Pakistan

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has approved the launch of a major project to construct 358 underground water storage tanks across the province to improve rainwater drainage and help recharge groundwater.

At least 13 militants were killed in five separate engagements with security forces in different districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the military’s media wing said on Sunday.

GWADAR: A fisherman from Gwadar was killed after the debris of an Israeli projectile intercepted by Iranian air defence systems hit his boat in Iranian waters, officials said on Sunday. Gwadar Deputy Commissioner (DC) Naqibullah Kakar confirmed the incident to Dawn that took place on Saturday, saying that the deceased was identified as Muhammad Tayyab, a resident of Gannz, a small coastal town in Balochistan’s Gwadar district. District Police Officer Attaur Rehman also confirmed the incident and told Dawn that Tayyab “went into Iranian waters for Iranian oil”. DC Kakar believes an attempt was made to attack fishing boats in a coastal area of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province, but the projectile was intercepted and destroyed by the Iranian air defence system. “A portion of the debris from that drone or missile hit Tayyab’s fishing boat, resulting in his death,” he added. The officials said Tayyab’s body was taken to his native town, Gannz, via the sea, and he was later buried. Iran, a neighbour of Pakistan, h...

International Women’s Day was observed across Pakistan and around the world on Sunday, with leaders and citizens acknowledging the vital role women play in society and calling for greater efforts to ensure their rights and empowerment.

Security forces have killed 13 terrorists in five separate operations across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the military’s media affairs wing said on Sunday. “On March 6-7, security forces conducted a series of high-tempo intelligence-driven operations, part of relentless counter-terrorism campaign, wherein 13 khawarij belonging to Indian proxy Fitna Al Khawarij were killed in five separate engagements in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said. Fitna al Khawarij is a term the state uses for terrorists belonging to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). According to ISPR, five terrorists were killed in the Bajaur district after an intense fire exchange when troops “effectively engaged the khawarij location” during an intelligence-based operation (IBO). In two other encounters in Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan districts, three terrorists “belonging to Indian proxy Fitna Al Khawarij were successfully neutralised”, the press release said. “Simultaneously, in two separate engagements in Khyber...

Consider this: she gets back home after a long hard day at work. “It’s 10pm already,” she thinks to herself, as something outside the window catches her eye. It’s her roommate excitedly waving a cricket bat at her. She now begins to notice her surroundings: almost 15 girls from her neighbourhood out on the street. All positioned for the game, all looking as disheveled as one can be, yet they all have this fiery spark in their eyes. Clearly they feel passionately for the game. They play for the next two hours. Unperturbed by any restrictions. The dark shadows on the street do not scare them. Time is of no concern. They feel free. Their energy, loud passionate voices, and roaring laughter fill the dimly lit street. No one cares for their appearance, they just run and trip and get back up. They get into silly brawls over the rules of the game. By the end of the night, they are drained but they return to their homes content. The kind of contentment almost every young girl and woman in Karachi is starved for; to o...

New York counterterror police said they were carrying out an investigation on Saturday after a man threw “ignited devices” near far-right protesters demonstrating outside the mayor’s home. New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the devices contained nuts, bolts and screws as well as a fuse — but it was not yet clear if they were functional improvised explosive devices, or hoax imitations. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in an X post that its Joint Terrorism Task Force was “actively investigating” the matter along with New York City Police. There was no indication the incident was related to the ongoing hostilities in Iran, Tisch added. Police arrested six people over unrest at the protest, she said, including two suspects in connection with the devices. Far-right influencer Jake Lang was demonstrating against alleged “Islamification” and calling for an end to “public Muslim prayer” in New York in front of Gracie Mansion, the residence of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. His protest drew around 20 peopl...

TWO nights ago, I logged on to our evening meeting the way I have done twice a day, five days a week for nearly six weeks. On my screen: half a dozen faces I have come to think of as family, based in Beirut. News was coming in of an impending Israeli bombing. They were scrambling — checking phones, calling relatives, trying to locate family members — and simultaneously, they were working. Editing, producing, filming. Because the news goes on. I sat in Islamabad, safe, watching them hold themselves together from across a screen. The friction was unbearable. A war brews in my backyard too, and yet there I was, untouched, while they split themselves in two — one half terrified, one half professional — because that is what survival looks like when the bombs have been falling, on and off, your entire life. I thought of the last time I was in Lebanon in 2009. My friend Shaan and I travelled the length and breadth of the country for two weeks, lost half the time, pre-Google Maps, finding our way through broken Arabi...

NAROWAL: A filling station employee was shot dead and his two colleagues were injured by men for refusing to fill jerry cans with petrol the other night after the government announced Rs55 per litre hike in petrol price. A video of the altercation and murder in the Hajipura police area went viral on social media. Muhammad Nawaz, a resident of Nothen village, Hafizabad, filed a complaint with the police, saying that his nephew, Sibtain Ali, was working at the filling pump on Daska Road, Hajipura, Sialkot. Two persons arrived at the filling station in a car and pressured filling station worker, Hassan Khan, to fill petrol in jerry cans. Hassan Khan refused to fill the cans with petrol as per the policy. The people in the car left after abusing and threatening him of dire consequences. An hour later, the car driver came back with his companions armed with automatic weapons and they all started torturing the filling station staff. They hit Muhammad Shahbaz with the butt of a pistol and injured him while they open...

• Police officers tell six-member panel around 300 protesters reached US mission from Numaish without high-ups’ consent • Say personnel of Sindh police deployed outside consulate fired 30 ‘aerial shots’ to stop the mob from entering foreign mission • ToRs of JIT silent about fixing responsibility of killings KARACHI: A Joint Interrogation Team (JIT) probing the facts and circumstances leading to the March 1 violence was informed that “one US marine” stationed at the American mission in Karachi resorted to firing in “retaliation” when protesters stormed the consulate building after breaching security, it emerged on Saturday. The JIT was also told that Sindh police personnel deployed at US consulate fired 30 shots into the air to stop the mob from storming the complex. As many as 12 people were killed and 49 others, including seven policemen, sustained bullet wounds during the violent protest near the US consulate against the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in coordinated US-Israel strikes on Tehran. On...

The US embassy in Oslo was hit by an explosion in the early hours of Sunday but no one was injured, police in the Norwegian capital said, adding the cause was not immediately known. The blast occurred around 1am local time (0000 GMT) and caused only “minor material damage” to one of the building’s entrances, Oslo police said in a statement. Investigators were examining the scene, while dogs, drones, and helicopters were involved in the search “for one or more potential perpetrators”, it said. “Police view such incidents in public spaces as very serious, and are investigating the case with substantial resources and high priority.” Police commander Michael Dellemyr told TV2 police would “not comment on anything related to the type of damage, what it is that has exploded and similar details, beyond the fact that there has been an explosion” because “it is very early in the investigation”. He later told TV2 that police “have an idea of the cause”, adding: “It appears to us that this is an act carried out by someo...

KARACHI: The University of Karachi (KU) has announced to hold all morning classes online from Monday (tomorrow) till the end of Ramazan. According to a KU spokesperson, evening classes have already been online since the start of Ramazan and that the latest decision will now provide relief to morning students given the significant hike in fuel prices. “Keeping in view the convenience of its students during Ramazan and transportation restraints likely to be caused by the recent price hike in petroleum products, the University of Karachi has decided that all the morning classes from Monday, March 9, 2026, till end of the month of Ramazan will be conducted only online,” the varsity said in a notification. Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2026

There was a moment — brief but powerful — where we began to believe we had finally slain an old giant. It came with the rise of platforms that promised to “democratise” media, to give voice to every individual, to let every athlete, thinker, activist, executive or celebrity broadcast their own story, without the filters of legacy institutions. Elon Musk said as much when he spoke about decentralising media, opening it up to everyone with a phone and an internet connection. No more gatekeepers. No more old hierarchies. Just pure, unmediated truth. And, at first, it felt liberating. Every podcast became a direct line to the person who actually lived the narrative. Every social media platform turned into a newsroom and every public figure into their own anchor. We were told to reject “mainstream media” — that it was biased, outdated, elitist — and embrace instead the beautiful chaos of direct testimony. Fake news, they said, wasn’t the problem; controlled narratives were. And now those narratives could be topple...

ISLAMABAD: As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, Pakistan’s Planning Commission has cautioned about possible economic impacts on the country, including increased energy costs, strain on remittance inflows, and potential interruptions to exports and financial stability. The ministry warned that instability in the region, especially around the strategic Strait of Hormuz, could drive up global oil prices and sharply increase Pakistan’s import costs, given the country’s heavy dependence on petroleum imports from the Middle East, according to the Ministry of Planning’s Monthly Development Update for March. Such developments could also fuel domestic inflation, raise production and freight costs for exporters, and place additional pressure on the exchange rate and fiscal position, according to the report released here on Saturday. At the same time, prolonged conflict could affect remittance inflows from Gulf countries, where millions of Pakistani workers are employed, and create uncertainty for Pakistan’s ex...

TOKYO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Saturday that former prince Andrew should be removed from the line of royal succession over his “deplorable” behaviour. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is being investigated for alleged misconduct in public office following revelations about his dealings with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He was arrested and released in February on suspicion of having passed confidential information to Epstein during his 2001-2011 role as a UK trade envoy. “There is a process in order to do it….but I certainly think his actions which are deplorable and have caused him to be stripped of his royal titles, certainly… necessitate his removal from the line of succession,” Carney told reporters in Tokyo. The Canadian PM was visiting Japan to hold talks with his counterpart Sanae Takaichi. The former prince — who was stripped of his royal titles last year over his alleged connections to Epstein — has denied all wrongdoing. Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, clai...

• Stages rare helicopter raid deep into Bekaa Valley, killing 41 • UN, Ghana condemn ‘war crime’ attack that wounded three peacekeepers BEIRUT: Israel warned Lebanon it would pay a “very heavy price” if it fai­l­­ed to control the Hezbollah group on Saturday, as Israeli forces pounded the Beirut with airstrikes and mounted a deadly airborne raid in the country’s east. The warning came as the cross-border conflict, which dragged Lebanon into a wider Middle East war on Monday following Hezbollah’s retaliation after Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayat­ollah Ali Khamenei, escalated sharply. On Saturday morning, more buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut lay as mounds of smoking rubble and twisted metal, Reuters video showed, after heavy Israeli bombardment that followed an evacuation order for civilians. ‘A night of hell’ Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, addressing Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun in a statement, said that if the Lebanese government failed to enforce a 2024 agreement to disarm Hezb...

Tankers are seen off the coast of Fujairah, as Iran vows to close the Strait of Hormuz.—Reuters KARACHI: Though Pakistan is not part of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, it is the first victim in the region as the government raised oil prices while the high-cost oil is still at sea; the 28-day stocks are being sold at prices yet to reach consumers. India kept petrol and diesel prices stable despite global price spikes, but LPG prices were increased. The Indian government has so far managed high import costs for crude. Trade and business people were disappointed with the sudden jump in oil and diesel prices by Rs55 per litre, while ordinary citizens were highly concerned about the ripple effects of this oil price hike. “The easiest way to extract money is to bomb the common citizens and destroy the already ailing economy,” said Syed Shakil, a textile industry worker. He said the textile industry was facing tough times and could face the most difficult times in the wake of the Middle East war. Industry p...

NEW YORK: A court in the United States held on Friday that a Pakistani man with alleged “ties to Iran was guilty of plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump” or other US officials in retaliation for the American military killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani, prosecutors said. Asif Raza Merchant allegedly sought to hire a hitman to assassinate a politician or a government official in the US, prosecutors said during the trial in a federal court in Brooklyn. Soleimani, the head of Iran’s foreign military operations, was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in Jan 2020. Iran has repeatedly vowed to avenge his killing. Merchant testified that he was forced into the plot to protect his family in the Iranian capital Tehran from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, adding that he thought he would get caught before anyone was killed, multiple media outlets reported. He said he was never ordered to kill a specific person, but added that his Iranian contact had mentioned three people in connection ...

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