Pakistan

Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Tahir Hussain Andrabi said on Thursday that Islamabad and New Delhi exchanged the lists of their respective nuclear installations, continuing the annual practice under an agreement signed between the two nations in 1988. Under the Agreement on the Prohibition of Atta­cks against Nuclear Insta­llations and Facilities, signed on December 31, 1988, both countries committed to annually share information about their nuclear installations and facilities. The agreement took effect from Jan 27, 1991, and the annual exchange has been taking place on the first day of every year since 1992. In continuation of the practice, the exchange took place today as well, Andrabi said during the FO’s weekly briefing. “A list of nuclear installations and facilities in Pakistan was officially handed over to the representative of the Indian High Commission in the Foreign Office today. “I understand that the Indian government is also sharing the list of Indian nuclear installations with our High Commis...

A total of 128 journalists were killed around the world in 2025, more than half of them in the Middle East, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said on Thursday. The grim toll, up from 2024, “is not just a statistic, it’s a global red alert for our colleagues,” IFJ general secretary Anthony Bellanger told AFP. The press group voiced particular alarm over the situation in the Palestinian territories, where it recorded 56 media professionals killed in 2025 as Israel’s war with Hamas ground on in Gaza. “We’ve never seen anything like this: so many deaths in such a short time, in such a small area,” Bellanger said. Journalists were also killed in Yemen, Ukraine, Sudan, Peru, India and elsewhere. Bellanger condemned what he called “impunity” for those behind the attacks. “Without justice, it allows the killers of journalists to thrive,” he warned. Meanwhile, the IFJ said that across the globe, 533 journalists were currently in prison – a figure that has more than doubled over the past half-decade. Ch...

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday said 446 lawmakers — including 125 members of the National Assembly — failed to submit their statements of assets and liabilities with the ECP by the due date — set at December 31. In a press release issued today, ECP notified the lawmakers who had missed the earlier deadline to submit their statements by January 15, and said that “as many as 446 lawmakers failed to submit their statements of assets and liabilities” with the ECP by the due date. Out of these, 125 lawmakers are members of the National Assembly, 26 Senators, 159 members of the Punjab Assembly, 62 members of the Sindh Assembly, 48 members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly and 26 members of the Balochistan Assembly. The commission said that members of the parliament and provincial assemblies were required to submit a copy of a statement of assets and liabilities by Dec 31, including assets and liabilities of their dependents. It stated that the submission was a mandatory requirement unde...

Pakistan’s consumer price inflation slowed to 5.6 per cent year-on-year in December, while prices fell every month, official data showed on Thursday. The data comes after the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) cut its key policy rate by 50 basis points to 10.5pc last month, breaking a four-meeting hold, in a move that surprised markets. All analysts polled by Reuters had expected rates to remain unchanged at the December meeting. Inflation eased from 6.1pc in November and marked a sharp slowdown from levels that peaked above 30pc in 2023, according to official data. Lower prices of perishable food items helped drive the monthly decline, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said, with food prices falling 1.7pc month-on-month in December, led by declines in both urban and rural areas. The finance ministry had said on Wednesday that inflation was expected to remain moderate at 5.5-6.5pc in December. The SBP has said that inflation stayed within its 5-7pc target range during the July-November period, but warned that...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has expressed deep sorrow over the tragic fire incident at a ski resort in Switzerland on New Year night.

ISLAMABAD: The PTI submitted a reference to the Senate chairperson on Thursday, seeking the disqualification of Senator Saifullah Abro for defecting from party line and voting in favour of the 27th Constitutional Amendment. PTI Senator Ali Zafar posted about the development on his X account, saying: “Saifullah Abro went against party line by voting in favour of the 27th Constitutional Amendment, for which a reference for his disqualification has been filed.” The reference, moved by Zafar, invoked Article 63-A of the Constitution, which deals with disqualification on grounds of defection. “The declaration is being submitted for onward reference to the chief election commissioner for laying the same before the election commission in accordance with the said Article 63-A,” the reference, dated January 1 and seen by Dawn, said. It added that a meeting of the PTI was convened before voting on the 27th Amendment, in which it was “explicitly decided and communicated to all PTI senators in writing” that they were to ...

A total of 21 monkeypox cases have been reported at Mayo Hospital, Lahore, over the past six months, according to hospital officials.

A US citizen has hunted a grey goral for the first time in Pakistan’s history under a trophy hunting permit, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife Department said on Thursday.

Every time I open my “For You” feed on Instagram, I’m ushered into a parallel classroom: informal, intimate, and oddly generous. Young girls and boys who look my age and live inside the same algorithmic present lean into their cameras, handing me bite-sized context to systemic injustices, climate disasters, and political upheavals. One tells me why women stay in abusive relationships long after the myth of “choice” collapses, unpacking trauma bonds and survival instincts with the precision of a psychology lecture delivered from a bedroom floor. Another explains the systematic oppression of women in Afghanistan and how bans on their work, movement, and education have collapsed into sanctioned violence, compressing years of repression into three lucid minutes of a GRWM (get ready with me) reel. I first learned the language of geopolitics and settler colonialism here as a lived, continuous process instead of an abstract academic concept. Someone casually recommended ‘Decolonisation is not a metaphor’ by Eve Tuck...

A few days after concluding a three-day visit to Lahore aimed at launching Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) street movement, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi announced on Thursday that he will travel to Karachi on January 9.

A meeting chaired by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has decided to expand the scope of the Islamabad Safe City Project on modern lines.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Yahya Afridi has reaffirmed the judiciary’s firm commitment to safeguarding fundamental rights, upholding the rule of law and ensuring the delivery of justice in a fair, impartial and timely manner.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) reached a new milestone on Thursday as the benchmark KSE-100 Index crossed the psychological barrier of 176,000 points, continuing its upward momentum in the New Year.

Pakistan and India have exchanged lists of their nuclear installations and facilities, as well as details of prisoners held in each other’s custody, in accordance with long-standing bilateral agreements.

Jawed Akhtar Odho, currently serving as Karachi Additional Inspector General of Police, has been appointed as the new Inspector General of Police (IGP) Sindh following the relinquishment of charge by Ghulam Nabi Memon.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Dr Yasmin Rashid has decided to approach the court against the Lahore election tribunal’s decision in the NA-130 constituency case.

KARACHI: At least 28 people were injured in celebratory aerial fire during New Year celebrations in the metropolis, Edhi said on Thursday. Incidents of aerial firing are a routine occurrence on occasions such as Independence Day and New Year’s Eve. Last year, over two dozen citizens were wounded in celebratory aerial firing According to the information given by Edhi, a total of 28 people were brought to hospitals across the city after suffering injuries from stray bullets, with the youngest victim being 11-years-old. Sixteen people were brought to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), including a 32-year-old man from North Nazimabad, a 16-year-old boy and an 18-year-old man from Mehmoodabad, a 24-year-old woman from Qayyumabad, and a 71-year-old man from Manzoor Colony. An 18-year-old man from Korangi, a 24-year-old man from Azam Town, a 55-year-old man and an 18-year-old man from Saddar were also brought to the hospital. A 33-year-old woman from Gulistan-i-Johar Block 2, a 43-year-old woman from Scheme ...

Zohran Mamdani, the young upstart of the US left, was sworn in early on Thursday to take over as New York mayor for a four-year term sure to see him cross swords with US President Donald Trump. The 34-year-old Democrat took his oath of office at an abandoned subway stop under City Hall just after midnight to take the helm of the United States’ largest city. He will be New York’s first Muslim mayor. His office said the understated venue beneath City Hall reflected his commitment to working people, after the 34-year-old Democrat campaigned on promises to address the soaring cost of living. NBC News reported that Mamdani took the oath with his hands on two copies of the Holy Quran — one belonging to his grandfather and the other from the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture. View this post on Instagram “Happy New Year to New Yorkers, both inside this tunnel and above,” said Mamdani, standing beneath a vaulted ceiling with the words City Hall over his head. “This is truly an ho...

In his New Year’s message, Supreme Court Chief Justice Yahya Afridi has said that the judiciary will “pursue meaningful reforms” in 2026 in a bid to improve accessibility, reduce delay and strengthen transparency in the justice system. In a message posted on the Supreme Court’s website, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Afridi conveyed his greetings to the people, members of the judiciary and the legal fraternity on the new year. “In the coming year, the judiciary will pursue meaningful reforms aimed at improving accessibility, reducing delay, strengthening transparency, and responsibly leveraging technology in the service of justice,” he said. He said that the efforts would be guided by “a clear focus on outcomes that matter most to the public — timely decisions, understandable processes, and courts that are approachable and humane”. CJP Afridi maintained that it was the judiciary’s responsibility to “ensure that justice is not only done, but is seen to be done — fairly, impartially, and without delay“. “This ...

Intermittent rainfall continued in Islamabad and several parts of Punjab on Thursday, further intensifying cold weather conditions across the region.