Pakistan

Authorities halt illegal mining activity near revered Hindu religious site

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The retreat from Russia by Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Grande Armée in 1812 was a cataclysmic event that marked the beginning of the end for his empire and personal dominance in Europe, with about 300,000 soldiers perishing in a force that originally numbered roughly half a million. A new study involving DNA extracted from the teeth of 13 French soldiers who were buried in a mass grave in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius along the route of the retreat is offering a deeper understanding of the misery the Grande Armée experienced, detecting two pathogens not previously documented in this event. The discovery of the bacteria that cause paratyphoid fever and louse-borne relapsing fever showed, alongside previous work, that several infections had circulated among soldiers already enfeebled by cold, hunger and exhaustion. The Vilnius site, discovered in 2001, contains the remains of approximately 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers from Napoleon’s army. “Vilnius was a key waypoint on the 1812 retreat route. Many soldiers arri...

Thousands afflicted by respiratory, skin, eye problems

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Raise concerns over exclusion of poor, claim bias in survey process

Girl was presented before the bureau's special magistrate on Monday

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The roof of a sprawling rice mill in the eastern district of commercial capital Karachi is covered with sky blue solar panels soaking rays under the broiling midday sun. The mill is one of thousands of industrial units across Pakistan that have shifted to solar energy to counter rising electricity tariffs and frequent power outages in recent years. The South Asian country of around 255 million people has witnessed a solar uptake, particularly over the past two years, after an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout forced Pakistan to sharply raise power and gas tariffs to support struggling suppliers in the heavily indebted energy sector. From pharmaceuticals to cement manufacturers in Karachi, to textile units in Faisalabad, and from supermarkets to mosques in Lahore, solar panels paired with lithium batteries have been adopted as an alternative to electricity from the national grid. “We were left with no other choice but to go for solar energy, as the power bills had literally become unpayable for industr...

On October 23, the red walls of the Institute of Business Management (IoBM), a private varsity in Karachi, reverberated with chants and slogans. “We want justice,” roared hundreds of students gathered at the entrance of the varsity’s main administration block. “We came here to study, not to fight for basic justice,” read a yellow placard, the only one visible in the sea of protesters, all of whom were students. The demonstration, touted as one of its kind in the university’s three-decade-long history, created a storm on social media, with some terming it the ‘power of Gen Z’. The phrase, which echoed across the world a couple of times this year, soon manifested: days after the protest, the university reinstated the female student, who had been expelled after she attempted to file a harassment complaint against a staff member. The reinstatement was announced minutes before a larger protest was scheduled to take place outside the varsity today, in anticipation of which the institution had been shut for a week —...

Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Monday lauded the Pakistan military’s contributions towards regional peace and security in a meeting with Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Asim Munir on Monday, according to the military’s media wing. A statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said the army chief is currently on an official visit to Jordan and called on the Jordanian king for a meeting, with Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II also present. The ISPR said both dignitaries discussed matters of mutual interest, with a particular focus on enhancing bilateral cooperation in defence and security, and exchanging perspectives on regional developments. “His majesty appreciated the professionalism and contributions of the Pakistan Armed Forces towards regional peace and stability and expressed his desire to further strengthen defence collaboration between the two brotherly countries,” the ISPR said, adding that the army chief conveyed warm regards from Pakistan’s people, government and military...

Climate change is one of the toughest opponents facing any athlete, warns Brazilian soccer player Tamires Dias, one of around 40 elite sportsmen and women involved in the launch of a new global campaign that will feature at next month’s COP30 summit in her country. Dias, who played in two Women’s World Cups, has been joined by the likes of Brazilian tennis player Beatriz Haddad Maia, surfer Maya Gabeira, Romanian Olympic swimmer David Popovici and former England soccer player Raheem Sterling to support Adapt2Win. With climate change already impacting elite sport, the global multimedia campaign launched on Monday and backed by the Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust, is urging governments to prioritise investment in climate adaptation ahead of COP30. Dias, 38, describes the challenges of playing soccer in Brazil, where extreme heat and damaging rains pose challenges, and says adapting to climate change is no longer optional. “In sport, we learn to adapt every day — to new teams, new tactics, new opponents. But...

The government on Monday hailed the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority’s (Nepra) recent decision to slash K-Electric’s multi-year tariff, saying it will reduce the “additional burden on taxpayers” and that the move was not against the interests of Karachi’s power consumers. Last week, Nepra reduced KE’s multi-year tariff for the fiscal year 2023-24 by Rs7.6 per unit, from Rs39.97 to Rs32.37. KE warned that the move will have “far-reaching consequences for its stakeholders, including consumers”. Shares of KE, Pakistan’s only privatised and foreign-owned electricity utility, plunged on the stock exchange following the tariff cut, as investors sold heavily. According to a Dawn report, KE’s foreign owners are threatening to take the government to an international litigation forum. Analysts have warned that the tariff revision and regulatory uncertainty could hurt the company’s finances. In a subsequent statement today, the Ministry of Energy’s Power Division termed those opinions a “malicious campaign”....

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Monday met with Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, where the two discussed the country’s political landscape, PPP’s media cell said. The meeting comes amid political turmoil in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) after 10 legislators — all elected on PTI tickets in the July 2021 general elections — announced on Sunday that they were joining the PPP, which has been eyeing the premier’s slot in the region. This has significantly increased the likelihood of the PPP becoming the ruling party. In a post on X today, the PPP said that Bilawal met with the JUI-F chief at his residence in Islamabad today, where the two “discussed the country’s political landscape”. The PPP chairman was accompanied by PPP leaders Nayyar Hussain Bukhari, Humayun Khan and Jamil Soomro, while JUI-F’s Mualana Asad Mahmood attended the meeting as well. Separately, state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported that the two leaders “exchanged views on national issues and othe...

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday decided to keep the key interest rate unchanged at 11 per cent as policymakers weighed the impact of recent floods and higher food prices on inflation. “The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to keep the policy rate unchanged at 11 per cent in its meeting held on October 27, 2025,” the SBP announced in a post on social media platform X. A monetary policy statement, issued shortly after the announcement on X, said the MPC noted during the meeting that headline inflation “rose significantly” to 5.6pc in September, whereas core inflation remained unchanged at 7.3pc. Regarding the rise in headline inflation, the statement said, “This largely reflected the expected flood-induced increase in food prices; an uptick in energy prices; and sticky core inflation”. The MPC observed that, unlike previous flood episodes, the recent surge in food prices appeared to be milder than anticipated earlier, the statement said, adding that this was reflected by the “recent slowdown in...

Reviewed on PlayStation 5; available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC Battlefield is one of those games that, once you play it, it’ll sit in your memory for ages. Few games on the market offer the experience the first-person shooter (FPS) franchise is known for: combined arms warfare — infantry and ground vehicles, naval vessels and aircraft — combined with very destructible in-game environments. Between 2010 and 2020, Battlefield was the primary competitor to the now wayward juggernaut that is Call of Duty. If you wanted a high-budget military shooter, it was a pick between these two. I remember Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 well from 2011, and how the former’s multiplayer experience blew the latter’s out of the water. Sadly, Battlefield lost its way in 2021 when EA released the abysmal Battlefield 2042. I remember playing the open beta shortly before its launch four years ago and I was greeted by more bugs than in a rainforest. Screen flickering, players’ parachutes not closing an...