Pakistan

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will visit Bahrain from November 26-67 in a visit aimed at deepening linkages with the gulf country, the Foreign Office (FO) said on Tuesday. In a press release issued today, the FO said: “The visit is expected to reinforce the traditionally warm and cordial ties, identify new avenues of partnership, and deepen people-to-people linkages, contributing to mutually beneficial cooperation. “This official visit underscores Pakistan’s continued engagement with the Kingdom of Bahrain, aimed at fostering a results-oriented and strategic partnership between the two countries.” It added the visit reaffirmed the “longstanding and multifaceted relationship” between the two countries. The FO said PM Shehbaz will hold high-level engagements with Bahrain’s leadership to further enhance bilateral cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, energy, technology, education, and culture. He will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq D...

The Pakistan Navy on Tuesday conducted a successful test of an indigenously developed ship-launched anti-ship ballistic missile, according to the military’s media affairs wing. According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the weapon system is capable of engaging targets both at sea and on land “with high precision”. “The system is equipped with state-of-the-art guidance and advanced manoeuvrability features,” the ISPR said in a statement. “The flight test was witnessed by Admiral Naveed Ashraf, Chief of the Naval Staff, senior scientists and engineers.” The ISPR deemed the successful test launch “a testimony to Pakistan’s technological prowess and Pakistan Navy’s unwavering commitment to safeguard national interests”. View this post on Instagram According to the statement, President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Shamshad Mirza and service chiefs congratulated the participating u...

United States Army Secretary Dan Driscoll held talks late on Monday and Tuesday with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi as part of an intense new push by President Donald Trump’s administration to end the war in Ukraine, Driscoll’s spokesperson said. US and Ukrainian officials are trying to narrow the gaps between them over a peace plan, with core issues still unresolved and Ukraine wary of being strong-armed into accepting a deal largely on the Kremlin’s terms. “Late Monday and throughout Tuesday, Secretary Driscoll and team have been in discussions with the Russian delegation to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine. The talks are going well and we remain optimistic. Secretary Driscoll is closely synchronised with the White House … as these talks progress,” said US Army Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Tolbert, a spokesperson for Driscoll. The exact nature of the discussions was not immediately clear, and it was not known who was in the Russian delegation. A US official said that Driscoll, who has emerged as a point man fo...

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House witnesses chaos as treasury blames Centre

Attackers' photographs, fingerprints forwarded to NADRA; body parts sent for DNA testing

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Victim claims he was dragged into police van, maltreated at police station

The Punjab government has announced a series of postings and transfers following the recent promotions of several officers.

Pakistan’s atmosphere is “almost clear” of the ash plume from a volcanic eruption in Ethiopia, Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) spokesperson Anjum Nazeer Zaighum said on Tuesday, adding that the ash cloud was now present over parts of India. The Hayli Gubbi volcano, located in Ethiopia’s Afar region about 800 kilometres northeast of Addis Ababa near the Eritrean border, erupted for several hours two days ago. The eruption sent a column of ash and smoke rising nearly 45,000 feet into the atmosphere. The dangerous ash plume from the eruption had drifted across the Red Sea and disrupted operations on one of the world’s busiest air routes. By Monday, the plume had spread east over Yemen and Oman and was tracking toward the airspace of Pakistan and India, forcing airlines to cancel flights or fly costly detours. The Met Office spokesperson said the ash plume was first detected in Pakistan about 60 nautical miles south of Gwadar around 10am on Monday. Zaigham said the ash plume remained over areas in Pakist...

Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Sahir Shamshad Mirza has expressed his satisfaction over the combat readiness of Pakistan Air Force and the progress achieved through its modernization and up-gradation initiatives.

Alphabet’s Google and venture capital firm Accel will partner to fund at least 10 early-stage Indian AI startups, marking the US technology giant’s first such funding partnership, top executives at the companies said on Thursday. The move comes as several US tech firms like Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI make a beeline for the world’s most populous nation, seen as a critical growth market where nearly a billion users access the internet. Under the partnership, Google’s AI Futures Fund and Accel will co-invest up to $2 million in each startup, Prayank Swaroop, partner at Accel, told Reuters in an interview, with the investments focused on the wide areas of entertainment, creativity, work and coding. The announcement comes after Google in October said it would invest $15 billion over five years to set up an AI data centre in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, its biggest-ever investment in the country. Its AI Futures Fund, launched six months ago, has funded over 30 companies, including Indian webtoon s...

Outgoing Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Sahir Shamshad Mirza paid a farewell visit to Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Asim Munir at General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi, the military’s media wing said on Tuesday. During the meeting, the army chief commended General Mirza for his “exemplary leadership, strategic foresight, and dedicated service to the Pakistan Armed Forces”, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). “He (COAS) lauded the CJCSC’s pivotal role in enhancing tri-services synergy, strengthening joint operational preparedness, and advancing Pakistan’s national security objectives at the strategic level,” ISPR said. Furthermore, Field Marshal Munir also highlighted General Mirza’s contributions towards regional stability, military diplomacy, and the strengthening of Pakistan’s partnerships with friendly countries, as per ISPR’s statement. “General [Mirza] expressed gratitude to the COAS and the armed forces for the support extended during his c...

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Tuesday strongly objected to recent legislations aimed at reducing domestic violence, protecting children from child marriages, and safeguarding transgender community’s rights. On November 13, the National Assembly also passed a bill — awaiting the Senate’s approval — to protect people against domestic violence in Islamabad. A day later, the Balochistan Assembly adopted a bill to ban child marriages with a majority, amidst a protest by opposition lawmakers, including JUI-F’s Younis Zehri. In September, the Balochistan cabinet approved the province’s first-ever transgender policy to ensure the community’s social and economic inclusion. Addressing the media in Islamabad today, the JUI-F chief said, “Some legislation has been enacted regarding the marriage of children below the age of 18 years, regarding transgenders, and regarding domestic violence.” View this post on Instagram The Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill 2025 aims to es...

The forties may have gained a reputation for being the age when bad things happen to a woman’s body, but there is no magic to this number. Every woman goes through these physiological changes in their own time. The 40s is, however, the age when perimenopause is most likely to hit women, and it is good to know what changes to expect and how to combat them. Perimenopause can be loosely defined as the prep time that a female body takes to transition into menopause, and it is here that hormones such as oestrogen and progesterone start to destabilise. The most notable changes a woman faces physically at this time are weight gain, a deteriorating skin texture, and exhaustion. Doctors have noted that this particular weight gain is not just visible on the scale — it settles distinctly on the hips, giving the body a more rotund look. The loss of oestrogen and progesterone is directly responsible for saggy and more dehydrated skin, fine lines and the loss of skin suppleness due to decreasing collagen. Dr Kazi Azmiri Ho...

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan expressed disappointment over the party’s defeat in the by-elections, saying their mandate was still not being recognised.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Inspector General of Police (IG) Zulfiqar Hameed on Tuesday said the perpetrators of yesterday’s suicide attack on the Federal Constabulary (FC) Headquarters in Peshawar were likely Afghan citizens. Investi­gators and intelligence agencies are hunting for facilitators and support networks behind the attack, which saw three personnel embrace martyrdom and 12 sustain injuries. The attack, which began after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance, was swiftly repulsed as personnel engaged and shot his two accomplices dead before they could enter the installation to inflict any major damage. Questioned about the progress of the investigation and whether any evidence had come to the fore about the assailants being Afghan citizens, IG Hameed said: “We are saying this because, based on the evidence so far, when someone does not have a citizenship record, they are assumed to be Afghan or something similar.” He confirmed that authorities had identified the location where the terrorists spen...

Badruddin Umar, who died in Dhaka on September 7, 2025, at the age of 93, was often introduced as a Marxist theorist and a figure of the Bangladeshi left. That label never captured the real centre of gravity of his life’s work. His lasting contribution was scholarly. Umar left behind a meticulous body of English-language writing and translated work that gave international readers an empirically grounded view of East Bengal’s history, culture and class formation. The best of his English books and essays are neither slogans nor memoirs; they are archives in prose — dense with references, patient with evidence and consciously written to carry Bangladesh’s history beyond the limits of a single language community. For students of South Asia who read him first in English, Umar appears primarily as a historian of structures, a cartographer of class conflict and a translator who understood translation as an intellectual act. In the notice of his passing, Bangladeshi outlets described him as a public intellectual, res...