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Pakistan seeks ‘forward-looking’ UK ties, urges greater Commonwealth trade and connectivity

Pakistan seeks ‘forward-looking’ UK ties, urges greater Commonwealth trade and connectivity
Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar shakes hands with Commonwealth Secretary General Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey during a meeting in London on August 19, 2025. (Handout/MoFA)
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Updated 11 min 33 sec ago

Pakistan seeks ‘forward-looking’ UK ties, urges greater Commonwealth trade and connectivity

Pakistan seeks ‘forward-looking’ UK ties, urges greater Commonwealth trade and connectivity
  • Ishaq Dar highlights British-Pakistani diaspora’s role in UK society, invites UK Deputy PM Rayner to visit Islamabad
  • Pakistan seeks Commonwealth support on climate challenges, backs 2025-2030 strategic plan for shared resilience

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is seeking a “forward-looking partnership” with the United Kingdom and remains committed to expanding trade and connectivity within the Commonwealth, according to official statements on Tuesday following high-level meetings in London.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who arrived in the UK on Saturday, is on an official visit aimed at strengthening Pakistan-UK relations, deepening cooperation in digital technology, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship and boosting multilateral ties through the Commonwealth.

He also inaugurated a pilot project of the Punjab Land Record Authority at the Pakistan High Commission to help members of the diaspora resolve land issues in Pakistan remotely.

Dar held separate meetings with British Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Commonwealth Secretary‑General Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey today after interacting with members of the British-Pakistani community earlier in his visit.

“Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, held a productive meeting today with the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Angela Rayner, in London,” the foreign office said. “They emphasized the importance of sustained high-level engagement and expressed satisfaction with the positive momentum in relations, driven by close people-to-people ties and growing collaboration across multiple domains.”

The statement said Dar “underscored Pakistan’s desire to build an inclusive and forward-looking partnership with the United Kingdom.”

He also highlighted the contributions of the British-Pakistani diaspora to the UK and extended an invitation to Rayner to visit Islamabad at a mutually convenient time.

COMMONWEALTH CONNECTIVITY

The Pakistani deputy premier also met Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey over breakfast, congratulating her on her recent appointment and reaffirming Pakistan’s deep commitment to the organization as a founding member.

Reflecting on their earlier exchange at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa, Dar expressed confidence in the Commonwealth’s role as a platform to foster shared values and build consensus among member states.

“The DPM/FM assured the Secretary‑General of Pakistan’s strong commitment to the Commonwealth’s Sustainable Development and Connectivity agendas,” the foreign office said. “He underscored Pakistan’s intent to play a more active role in promoting intra‑Commonwealth trade and development.”

“Additionally,” it added, “he underscored Pakistan’s acute vulnerability to climate change and sought the Commonwealth’s support in addressing this pressing challenge.”

Dar praised Botchwey’s work on the 2025–2030 Commonwealth Strategic Plan and conveyed Pakistan’s full support for advancing shared goals of democracy, development, and resilience.

He also extended a formal invitation to the Commonwealth Secretary-General to visit Islamabad at her earliest convenience.


Pakistan Senate approves bill allowing three-month detention of terrorism suspects

Pakistan Senate approves bill allowing three-month detention of terrorism suspects
Updated 1 min 37 sec ago

Pakistan Senate approves bill allowing three-month detention of terrorism suspects

Pakistan Senate approves bill allowing three-month detention of terrorism suspects
  • Government says law aims to curb militancy and provide lawful alternative to enforced disappearances
  • Opposition warns legislation undermines constitutional rights, could be misused against critics

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Senate on Tuesday approved amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) empowering security agencies to detain suspects of terrorism and other serious crimes for up to three months, a move the government says will help fight militancy and address the country’s longstanding issue of enforced disappearances.

The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2025, passed by the National Assembly last week, will now go to the president for assent before becoming law.

Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar defended the measure while speaking in parliament, saying it created a lawful framework for preventive detention that would strengthen counterterrorism operations.

“This will be a lawful process and there will be no enforced disappearances anymore,” Tarar told lawmakers, adding that the legislation was aimed at combating militancy and contained safeguards to prevent misuse.

Enforced disappearances have long been a contentious issue in Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan, the site of a decades-old separatist insurgency and where families and rights groups accuse state institutions of arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial killings. Authorities deny the allegations but the practice has remained a source of domestic and international criticism.

By creating a legal mechanism for short-term preventive detention, the government says the new law will replace illegal practices and address concerns raised by families of missing persons.

The amended law comes as Pakistan grapples with twin insurgencies: religiously motivated groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who operate mainly in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and ethno-nationalist Baloch separatists fighting against the state in southwestern Balochistan.

Pakistan became the world’s second-most affected by terrorist violence in 2024, with deaths rising 45 percent to 1,081, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2025.

WHAT THE LAW SAYS

The amendment allows the government, armed forces and civil armed forces to place terrorism suspects under preventive detention for up to 90 days, based on credible information or reasonable suspicion. Enforcement in provinces will require approval from respective governments, and detainees will have legal recourse through federal and provincial review boards made up of Supreme Court and high court judges.

The bill also gives legal cover to joint interrogation teams (JITs) comprising officials from multiple law enforcement and intelligence agencies, with the aim of making operations more effective.

Opposition parties, including jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), strongly opposed the amendment in the Senate, warning that it could be misused against government critics.

“The amendment undermines constitutional freedoms,” PTI Senator Ali Zafar told Arab News, citing Articles 9, 10A and 19 of the Constitution, which guarantee security of person, fair trial and freedom of speech.

“While we must protect lives from terrorism, we also have to safeguard constitutional rights, without which Pakistan cannot be called a democracy,” Zafar said. “Counterterrorism does not mean counter-democracy. The law must be targeted, precise and just.”

Legal expert Barrister Salahuddin Ahmed said the effect of the new law would depend on whether it truly did away with the practice of enforced disappearances.

“If the amended law means that security and law enforcement agencies will now only detain people, then it could have a net positive effect,” he told Arab News.

“If, on the other hand, it merely means yet another legal method … while enforced disappearances continue unabated side by side, then obviously it will only be another tool of repression.”


Modi receives Beijing’s top diplomat as India-China tensions ease amid US trade war

Modi receives Beijing’s top diplomat as India-China tensions ease amid US trade war
Updated 28 min 7 sec ago

Modi receives Beijing’s top diplomat as India-China tensions ease amid US trade war

Modi receives Beijing’s top diplomat as India-China tensions ease amid US trade war
  • India-China relations have been tense since deadly clashes along their border in 2020
  • Disruption from Trump’s tariffs created an opening for the Asian powers to repair ties

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received China’s top diplomat on Tuesday, as the Asian powers resumed disputed border talks after years of tensions.

The neighbors and the world’s two most populous countries have been locked in a standoff triggered by deadly clashes along their Himalayan border, known as the Line of Actual Control, in 2020.

Tens of thousands of troops, tanks, and artillery have since been deployed on both sides of the LAC, with both countries building new roads, bunkers, and airstrips in the high-altitude area.

Despite multiple rounds of military and diplomatic engagements, friction points remained, with India restricting Chinese investments, banning dozens of Chinese apps, and scrutinizing trade ties, as it deepened relations with Beijing’s rivals — the US, Japan, and Australia.

But a recent disruption caused earlier this month by US President Donald Trump’s trade war, in which he unexpectedly hiked the total duty on Indian exports to 50 percent, has created an opening for the Asian powers to seek to repair ties.

Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, arrived in New Delhi for a three-day visit on Monday. Ahead of meeting Modi, he held talks with his counterpart, S. Jaishankar, who told him in his welcome speech that after a “difficult period” in bilateral relations, the “two nations now seek to move ahead.”

Jaishankar said the visit would cover economic and trade issues, including cross-border trade, as well as people-to-people contacts.

Wang also met India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, for the 24th round of talks to discuss de-escalation of border tensions, and said he was ready to work with India “to build more consensus and identify the direction, the specific goals of the boundary consultations going forward, and create more conditions for the improvement and further growth” of bilateral relations.

A thaw between India and China began last year, when Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first bilateral meeting in five years at a summit of BRICS nations in Russia’s Kazan.

They are expected to meet again later this month as Modi will visit China for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This will be the Indian prime minister’s first official trip to China in over six years.

“Both are moving gradually to try and normalize a relationship. If you go back to October last year when Prime Minister Modi met President Xi Jinping, you saw the beginnings of some sort of an effort toward normalization,” Manoj Kewalramani, chairperson of the Indo-Pacific Research Program and a China studies fellow at the Takshashila Institution, told Arab News.

But after years of freeze, the change was not likely to happen immediately.

Kewalramani expected that as the two countries resumed talks, they would be followed by more engagements at the levels of commerce, finance and industry and technology ministers.

“We can start to build on areas where there are commonalities and where are shared interests that would inject some sort of stability not only in the relationship but also in the geopolitics of the region,” he said.

“One can argue that the disruption that Donald Trump has caused has led to some degree of urgency, but I don’t think you’re going to see an overnight change in the relationship. I think what you are going to see is a slow, cautious, calibrated effort by both sides to try and arrive at some sort of a new equilibrium.”


Nearly 400 killed, over 6,900 rescued in latest spell of monsoon rains in Pakistan

Nearly 400 killed, over 6,900 rescued in latest spell of monsoon rains in Pakistan
Updated 19 August 2025

Nearly 400 killed, over 6,900 rescued in latest spell of monsoon rains in Pakistan

Nearly 400 killed, over 6,900 rescued in latest spell of monsoon rains in Pakistan
  • National survey launched to assess flood damage, relief operations intensify in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
  • Armed forces sets up logistics hubs and medical camps as helicopters airlift food and medicine to remote areas

ISLAMABAD: Nearly 400 people have been killed and over 6,900 rescued during the latest spell of monsoon rains in northern Pakistan that began late last week, officials said on Tuesday, as the government launched a nationwide survey to assess damage to homes and infrastructure.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said of the 400 deaths since Friday, 356 were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) alone, a mountainous northwest province hit by cloud bursts, flash floods, lightning strikes and landslides in the deadliest downpour of this year’s monsoon season.

In total, 670 Pakistanis have perished in this year’s monsoon season that began on June 26.

Addressing a joint news conference on Tuesday, Pakistan’s army and government spokesmen and the chief of the NDMA said coordinated relief and rescue operations had been stepped up in affected parts of KP and the mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) region. 

“Currently, there are eight units of the infantry and eight units of the FC [frontier constabulary] directly involved in search and rescue and flood relief operations,” Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, told reporters in Islamabad.

“In the search and rescue work, 6,903 of children and adults have been rescued by the army units,” the army spokesman said, adding that over 6,300 people had also received medical treatment.

Chaudhry said logistics bases had been set up in Kanju and Daggar to supply food, tents and medicines, while helicopters were flying emergency aid to remote areas.

Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said 70 percent of the region’s power supply had also been restored, including in districts like Buner, Shangla, Swat and Bajaur, where electrical grids, poles and transformers were destroyed.

He said ministers for energy, communications and Kashmir affairs were deployed in the field to monitor relief operations.

“In Malakand division, the N-90 highway has been fully reopened after clearing all blockades,” Tarar added.

More than 1,200 tents, 3,000 kilograms of medicines and 40 tones of food rations have been dispatched to the flood-hit regions, with over 500 medical camps operational in the area.

Chairman of the NDMA, Lt Gen Inam Haider Malik, who also addressed the news conference, confirmed that the death toll from this year’s monsoon stood at around 670 while at least 25,000 people had been rescued in total in the last four days. 

He warned of continued risks from localized flooding and cloudbursts in KP, GB, and northern Punjab, with a new monsoon spell expected in the last week of August.

“A complete survey has been launched, which has been started to assess the damage of houses and public infrastructure,” Malik said, adding that its findings would be ready by early September.

Malik said more than 50 percent of landslides had been cleared and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had approved a special ration package for affected districts.

Aid convoys to Swabi, Buner, Malakand, Bajaur, Shangla and Swat were also underway, with support from military formations and non-governmental organizations.

“All arms of the state are mobilized in this national response,” he added.

TRAVEL ADVISORY 

Separately, the NDMA issued a travel advisory on Tuesday warning of road closures and damage in the country’s north due to floods and landslides.

According to the advisory, tourists have been told to avoid travel on vulnerable stretches of the Karakoram Highway and connecting routes, including Torghar, Batagram, Shangla, Lower Kohistan, Tattapani, Gilgit and Hunza.

Road blockages due to floods and landslides were reported at several points on the Karakoram Highway, as well as at multiple locations along the Mingora–Swat road.

The NDMA also listed a number of damaged or closed bridges and roads in Gilgit-Baltistan, Skardu, Ghizer, Hunza and Astore.

“Surmo Bridge, Ghanche: damaged; no alternate … Baghecha, Skardu: damaged; alternate: temporary causeway but unsafe,” the advisory said.

It added that the Astak Bridge on the Jaglot–Skardu road was partially open, while major routes such as Shandur, Ishkoman, Gulmit in Gojal, Hoper in Nagar, and the Skardu–Kargil road in Kharmang district were closed with no alternate routes available.

The advisory urged travelers to check updates regularly and avoid unnecessary movement in the affected areas until roads are cleared and safe for traffic.

PUNJAB ALERT

The Punjab Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) on Tuesday also issued a fresh alert for heavy monsoon rains across much of the province from Aug. 19–22.

“Severe thunderstorms are forecast in most districts, including Rawalpindi, Murree, Galiyat, Attock, Chakwal, Jhelum, Gujranwala, Lahore, Gujrat and Sialkot,” the PDMA spokesperson said, adding that downpours were also expected in Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan and Rajanpur.

PDMA Director General Irfan Ali Kathia said all commissioners and deputy commissioners had been directed to remain on alert in line with instructions from Punjab’s chief minister. He warned of rising water levels in rivers and streams, flash flooding in hill torrents, and the risk of urban flooding in major cities.

“Citizens are urged to adopt precautionary measures during bad weather,” Kathia said. “Stay in safe places during storms, avoid unnecessary travel, and keep children away from low-lying areas and electricity poles and wires.”

The DG added that health, irrigation, communications, local government and livestock departments had all been placed on high alert. In case of emergency, people were advised to call the PDMA helpline at 1129.


Pakistan completes clearance of 585 companies under new Iraq-Iran pilgrim travel regime

Pakistan completes clearance of 585 companies under new Iraq-Iran pilgrim travel regime
Updated 19 August 2025

Pakistan completes clearance of 585 companies under new Iraq-Iran pilgrim travel regime

Pakistan completes clearance of 585 companies under new Iraq-Iran pilgrim travel regime
  • Religious affairs ministry says scrutiny of Ziyarat Group Organizers underway, certificates to be issued soon
  • New centralized system replaces decades-old “Salar” model after 40,000 Pakistani pilgrims went missing abroad

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s ministry of religious affairs has completed security clearance of 585 companies seeking to organize pilgrimages to holy sites in Iran and Iraq, as authorities move to operationalize a new, tightly regulated travel regime, the ministry said on Tuesday.

According to a spokesperson, the ministry has begun scrutinizing applications for registration as Ziyarat Group Organizers (ZGOs), the only entities that will now be authorized to arrange pilgrimages under the restructured system.

“Security clearance of 585 companies has been completed,” the religious affairs ministry spokesman said in a statement. 

“Registration certificates for pilgrimage companies that complete the required documentation are expected to be issued soon.” 

The ministry said 95 new companies had submitted documents during the most recent extension period. Document submission from existing companies will continue until Aug. 31, while new firms can apply until Sept. 10.

The overhaul follows Islamabad’s decision last month to abolish the decades-old Salar system, in which private caravan leaders managed pilgrim travel. The move came after officials confirmed that around 40,000 Pakistani citizens had overstayed or gone missing in Iran, Iraq, and Syria over the past decade.

The government has also barred overland travel for this year’s Arbaeen pilgrimage, citing militant threats in the restive Balochistan province bordering Iran, meaning all journeys to Iraq and Iran will be arranged through registered tour operators and air travel only.

Under the new Ziyarat Management Policy, all pilgrimages must be organized through licensed groups, with operators directly responsible for ensuring that all travelers return on time. Companies that fail to meet requirements face license cancelation, the ministry has said.

Authorities say the policy aims to address long-standing security and migration concerns flagged by host governments, while restoring credibility to Pakistan’s management of religious tourism.


Twenty bodies found in Pakistan mountain village after cloudburst flooding

Twenty bodies found in Pakistan mountain village after cloudburst flooding
Updated 19 August 2025

Twenty bodies found in Pakistan mountain village after cloudburst flooding

Twenty bodies found in Pakistan mountain village after cloudburst flooding
  • The toll contributed to a total of 358 deaths in the floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province since Friday
  • Cloudburst is extreme downpour releasing over 100 mm of rain in one hour, hits about 30 square kilometers area

PESHAWAR: Rescue workers on Tuesday recovered more bodies from a mountain village in northwest Pakistan where flash floods triggered by a cloudburst brought down homes and buildings, bringing the death toll there to at least 20, the local district commissioner said.

The toll contributed to a total of 358 deaths in the floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province since Friday – more than 200 of them in the worst hit district of Buner.

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority says 30 children are among the dead.

A cloudburst is a rare phenomenon where more than 100 mm (4 inches) of rain falls within an hour in a small area, officials say. Authorities have warned of more rains to come in two spells of monsoon until September 10.

In Buner, there was more than 150 mm of rain within an hour on Friday morning. A massive downpour from another cloudburst struck near Gadoon in the mountains of Swabi district, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Monday.

 

 

District Commissioner Nisar Khan said that as well as the death toll there increasing from 11 on Monday, several residents remained missing from the remote village.

“We are utilising all available resources, including heavy machinery such as excavators, to recover the missing bodies,” he said.

The raging flood water came down from the mountains and swept away the houses, he said.

The intense rain has claimed lives and spread destruction in several northwestern districts, with most people killed in flash floods, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

More relief equipment including tents, blankets, electric generators, pumps, medicine and rations have been sent to the flood-affected areas, the National Disaster Management Authority said on Tuesday.

It said the torrential rains and flooding this monsoon season have killed 695 people across Pakistan since late June.