Pakistan has moved to shut down 16 Afghan refugee camps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Punjab as the repatriation of more than 1.3 million Afghans continues. The Ministry of States and Frontier Regions issued notifications on Sept. 25 denotifying camps in Haripur, Chitral and Upper Dir in KP; Chaghai, Loralai, Killa Saifullah, Pishin and Quetta […]
Floods and heavy monsoon rains have affected more than 4.2 million people in Punjab province, displacing nearly 2.8 million and leaving at least 1,000 dead, Pakistani officials and U.N. agencies said this week. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif doubled compensation for families of victims to 2 million rupees (about $7,140), raising the total cost of the […]
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif used his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Friday to signal a willingness to reset relations with India, offering dialogue after months of heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Referring to May’s four-day confrontation that saw airstrikes, missile exchanges, and a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Sharif said Pakistan had responded […]
President Donald Trump hosted Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the White House Thursday, underscoring improved ties between Washington and Islamabad. Relations have warmed as Trump’s once close partnership with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cooled, largely over India’s discounted Russian oil purchases after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Trump has responded by raising […]
Pakistan had 3,055 citizens approved for H-1B visas in FY2024, a modest but significant number, largely concentrated in tech, finance, and healthcare. With many Pakistani professionals entering the U.S. via graduate education, the high fee may discourage employers from converting student visas to work visas. Experts warn that smaller firms may avoid sponsoring Pakistani candidates […]
South Asia is emerging as one of the most vulnerable regions to freshwater depletion, with new satellite data showing steep losses across its major river basins. The Indus and Ganges-Brahmaputra systems, which sustain hundreds of millions of people in Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh, are experiencing some of the fastest rates of water decline in […]
Surveillance drones and armed teams are sweeping across Pakistan’s countryside as authorities intensify efforts to eradicate opium poppy fields. The government has committed at least $3.5 million this year to the campaign, officials said, deploying weedicide sprayers and rifles to uproot thousands of acres of crops. The crackdown comes after Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers banned poppy […]
India and Pakistan, South Asia’s two largest states, continue to hold the region back through their entrenched hostility. Since partition, repeated wars and deep mistrust have kept borders tense and diverted massive resources toward defense instead of development. Trade remains negligible despite the huge potential for economic growth, while cooperation on shared challenges like climate […]
At the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his platform to target Pakistan. With Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in attendance, Modi said the Pahalgam terror attack was “an assault on India’s soul” and insisted that “some countries openly support terrorism.” He pressed fellow members to oppose terrorism without […]
Pakistan is enduring another devastating monsoon season, with 849 people killed and 1,130 injured in rain-related incidents since June 26 — a shocking toll in just over two months. The flooding has battered Punjab, Sindh, and the country’s mountainous north, exposing Pakistan’s vulnerability to climate extremes. According to World Weather Attribution (WWA) scientists, climate change […]
