HD Viral Videos

THE past year was not a good one where deadly terrorist attacks go, for according to the military’s data, 2024 saw the highest number of civilian and military casualties in a decade. Much of this bloodshed is the handiwork of the banned TTP and other religiously inspired militants, though separatist groups in Balochistan also launched several major attacks. Now it seems that the state has decided to push back hard, going after militants in the worst-affected parts of KP. Since the start of 2025, numerous operations have been conducted in several KP districts. Two separate attacks occurred in North Waziristan, in which four personnel were martyred on Thursday. As per the military’s media wing, 13 terrorists were killed in the encounters. Moreover, around 30 terrorists have been killed in earlier operations. Counterterrorism action was also carried out on Friday. The military should continue its CT operations till all the affected areas are cleared of militancy. The state has a good...

ISLAMABAD: Brushing aside criticism over a proposed increase in their salaries, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has approved a major raise for parliamentarians. Although the raise amounts to an around 300 per cent increase, the government has justified it by comparing it with the salaries being drawn by federal secretaries. A source in the National Assembly Secretariat told Dawn that National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had notified the raise, following the prime minister’s approval. It has also been learnt that parliamentarians have received their revised salary for the month of January. Despite their political rivalries, members of treasury and opposition benches had shown rare unity on the issue of increase in their salaries and other perks during a recently held meeting of the National Assembly’s Finance Committee. The committee, headed by NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, approved the proposed increase of monthly salary of each MNA and senator to Rs519,000. Previously, lawmakers...

The government on Friday slightly raised the price of petrol by Re1 per litre and that of high-speed diesel (HSD) by Rs7 for the next fortnight. A press release from the Finance Division said the new prices were decided after Ogra reviewed and adjusted consumer prices for petroleum products given “recent fluctuations in the international oil market”. The new petrol price is Rs257.13 and that of HSD is Rs267.95. Any changes in the prices of light diesel oil and kerosene oil were not mentioned. Informed sources had earlier said the ex-depot petrol price was estimated to go up by Rs2-3 per litre depending on the final calculation today. Kerosene and diesel prices were estimated to rise by about Rs6 per litre. The estimates were based on the bullish trend in the international market. The Brent prices have risen by up to $2 per barrel last fortnight. These sources said the average prices of HSD increased by more than $2.50 per barrel in the international market while that of petrol i...

GWADAR: An alliance of different political parties, which had been protesting for the last 47 days in the port city of Gwadar, called off their sit-in on Thursday following successful negotiations with district authorities. The alliance has given the district administration one month to address the issues that prompted the protest. After the negotiations, a seven-point agreement was signed between both parties. As a result, the alliance leadership decided to end their sit-in protest until the month of Ramazan. During the talks, the district administration agreed to immediately implement the seven-point plan, which includes actions to combat illegal trawling, reduce load-shedding in Gwadar to provide 17 hours of electricity daily, allot a colony for local fishermen, accelerate ongoing projects in the town by the Gwadar Development Authority (GDA), and ensure an uninterrupted supply of clean water to residents. The negotiations were attended by Gwadar Additional Deputy Commissioner ...

RAWALPINDI: The Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Rawal­pindi bench has set aside a previous order in a case involving Attock Refinery Limited (ARL) and the federation of Pakistan, directing that the matter be reconsidered by a single judge of the high court. A division bench, comprising Justice Sultan Tanvir Ahmad and Justice Jawad Hassan, ruled on an intra-court appeal (ICA) filed by ARL against a Nov 10, 2020, order issued by a single judge in chamber. The court found that the previous ruling wrongly delegated the case to the Collector of Customs, who lacked jurisdiction to determine the constitutionality of a law. The case originated from ARL’s writ petition, which challenged the vires of Section 31(A) of the Customs Act, 1969, and Sections 6(1) and 6(1A) of the Sales Tax Act, 1990. Orders rehearing, rules Customs collector lacked jurisdiction Instead of addressing the constitutional challenge, the single judge referred the case to the Collector of Customs, a decision the LHC bench ...

KARACHI: Two workers were killed and five others injured in a “boiler explosion” inside a factory in the Port Qasim area on Thursday, police and hospital officials said. Malir SSP Kashif Abbasi told Dawn that a “boiler blast caused leakage of ammonia gas” causing injuries to seven people. They were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre(JPMC) where Nasir, 22, and Kamran, 28, were declared dead by doctors. Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed said they had sustained “chemical burns”. The injured were identified as Khalid, Tanveer, Hassan, Haneef and Usman. Three were taken to the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi while two others were admitted at the JPMC. Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2025 from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/xJScPkC

Incarcerated PTI founder and former prime minister Imran Khan has penned a letter to Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi, extolling the top judge to bring about an end to the “terror and brutality by the state and the suppression of democracy”, it emerged on Thursday. Titled “Meltdown of the constitutional order in Pakistan”, the letter, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com , was dated January 24 and signed from Adiala Jail where he is incarcerated. Following the arrest of the ex-premier on May 9, 2023, from the Islamabad High Court’s premises, riots erupted across the country and went on for at least 24 hours. The state subsequently launched a crackdown against him and his party, filing several other cases against Imran since the events of May 9, in many of which he has been acquitted. The period since has been one of political instability with the government and opposition at loggerheads with each other. “You are hereby called upon to exercise all powers veste...

THE Supreme Court faces a crisis of legitimacy. A growing chorus within the legal community has been calling for challenges to the 26th Amendment to be heard by a full court, but the appeal has fallen on deaf ears. There is increasing frustration over the complications created by the law, especially as it has begun interfering with the independent functioning of the judiciary. The growing public perception is that the judiciary has been hijacked by other branches of the state, with judges being appointed to senior positions not on the basis of individual merit but on what ‘services’ they may be able to offer in return for their appointments. While it would be unfair to believe such criticisms without supporting evidence, the fact remains that there has been very little effort on the part of the institution and its leadership to address such concerns in good faith. Recent remarks by one of the senior-most judges of the Islamabad High Court have underlined the fact that criticism o...

ISLAMABAD: After negotiations between the government and PTI hit a roadblock , the former has decided not to form judicial commissions for the May 9 and Nov 26 violent protests, instead proposing alternative options, including the formation of a parliamentary committee to investigate the incidents. Although the government’s negotiation team did not submit its replies to National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, who heads the dialogue committee, a source privy to the development told Dawn that the government had consulted legal experts and senior lawyers, who advised that judicial commissions could not be formed for cases that had already been decided or were being tried in courts. Anticipating the government’s position that forming judicial commissions was not feasible, PTI had already boycotted the highly-publicised negotiation process even before the fourth round of talks, which was scheduled for Jan 28. PTI had made its participation in the fourth meeting conditional on t...

KARACHI: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Tuesday announced that Pakistan will have a green taxonomy framework by April. Virtually speaking at the first day of the Pakistan Climate Conference, organised by the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), the minister said a green taxonomy framework would provide a rulebook for businesses to understand the classification system that defines and categorises economic activities or investments based on their environmental sustainability. It will guide investors in identifying and supporting activities that contribute to environmental objectives and hence be able to earn carbon credits and access green financing. “There is no dearth of financing,” said the finance minister, talking about the $9 billion pledges secured in Geneva following the 2022 floods. However, little of that financing materialised because of a lack of investable and bankable initiatives. Mr Aurangzeb mentioned Pakistan’s access to international f...

• Two soldiers martyred, five attackers neutralised as Qila Abdullah attack repulsed • Levies official gunned down in Turbat LAKKI MARWAT / QUETTA: Three terrorists were killed and nine others injured in an intelligence-based operation in Janikhel town of Bannu district, the army’s media wing said on Tuesday. In a statement, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said the operation was launched following reports of the presence of ‘khwarij’ (an official term used for banned outfits) in the area. It added that security forces effectively eng­a­ged the location, neutralising three terrorists and injuring nine others in the exchange of fire. The ISPR said a sanitisation operation was underway to eliminate any remaining militants, with security forces determined to eradicate terrorism from the country. Earlier, a Frontier Consta­bulary soldier was martyred when militants attacked an FC post in the Baran Dam area of Bannu district late on Monday night. An official source confirmed...

Islamabad High Court (IHC) senior puisne judge Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani on Tuesday said that the 26th Constitutional Amendment — which brought numerous changes pertaining to the judiciary — was based on “one letter”. Addressing the IHC Bar Association today, the judge lauded the efforts of Islamabad’s bar and lawyer bodies for preserving their rights and those of the nation. “Only with the law’s correct interpretation and implementation can you see Pakistan on the destination of progress. For that, legal changes, even if it is the 26th Constitutional Amendment, cannot dissuade you from your purposes. “Such stages have kept coming in Pakistan’s history but ponder this, that one letter has changed the entire system in Pakistan. I don’t need to mention it but you’re all witness that the 26th Constitutional Amendment is based on one letter. “To what extent this is sustained? I hope that at the end the full bench of the Supreme Court hears and this issue will be resolved for the pe...

MUZAFFARABAD: Senior officials of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) police held multiple rounds of meetings on Monday to ensure that suspects involved in the firing on the convoy of AJK Legislative Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar were brought to justice. According to a statement, Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq condemned the attack and directed the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the chief secretary to take swift and decisive action against perpetrators. In the wake of the incident, SSP Muzaffarabad Riaz Haider Bukhari visited Speaker Akbar in his chamber on Monday. “This is not about me as an individual; it is about the sanctity of the third most important constitutional office of the state. If the speaker’s life is not secure, it sends a chilling message of insecurity to the common people,” the speaker told the district police chief. The SSP assured him of swift action. AJK PM orders action against assailants Later, SSP Bukhari attended a high-level meeting ch...

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Rawalpindi on Monday rejected an acquittal plea by PTI founder Imran Khan in a case concerning the attack on the army’s General Head­quarters during violent protests on May 9, 2023. The May 9 protests turned violent as supporters torched and vandalised state buildings and military installations, prompted by the arrest of the PTI founder in a corruption case. Following the event, the government launched a crackdown on PTI leaders and supporters, following which several arrests were made. However, many of the leaders were granted bail. Imran was indicted in the case on December 5 last year. The PTI founder, who has been incarcerated in Adiala Jail since August 2023, was arrested by the Rawalpindi police in the May 9 protest case in January 2024. He, however, filed an application seeking acquittal. ATC Judge Amjad Ali Shah presided over a hearing for the case today. The prosecution argued that the trial was still ongoing and the testimony of 12 wit...

IN his efforts to restore America’s supposed greatness, Donald Trump has launched a crackdown on migrants — mostly undocumented but also some with papers. Soon after re-entering the White House a week ago, the US president signed a raft of executive orders designed to deliver on his campaign promises. These orders have included the rounding up of migrants signalling the start of what the White House press secretary has termed “the largest massive deportation operation in history”. Moreover, a ‘Muslim ban-plus’ has been announced; it goes even further than the 2017 order, which prevented citizens from certain Muslim-majority countries from travelling to the US. Foreign students in America who dare to speak up for Palestine also risk being put on a plane back home. Also, the US president has frozen the asylum and refugee programmes; at least 25,000 Afghans waiting to move to the US in Pakistan now find themselves in limbo . For Mr Trump and his MAGA support base, these moves ar...

WASHINGTON: Pete Hegseth narrowly secured enough votes on Friday to become the next US defence secretary, a major victory for President Donald Trump after fierce opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans to his controversial nominee. Hegseth was confirmed after a 50-50 vote in the Senate, when Vice President JD Vance came to the chamber to break the tie in his role as president of the Senate, after three Republicans joined every Democrat and independent in voting no. Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and decorated veteran, is promising to bring major changes to the Pentagon. But his leadership will be under intense scrutiny after a bruising confirmation review that raised se­­rious questions about his qualifications, temperament and views about women in combat. Hegseth is the most divisive candidate to clinch the US military’s top job, a position that has historically gone to candidates with deep experience running large organisations and who enjoy broad bipartisan s...

ONE step forward, two steps back. That had been the progress so far in long-awaited negotiations between the opposition PTI and the ruling coalition, but all talks have now been called off by the PTI’s incarcerated founder after a ‘raid’ on an allied lawmaker’s residence. Following the raid, former prime minister Imran Khan decided on Thursday that the government was being ‘non-cooperative’ and, therefore, there was little to be gained from continuing negotiations with it. One wonders if he was a tad impatient in making that call. After all, his party had previously announced that talks would be given a chance at least till the end of January , after which it would take decisions regarding its next steps forward. The government, too, had promised to respond to the PTI’s written demands by Jan 28 and had repeatedly asked the party not to abandon the committee set up for parleys between the two political camps. It was, no doubt, a poor play by the authorities to sanction a raid...

ISLAMABAD: Member of the National Assembly Junaid Akbar Khan, belonging to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), was unanimously elected as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) during a meeting on Friday. JUNAID Akbar Khan The position had been vacant since the February 2024 general elections, which brought the PML-N government to power. The election process was completed over a month after NA Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had asked both sides of the aisle in the lower house of parliament to nominate candidates for the PAC chairmanship within a week. The PAC chairmanship is usually held by leader of the opposition or their nominee, though there is no legal requirement for this parliamentary tradition. The Friday election followed nominations by senior political figures, including PML-N’s chief whip Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly Omar Ayub Khan, and Leader of the Opposition in Senate Shibli Faraz. These nominations were supported by othe...

US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would like to get rid of the main federal agency that responds to natural disasters during a visit to areas of North Carolina that were devastated by Hurricane Helene in September. Trump, on his first trip since reclaiming the presidency on Monday, accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) of bungling emergency relief efforts in North Carolina. He vowed to sign an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally overhauling or eliminating the agency. “Fema has turned out to be a disaster,” he said during a tour of a neighbourhood destroyed by Helene where trees were downed and homes had boarded-up windows. “I think we recommend that Fema go away.” Fema brings in emergency personnel, supplies and equipment to help areas begin to recover from natural disasters, and funding for the agency has soared in recent years as extreme weather events increase the demand for its services. The agency, which has 10 regional offices and...

CONSIDERING the extensive damage it has already wrought to Pakistan’s digital aspirations, one would have expected this government to have picked up a few lessons along the way. Not so, it seems. The latest bright idea from its policymakers is to turn the digital ecosystem into even more of a minefield, with fresh laws that can and very likely will be weaponised against any citizen who refuses to toe state-set lines. The Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Bill, 2025 , passed by the National Assembly on Thursday, seems aimed at providing new means to state authorities for cracking down on various digital platforms and the ‘mischief makers’ who use them. The amendments seek to jail those who spread disinformation for three years, replace the FIA’s notorious Cybercrime Wing with a brand-new investigation agency, and establish a new authority with the power to partially or fully block social media platforms that do not comply. Peca, since its introduction in 2016, has been ...

A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday blocked US President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing an executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the United States, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”. US District Judge John Coughenour at the urging of four Democratic-led states issued a temporary restraining order preventing the administration from enforcing the order, which the Republican president signed on Monday during his first day in office. “This is [a] blatantly unconstitutional order,” the judge told a lawyer with the US Justice Department defending Trump’s order. The order has already become the subject of five lawsuits by civil rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 22 states, who call it a flagrant violation of the US Constitution. “Under this order, babies being born today don’t count as US citizens,” Washington Assistant Attorney General Lane Polozola told Senior US District Judge John Coughenour at the star...

THE system is wobbling again. Pressures are mounting and getting too comfortable with the current episode of economic stability could prove a costly mistake. Just consider a few data points from the recent past. Start with this: recently, the finance minister, as well as the State Bank governor have issued public assurances that the foreign exchange reserves of the country are comfortable and continuing to rise. And they’re not wrong in saying so, obviously. News reports have said the State Bank has purchased as much as $9 billion from the open market to build up its reserves. Despite an uptick in imports and this purchasing by the SBP, the value of the dollar has remained more or less steady, and its availability in the open market is also healthy. Rollovers of maturing liabilities from China and more recently the UAE have gone through without much difficulty. By all appearances the external account seems to be healthy, so why is the government still taking expensive loans from com...

• Israeli military chief resigns over Oct 7 ‘failure’ • Qatari PM says Tel Aviv, Hamas must show ‘good faith’ for lasting Gaza peace JENIN: The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had launched an operation in the occupied West Bank’s Jenin, just days after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian health ministry, based in Ram­allah, said the operation had killed nine people. In a joint statement, the military and the Shin Bet security agency said that, alongside the Israeli Border Police, they had launched an operation dubbed “Iron Wall” in Jenin. In a statement released shortly after the launch of the operation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netan­yahu said the raid was part of a broader strategy to counter Iran “wherever it sends its arms — in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen” and the West Bank. The Palestinian Red Crescent said its first responders treated seven people injured by live ammunition and that Israeli forces were hindering their acce...

• PM briefed on meetings; Irfan Siddiqui promises ‘serious response’ within seven days • Gohar says negotiations meaningless sans judicial commissions on May 9, Nov 26 events • PTI likely to move IHC against Al Qadir Trust case verdict today ISLAMABAD: The government on Monday assured the PTI of a response to the opposition’s charter of demands within seven working days, after the party warned it would boycott the next round of talks if judicial commissions were not formed to probe the May 9 and Nov 26 incidents. “We have shared PTI’s demands with all our allies in the ruling coalition and sought their suggestions on how to fulfil them,” said Senator Irfan Siddiqui, a member of the government’s negotiation team, while talking to Dawn . “We will give a serious, sympathetic response to the PTI within seven working days,” he said, adding that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had formed a committee of all ruling allies to finalise the government’s response, with its first meeting sche...

• PTI leader terms Imran’s conviction ‘politically motivated’; PML-N senator says Al Qadir Trust not ‘registered’ • National Assembly proceedings ‘derailed’ due to lack of quorum, PTI protests ISLAMABAD: The 14-year jail term awarded to former prime minister Imran Khan in a £190 million corruption case remained the main bone of contention in the Senate on Mon­day, as the government and the opposition argued over the merits of the corruption case. PTI opposition leader Senator Shibli Faraz said the sentence was politically motivated, claiming the PTI founder was convicted for plans to establish a university to impart knowledge to the younger generation. He said the decision was meant to keep Imran Khan out of the political arena, saying it would be challenged in superior courts. The senator said the ill-gotten money returned by the United Kingdom landed in the Supreme Court account. “We did not get palaces for ourselves as some parties did,” he said, adding that a party got a ...