Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Aleema Khan, sister of former prime minister and PTI founder Imran Khan, filed a writ petition in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday, challenging his prolonged solitary confinement at Central Jail Adiala, Rawalpindi, terming it illegal and a violation of fundamental rights. Imran — imprisoned since Aug 5, 2023, for concealing details of Toshakhana gifts — is serving a 14-year sentence at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail in the £190m case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case. The petition, filed through Barrister Salman Safdar and Salman Akram Raja, names the superintendent and deputy superintendent of Adiala jail, the inspector general of prisons, Punjab, chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the director general Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the medical superintendent of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), and the state as respondents. The petitioner argued that no court has sentenced the 74-year-old former prime minister to solitary confinement in either the Al-Qadir T...

The Ministry of Interior has introduced a unified police character certificate system across the country to simplify the verification process for overseas travellers and job seekers.

ISLAMABAD: Meetings with incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan remained suspended on Thursday as party leaders called for the implementation of the court’s decision allowing the meeting. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) allowed Imran Khan to have twice-a-week meetings — on Tuesdays and Thursdays — with his family, lawyers and other associates. Despite the order, the former premier has been restricted from meeting visitors for several months. The party secretary general had also submitted a list of six party leaders to the jail authorities in line with court orders. The list included Syed Raza Gillani, Tahir Iqbal, Mian Fayyaz Hussain, Qazi Ahmad Akbar, Mehwish Janjua and Abdul Hakeem Zareen. All party leaders included in the list arrived at Adiala jail on Thursday for a meeting with the PTI founder, but were not allowed to meet him. Talking to Dawn, Iqbal said he and other leaders arrived at 2pm and were told by the jail administration to wait. “We were told that we would be allowed to conduct the meeting if appr...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, on Thursday, emphasised an effective and integrated national strategy for the growing population and decided to establish the National Population Council for national-level policy-making.

The Army Rocket Force Command conducted the successful test fire of the indigenously developed Fatah-IV ground-launched cruise missile on Thursday, the military’s media affairs wing said. A statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations said that the weapon system was “equipped with advanced avionics and state-of-the-art navigational aids” and “capable of engaging long-range targets with high precision”. “The training fire was conducted to enhance operational efficiency of the troops and validate technical parameters of various sub-systems incorporated for improved accuracy and enhanced survivability,” it added. According to the statement, senior officers of the Pakistan Army Rocket Force Command, along with scientists and engineers of the missile’s developing agency, were present during the training fire. It said that President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Naveed Ashraf and Chie...

The Punjab government has decided to celebrate the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and China with a series of special events later this month.

QUETTA: The vice chancellor and pro-vice chancellor of the University of Gwadar, who had left Balochistan’s port city for Quetta, have gone missing, officials told Dawn on Thursday. Vice Chancellor Dr Abdul Razzaq Sabir and Pro-Vice Chancellor Syed Manzoor Ahmed have been missing for the past 24 hours, the officials said on Thursday afternoon. Babar Yousafzai, an aide at the Balochistan Home Department, said Dr Sabir and Ahmed had left for Quetta along with a driver and another varsity employee on Wednesday morning. “But they have not reached Quetta so far,” he added. The official further said the travellers’ mobile phones had been switched off after they reached Mastung. “All efforts are under way to trace the vice chancellor, pro-vice chancellor and two others traveling them,” Yousafzai said. Meanwhile, police officials in Mastung told Dawn that the possibility of kidnapping could not be ruled out. A senior police official also said that there had been no communication with Dr Sabir and Ahmed since they rea...

Pakistan Army’s Rocket Force Command on Thursday carried out a successful training launch of the indigenously developed Fatah-4 cruise missile, according to the military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations.

The Sindh government will fully open the Shahrah-i-Bhutto Expressway in Karachi to the public by the end of May, Sindh Senior Minister Sharjeel Memon said on Thursday. Shahrah-i-Bhutto Expressway is a 39-kilometre high-speed corridor in Karachi that was noted to be 88.2 per cent complete as of March. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had earlier this year directed the local government department to ensure that the expressway was fully operational by April 2026. Announcing the upcoming completion of the project at a press conference in Karachi, Memon called the opening of the expressway “very good news” for Karachiites, asserting that they would be saving “at least an hour” coming into the city. “We believe it will be a game changer in terms of traffic,” he said, as well as a big step for people’s convenience. After having started to be opened in phases, he said, Shahrah-i-Bhutto will now directly connect to the M-9 highway by the end of the month, saving travel time for those heading out of Karachi. Ad...

The Iranian rial continues to trade at a significant premium in Pakistan’s open market, with steady buyer activity sustaining elevated rates despite the currency’s weakness against major global currencies.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired a high-level meeting to review reforms in Pakistan’s housing sector, stressing the need for comprehensive measures to address challenges arising from rapid population growth and unplanned urban expansion.

The State Bank of Pakistan has revised its foreign exchange regulations to simplify the process for non-resident legal heirs seeking to transfer inherited assets outside Pakistan.

The Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) is set to introduce a premium meet-and-assist service at Islamabad International Airport to provide enhanced facilitation for passengers through a fully digital and pre-booked system.

The Ministry of Finance said on Thursday that a media report claiming Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar had been handed the budget-making process was “misleading” and “factually incorrect”. The clarification came after a report published by The Express Tribune said the government had “handed over the responsibility of making the new budget to Dar after it found the initial work below par”. According to the report, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had constituted a Dar-led committee to “review, analyse and present tax policy proposals” formulated by the Tax Policy Office working under the Finance Division. Citing a notification, it added: “With the formation of the committee, the final responsibility to finalise roughly Rs215 billion to Rs230bn in new taxes and to grant any tax relief has been handed over to Dar.” Moreover, the report said, the responsibility for finalising the enforcement measures had been handed over to a committee led by Minister for Economic Affairs Ahad Khan Cheema. It men...

They come in blister packs of 10 like any normal painkiller and you can buy them easily in roadside kiosks and street pharmacies across west Africa. Millions of tapentadol tablets from India are helping drive a deadly opioid epidemic ravaging the region, with officials and researchers telling AFP that they are also being added to the “zombie drug” kush. The cheap pills are so strong that no regulatory authority in the world has approved them. Yet an AFP investigation found Indian pharmaceutical firms were flooding west Africa with the pills despite New Delhi vowing to crack down on the trade. Some shipments were even labelled “Harmless Medicines for Human Consumption”. Customs records show millions of dollars’ worth of the high-strength synthetic opioid being shipped from India every month to Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Ghana, where even low doses of the drug are not permitted. With opioids now heavily regulated in wealthier nations after being linked to one million deaths in the United States alone, some manuf...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Thursday just as Pakistan had emerged as a nuclear power, efforts were now needed to turn it into an economic power. The premier expressed these views while addressing a federal cabinet meeting in Islamabad, where he also spoke about May 28. On May 28, 1998, Pakistan joined the ranks of nuclear powers after atomic tests in the hills of Chagai, Balochistan. In his address, PM Shehbaz said on that day, Pakistan gained a power that would remain a “defensive asset” of the country. “It is our national narrative that this asset is for defence, not offence. And this is the reason that the world knows Pakistan as a responsible nuclear power,” he added. The premier then paid tribute to all “heroes” who contributed to efforts for making Pakistan a nuclear power, particularly mentioning late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and former prime minister and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif. “[The initiative’s] founder was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and my leader, Nawaz Sharif, saw it to completion...

Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry on Thursday said that Pakistan’s relationship with the United Arab Emirates was “absolutely fine”. Chaudhry made the remarks while speaking on the floor of the National Assembly in response to concerns raised by lawmakers regarding the deportation of Pakistanis from the Gulf country. Several media outlets in recent days have reported that the Gulf country had begun a “large-scale expulsion” of Pakistani workers, particularly Shia workers, signalling a shift in Pakistan-UAE ties. The Interior Ministry has denied the claims. “I don’t know why people are intent on building a narrative against a country; that people from there are being deported based on sectarian differences,” the state minister said on Thursday. “There is no such thing. The government has categorically denied this. Our ties with the UAE are absolutely fine,” he said. He went on to say that for this month, the highest amount of remittances was received from Saudi Arabia, followed by the UAE. “We sho...

Maryam Nawaz has sought a detailed report on the arrest and investigation of alleged drug dealer Anmol alias “Pinky”, officials said on Thursday.

Investigation sources have disclosed fresh details regarding an alleged drug trafficking network linked to accused Anmol alias “Pinky”, shedding light on the methods allegedly used for the sale and distribution of narcotics.

Sardar Saleem Haider Khan has said that Pakistan and Bangladesh share deep-rooted commonalities, including religion, culture, and values.