. Pakistan’s airspace is divided into two flight information regions (FIRs) — Karachi and Lahore, according to a Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) document from 2022. The Notam applies to both the Karachi (OPKR) and Lahore (OPLR) FIRs. The Notam was issued days before the previous one was set to expire on March 23. India and Pakistan have closed their airspaces to each other’s airlines since tensions between them escalated in late April 2025 in the...

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic posed an “unacceptable risk” to military supply chains, the US government insisted on Tuesday, as it defends against the tech firm’s challenge to a designation as dangerous. Anthropic’s Claude AI model has been in the spotlight in recent weeks both for its alleged use in identifying targets for US bombing in Iran and the company’s refusal that its systems be used to power mass surveillance in the United States or lethal fully autonomous weapons systems. Justifying its decision to cut ties with Anthropic in response to a legal complaint from the firm, the Pentagon — dubbed the Department of War (DoW) by the Trump administration — said it “became concerned that allowing Anthropic continued access to DoW’s technical and operational warfighting infrastructure would introduce unacceptable risk into DoW supply chains,” in a court document seen by AFP. “AI systems are acutely vulnerable to manipulation,” the government added in the filing to a California federal court. “Anth...

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti on Wednesday said security forces arrested a “would-be” female suicide bomber in Khuzdar, with the help of “human intelligence”. Addressing a press conference in Quetta, alongside the alleged “would-be” suicide bomber, the chief minister said that terrorist groups in Balochistan were “exploiting” Baloch women. CM Bugti maintained that the operation to arrest the young woman — identified as Laiba — was carried out with the help of “human intelligence”, thanking the people for it. He added that with her arrest, major destruction had been averted. The chief minister found it unfortunate that a “young woman was radicalised and was being planned to be used against common citizens”. CM Bugti reiterated his appreciation to the people of Balochistan, “who are giving us information”. However, he noted that the mindset of young Baloch people was changing, recalling that security agencies receiving human intelligence in such operations was a “rare occurrence” in the recent past....