Pakistan

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Parks come alive as residents and tourists savour the season's charm

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Court informed more investigation needed to fix responsibility for 17 tourist deaths

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K-P's Mezban scheme offers interest-free loans to turn private homes into tourist accommodation

PTI members, including former KP minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra, protested the denial of meetings with party founder and ex-premier Imran Khan outside Adiala jail on Thursday. Water cannons were used early on Wednesday to disperse PTI leaders and protesters staging a sit-in near Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail, after his family was denied a meeting with the ex-premier. A court order issued by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on March 24 this year mandated that meetings with Imran would be permitted twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, the PTI maintains that the order is not being honoured. Jhagra was accompanied by PTI leaders, including Aftab Alam, Adnan Qadri, Pir Musavir Khan, Muhammad Israr and Liaqat Ali Khan. They were stopped at the Dahgali checkpoint on their way to the prison and staged a sit-in on the spot. However, they quietly gathered and left after a period of time. Jhagra wrote in a post on X: “870 unique meetings supposedly, but today was the 60th Thursday in a row when no one was allowed t...

Oscars to stream exclusively on YouTube from 2029

Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Tahir Andrabi on Thursday denied reports that Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir would undertake another visit to the United States soon. Reuters reported a day ago that Field Marshal Munir was expected to fly to Washington to meet US President Donald Trump in the coming weeks for a meeting which would likely focus on the Gaza force, according to two sources, one of whom was described as a key player in the CDF’s economic diplomacy. Andrabi’s statement came during the FO’s weekly press briefing today in response to a question, where he contradicted the Reuters report about the visit. “The Reuters story was showing as if the visit had been planned, and there was a finality about it. So, I am contradicting that and I’m contradicting the fact that a visit has been agreed or planned,” Andrabi said. “The fact is that this is information that I do not have, about the timing or any future visit that might take place. We obviously will wait ...

In June, consecutive tremors shook Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi. Fifty-seven low-intensity quakes, measuring 1.5-3.8 on the Richter scale, were recorded on 1-25 June, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) reportedly said. Several months later, October began with a 3.2-magnitude quake in Malir, a neighbourhood in the city’s north. Karachi sits near the boundaries of three major tectonic plates, and multiple fault lines run through the city. Some 49 earthquakes with a magnitude of four or above have struck within 300 km of Karachi in the last decade. Mild quakes can sometimes act as “natural pressure releases, potentially reducing the risk of more destructive ones”, but the frequency of these earthquakes has raised concerns among experts, said geological oceanographer and former director of the Geological Survey of Pakistan, Asif Rana. In Karachi, mild quakes can have potentially devastating impacts on buildings that lack structural integrity. The Association of Builders and Developers stated in July...

The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), in a joint raid along with intelligence and law enforcement agencies, arrested several foreign nationals allegedly running a fraudulent Ponzi scheme network in Karachi’s Defence Housing Authority (DHA) area on Thursday, a statement from the agency said. A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a non-existent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors. Per the statement, the operation was conducted in DHA Phase 1 and Phase 6, where several foreign nationals were taken into custody during the action. “Important and sensitive data was recovered from the suspects, which is now being examined as part of the investigation,” the statement said. Preliminary inquiries suggest the detained individuals were allegedly running a “well-organised network through a Ponzi scheme,” the statement said, adding that the fraud had affected thousands of people, causing them “ser...

The Supreme Court has converted a rape conviction into a case of consensual adultery, reducing the accused’s sentence from 20 years’ imprisonment to five years of rigorous imprisonment.

Bangladesh police on Thursday stopped protesters from marching towards an Indian diplomatic mission, a day after India’s foreign ministry conveyed its concerns over the “deteriorating” security environment in the country. Ties between the two countries have been frosty since former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India following a student-led uprising last year. Dhaka has repeatedly asked for her extradition so that she could stand trial for her alleged crimes, with Delhi responding that it was examining the requests. On Thursday, dozens of demonstrators began marching towards the assistant Indian high commissioner office in Rajshahi district, which borders India. Miftahul Jannat, one of the protesters, said the plan was to carry out a sit-in, demanding the “repatriation of all the killers including Sheikh Hasina”. The protest was stalled by the police, who said they “listened to their demands and promised to forward them to the authorities”. “We are not aware of any further plans (for demonst...

The German government said on Thursday that it would take in 535 Afghans who had been promised refuge in Germany but have been stuck in limbo in Pakistan. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the RND media network that Berlin wanted to complete the processing of the cases “in December, as far as possible” to allow them to enter Germany. The Afghans were accepted under a refugee scheme set up by the previous German government, but have been stuck in Pakistan since conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz took office in May and froze the programme. Those on the scheme either worked with German armed forces in Afghanistan during the war against the Taliban, or were judged to be at particular risk from the Taliban after its return to power in 2021 — for example, rights activists and journalists, as well as their families. Pakistan had set a deadline for the end of the year for the Afghans’ cases to be settled, after which they would be deported back to their homeland. Dobrindt said that “we are in touch with t...

Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Raja Shehbaz Khan on Thursday announced a delay of general elections and local bodies polls due to harsh weather conditions in the region, after a multiparty conference held to consult political parties on the holding of the elections. General Elections of the Assembly and local government (LG) elections were scheduled for January 24 and February 14, 2026, respectively. The LG polls are going to be conducted in the region after a gap of 20 years. “The new polling dates for both elections will be announced later,” Khan said. After the GB Assembly completed its five-year tenure on November 24, President Asif Ali Zardari announced the general elections date as it is mandatory to conduct elections within 60 days, while the GB election commissioner also announced the date of local body elections. Meanwhile, the GB Election Commission convened a multiparty conference (MPC), including leaders of PML-N, PPP, PTI and JUI, today at its secretariat to consult political ...

UK teachers will be trained to tackle misogyny in the classroom under a new strategy aimed at halving violence against women and girls over the next decade, the government said Thursday. The new strategy would “deploy the full power of the state to introduce the largest crackdown to stop violence perpetrated against women and girls in British history”, said Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, who is due to unveil details of the new approach in parliament later. The 20 million plan comes as the latest statistics showed over 40 per cent of young men held a positive view of so-called manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, a government statement said. And over the last year alone, one in every eight women was a victim of domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking. “For too long, the scale of violence against women and girls has been treated as a fact of life in our country,” said Phillips. Under the strategy, all secondary schools in England will have to teach students about...

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar on Thursday called for proposals to address challenges posed by artificial intelligence in the advertising industry, emphasizing the need to safeguard creative professionals from redundancy.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Thursday acknowledged ‘employment issues’ among creatives within the advertising sector due to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and invited proposals to address the problem. In a post on X, the minister wrote that widespread AI adoption is affecting the employment of creative minds in the sector, specifically referring to content creators, graphic designers and editors, creative directors, actors and models and technicians and cameramen. “I am inviting proposals on how to address this problem and how to save these professions from becoming redundant,” Tarar wrote, urging people to send proposals to an email address linked to the Press Information Department. An International Labour Organisation (ILO) report published in May found that around “one in four workers across the world are in an occupation with some degree of exposure” to generative AI models’ capabilities. “Few jobs are currently at high risk of full automation,” the ILO added. In November, ...