Pakistan

The Power Division has formally requested the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) to immediately withdraw newly introduced application fees for small-scale solar systems.

The Islamabad Traffic Police has made its driving licence process fully paperless, aiming to improve efficiency and enhance public convenience.

Maryam Nawaz Sharif has announced an ambitious plan to establish a 50-acre Punjab Film City in Lahore, aimed at revitalizing the country’s media and entertainment sector.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s exports to major Western and Northern European markets have recorded negative growth in the first nine months of the current fiscal year compared with a year ago, despite the continuation of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) status, raising concerns about weakening demand for Pakistani goods. The development comes against the backdrop of a shifting global trade environment, as the US-Iran conflict sends shockwaves through the Middle East, impacting global goods transport, accelerating the fall in exports to European markets. Additionally, earlier this year, European Union preferential market access was offered to India, one of Pakistan’s key competitors in textiles. Earlier this month, the EU Ambassador to Pakistan Raimundas Karoblis also warned Pakistan that access to the GSP+ — which allows duty-free entry into most European markets — was neither guaranteed nor automatic, signalling a more conditional approach from Brussels reliant on Islamabad’s progress on human rights iss...

The Pakistan Airports Authority has decided to introduce an electric cart service at airports nationwide to improve passenger convenience.

The Pakistan Cricket Board on Sunday released the official schedule for ticket sales for the Pakistan Super League final, detailing both online and physical purchase options for fans.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said Beijing will “firmly support” Myanmar in safeguarding its national sovereignty and security, in a meeting with junta chief-turned-president, Min Aung Hlaing. Wang has been on a three-country visit to Southeast Asia this week, travelling to Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, seeking to strengthen ties in the face of “risks” and present Beijing as a more stable alternative to the United States. Beijing supports Myanmar “in forging a successful development path that aligns with its national conditions and enjoys the support of its people”, Wang told Min Aung Hlaing during a visit to capital Naypyidaw, according to a Chinese foreign ministry readout published late on Saturday. “As this year marks the first year of the new Myanmar government’s tenure, both sides should seize this opportunity to carry forward and promote their traditional friendship, [and] open up new prospects for bilateral relations,” Wang said. Min Aung Hlaing was sworn in as president this month, continuing his ru...

Swiss International said that a flight from Delhi to Zurich had to abort its takeoff early on Sunday after an engine issue, adding that four passengers and one crew member were injured. The airline did not elaborate, but the Economic Times reported that one of the engines had caught on fire as the plane was accelerating down a runway and that the passengers were injured during an emergency evacuation. “Shortly after 1am local time on April 26, an issue occurred with one of the engines during the takeoff of flight LX147 in Delhi. The crew aborted the takeoff and, after assessing the situation, decided as a precaution to evacuate the aircraft,” Swiss International said in a statement. Pathway tracing the aborted takeoff of Swiss International’s flight LX147 at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on April 26, 2026. — screengrab via FlightRadar24 It said that it had set up a task force to look into the incident, adding that the injured passengers were taken to a hospital, while the crew member had sustain...

KARACHI: The body of a boy who drowned after being swept away while swimming in a major water line in Scheme 33 was recovered on the third day of the search operation, rescue services said. The boy, Zahid Mohammed Khan, was swept away around 2pm on Friday while swimming in the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC)’s line in Scheme-33 near Al-Azhar Garden. Rescue 1122 and the Edhi service issued separate statements, confirming that the boy’s body has been recovered. The Edhi statement said the deceased child was 12 years old. The body was shifted to Edhi’s morgue in Sohrab Goth. Lifeguards from Rescue 1122 and the Edhi Foundation searched until Friday night, but were unable to recover the boy. Subsequently, the operation was paused due to a lack of visibility. With the help of the district administration, rescuers had resumed their search efforts on Saturday at two separate locations, near Samama Shopping Mall and Continental Bakery in Gulistan-i-Jauhar. Last year, the drowning of a three-year-old boy ...

Acting President Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has stressed the need for continued global efforts to ensure peace, urging nations to address emerging challenges through cooperation and dialogue.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has reiterated that Pakistan will continue its sincere efforts to promote regional peace and security during a telephone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The suspect arrested in the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting on Saturday was identified by a law enforcement official as Cole Tomas Allen, a Los Angeles-area man who appears from social media sites to be a Caltech graduate working as a part-time teacher and game developer. The official said Allen, approximately 31 years of age, is a resident of Torrance, California, a coastal town that is part of the South Bay area adjacent to Los Angeles abutting Santa Monica Bay. The chief of the District of Columbia Police Department said investigators believe the suspect was a guest at the Washington Hilton hotel, where the annual dinner was taking place, but that no motive had been determined. Meanwhile, Facebook posts appearing to relate to Allen show that he had been designated Teacher of the Month in December 2024 by the Torrance office of C2 Education, a nationwide private test-preparation and tutoring service for college-bound students. A LinkedIn profile in the suspect’s name described him as...

The tickets for this year’s HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) are set to go on sale from April 27, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said on Sunday. The final — with teams yet to be decided — would take place at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on May 3 (Sunday). The final would also have a reserve day, which is May 4. In a press release, PCB said the tickets will be up for grabs online at pcb.tcs.com.pk from 4pm on Monday, while physical tickets will be available at 18 designated TCS Express Centres in Lahore from 10am on Tuesday. Fans can buy tickets for VIP enclosures (Fazal Mahmood and Imran Khan) for Rs6,000, while the premium enclosures (Rajas and Saeed Anwar) will be available for Rs4,000. First-class enclosures, which comprise Abdul Hafeez Kardar, Abdul Qadir, Javed Miandad and Sarfaraz Nawaz, are priced at Rs2,000. Seats in Hanif Mohammad, Imtiaz Ahmed, Saeed Ahmed and Inzamam-ul-Haq, which are categorised as general enclosures, will be available for a minimum of Rs1,500. The PCB noted that the “thrilling”...

Facing severe public criticism for “taxing sunlight”, the Power Division on Sunday directed the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) to abolish the requirement of a licence and licence fee for solar prosumers below 25 kilowatt capacity. In a statement issued on Sunday — a weekly holiday — the Power Division said that on the directives of Power Minister Awais Leghari, it has “formally asked Nepra for a review to abolish the application fee and remove the license requirement for solar consumers of 25 kilowatts and below”. The Power Division recalled that it had previously alerted Nepra about the adverse effects of this decision and requested that it be aligned with the old regulations. Announcing the decision on X, Leghari said, “Our government is pro-solar, pro-consumer, and committed to clean energy. We want to remove unnecessary barriers, reduce costs, and provide as much relief as possible to the people of Pakistan.” Under the previous 2015 regulations, distributed generation facilities of 2...

RAWALPINDI: A monument is being constructed in Baggi (horse carriage) Park at Kutchery Chowk in front of Fatima Jinnah Women University, and is expected to complete in the first week of May. The Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) has been assigned the task to establish the Marka-i-Haq Monument on The Mall. “It is a replica of the monument in H-8 Islamabad. However, Marka-i-Haq Monument is unique as it is being constructed in an established park and additional land will not be acquired for it,” said a senior official of the district administration while talking to Dawn. He said the project was likely to complete before May 10, the first anniversary of the Maraka-i-Haq. He said the monument was being constructed on the direction of the provincial government which provided funding for the project. Structure being set up on direction of Punjab govt which has provided fund for project, says official “The main purpose of this project is to commemorate victims and honour the sacrifices of martyrs and ghazis of the op...

The court has approved bail for Aliya Batool, directing her to submit an assurance bond of Rs1 million in a case related to alleged forged documents.

LAHORE: The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) on Saturday forecast hot and dry weather across most districts of Punjab on Sunday and warned that temperatures might remain above normal, particularly in the central and southern plains. According to the latest weather outlook, a shallow westerly wave that previously affected upper parts of the country has weakened, leaving little chance of rain. As a result, dry and humid conditions are expected to dominate across the province. The PMD said that unlike Saturday — when isolated areas such as Kashmir, Murree and the Galliyat experienced partly cloudy weather with chances of light rain — Sunday will see no significant rainfall even in these upper areas. This shift indicates a further increase in heat intensity. In plains, especially across central and southern Punjab, daytime temperatures are expected to remain 3 to 5 degrees Celsius above normal, adding to the discomfort citizens already facing due to rising heat levels. Recent weather data highlights the i...

KARACHI: As the city has been facing a shortage of 250 million gallons per day (MGD) due to the replacement of a main line, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) announced on Saturday night that it had restored the supply of 100MGD to minimise the shortfall. On Saturday, the water utility started final interconnection work on a new transmission line at the Dhabeji Pumping Station and took offline nine pumps. It had said that 250MGD water shortfall would persist for two days as seven pumps would be restored by April 27, while two will remain offline for five more days to finish technical work. However, a KWSC spokesman said that four of the nine pumps had been restored late on Saturday night. He said that water supply from the K-3 pumping house at Dhabeji had been resumed after technical restoration work. “With four pumps now operational, the system has added nearly 100 MGD back into Karachi’s distribution network, easing pressure on the city’s water supply,” he added. The spokesperson added that o...

LAHORE: Punjab will export livestock and meat as the provincial government on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with seven institutions, including a Chinese company, for the purpose. A video link meeting in this regard was presided over by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz. Under the agreement one million livestock will be exported. The meeting was informed that China’s Global Meat Company would install a boiler unit in collaboration with the government-owned Punjab Agriculture and Meat Company in the province. “The boiler unit will prepare boiled meat on a large scale for export. Meat companies will import the meat of 300,000 animals ready for export. A target is set for fattening 300,000 buffaloes and cows, and 300,000 sheep and goats. Some 100,000 goats and sheep will be raised for export.” “The state-of-the-art veterinary hospitals will be established in every tehsil of the province. Four mobile veterinary dispensaries will operate in each tehsil to provide door-to-door animal treatment.” The ...

• National immunisation week begins amidst challenges • Experts call for local vaccine manufacturing to cut reliance on imported drugs KARACHI: Seventy-one children, including 40 in Sindh, have already lost their lives to measles in the first four months of this year as the provincial government held a series of public awareness activities on Saturday in connection with World Immunisation Week. The week 2026 — being observed globally from April 24 to April 30 — is dedicated to the theme ‘For Every Generation, Vaccines Work’ — aims to create public awareness and increase rates of immunisation. According to official data, of the 71 children died of measles across the country Sindh topped the list with 40 deaths followed by 12 each in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and four in Balochistan in the first four months. Sources said a total of 4,541 confirmed measles’ cases were reported in the first quarter of this year in the country with 1,712 in KP, 1,198 in Punjab, 1,183 in Sindh, 197 in Balochistan, 151 in Azad J...