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Dawn - 14:45 Jun 11, 2025
Pakistan has long been struggling with the gradual disappearance of its rare wildlife species due to a lethal mix of environmental and human-induced factors, including habitat destruction, dwindling water resources, pollution and poaching. Among these vanishing species is the endangered Indus fishing cat, found mostly in the Indus River Delta and surrounding buffer areas, where its numbers have dropped dramatically over recent decades. Habitat loss, food scarcity, hunting and growing human populations have significantly impacted this rare feline, which plays a vital role in maintaining the balance of aquatic ecosystems, according to experts. “The past two decades have appeared to be disastrous for this environment-friendly animal, mainly because of the destruction of wetlands and killings by local people,” Saeedul Islam, a senior wildlife expert, told Anadolu. Although official surveys have yet to determine precise figures, Islam explained that conservative estimates suggest the cat’s population in the countr... -
Dawn - 14:00 Jun 11, 2025
Syria’s government has decreed that women should wear burkinis or other swimwear that covers the body at public beaches and swimming pools, while permitting Western-style beachwear at private clubs and luxury hotels. The tourism ministry decision issued this week marks the first time the Damascus authorities have issued guidelines related to what women can wear since Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December. During the Assad family’s iron-fisted rule of Syria, which was shaped by a secular Arab nationalist ideology, the state imposed no such restrictions, though people often dressed modestly at public beaches, reflecting conservative norms. The new requirements were set out in a wider decree dated June 9, which included public safety guidelines for beaches and swimming pools ahead of the summer, such as not spending too long in the sun and avoiding jellyfish. It said that beachgoers and visitors to public pools should wear “appropriate swimwear that respects public decency and the feelings of different segment... -
Dawn - 13:51 Jun 11, 2025
United States and Chinese officials said on Tuesday they had agreed on a framework to put their trade truce back on track and remove Beijing’s export restrictions on rare earths while offering little sign of a durable resolution to longstanding trade differences. At the end of two days of intense negotiations in London, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters the framework deal puts “meat on the bones” of an agreement reached last month in Geneva to ease bilateral retaliatory tariffs that had reached crushing triple-digit levels. But the Geneva deal had faltered over China’s continued curbs on critical minerals exports, prompting the Trump administration to respond with export controls of its own preventing shipments of semiconductor design software, aircraft and other goods to China. Lutnick said the agreement reached in London would remove some of the recent US export restrictions, but did not provide details after the talks concluded around midnight London time (4am PKT). “We have reached a fra... -
Dawn - 13:42 Jun 11, 2025
United States Central Command (Centcom) commander Army General Michael Kurilla on Wednesday praised Pakistan as a “phenomenal partner in the world of counter-terrorism”, citing the nation’s struggle against terrorism in Balochistan and against terrorist groups like the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K). Pakistan and the US reaffirmed the continuation of counter-terrorism cooperation during a dialogue in Washington on May 10. The dialogue underscored the cooperation between the two countries in addressing the most pressing challenges to regional and global security, including the threats posed by terrorist outfits such as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and IS-K. The two nations are slated to have another counter-terrorism dialogue this month. During a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington on Tuesday, the general was asked about the situation on the Afghan border with Pakistan, where he outlined that Pakistan has apprehended several “high-value” IS-K operatives. View this post on Instagram Hail... -
Dawn - 12:56 Jun 11, 2025
Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) hit an all-time high of 124,000 points on Wednesday as the proposed federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year was well-received by investors for being “neutral-to-positive”. Maintaining an aggressive stance on fiscal consolidation, as required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government yesterday still managed to offer some notional relief to the salaried class in the budget for FY2025-26, along with incentives for the real estate and construction sectors to revive the struggling industrial sector and stimulate economic growth. While there had been uncertainties surrounding the taxation measures ahead of the budget announcement, the PSX remained bullish yesterday and gained nearly 400 points to cross the 122,000 point-mark, just before the budget was presented in the National Assembly. The benchmark KSE-100 index crossed the 124,000-point barrier at around 11am. It then witnessed a slight decline before resurging to 124,588.17 points at 3:30pm — 2,5... -
Dawn - 12:54 Jun 11, 2025
Former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Wednesday lambasted India for attempting to “sabotage President Donald Trump’s peace efforts” in South Asia, stressing that Pakistan was willing to solve all issues through dialogue. His statement came against the backdrop of Pakistan’s recent conflict with India triggered by a deadly April 22 attack on tourists in Occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam. New Delhi, without evidence, accused Islamabad of backing the attackers — an allegation that led to a four-day military escalation between the two nuclear-armed countries before the United States brokered a ceasefire on May 10. To present Pakistan’s stance on the escalation and dismiss Indian propaganda, the government constituted a high-level delegation, chaired by Bilawal, to visit major world powers. After holding meetings in the US, the delegation is now in the United Kingdom, after which it will head to the Belgian capital of Brussels to hold talks with the members of the European Commission. Addressing a press conf... -
Dawn - 12:52 Jun 11, 2025
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will undertake an official visit to the United Arab Emirates tomorrow (Thursday) to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest during some high-level meetings. Over the last few months, UAE expressed the country’s commitment to strengthening its long-standing partnership with Pakistan and announced a $2 billion debt rollover soon after. In April, the two nations signed and exchanged multiple memoranda of understanding (MoU) to further strengthen the bonds between the people of both nations. A press release issued by the Foreign Office today said that the visit reflected the “deep-rooted fraternal ties” between Pakistan and the UAE, marked by mutual trust, shared values, and close cooperation across multiple sectors. “The PM will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, federal ministers, and other senior officers,” the press release said. “PM Shehbaz will hold high-level meetings with the ... -
Dawn - 12:45 Jun 11, 2025
Iran threatened on Wednesday to target United States military bases in the region if conflict breaks out, while US President Donald Trump said he was “less confident” about reaching a nuclear deal. Iran and the United States have held five rounds of talks since April to thrash out a new nuclear deal to replace the 2015 accord that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018. Since returning to office in January, Trump has revived his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran, backing nuclear diplomacy but warning of military action if it fails. “All its bases are within our reach, we have access to them, and without hesitation we will target all of them in the host countries,” Iran’s Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said in response to US threats of military action if the talks fail. “God willing, things won’t reach that point, and the talks will succeed,” the minister said, adding that the US side “will suffer more losses” if it came to conflict. The United States has multiple bases in the Middle East, with th... -
Dawn - 12:29 Jun 11, 2025
A fire broke out at a petrochemical complex in southern Iran on Wednesday, killing at least three people, state television reported. “Given the scale of the incident, the number of injuries and deaths is likely to increase,” the broadcaster added, airing images of smoke rising from the Kaveh Petrochemical Complex in Bushehr province, 1,200 kilometres south of Tehran. The governor of Dayyer county, Alireza Sajadi, told the television that the fire had broken out in the complex’s dedicated port but “has been contained”. The director general of crisis management for Bushehr province, Kourosh Dehghan, said “an explosion and fire resulting from a welding operation” led to the casualties. The fire comes little more than a month after a massive blast at Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas killed 58 people and caused extensive damage. Officials blamed it on “negligence”. -
Dawn - 11:36 Jun 11, 2025
Posts from PTI supporters on multiple social media platforms on Tuesday shared a clip of PTI’s interim Chairman Barrister Ali Gohar allegedly urging overseas Pakistanis to participate in a protest on June 14 against the army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir. However, the video is a deepfake and he has not issued any such message. A senior trade delegation from Pakistan is due in Washington this week for talks with United States officials on the recently imposed American tariffs and related economic issues, diplomatic sources told Dawn. The PTI claims that Field Marshal Asim Munir would visit Washington around the same time, something that neither the US nor Pakistani officials have confirmed. While official dates for these visits are being withheld due to political sensitivities, the PTI, which has long opposed the current Pakistani establishment, has announced plans to stage large-scale demonstrations during the visit. In a tweet posted over the weekend, PTI’s Secretary for Overseas Affairs, Sajjad Burki, cal... -
Dawn - 10:28 Jun 11, 2025
Greenland’s ice sheet melted 17 times faster than the past average during a May heatwave that also hit Iceland, the scientific network World Weather Attribution (WWA) said in a report Wednesday. The Arctic region is on the frontline of global warming, heating up four times faster than the rest of the planet since 1979, according to a 2022 study in scientific journal Nature. “The melting rate of the Greenland ice sheet by, from a preliminary analysis, a factor of 17… means the Greenland ice sheet contribution to sea level rise is higher than it would have otherwise been without this heat wave,” one of the authors of the report, Friederike Otto, associate professor in climate science at the Imperial College London, told reporters. “Without climate change this would have been impossible,” she said. In Iceland, the temperature exceeded 26 degrees Celsius on May 15, unprecedented for that time of year on the subarctic island. “Temperatures over Iceland as observed this May are record-breaking, more than 13 degrees... -
Dawn - 10:26 Jun 11, 2025
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and Donald Trump’s former adviser, said on Wednesday he regretted some of his recent criticisms of the United States president, after the pair’s public falling-out last week. “I regret some of my posts about President [Donald Trump] last week. They went too far,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X. Musk’s expression of regret came just days after Trump threatened the tech billionaire with “serious consequences” if he sought to punish Republicans who voted for a controversial spending bill. Their blistering break-up — largely carried out on social media before a riveted public since Thursday last week — was ignited by Musk’s harsh criticism of Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful” spending bill, which is currently before Congress. Some lawmakers who were against the bill had called on Musk — one of the Republican Party’s biggest financial backers in last year’s presidential election — to fund primary challenges against Republicans who voted for the legislation. “He’ll ... -
Dawn - 07:03 Jun 11, 2025
In an attempt to provide eco-friendly transport facilities, the Sindh government has decided to purchase more buses and allocate funds for electric vehicle (EV) taxis and scooters in the upcoming fiscal year 2025-26. Sindh government has reaffirmed its commitment towards addressing Karachi’s urban mobility and transport issues. With a population of 20 million, the metropolis faces rampant infrastructure issues ranging from transport, water and sanitation. The decision was made in a meeting chaired by Minister for Transport and Mass Transit Sharjeel Inam Memon and attended by Secretary Transport Asad Zamin, Sindh Mass Transit Authority (SMTA) Managing Director Kamal Dayo and TransKarachi CEO Fuad Ghaffar Soomro among other officials. During the meeting, a comprehensive review of various projects under the provincial transport and mass transit department, including People’s Bus Service, EV scooters, and other issues were discussed. The meeting also discussed establishing charging stations for EV vehicles at var... -
Dawn - 06:47 Jun 11, 2025
• Next year’s revenue target set at Rs14.13tr • Provinces’ contribution helps Centre outperform fiscal target, record lowest budget deficit in a decade • Subsidy allocations have been reduced by 14pc • Reduced debt servicing drives expenditure containment of nearly Rs2.26tr • Generous tax relief, incentives for construction sector • Fuel levy, electricity surcharges to rise next year • Tough crackdown planned on non-filers, tax evaders • Development spending squeezed to cut deficit ISLAMABAD: Maintaining an aggressive stance on fiscal consolidation, as required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Tuesday still managed to offer some notional relief to the salaried class in the federal budget for fiscal year 2025-26, along with incentives for the real estate and construction sectors, in an effort to revive the struggling industrial sector and stimulate economic growth. At the same time, however, the government announced it was imposing a ‘carbon levy’ of Rs2.5 per l... -
Dawn - 05:58 Jun 11, 2025
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has rejected the budgetary proposals, alleging that the proposed budget for the upcoming financial year has been prepared by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The party arrived at this conclusion after discussing the budgetary proposals for financial year 2025-26 at a meeting of the parliamentary party, which was attended by PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, leader of the opposition in National Assembly Omar Ayub Khan and leader of opposition in Senate Shibli Faraz among others. Calling the PML-N government “illegitimate”, the participants were of the opinion it had no authority to present the budget. They said the PTI would never accept the budget proposals as the IMF had allegedly prepared them. They alleged that relaxations were proposed for the elite, while the less privileged were crushed. The PTI leaders also criticised the ‘biased role’ of the NA speaker. The party decided that if the national broadcaster/PTV failed to air speeches by lawmak... -
Dawn - 05:44 Jun 11, 2025
US Department of State on Wednesday reiterated US President Donald Trump’s resolve to work on the Kashmir dispute, saying each step that he takes “is made to solve generational differences between countries”. Donald Trump had offered to work on the Kashmir issue after he brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after the two nations’ most intense military confrontation in decades. In a message lauding the countries’ leaders for achieving peace, he remarked, “I will work with both of you to see if, after a ‘thousand years’, a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir.” Responding to a question on the steps US plans to take in the wake of Trump’s offer, State Department’s spokesperson Tammy Bruce during a White House press briefing noted, “So, while I can’t speak to his plans, the world knows his nature, and I can’t speak to any details of what he might have in that regard,” adding that the White House would have plenty to say about the matter. She further said, “[Trump] has been the only one to brin... -
Dawn - 03:03 Jun 11, 2025
• Up to 80pc tax relief for salaried individuals earning Rs600,000-1.2m annually • Minimal relief for top salary brackets earning above Rs4.1m • 1pc surcharge reduction for income above Rs10m to curb brain drain • Super tax cut by 0.5pc for companies earning Rs200m-500m • Pensions above Rs10m to be taxed at 5pc • Cash withdrawal tax for non-filers increased to 1pc from 0.6pc ISLAMABAD: The government has announced sweeping tax reforms in the federal budget 2025-26, offering tax cuts of up to 80 per cent for low-income salaried individuals while limiting relief for higher earners to just 3pc. A new 5 per cent tax has also been proposed on high-value pensions exceeding Rs10 million annually. The focus of the budget seems to balance sectoral relief, expand tax scope, achieve equitable burden-sharing, and introducing strong enforcement measures. The government expects the digital taxation framework, carbon levies and tax enforcement on e-commerce and digital transactions to help Pakistan adapt to global financi... -
Dawn - 21:08 Jun 10, 2025
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Tuesday unveiled Pakistan’s annual federal budget in a charged National Assembly session, outlining ambitious proposals to drive 4.2 per cent economic growth in the coming fiscal year while cutting back on overall spending and tightening tax measures. As the session — chaired by NA Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq — commenced, opposition lawmakers erupted into anti-government slogans. Starting his speech, the finance minister said the budget 2025-26 was being presented at a “historic moment” marked by national unity and resolve, referencing the recent Pakistan-India conflict. “The spirit with which we protected our national sovereignty, we need to ensure our financial security the same way,” he maintained, continuing his speech through the noisy session. “Pakistan has now achieved economic stability and is moving towards a Pakistan that is prosperous.” View this post on Instagram Budget outlay The federal budget for fiscal year 2026 has a total outlay — the sum of expenditures ... -
Dawn - 19:44 Jun 10, 2025
The provincial government on Tuesday said it has decided to implement strict rules to improve traffic flow and prohibit parking on Karachi’s I.I. Chundrigarh Road — often known as the city’s “Wall Street” — to tighten traffic regulation enforcement and improve road safety. Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah issued the instructions after receiving a briefing on traffic management in the metropolis, a statement issued by his spokesperson, Abdur Rasheed Channa, said. According to the statement, parking will be prohibited on I.I. Chundrigar Road, beginning from Shaheen Complex to the Merewether Tower. CM Shah also directed the authorities concerned to ban parking for all types of vehicles from Muhammad Bin Qasim Road to Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road up to the S.M. Law College. I.I. Chundrigar Road, a major road in the city’s central business district, is often referred to as Karachi’s “Wall Street”. The road is a significant financial hub, serving as the location for the Pakistan Stock Exchange, major banks, and other ... -
Dawn - 19:23 Jun 10, 2025
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb presented the budget for fiscal year 2025-26 on the floor of the National Assembly on Tuesday amid a routine protest by the opposition. Pakistan’s budget for the upcoming year aims for GDP growth of 4.2 per cent and sets an ambitious tax collection target at Rs14,131 billion. Relief for the salaried class Most awaited among the rumoured announcements was some relief for the country’s much-burdened salaried class across all income slabs, according to the finance minister. “This relief will not only simplify the tax structure but will also ensure a balance between inflation and take-home pay by reducing the tax burden on middle-income earners,” he said. The minister also announced a 10pc increase in salaries to government employees from Grade-1 to Grade-22. Proposed changes in income tax: People earning Rs600,000-Rs1.2 million: tax reduced from five per cent to 2.5pc People earning Rs1.2m to be charged Rs6,000 instead of Rs30,000 People earning upto Rs2.2m: tax reduced to 11p...
7934 items