Pakistan

Run-machine Travis Head hit a swashbuckling 163 and Steve Smith a composed unbeaten 129 as Australia built a 134-run lead over England to seize control on day three of the fifth and final Ashes Test on Tuesday. It was destructive opener Head’s third ton of the series, to go with the phenomenal match-winning 123 he made in Perth and 170 at Adelaide. Smith was equally impressive, with his first hundred of the series driving the hosts to 518-7 by stumps at a packed Sydney Cricket Ground in reply to England’s 384. Beau Webster was alongside him on 42 at the close. Australia lead the series 3-1 and have already retained the Ashes, with England desperate for another morale-boosting win after victory at the previous Test in Melbourne. “Nice batting wicket out there. Nice to start my innings on the back of a great innings from Travis Head,” Smith told Fox Sports. “When you’re out there with him they forget about you and I was able to get into my work. Worked out well today.” Head brought up three figures off just 105...

Pakistan’s largest irrigation system, the Sukkur Barrage, has been shut down for 15 days from January 6 to January 20 for its annual cleaning, renovation and repair work, officials said on Monday.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) officials have requested permission from the city administration to hold a public meeting in Karachi during Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi’s visit.

LAHORE: A local sessions court on Tuesday extended the pre-arrest bail of content creators Rajab Butt and Nadeem Mubarak alias Nani Wala in a case pertaining to the promotion of gambling apps on social media. Strict security arrangements were made by the police when the two reached the court along with their lawyers. Additional District and Sessions Judge Mansoor Ahmed presided over the hearing, during which the counsel for the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) stated that the investigating officer was busy with proceedings before the Lahore High Court (LHC). Therefore, the NCCIA counsel asked the court to allow time for producing the record. Subsequently, Judge Qureshi extended the bail of both TikTokers till January 26 and directed the NCCIA to present the record at the next hearing. The judge had earlier allowed Butt and Mubarak to leave the courtroom after marking their attendance. The content creators are no strangers to legal trouble. In September 2025, Butt was booked by the NCCIA for a...

Pakistan and Bangladesh’s air chiefs held detailed discussions on the “potential procurement” of JF-17 Thunder aircraft, Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Tuesday. The JF-17 Thunder multi-role fighter was jointly developed by China and Pakistan. The fighter has proved its combat capabilities during two military conflicts with India in 2019 and 2025. The press release issued by ISPR said Bangladesh Air Force Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan called on Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar Sidhu in Islamabad. The Bangladeshi air chief led a high-level defence delegation during the visit, it said. “The meeting focused on strengthening operational cooperation and institutional synergy, with emphasis on training, capacity building, and collaboration in aerospace advancements,” it said. According to the press release, the visiting air chief was accorded a guard of honour. Air Chief Marshal Sidhu briefed his Bangladeshi counterpart on PAF’s recent advancements and reaffirmed P...

All private schools and colleges across Sindh will remain closed on January 9 as the Grand Alliance of Private Schools Associations has announced a province-wide strike against the ongoing verification drive being carried out by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE).

Azerbaijan has no intention of sending a contingent of its troops to take part in peacekeeping operations outside its borders, including in Gaza, President Ilham Aliyev said late on Monday. Aliyev, interviewed by Azeri television channels, said Azerbaijan had been in contact with Donald Trump’s US administration with a list of questions about the operation of a peacekeeping force in Gaza, the proposed International Stabilisation Force (ISF). “We prepared a questionnaire of more than 20 questions and provided it to the American side. No participation in peacekeeping forces is envisaged,” Aliyev said. “I am not considering participation in hostilities outside Azerbaijan at all.” An Azeri government source had said last November that Azerbaijan would provide no troops for such an operation unless there was a complete halt to fighting between Israel and Hamas. Meanwhile, diplomats involved in the discussions told Dawn on Monday that despite deep reservations and fears of domestic backlash, most Muslim-majority co...

Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti on Tuesday announced that the Levies Force has been legally merged into the Balochistan Police.

The Punjab Bar Council (PBC) on Tuesday restored the practising licence of Advocate Mian Ali Ashfaq, who is representing YouTuber Rajab Butt in various legal proceedings.

Human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday said the 27th Constitutional Amendment was the “crescendo of a concerted and sustained attack on the independence of the judiciary, right to fair trial and the rule of law in Pakistan”, calling for an urgent review of the legislation. The 27th Amendment, passed by Parliament after five days of heated debate, opposition protests, and last-minute revisions, was widely criticised for abolishing judicial independence through the formation of a Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) and introducing changes to the military leadership structure by rewriting Article 243 of the Constitution (command of the armed forces). In a statement issued on Tuesday, the rights body said the Amendment was a “crescendo of a concerted and sustained attack on the independence of the judiciary, right to fair trial and the rule of law in Pakistan”. It called on authorities to conduct an urgent review of the Amendment to “ensure that all its provisions fully comply with Pakistan’s internat...

Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry will hold a press conference today (Tuesday).

Adviser to the Prime Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Tuesday that the PTI founder and his wife must strictly abide by court orders, stressing that no individual was above the law.

A 21-year-old student of a private university sustained critical injuries after allegedly attempting suicide by jumping from the second floor of a campus building, police said on Monday.

The federal government is set to seek the rollover of $3 billion in deposits from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), official sources said on Tuesday.

BANNU: The former nazim of Bannu district’s Domel tehsil, Fida Muhammad Khan Wazir, was injured in a bomb blast outside his office on Tuesday. Asif Hassan, the Bannu police spokesperson, confirmed the incident to Dawn, saying that a pre-installed improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated at the office gate in the Domel Bazaar area. Soon after it was reported, a heavy contingent rushed to the scene, cordoned off the area and formally initiated an investigation. Police and local sources said the explosion occurred outside the main gate of the former nazim’s office in Domel Bazaar. At the time of the blast, Wazir was present in his vehicle and sustained minor injuries, they said. As a result of the explosion, his vehicle was completely destroyed, while the office gate and the surrounding area also suffered damage, they added. It is worth mentioning that Wazir has previously played a leading role in peace movements against terrorism and remained at the forefront in forming tribal lashkars to establish peace...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi is scheduled to visit Karachi from January 9 to 11, during which he will tour various parts of Sindh and lead his party’s political activities in the province.

The Balochistan High Court (BHC) on Tuesday suspended a notification transferring powers under Sections 22-A and 22-B of the Criminal Procedure Code to commissioners and deputy commissioners.

The pace of development across Punjab’s cities and villages is set to accelerate further as Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif chaired a high-level meeting to review progress on major urban and rural development initiatives.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said on Monday she plans to return home “as soon as possible,” and slammed the interim president in Caracas. In her first public comments since a social media post over the weekend, when the US military forcibly removed and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro, the Nobel Peace Prize winner vowed to return to her country. She had left Venezuela last month to travel to Norway to accept the award, and hasn’t returned since. “I’m planning to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,” Machado told broadcaster Sean Hannity on Fox News, speaking from an undisclosed location. Machado openly rejected the country’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, saying she “is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narcotrafficking”. Rodriguez, who has signalled her willingness to cooperate with Washington, was Venezuela’s vice president under Maduro. Machado said Rodriguez is “rejected” by the Venezuelan people, and voters were on the opposition’s side. “In ...

KARACHI: The World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P) has called upon the government to keep a vigil on the introduction of exotic fish species in the country and to establish quarantine facilities for keeping fish species imported for aquaculture and aquarium trade. The organisation issued a statement on Monday, describing invasive fish species a looming threat to aquatic biodiversity and fisheries economy after an unusual fish was brought to the Karachi Fish Harbour from Sukkur on Sunday and no one there was able to identify it. “It was an Amazon sailfin catfish. This fish, which has thick armoured body covered with bony plates, is an exotic fish that has an exotic species accidently introduced into natural water bodies and is spread in the provinces of Sindh and lower Punjab,” the WWF-P said, adding that the catfish is native to Latin America and is popular around the world as an aquarium fish. It said: “This species is among the 26 invasive fish species that have been introduced in Pakistan accidentall...