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ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court’s constitutional bench was expanded to 13 members when the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) on Friday added five more judges to its strength. Presided over by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi, the commission decided by majority of its total membership the nomination of Justice Hashim Khan Kakar, Justice Salahuddin Panhwar, Jus­tice Shakeel Ahmad, Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim. The CB earlier comprised Justice Aminuddin Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Ayesha A. Malik, Justice Hassan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Musarrat Hilali, Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan. Legal observers believe that with the extension of more judges in the constitutional bench, it is likely that the review petition moved against the July 12, 2024 judgement in the reserved seats case may be taken up. PTI opposes CB head’s authority for nomination, insists on determining criteria for...

Four people, including a 10-year-old, were killed, and one was injured in three separate accidents across Karachi, police said on Friday. Rules restricting the movement of heavy vehicles were recently implemented in the metropolis amid rising traffic accidents involving dumpers and tankers and protests over the deaths of citizens. Earlier this month, the provincial government banned the entry of heavy vehicles into the city during the daytime, only allowing them to operate from 11pm to 6am. Exemptions, however, were granted to trucks carrying water, petroleum products, medicines, meat and other essential goods. The Sindh government has also made it mandatory for all heavy vehicles in Karachi to have a physical fitness certificate amid the rising number of traffic accidents involving dumper trucks. According to Aziz Bhatti Police Station House Officer Saeed Ahmed Dharejo, a man was killed, and his friend was injured when a water tanker hit them on main University Road near Sunda...

LONDON: Alarm is rising over Washington’s potential withdrawal from global institutions, including the Inter­national Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), with the no-show of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at G20 meetings adding to anxiety. So what would happen if Washington pulls out from these two institutions? To understand this, one has to go back in time, as both institutions were formed in the ashes of the Second World War to encourage global integration and forestall future wars. The IMF is often called a lender of last resort for countries in trouble. A swathe of emerging market countries rely heavily on the IMF: Argentina could not pay government workers without it, and others from Senegal to Sri Lanka also currently count on its cash. Pakistan, of course, has participated in more than 20 IMF programmes since 1958, including the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and Extended Credit Facility (ECF), Standby Arrangements (SBA) and one Structural Adjustment Facility Com...

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Inspector General of Police (IGP) Rana Abdul Jabbar on Thursday ordered the arrest of a policeman booked for the alleged sexual harassment of a British-Kashmiri woman and constituted a team of senior officers to conduct a transparent investigation into the allegations. According to a statement by the police department spokesperson, the IGP directed Poonch Deputy Inspector General of Police Chaudhry Sajjad to ensure a fair inquiry and personally oversee the case to its logical conclusion. However, Thothal Station House Officer Chaudhry Imran Ahmed, who was suspended on Tuesday, had already obtained pre-arrest bail from the district court earlier today and subsequently went into hiding The IGP ordered the police to locate and detain him without delay, the spokesperson said. Demand of judicial inquiry The woman rejected the police inquiry committee, insisting on a judicial investigation by a high court judge. At a press conference in Mirpur, accompanied...

• Aurangzeb visits Peshawar to thank provincial govt for IMF support, agrees to ‘gradually’ end Fata tax exemptions • CM’s aide tells minister newly-merged districts require immediate financial support PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakh­tunkhwa government on Wednesday asked the federal government to take it on board regarding financial decisions concerning the province, as it sought an interim arrangement for the share of erstwhile Fata region in the National Finance Commission Award. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb reportedly agreed to the suggestion of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to end tax exemptions for the merged districts in a phased manner to offset the impact of this decision. Speaking to Dawn , KP Adviser to Chief Minister on Finance Muzzammil Aslam said they took up the province’s issues with the federal minister, but there was no agenda for the ‘productive and cordial’ meeting. Mr Aslam said the issue of tax exemptions for the merged areas was taken up during the meeti...

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that Pakistan needs to avoid urges to control the media, stressing the need for rights-based approaches. Bilawal has previously opposed government stances on internet regulation, floating the idea of a “ bill of rights ” for the digital age and criticising government restrictions on the use of virtual private networks (VPNs). “I believe access to the internet should be declared a fundamental right, like [the right to a clean] environment was declared a fundamental right in the 26th amendment. Affordable, equitable access to high-speed internet should be a fundamental right,” he said at an event in December 2024. The PPP chairman had delivered a wide-ranging speech at the Oxford Union, a pre­stigious debating society that invites world leaders to speak on key issues before students and academics, last week. After his lecture, Oxford Union President Israr Khan hosted a Q&A session with the PPP scion, the video of which was posted a...

WASHINGTON: Pakistan and New York City officials are set to begin negotiations regarding the future of the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, after the city’s mayor anno­unced the early termination of an agreement that repurposed the prime property into a shelter for refugees . The hotel, which opened in 1924, is named after former US President Theodore Roosevelt. It is located next to the Grand Central Terminal, the main train station in the Big Apple. In 2023, Pakistan Interna­tional Airlines (PIA) — which owns the iconic property —signed a three-year lease with the city, worth around $220 million. Under the lease, the city was to have control of the hotel until June 2026, after which it would be returned to PIA. The arrangement was initially made to accommodate the increasing number of migrants arriving in New York due to the humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border. Mayor Eric Adams says facility housing migrants to close in June this year; authorities set to hold talks with Pa...

Several parts of Karachi on Tuesday witnessed serious traffic, law and order issues mainly due to protests against ongoing work on water and power infrastructure with authorities fearing an escalation in public anger, according to officials. Citizens are likely to suffer a water crisis till Friday mainly due to the disruption of the water line on University Road near old Sabzi Mandi during ongoing construction activity for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Residents of the metropolis faced difficulty in reaching their homes as both tracks of several roads in various areas were blocked by protesters, forcing traffic authorities to divert traffic on alternative routes where slow movement of vehicles was reported, as per updates from the Karachi Traffic Police (KTP). According to a statement from the KTP spokesperson, there were several protests and sit-ins on main roads across the city. Barring main MA Jinnah Road where retired employees of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation held demo...

QUETTA: Eight people, including six security personnel, were injured in a bomb attack on a truck convoy guarding the copper project in the Mangochar area of Kalat district on Monday. According to officials, a convoy of 29 trucks, transporting blaster copper from the Saindak project to Karachi, was targeted on the Quetta-Karachi National Highway in Mangochar. Unknown armed men planted an improvised explosive device in front of the Nadra office on the main highway, and when the convoy, guarded by personnel from the FC, reached the site, a powerful explosion occurred, hitting a security vehicle. A heavy exchange of gunfire ensued and continued for some time. As a result of the blast, eight security personnel and a truck driver were injured. “A total of six security personnel and a civilian driver have been injured in the blast,” a senior official of the Kalat administration told Dawn, adding that security personnel transferred the injured to the district hospital in Kalat. The offici...

THERE are concerning reports of possible divisions within the Afghan Taliban, particularly between the ideological old guard based in Kandahar, and the more pragmatic members of the hard-line movement. Afghanistan’s internal power struggles matter to both Pakistan and Kabul’s other neighbours, as well as the larger international community, because if the current dispensation implodes, it may fuel a fresh humanitarian exodus, along with empowering transnational terrorist groups based in that country. The rumours have been given credence as some senior members of the Taliban apparently fled Afghanistan after making remarks critical of the leadership. This includes deputy foreign minister Abbas Stanikzai , who reportedly left in January after criticising Taliban supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, specifically the latter’s harsh stance on girls’ education. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has denied that Mr Stanikzai fled, saying he was in the UAE to “visit family”. ...

KURRAM: Police and law-enforcement agencies arrested 20 more people, including suspected terrorists and their facilitators, during an ongoing operation in Kurram district on Sunday. On Monday (Feb 17), over 30 trucks carrying food supplies to Kurram were looted while 19 trucks were set on fire after a convoy came under an attack at the Bagan, Charkhel, Ochat and Mandori areas. Several people, including security personnel and drivers, lost their lives in the incident. According to the Regional Police Officer (RPO) Kohat, Abbas Majid Marwat, the operation against terrorists continued at Charkhel, Ochat, Bagan, Mandori, Dad Kamar and adjacent areas and 20 more suspected insurgents and their facilitators were arrested, raising the number of detained militants to 85. A statement issued from the RPO office stated that heavy weapons and looted items were also recovered from the arrested terrorists. The recovered weapons included 81 SMGs (submachine guns), 2 HMGs (heavy machine guns)...

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday he was willing to give up his position if it meant peace in Ukraine, adding that he could exchange his departure for his country’s entry into the Nato military alliance. “If [it means] peace for Ukraine, if you really need me to leave my post, I am ready,” an irritated-looking Zelensky said when asked during a press conference whether he was ready to leave his post if it meant securing peace. “I can exchange this for Nato (membership), if that condition is there, immediately,” the president added. US President Donald Trump has pushed for elections to take place in Ukraine, having branded Zelensky a “ dictator ”, an apparent reference to the Ukrainian leader’s official five-year term running out in 2024. Russia has cited this in the past to assert that he is an illegitimate leader. Ukrainian legislation prohibits holding elections during a state of martial law, which Ukraine declared the day Russia invaded in February 2022. Trum...

ISLAMABAD: Pakis­tan has reported another case of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1), taking the total to three cases in 2025. According to an official of the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Era­d­i­cation, the case has been reported from Larkana, Sindh. The official said that the victim is a 54-month-old girl. This is the second polio case reported from Sindh this year, with the third one detected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa . Pakistan is facing a res­u­r­gence of poliovirus, as 74 cases were reported in 2024. Of these, 27 were from Balochistan, 22 from KP, 23 from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad. This year’s first nationwide polio vaccination campaign was held earlier this month. It was followed by a fractional IPV-OPV Polio [injectable polio vaccine] campaign in Quetta and Karachi on Feb 20 and 22, respectively. Around one million children were targeted for vaccination in this campaign, according to the officials. Moreover, a vaccination campaign in 104 uni...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa authorities arrested a suspect allegedly involved in trafficking human organs in Peshawar, according to a statement from the provincial excise department on Saturday. According to the KP Excise Department, joint operations with other institutions to curb smuggling are ongoing “against the illegal spectrum” on the instructions of the provincial apex committee. “An operation was conducted under the command of Narcotics Control Excise Taxation Officer Faisal Khursheed at the Joint Check Post on the M-1,” the statement reads, adding that a gang involved in removing and selling human organs, including kidneys, was arrested“. The statement said that the suspect brought two people from Multan to Peshawar, where he allegedly removed their kidneys. It did not elaborate on when this took place. “The rate for selling the kidneys of both the individuals was fixed at Rs280,000,” the department said. “The gang takes advantage of struggling people, removes their organs and is i...

IT has now come to this: five judges versus the president, the federation, the Judicial Commission, the registrars of the Supreme Court and the high courts of Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan and Islamabad, and three of their fellow judges. The five, who are “serving confirmed judges” of the Islamabad High Court, have formally challenged the manner in which three justices were recently transplanted to the IHC from other high courts, how the IHC’s seniority list was subsequently changed, and how far more senior, confirmed IHC judges were summarily replaced on important committees by the freshly transferred judges. The petitioners have called on the apex court to exercise its original jurisdiction under Article 184(3) to hear their pleas, as they believe what happened at the IHC is tantamount to a “dismantling of the salient features of the Constitution”; specifically, “the independence of judiciary, separation of powers and federalism”. They seem to have made a strong case. It may b...

KARACHI: The Pakis­tan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has announced a new undersea fibre-optic cable, set to come online by 2026. The Africa-1 Submarine Cable will be connected to PTCL’s landing station at Karachi Seaview today (Saturday), the company said in a notice to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). The $59.5 million project, approved in Nov­ember 2020, will take another year before it becomes operational for end users. “The initiative is designed to enhance connectivity between the UAE, Europe, and Africa, featuring multiple landing stations along the route.” According to sources, after the landing, it will take approximately one more year to develop the necessary internet infrastructure within the country to make the cable operational. This includes the installation of various equipment and the construction of supporting facilities, they said. The project will be “ready for service” in the first quarter of 2026, said the PTCL notice. This is the second cable to...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Secretary Shahab Ali Shah said on Friday that as many as 48 “miscreants” allegedly involved in recent acts of violence and instability in Kurram district have been arrested so far in action against disruptive elements. Since October last year, 189 people have died in various clashes, and a peace agreement was signed as a result of the government’s efforts to bring the situation under control. A total of nine convoys comprising 718 vehicles carrying essential goods have been sent to the area while attacks and ransacking of convoys have continued unabated. On Monday, over 30 trucks carrying food supplies to Kurram were looted while 19 trucks were set on fire after the convoy came under an attack at the Bagan, Charkhel, Ochat and Mandori areas. Several people, including security personnel and drivers, lost their lives in the incident. At least 30 miscreants and facilitators were rounded up during an operation launched by the security forces in Lower Kurram on Th...

THOUGH Donald Trump has not been able to fulfil his promise of ending the Ukraine conflict “24 hours” after taking office, the American president is clearly not interested in pumping more US funds into this war. Moreover, his overtures to Russia — and use of scathing language to target the Ukrainian president — have sent shockwaves through Kyiv and European capitals. Mr Trump is not a man known to indulge in diplomatic niceties, but the language he has used for the Ukrainian president has been unforgiving. He has termed Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” and a “moderately successful comedian” intent on keeping the American “gravy train” going. This is as clear a signal as any that the flow of American funds and weapons to Kyiv is coming to an end. In fact, the Russian foreign minister and his American counterpart met in Riyadh on Tuesday to restart bilateral engagement, which had practically come to a stop under the Biden administration. All this signals that US involvement in the Ukraine...

A man was arrested and detained for impersonating an officer of a law enforcement agency to seek personal favours at the Senate Secretariat, the police said on Thursday. A first information report (FIR) was registered at the Secretariat police station on January 23 on the complaint of Senate Joint Secretary Hyder Ali under Sections 170 (personating a public servant), 171 (wearing garb or carrying token used by public servant with fraudulent intent) and 419 (punishment for cheating by personation) of the Pakistan Penal Code. The FIR, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com , said the suspect was impersonating a “serving officer of the law enforcement agency” and had visited the Senate Secretariat numerous times over the past few days seeking “personal favours through criminal intimidation”. The FIR added that an inquiry revealed that the person was using a fake identity to gain “unlawful favours”. It requested the police to investigate the matter and take legal action against the ...

NO amount of self-congratulatory full-page advertisements in newspapers on the first anniversary of the Feb 8, 2024, elections, along with television ads showing a benevolent farsighted prime minister giving instructions to a young girl about all that has been achieved for Pakistan’s economic revival, and what yet needs to be done, will hide the deep rot that lies underneath the country’s political, economic and social reality. Celebrating ‘revival’, while understandable under the current political economy dispensation, overlooks fundamental and deep structural issues that undermine any ambition to fly, whether under the Uraan programme or in terms of the growth rate. Not to spoil the celebrations — for there are grounds which clearly reveal that Pakistan’s economy at least, and importantly, as gauged by a series of numbers, has shown huge signs of improvement over the last few years, and especially since the tumultuous months of spring 2022. The inflation rate is down to its lowest i...

LAST month’s $420m current account deficit reflects the pressure of debt payment and a rising import bill on Pakistan’s balance-of-payments position, amid drying up foreign loans and falling foreign private investment. This gap most likely marks a temporary reversal of the earlier trend of continuous surplus posted for five consecutive months — August to December — on account of a substantial boost in remittances from overseas Pakistanis. The remittances have recorded a surge of $5bn between July and January from a year ago. The January gap slashes the accumulated current account surplus from $1.2bn to $628m — still significant progress from the deficit of $1.8bn posted in the same period last year, spawning hopes that the current account surplus/ deficit will remain range-bound between +0.5pc and -0.5pc of GDP during FY25. The gap in the current account is not surprising, given the 38pc decline in foreign loan inflows to $4.58bn in the first seven months of the present fiscal year fr...

AS bodies continue to fall in Kurram despite a state-sanctioned ceasefire , one wonders how long local militants’ challenges to the state’s writ will be tolerated before a full-throttled response is launched. Another spate of attacks on an aid convoy, which eyewitnesses said was instigated by locals, has threatened to undo the attempts to stabilise the region. Shortly after noon on Monday, the aid convoy, which was destined for Parachinar, came under attack in Lower Kurram. A firefight ensued, which continued for two hours, leaving a Pakistan Army soldier martyred and seven others injured. A few hours later, there was an attempt to loot the stranded trucks, triggering another gunfight between the security escort and looters. Five Frontier Corps personnel were left injured. Finally, another couple of hours later, an FC Quick Response Force dispatched to rescue the injured was ambushed near a local government school. Four FC personnel were martyred in the attack. Kurram District ha...

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in a meeting with US Chargé d’Affaires Natalie Baker on Tuesday, reaffirmed Pakistan’s desire to work with the Trump administration to strengthen bilateral ties. PM Shehbaz highlighted Pakistan’s interest in expanding cooperation in trade, information technology, agriculture, health, education, and energy. He also stressed the importance of counterterrorism collaboration, particularly in addressing threats posed by the militant Islamic State and the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. Ms Baker assured him that the US administration would work with Pak­istan to advance shared objectives and strengthen bilateral relations. No high-level contacts at the leadership level have occurred between Islam­­a­bad and Washing­ton since Trump returned to the White House last month, reflecting Pakis­tan’s diminished strategic importance to Wa­s­hington amid shifting regional dynamics and gro­wing strategic divergence between the countries. Cabinet m...

THE Green Pakistan Initiative took off with the launch of three business franchises under the umbrella project in Cholistan last week. The ventures, which are backed by the military, promise to serve farmers as a “one-stop shop solution”, providing them with high-yield seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, and fuel at discounted rates. Farming implements and machines, including tractors and drones, will also be rented out to them at affordable prices. In addition, soil testing and other research services will be offered to growers in collaboration with agriculture research institutions in the country to encourage innovation in this most important economic sector upon which depends our food security and much of our export earnings. The GPI was created in 2023 to “promote corporate farming” to attract Gulf investment in agriculture, introducing contemporary best practices, reducing costs, and increasing yields to boost farm exports. The army has already been given control of thousands of acre...

The federal government on Monday decided to form a high-level committee to address the grievances of locals protesting against the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) in Gilgit Baltistan’s (GB) Diamer for not compensating locals for their land acquired to build the Diamer-Bhasha Dam. Thousands of people gathered to protest Wapda in the airport area in Chilas over the weekend, accusing Wapda of reneging on its commitments and giving the authority a week to meet their demands. They said they would stop construction work on the dam if their demands were not fulfilled. Their demands include the settlement of 18,000 acres of land acquired by Wapda without compensation, the disbursement of the chula package to over 2,500 households, the provision of residential and agricultural land for affected people and the appointment of locals on posts in the dam project. According to a press release from the GB Chief Minister’s House, a high-level meeting was chaired by the Federal Minis...

• Family of Morocco boat tragedy victims sold land, paid Rs4m each so Sufyan and Atif could make it to Spain from Mauritania • FIA official says ‘success stories’ of those who made it big in the West inspire many to send their family members abroad About 30 minutes drive from the GT Road, in tehsil Kharian, is located the village of Dhola. When one turns off the carpeted road onto the gravel track that leads to the village, multi-storied mansions dot the horizon, giving a sense of the affluence of the area. As we enter the village, we stop a passer-by to ask for directions to the home of Sufyan Gorsi and Atif Shehzad — two of the men who perished in a migrant boat tragedy off the coast of Morocco in January. The youth identifies himself as a resident of the Italian city of Bologna; most families in this village have one or more members settled in either the Gulf region or Europe. The two were among the 43 unfortunate Pakistanis who perished on the proverbial road to El Dorado; ...