Pakistan

Amazon will invest more than $233 million in India in 2025 to expand and update its operations infrastructure, develop new technology for its fulfilment network and improve delivery safety, it said on Thursday. The investment builds on top of Amazon’s prior investments for the creation of an operations network to deliver to all serviceable PIN-codes in the country, it added. In June 2023, the e-commerce major — which competes with Walmart’s Flipkart and billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail in India — had said it will take its investments in the country to $26 billion by 2030, without providing a breakdown. The new investment will be used to launch new sites and upgrade existing facilities across its fulfilment and delivery network, improving speed and processing capacity, it said. Additionally, Amazon plans to use technology to alert delivery associates about unsafe speeds and ensure equitable distribution of delivery routes. Some of the funds will also be used to expand initiatives to improve the heal...

Strongly condemning the unjustified and illegitimate aggression by Israel against Iran, Pakistan on Thursday urged the international community and the United Nations to bear the responsibility to uphold international law, stop this aggression immediately, and hold the aggressor accountable for its actions.

The Supreme Court’s Constitutional Bench on Thursday announced its verdict in a case pertaining to the seniority and transfer of Islamabad High Court (IHC) jud­ges, declaring that their transfers were not unconstitutional. The bench — headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and comprising Justices Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Shahid Bilal Hassan, Salahuddin Panhwar and Shakeel Ahmed — took up petitions filed by five IHC judges, the Karachi Bar Association (KBA) and the IHC Bar Association, among others. In February, Justice Sardar Mohammad Sarfraz Dogar from the Lahore High Court (LHC), Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro from the Sindh High Court (SHC) and Justice Muham­mad Asif from the Balochistan High Court (BHC) were transferred to the IHC. The controversy centres around the alteration of the judges’ seniority list after these transfers as Justice Dogar was made the senior puisne judge, which paved the way for his appointment as the acting IHC chief justice after Justice Aamer Farooq’s elevation to the SC. Today’s judge...

India will send the black box recovered from the recent fatally crashed Air India plane to the US for analysis, local newspaper Economic Times reported on Thursday, citing people aware of the development. “The recorder sustained heavy external damage from post-crash fire making it impossible to extract data in India,” the ET report said, citing people aware of the development. India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. Indian authorities are investigating the crash of an Air India Boeing Dreamliner, which last week killed 241 people on board and at least 30 on ground, marking the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade. The black box consists of two components — the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder (CVR). It provides crucial insights for crash investigators, including altitude and airspeed data and pilot conversation records that help determine probable causes of crashes. Data from the flight data recorder will be extra...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Adviser, Barrister Dr Saif, has strongly criticised Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, accusing her of attempting to falsely portray herself and her father, Nawaz Sharif, as national icons without a genuine public mandate.

Mohammad Hassan anxiously returned to Pakistan from Iran this week after witnessing drones, missiles and explosions tear through Tehran’s sky during what he called long, “horrifying nights”. The 35-year-old University of Tehran student is one of about 3,000 Pakistanis who, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have returned home since Israel launched its aerial war against its long-time enemy last week. Governments around the world are scrambling to evacuate their nationals caught up in the rapidly spiralling conflict as Israel and Iran trade missile and drone strikes. “I was in the city centre where most of the strikes took place and even one of the student dormitories was attacked and luckily no one was dead, but students were injured,” Hassan said. Pakistani students walk across the Pakistan-Iran border after returning from Iran in Taftan, Balochistan, on June 19. — AFP There are more than 500 Pakistani students at his university alone, he said, all of them on their way “back home”. “Those days and...

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the second phase of the 'Clinics on Wheels' project in Lahore today.

Greenpeace on Thursday warned that an oil spill resulting from a tanker collision off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) could have grave environmental consequences, after authorities reported a “small” slick. On Tuesday, the Emirati coastguard said it rescued 24 crew members of the Adalynn oil tanker after it collided with the Front Eagle vessel in the Gulf of Oman, off the coast of the Khor Fakan area of the UAE. “Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has warned of a potential environmental disaster after two crude oil tankers collided,” the group said in a statement. The environmental campaign group said satellite imagery indicated a “large plume of oil stretching up to around 1,500 hectares from the site of the crash”. The group said the Adalynn was part of a Russian “shadow fleet”, which it described as “a collection of partially obsolete tankers that operate below basic security standards and carry Russian oil”. Security analysts say Russia uses the fleet of ageing vessels to circumven...

Another patient died of Congo fever on Thursday in Karachi, as the number of fatalities from the disease reached two this year in Sindh, a statement from the district health officer in Malir said. Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), commonly known as Congo Virus, causes severe viral hemorrhagic fever outbreaks with a case fatality rate of 10-40 per cent, according to the World Health Organisation. There is no vaccine available for the disease. Per experts, the CCHF virus is primarily transmitted to people either by tick bites or through contact with infected animal blood or tissues during and immediately after slaughter. In April, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued an advisory urging the prevention of Congo fever ahead of Eidul Azha. A 25-year-old man, Zubair, a fisherman from Ibrahim Hyderi, passed away on Thursday morning, a day after the disease was confirmed, said a report by DHO Malir Dr Imdad Ali Chandio. The victim butchered animals continuously for two days on June 7-8 during Eid. On J...

Director General of ISPR, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhary, on Thursday described the success of Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos as a triumph for peace, reaffirming that Pakistan has always prioritised peace over conflict.

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday conducted a hearing on bail petitions filed by former Prime Minister Imran Khan in eight separate cases linked to the May 9 riots.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday held a farewell meeting with the outgoing Country Director of the World Bank in Pakistan, Najy Benhassine.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has forecast a spell of pre-monsoon rains across the country from June 20 to 23, as moist currents from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea begin penetrating the region.

Pakistan has crossed a major milestone in digital connectivity, with telecom subscribers exceeding 200 million, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) announced.

In a rare and high-level diplomatic engagement, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir met with former US President Donald Trump over lunch at the White House Cabinet Room on Wednesday.

Two people, including a woman, were killed and 11 others injured on Thursday after unidentified men opened fire at a group of people returning from a funeral in Chashma Ganda area of Gumbat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kohat district, according to a police official. Kohat District Police Officer (DPO) Dr Zahidullah Khan said initial police investigation suggests that the attack was motivated by personal enmity. The injured, along with the deceased, have been shifted to a nearby hospital for medical treatment and legal formalities, according to DPO Kohat. Further investigation is underway to apprehend the assailants. On Wednesday, two people were killed and one was injured during a shooting incident in Karachi’s Ittehad Town due to personal enmity between the two sides. Last month, a man and his two sons were shot dead by unknown armed men in KP’s Mardan district. While in a separate incident in May, six people, including three women, lost their lives in an exchange of fire over a family feud in the Khatko Pul area...

The federal government has decided to launch a strict crackdown on sugar hoarders and market manipulators in an effort to control the artificial surge in prices.

US President Donald Trump and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir discussed joint counterterrorism efforts and expanding bilateral trade during their “cordial” meeting in Washington, the military’s media wing said on Thursday. Gen Munir met with Trump at the White House yesterday, becoming the first serving chief of army staff to have a face-to-face meeting with a sitting US president. The occasion also marked the first time a serving Pakistani army chief had been formally received at this level, without holding political office or governing under martial law. The high-level engagement was scheduled at the Cabinet Room over luncheon, followed by a visit to the Oval Office. Secretary of State Senator Marco Rubio and Special Representative for Middle Eastern Affairs Steve Witkoff were present during the meeting from the US side, while National Security Advisor Lt Gen Muhammad Asim Malik — also the intelligence chief — accompanied the COAS. “Although initially scheduled for one hour, the mee...

Pakistan says it has expelled more than a million Afghans in the past two years, yet many have quickly attempted to return — preferring to take their chances dodging the law than struggle for existence in a homeland some had never even seen before. “Going back there would be sentencing my family to death,” said Hayatullah, a 46-year-old Afghan deported via the Torkham border crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in early 2024. Since April and a renewed deportation drive, some 200,000 Afghans have spilled over the two main border crossings from Pakistan, entering on trucks loaded with hastily packed belongings. But they carry little hope of starting over in the impoverished country, where girls are banned from school after the primary level. Hayatullah, a pseudonym, returned to Pakistan a month after being deported, travelling around 800 kilometres (500 miles) south to the Chaman border crossing in Balochistan, because for him, life in Afghanistan “had come to a standstill”. He paid a bribe to cross the Chaman fronti...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Ishaq Dar held separate telephone conversations with his counterparts from Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom to discuss regional and bilateral issues, according to official statements.