Pakistan

ISLAMABAD - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) successfully facilitated the repatriation of 268 Pakistani nationals from Iraq yesterday.

A fresh controversy has erupted within the Islamabad High Court (IHC) as Justice Babar Sattar raised serious objections to the recently notified Islamabad High Court Rules 2025, calling them “legally unauthorised” and “unconstitutional.

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Tuesday said that Pakistan and the US will continue to strengthen their economic partnership as both sides agreed to advance negotiations on reciprocal tariffs through constructive engagement, state-run Radio Pakistan reported. Pakistan faces a potential 29 per cent tariff on its exports to the US due to a $3 billion trade surplus with the world’s biggest economy, under tariffs announced by Washington in April on countries around the world. While speaking at an event in Islamabad today, Aurangzeb said he had a constructive and positive conversation with the US Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, last night. He said that both countries are moving in the right direction. “The government will stay the course of reforms in taxation, energy and other sectors,” he said. “We have also carried out tariff reforms to move towards competitive economy.” Aurangzeb continued that both sides agreed to advance negotiations on reciprocal tariffs through constructive engagement, aiming to...

QUETTA - Two people were martyred and 11 others injured on Monday when a bomb planted in a motorcycle exploded in the Barkhan district of Balochistan province.

Pakistan and the United States have agreed to expedite efforts to finalize a trade agreement focused on tariff-related matters, the Ministry of Finance said in an official statement.

Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, NI (M), Chief of Army Staff (COAS), is on an official visit to United States.

ISLAMABAD - Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar yesterday received a high-level delegation from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), headed by Abdullah Nasser Lootah, Deputy Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Competitiveness and Knowledge Exchange.

The US Department of Defence on Monday awarded OpenAI a $200 million contract to put generative artificial intelligence (AI) to work for the military. San Francisco-based OpenAI will “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains”, according to the department’s posting of awarded contracts. The programme with the defence department is the first partnership under the startup’s initiative to put AI to work in governments, according to OpenAI. OpenAI plans to show how cutting-edge AI can vastly improve administrative operations such as how service members get health care and also cyber defenses, the startup said in a post. All use of AI for the military will be consistent with OpenAI usage guidelines, according to the startup. Big tech companies are increasingly pitching their tools to the US military, among them Meta, OpenAI and, more predictably, Palantir, the AI defense company founded by Peter Thiel, the conservative tec...

MULTAN - Justice Malik Javed Iqbal Wains of Lahore High Court Multan Bench has ordered Pakistan Post to reinstate a contract employee with back benefits observing that he was terminated from service by the respondents on the basis of their erroneous interpretation of the orders of the Islamabad High Court.

KARACHI: The board of directors of Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd (FFCL) has approved the submission of an expression of interest (EoI) and pre-qualification documents to the Privatisation Commission for acquiring stakes in Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Ltd, along with a comprehensive due diligence process. FFCL shared this development in a stock filing on Monday. The 234th board meeting of FFCL was held on June 13, at which the decision to acquire PIA shares was taken. The government last month extended the deadline to submit EoI for buying PIACL until June 19 from June 3 deadline with all terms and conditions remaining the same. In a surprising turn of events, the People’s Unity of Pakistan International Airlines employees’ union, which had previously opposed the privatisation of PIA, has now submitted a bid to the Privatisation Commission to acquire shares of PIA and gain management control. While submitting the EoI, the joint letter, signed by the central president of People’s Unity of PIA Emp...

The federal government has initiated contact with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), a key coalition partner, to seek its support for the passage of the federal budget for the fiscal year 2025-26.

ISLAMABAD - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Monday issued notices in appeals of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) supporters against their sentence awarded in Ramna police station attack, arson and siege case of May 9.

• Health, education get major allocations • Govt employees’ salaries up by 10pc • Minimum pay raised to Rs40,000 • 50,000 families to get house loans • Lahore remains priority for development schemes • Credible plan to boost tax revenues missing LAHORE: The PML-N government in Punjab on Monday proposed a Rs5.33 trillion annual budget for the fiscal year 2025-26, focusing primarily on large infrastructure schemes and freebies for the urban middle classes, especially the youth, as well as small industries and farmers to regain the political ground it had lost in its stronghold in the 2024 election. The budget features a record Rs1.24tr Annual Dev­elop­ment Programme (ADP), which is Rs240 billion or 25pc greater than the federal Public Sector Development Progr­amme (PSDP), and commits to produce Rs740bn in estimated provincial surplus to meet a key IMF goal to hold down consolidated federal budget deficit. The Provincial Consoli­dated Fund also includes a one-time income of Rs160bn under the head of ‘supernume­r...

The Balochistan government is set to present its budget for the next financial year in the provincial assembly today.

A local sessions court in Islamabad on Monday granted a four-day physical remand of 22-year-old Umar Hayat, the prime suspect in the brutal murder of TikToker Sana Yousuf.

• WWF-P adviser suggests the marine mammal may have died after becoming entangled in gillnets • The most recent sighting of the world’s largest mammal was off the coast of Gadani in April last year KARACHI: A 35-foot-long blue whale was found dead in the Arabian sea, in a remote area called Gwater Bay, between Pakistan and Iran, on Monday. According to officials representing the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan), local fisherman Ahmad Baloch spotted the dead whale floating near Kuntani, Balochistan. “It is likely that the whale may have died a few days back in the open sea between Pakistan and Iran and drifted towards the Gwater Bay by rough sea and strong currents,” said Muhammad Moazzam Khan, technical adviser at the WWF-Pakistan. He added that while the exact cause of the death could not be ascertained, the marine mammal might have gotten entangled in gillnets, commonly used in the coastal and offshore waters in the area for fishing. Classified as an endangered species, blue whales, scient...

PAKISTAN is on the front lines of the global climate crisis, yet continues to approach the challenge with a troubling mix of policy confusion, underfunding, and institutional weakness. The country remains among the most climate-vulnerable in the world, without contributing even 1pc to GHG emissions. From the devastating floods of 2022 that affected over 33m people, to the recurring heatwaves, droughts and water shortages, the evidence is everywhere. What remains missing is a credible, well-resourced plan to take these challenges head-on — a plan rooted in data, foresight and political commitment. The recently unveiled federal budget once again reveals the contradictions that have long plagued our climate policy. While the government claims to prioritise climate resilience, its actual allocations tell a different story. Only Rs85bn has been allocated to adaptation — the category that includes essential interventions such as disaster preparedness, food and water security, early warning systems, and climate-resi...

ISLAMABAD: Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar on Monday observed that the Constitutional Bench (CB) will never hand out a decision in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge’s seniority dispute that may invite criticism that the top court had amended the Constitution on its own. The observation came when senior counsel Barrister Salahuddin Ahmed, on behalf of five IHC judges, highlighted changes in the IHC Administrative Committee. At this, Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan raised an objection, stating that the issue raised by the counsel was not challenged by anyone before the CB, nor can it be discussed in rebuttal arguments. Headed by Justice Mazhar, a five-judge CB had taken up a joint petition filed by five IHC judges — Justices Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Babar Sattar, Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan and Saman Rafat Imtiaz – pleading that three transferred judges should not be treated as IHC judges until they take a fresh oath under Article 194, read in conjunction with Schedule III ...

LAHORE: PTI leader Imran Khan’s refusal to undergo forensic procedures, including a lie detector test, could adversely aff­ect his case during May 9 trials, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) judge has ruled. In a written order, ATC-I Judge Manzer Ali Gill noted that the prosecution’s case heavily relied on digital evidence, which will be presented during the trial. The written order was issued after the judge dismissed the prosecution’s plea for more time to conduct forensic tests on Mr Khan. The judge remarked that Mr Khan’s decision to decline these polygraph and photogrammetric (fac­ial and voice analysis) tests appeared to be a deliberate tactic to shield himself from the implications of the prosecution’s evidence. The accused will likely challenge the digital evidence during the trial by simply saying it was not analysed or verified through forensic means. “Ultimately, this refusal of the accused may go against him,” the judge remarked. The police had visited Adiala Jail twice to conduct tests on Mr Khan, bu...

• New Delhi possessed 172 warheads in 2024, 180 in 2025 • SIPRI data says Pakistan continues development of new delivery systems, accumulation of fissile material ISLAMABAD: India is adding to its nuclear stockpile, while Pakistan continues the development of new delivery systems, according to an annual report by a Swedish armament watchdog. The arms race in South Asia is a microcosm of the “dangerous new nuclear arms race” that is emerging across the globe, as nearly all nuclear-armed states continued to modernise their arsenals in 2024, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said. In its annual yearbook, SIPRI warned that the nine nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — are not only upgrading existing stockpiles, but also developing new nuclear weapons, amid the steady erosion of international arms control agreements. The report highlights the continuing deterioration of global security, exacerbated by war...