Pakistan

Family of each deceased to get Rs2 million

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KARACHI: At least eight people have lost their lives in various rain-related incidents as heavy downpours continued to lash the city since Tuesday morning, disrupting daily life and crippling civic infrastructure. The intermittent heavy rain caused urban flooding in several areas, leaving roads submerged and the city’s routine activities paralyzed. According to reports, four people […]

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he hoped Russia’s Vladimir Putin would move forward on ending the war in Ukraine but conceded that the Kremlin leader may not want to make a deal at all, adding this would create a “rough situation” for Putin. In an interview with the Fox News “Fox & Friends” programme, Trump […]

KARACHI: The Sindh government has announced that schools will remain closed on Wednesday across Karachi amid heavy rainfall. The decision was made due to the risk of urban flooding caused by continuous downpours. Authorities stated that the move is intended to ensure the safety of students and school staff amid weather-related challenges. It is worth […]

South Africa’s Aiden Markram hit 82 before left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj tore through Australia’s new-look batting order as the Proteas claimed the One-Day International series opener by 98 runs in Cairns on Tuesday. Sent in to bat, Markram — opening for the first time in ODIs since 2021 — crunched nine boundaries in his 81-ball knock to power South Africa to a formidable 296-8. Skipper Temba Bavuma (65) and Matthew Breetzke (57) also helped set the tone for the three-match ODI series. In reply, openers Mitchell Marsh and Travis Head flattened South Africa’s pacemen as Australia raced to 60-0 after seven overs. But the match flipped after the introduction of spin, with Maharaj conjuring rampant turn, and he picked up four wickets in his first 15 balls. He finished with career-best figures of 5-33 from 10 overs as Australia were dismissed for 198 in the 41st over. It was a strong bounce back from South Africa after their 2-1 defeat in the Twenty20 series between the teams. “I just tried to utilise the condit...

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has finalized its candidates for two crucial by-elections.

Chinese Foreign Minister and Politburo member Wang Yi will arrive in Islamabad on Thursday to co-chair the 6th Pakistan-China Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue.

The interior ministry informed the Senate on Tuesday that of the 567 cases of sexual abuse registered in Islamabad between 2021 and June 2025, 200 of them involved children. The data reported by the interior ministry was presented in a written response to Senator Shahdhat Awan during a Senate session today. Of the 200 cases of child sexual abuse reported, 93 of the child victims were male and 108 were female. The ministry added that 222 accused parties were arrested, of which only 12 were convicted. 163 remain under trial, while 15 have been acquitted and 26 remain at large. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in the written statement that “as per reports obtained from all police stations of Islamabad through (the) Zonal Superintendent of Police, during the period from January 1 2021 to 20 June 2025, (a) total 567 cases of rape were registered and 625 accused were arrested”. “Out of 567 cases, 485 cases were challaned, 80 accused were convicted, 23 accused were acquitted and accused in 406 cases are still fac...

Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Tuesday appreciated the united front posed by the Pakistani diaspora in the United Kingdom during Operation Bunyanun Marsoos.

Amid the opposition uproar, the Senate on Tuesday passed the Anti-terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2025, with a majority of votes by rejecting amendments proposed by JUI-F lawmaker Kamran Murtaza.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry on Tuesday informed the Senate that the European Union (EU) had lifted its ban on Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), paving the way for the resumption of flights to Paris and other European destinations.

At least 358 people died as a result of heavy flooding and downpour in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over the last three days, while rehabilitation efforts are still underway as the province recovers from the record deluge, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority said on Tuesday. Record rains in KP, which started on August 15, have wreaked havoc across the province. Last week, the provincial government declared an emergency as torrential rains ravaged homes, displaced families, and left a trail of destruction across Buner, Swat, Shangla, Mansehra, and beyond. According to the latest data from the KP PDMA, 358 people have died in rain-related incidents since August 15, with Buner reporting the highest toll at 225. Another 181 people were injured, while the dead included 287 men, 41 women and 30 children. Buner was the worst-hit district in the province, where flash flooding and building collapses left 225 people dead, including 193 men, 23 women and nine children, according to the report. Another 120 people sustaine...

India’s National Sports Governance Bill has become an Act after President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the legislation, which promises to overhaul India’s sports administration, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported on Tuesday. The development comes days after India said it will bid for the 2030 Commonwealth Games, seen as part of a wider push by the cricket-mad nation to host the 2036 Olympics. The presidential assent came on Monday, stated a gazette notification by the central government. The legislation has been described as a path-breaking reform by Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, PTI reports. “The following Act of Parliament received the assent of the President on the 18th August, 2025 and is hereby published for general information — The National Sports Governance Act, 2025,” the legislation stated. The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) on July 23 and passed on August 11. A day later, it was passed by the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament). The bill provides...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday reaffirmed that the government’s health sector team, polio workers, and all relevant institutions were determined to completely eradicate polio from the country.

We’ve seen these headlines before. Heard anchors screech body counts as if they’re in a competition for the highest number. Hundreds of lives lost, thousands displaced, homes swept away and losses that won’t ever be compensated. Pakistan is once again in the midst of a ruthless monsoon season, which began in late June, and on the radar is the country’s mountainous north — Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Last week, unprecedented flash floods left behind a trail of wreckage in Buner, Swat, Shangla, Mansehra, and beyond. A week before that, Muzaffarabad bore the brunt of monsoon rains. Almost a month back, 37 villages across GB were declared calamity-hit. Visuals coming out of the region are terrifying; monstrous rivers unleashing their wrath and sweeping along anything in their way, from main city bazaars to entire villages. According to a report by the National Disaster Management Authority, at least 392 people have died in KP from June 26 to August 18. The number of fatalitie...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is set to visit the country this week for the sixth Pakistan-China Strategic Dialogue, the Foreign Office (FO) said on Tuesday. Pakistan and China share a longstanding strategic partnership with ties ranging across different sectors — including trade, energy, defence and infrastructure. The fifth round of Strategic Dialogue in May 2024 was co-chaired by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and his Chinese counterpart Wang in Beijing. According to the FO’s statement today, “On the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar … Mr Wang Yi is visiting Islamabad for co-chairing the sixth Pakistan-China Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue on August 21, 2025.” “The visit is part of the regular high-level exchanges between Pakistan and China to further deepen their ‘All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership’, reaffirm support on the issues of respective core interests, enhance economic and trade cooperation, and reaffirm their joint commitment to re...

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An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Tuesday sentenced four Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers to four months in prison over the November 26 protest case.

Indian police have exhumed human remains in a temple town in Karnataka, officials said, as part of an investigation into allegations that hundreds of murder and rape victims were secretly buried there from around the mid-1990s. The probe centres on Dharmasthala, home to an 800-year-old temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva in the state of Karnataka and is drawing headlines in media nationwide. A former cleaner at the temple told police last month that he had been forced by superiors to dispose of hundreds of bodies over two decades, many of them women and girls showing signs of sexual assault. His allegations were made in a police complaint dated July 4 and seen by Reuters. The man, whose identity authorities have withheld for safety reasons, fled Dharmasthala in 2014 but said he was compelled to speak out now because of lingering guilt. “If the skeletons now exhumed receive respectful funeral rites, those tormented souls will find peace and my sense of guilt could also decrease,” he wrote in the complaint....