Pakistan

Shayan* and his wife Aliya* spent the last couple of months preparing their travel plans, which included a potential Haj trip after a visit back home to their families in Pakistan. At least, this was the plan up until the end of March. Shayan, a PhD student in the US who lives with his wife and daughter, found himself concerned about his travel plans when the Trump administration started revoking student visas. While Shayan has been in the US since the first Trump administration took office, Aliya only joined him two years ago, with their daughter. Aliya reveals that when Trump was re-elected, Shayan grew extremely anxious and she was the one who kept re-assuring him that things would be alright. That was until the Trump administration’s sudden actions against foreign students, which led to hundreds of students and recent graduates having their visas revoked. As part of the crackdown, Trump’s team has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for universities and moved to deport students, while revoki...

'Intervention' of global powers necessary to facilitate talks with India, neutral probe: Dastgir

PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s greatest challenge at home has come from the country’s judiciary, not the opposition Democratic Party that remains leaderless and in disarray. The biggest blow to the US president’s trade policy was the ruling delivered by a federal court last month that declared illegal many tariffs he had imposed on countries across the world. Although the administration secured a temporary reprieve from an appeals court that paused the ruling, the legal battle is far from over. The appeal process has to play out and the case may even go to the US Supreme Court. Global financial markets welcomed the court order against tariffs but it leaves Trump’s trade plan hanging in the balance. Trump reacted furiously to the court of international trade’s decision calling it “wrong”, “political” and the “harshest financial ruling” ever. His officials went further, accusing judges of “judicial overreach” and an abuse of power to “usurp the authority of the president”. In fact, it was Trump who exceeded his emerg...

Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe, a potential presidential contender, was shot in Bogota on Saturday, according to the government and his party, as his wife said he was fighting for his life in hospital. The 39-year-old senator, who was shot during a campaign event as part of his run for the presidency in 2026, is a member of the opposition conservative Democratic Center party founded by former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The two men are not related. According to a party statement condemning the attack, the senator was hosting a campaign event in a public park in the Fontibon neighborhood in the capital on Saturday when “armed subjects shot him from behind. The party described the attack as serious, but did not disclose further details on Uribe’s condition. Videos on social media showed a man, identified as Uribe, being tended to after the shooting. He appeared to be bleeding from his head. Uribe’s wife Maria Claudia Tarazona wrote on her husband’s account on X that he was “fighting for his life”. Colombi...

RAWALPINDI: After the police enlarged the scope of their investigation to determine the real circumstance surrounding the murder of a toddler allegedly by her 10-year-old cousin in Ratta Amral, it emerged that the suspect was mentally unstable. This was revealed by the grandmother of the juvenile suspect during police investigation. The suspect’s mother had left her husband’s house, along with her two children, including the 10-year-old boy, and started living with her parents in Ratta Amral. She had left behind her two other children with their father who was an addict. The police investigated the family members of the suspect’s father to find out the motive behind the tragic death of one-year-old Maryam whose body was found in a sewerage line in Ratta Amral late Wednesday night. Initial postmortem examination suggested that sewage had entered her lungs and brain which caused her death. The little girl was laid to rest in a local graveyard on Thursday afternoon. Maryam’s grandmother, Musarat Bibi, said a lar...

CHAKWAL: Rizwan Abid, a dairy farmer, looked distressed as he vainly tried to make his prized bull stand up. The bull, sitting under the scorching sun, was unable to get up, as it was suffering from foot-and-mouth disease, a highly contagious viral illness wreaking havoc across Punjab for the last two months. The disease has emerged in the province just ahead of Eidul Azha, leaving buyers and sellers in a lurch. Since cattle markets across the province were not shut down to contain the disease, it has spread to many districts. “I have lost a cow and four calves due to this disease, and now my bull is fighting for his life,” Mr Abid told Dawn. His cattle pen is located on the outskirts of Chakwal, where he is rearing 13 animals, including cows and buffaloes. According to him, no government veterinarian ever visited his place for the vaccination. Ironically, the Chakwal livestock department is not even aware of the scale of the havoc that the FMD has been wreaking in Chakwal and Talagang. “Only one case has bee...

• Rs200,000 fine on govt vehicles for violating one way, Rs100,000 on private car drivers and Rs25,000 for motorcyclists • Driving without licence to cost Rs50,000 for four-wheelers, Rs25,000 for bikers • Meeting decides to ban four-seater rickshaws across Sindh KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to amend the motor vehicle law to increase traffic violation fines and ban four-seater rickshaws. After the amendments, wrong-way driving will cost a car driver Rs100,000 and motorcyclist Rs25,000. The decision to this effect was taken at a meeting, chaired by Home Minister Zia Ul Hassan Lanjar, to discuss amendments to the Motor Vehicles Rules. The meeting, attended among others by Excise Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla, law secretary, transport secretary and DIG Traffic, also approved mandatory fitness certification for both commercial and non-commercial vehicles, outsourcing vehicle fitness evaluations to third parties and a ban on the sale of paper car tints, fancy lights and sirens either online or at shops....

KARACHI: The city administration has imposed an eight-day ban on visiting five unguarded beaches due to high tides and rough sea conditions. The ban will remain in place till June 13 and it is applied to the Kannup, Sunerah, Mubarak Village, Turtle and Dua Chowk beaches. Official sources said there was no restriction on people to visit other city beaches, including Sandspit, Hawkesbay, Paradise Point and Seaview, as these beaches were guarded by lifeguards and law enforcers. Commissioner Syed Hasan Naqvi imposed the ban under Section 144 of the criminal procedure code on the request of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC). The order authorised the SHOs concerned to register FIRs under Section 188 of the Pakistan Penal Code against violators of the ban. The officials said that a ban on swimming at other beaches might be imposed in view of the monsoon season, when there was comparatively high tide there. Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2025

KARACHI: It is disappointing that only two Urdu films will be released on Eidul Azha. They are: Love Guru directed by Nadeem Baig and Deemak helmed by Rafay Rashdi. Although half-a-dozen Pakistani films hit the cinema screens on Eidul Fitr (five Urdu and one Punjabi), they did not manage to create a splash in the placid waters of our local movie scene. It is abundantly clear now that the only way for the film exhibitors and cinema owners to do business is by virtue of big Hollywood releases. For example, prior to Eidul Azha, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, the popular franchise starring Tom Cruise, did well at the box office. (It is difficult to ascertain the exact number that it has managed to attract because MI is still in theatres.) On Eidul Azha, too, a couple of major English language films — apart from a few Turkish projects dubbed in Urdu — will be there to compete with the Pakistani movies: Ballerina and Karate Kid: Legends. The former is a spin-off of the John Wick series and the latter a th...

Celebrities took to Instagram, sharing festive Eid ul Azha pictures with family

Tourist activity surges in country's northern regions

Hospitals at risk of becoming 'graveyards' within 48 hours if fuel shortage persists, warn Gazan health sources

ISLAMABAD: In a first-of-its-kind move, Engro Connect has acquired all 10,500 telecom towers owned and managed by Jazz. After obtaining approvals from relevant regulators, including the Competition Commission of Pakistan, and clearing all cases in the Islamabad High Court, the $560 million deal has materialised. Jazz, the largest telecom operator in the country, has become the first telecom to offload all of its telecom towers. Deodar, the cell-site tower management subsidiary of Jazz, has been sold to Engro Connect. However, Jazz will pay rent for all the cell sites installed at these towers to Engro Connect, a subsidiary of Engro Corp. Move to establish ‘cells’ of multiple telecom operators at a single tower The deal was one of the most significant private-sector infrastructure transactions in the country’s digital evolution. Jazz was currently using around 14,500 telecom towers; other tower companies, including Engro Enfrashare, the largest independent tower infrastructure company in Pakistan, and Edotco m...

KARACHI: The growing adoption of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Pakistan is set to reshape the energy landscape — enabling a more decentralised and consumer-centric system, even as it poses significant challenges to the existing grid infrastructure. This was highlighted in a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), titled “Battery Storage and the Future of Pakistan’s Electricity Grid”. According to the report, the adoption of BESS is being driven by both off-grid and on-grid solar photovoltaic (PV) installations. Pakistan imported 27.6 gigawatts of solar PV modules between FY19 and FY24, with an additional 5.2GW imported in the first half of FY25. However, it is estimated that only half of the total imported capacity is currently installed across the country, and at least 11.5GW of this capacity exists off-grid. “It is unlikely that all rooftop and captive solar consumers will adopt battery storage systems because of the high upfront costs,” said the report. If al...

• Pin high hopes for a major relief in upcoming budget • Wheat growers alone suffer Rs2.2tr losses since May 2024 LAHORE: The Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) has issued a stark warning regarding an escalating agricultural crisis that has gripped the nation since May 2024, resulting in unprecedented financial losses for farmers and a severe downturn in the country’s vital agricultural sector. According to data compiled by the PKI, farmers have collectively sustained a staggering compound loss of approximately Rs2,200 billion in wheat alone between May 2024 and May 2025. This colossal figure represents a significant 23.15 per cent of the total crop sector’s contribution to GDP, which stood at Rs9,500 billion for FY24. The immense financial strain has severely curtailed farmers’ purchasing power, consequently hindering productivity across other critical crops. “The agricultural sector, the backbone of our economy, is teetering on the brink,” stated Khalid Mahmood Khokhar, President of Pakistan Kissan Ittehad. “The...

US Defense Secretary warns Marines may be deployed if unrest continues in California

Muslim world celebrates Eid under shadow on Israel's onslaught on Gaza

Olivia Rodrigo surprises fans with a duet alongside David Byrne at Governors Ball after a weather delay in the set.

Officials confirmed a minor was detained as inquiries intensify.

Greta Thunberg, 11 others expect Israeli interception as humanitarian aid vessel nears Gaza