Category: 1. Pakistan

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Updated On: Sat, 23 Aug 2025

16:20:34 PKT

OSAKA (Dunya News) – Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Saturday participated in the World Expo 2025 held in the Japanese city of Osaka, where she received a warm welcome.

The CM was given a detailed briefing on the objectives, activities, and projects of the global exhibition.

Speaking on the occasion, Maryam Nawaz praised the inspiring theme of the Expo, “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” and stated that Expo 2025 is an effective global platform for the betterment of humanity and improvement in public services. She appreciated the ideas being presented at the Expo regarding modern technology, eco-friendly initiatives, and public facilities, calling them exemplary.

She also paid a special visit to the Pakistan Pavilion, where she was warmly received. She met with Pakistanis and foreign tourists present at the pavilion, listened to their views, and praised the arrangements.

Maryam emphasised that such representation is extremely important to showcase Pakistan’s cultural and technological heritage at the international level. She added that cities in Punjab will also be developed under the modern concept of a “Future City” to make urban life more eco-friendly, sustainable, and technologically advanced.

She also visited the stall of the Japanese company KUBOTA, which is offering innovative solutions for sustainable food and agriculture.

Over 150 Japanese and international companies are participating in Expo 2025. The Chief Minister was also taken on a tour of the world’s largest wooden structure, the “Grand Ring,” a 20-meter-high architectural marvel spread over 61,000 square meters. A Water and Light Show titled “Rainbow in the Dark Night” also captivated visitors at the exhibition.

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 23 (APP): Pakistan has successfully achieved 68 percent of its tree plantation target under the government’s flagship initiative, the “Upscaling Green Pakistan Program” which aims at combating climate change, enhancing forest cover and restoring degraded ecosystems across the country.

According to official documents available with Wealth Pakistan, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, in collaboration with provincial governments, planted more than 2.22974 billion saplings between 2019 and December 2024, against the overall target of 3.29 billion saplings by 2028.

Sindh emerged as the top-performing province by planting 856.01 million saplings, achieving 85 percent of its set target. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) followed with 713.25 million plantations, while Punjab contributed 364.79 million, achieving 77 percent of its goal. Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) planted 177.05 million, and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) accounted for 94.10 million plantations. In Balochistan, 24.55 million saplings were planted during the review period.

The program’s annual progress breakdown includes 492.03 million saplings in 2019, 595.37 million in 2020, 766.50 million in 2021, 233.41 million in 2022, and 125.99 million in 2023.

A senior Ministry official told Wealth Pakistan that Pakistan loses nearly 11,000 hectares of forest land annually due to wildfires, climate change, and land conversion. To address this alarming trend, the government has coupled plantation drives with several structural and policy interventions.

An interprovincial coordination committee was constituted to curb illegal logging and regulate inter-provincial timber movement. The committee regularly highlights challenges faced by the forestry sector and issues recommendations for compliance.

In line with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s directives, the Ministry has also developed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on forest fire management in coordination with all provinces, AJK, and GB. Forest fire monitoring data is now systematically collected and reviewed at the national level. Additionally, an early warning system prototype has been installed in two valleys of KP and is currently in the testing phase.

The Federal Forestry Board has also been revived to address deforestation challenges and ensure alignment with the National Forest Policy 2017. Moreover, provinces have updated their forestry-related laws and policies, including the Punjab Forestry Policy 2019, Sindh Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Policy 2023 (Amended), KP Forest Ordinance 2002, KP Protected Forest Management Rules 2005, Balochistan Forest Act 2022, GB Forest Act 2019, GB Forest Force Rules 2020, GB Wildlife Biodiversity Areas Act 2021 and AJK Forest Regulations (Amendment) Act 2017.

In addition to inland plantation, the country has recorded remarkable progress in mangrove restoration. Since the early 1990s, mangrove cover along Pakistan’s coastal areas has increased by 300 percent, making Pakistan the only country in the region with an expanding mangrove forest cover.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar lands in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on an official visit on August 23, 2025. Picture: X/@ForeignOfficePk

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Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar arrived in Dhaka on Saturday for an official two-day trip, marking the first state visit by a foreign minister to Bangladesh in 13 years, the Foreign Office (FO) said.

Ever since a popular uprising in Bangladesh saw Sheikh Hasina’s government being toppled in August of last year, there has been a thaw in ties between Islamabad and Dhaka, with trade and bilateral relations seeing a marked improvement.

According to a press release by the FO, Dar arrived in Dhaka today “on a landmark official visit from August 23-24” on the invitation of Bangladesh’s government.

He was received by Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Ambassador Asad Alam Siam, High Commissioner of Pakistan to Bangladesh Imran Haider, High Commissioner of Bangladesh to Pakistan Muhammad Iqbal Khan and officials of the Pakistan High Commission, it said.

The press release added, “During the visit, the deputy prime minister will hold important meetings with the Bangladeshi leadership, including Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus, Adviser for Foreign Affairs Mr Md Touhid Hossain, and Adviser for Commerce Mr SK Bashir Uddin.

“Discussions will encompass the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation including regional and international issues of mutual interest.”

Earlier today, the FO wrote on X that Dar embarked on a “historic visit to Bangladesh” as the deputy premier departed from the Nur Khan Airbase in Rawalpindi. “In Dhaka, he will hold important meetings with Bangladeshi leaders,” it added.

“The visit is a significant milestone in Pakistan-Bangladesh relations as a Pakistani foreign minister is visiting Bangladesh after a gap of around 13 years,” the FO highlighted.

The last time a foreign minister paid an official visit to Dhaka was in November 2012, when Hina Rabbani Khar made a six-hour visit to Bangladesh to formally invite then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina to a summit in Islamabad later that month.

During his trip, Dar will hold important meetings with various Bangladeshi leaders, including Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus and Adviser for Foreign Affairs Touhid Hossain, according to a statement by FO.

“The whole range of bilateral relations and a number of regional and international issues will be discussed during these meetings.”

The meetings are likely to take place tomorrow, according to Bangladeshi news outlet BSS.

The visit is expected to see the signing of four to five memorandums of understanding (MoUs) to strengthen bilateral ties in the fields of trade, culture, media, training, and travel, a senior official of Bangladesh’s foreign ministry told BSS.

Dar’s visit comes on the heels of Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan’s official tour to Dhaka, where he met Bangladesh’s advisers for commerce and industries.

Islamabad and Dhaka are in the process of establishing a joint working group on trade to enhance the economic ties and foster greater cooperation in trade, according to the commerce ministry.

The two countries started direct government-to-government trade in February with imports of 50,000 tonnes of rice, while Fly Jinnah has also secured approval to operate flights from Karachi to Dhaka.

Diplomatic ties were rekindled after 15 years in April with the visit of Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch for Foreign Office Consultations (FOC).

Last month, when Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi visited Dhaka, Paki­stan and Bangladesh agreed to grant visa-free entry to holders of diplomatic and official passports from the other side.

TOBA TEK SINGH  –  From the road, the old railway station looks like it has been asleep for decades. The arches are hollow. The roof sags under years of dust and rain. The yellow brick has lost its shine, pitted and rough. Above the entrance, Nur Pur is painted in bold black. Stand there long enough and another name emerges from beneath the peeling whitewash. Kot Gurdit Singh.

The older letters are ghostly, their edges blurred but stubborn. For more than thirty years they lay buried under fresh paint. Now the sun and rain have worked together to bring them back, flake by flake, like a memory that will not fade. The station opened in the late 1800s on the Faisalabad to Karachi line. Kot means village. Gurdit Singh was a Sikh landowner who once commanded respect in the surrounding fields. For nearly a century, his name greeted passengers arriving on dusty trains. In the late 1980s officials painted over Kot Gurdit Singh and replaced it with Nur Pur, the name of a nearby Muslim village. It was part of a post-Partition reshaping of the map as Sikh and Hindu names disappeared from public places.

At the time, the station still had life. Farmers carried grain sacks to the platform. Schoolchildren in crisp uniforms lined up in the shade. The ticket clerk leaned on a stone sill, calling out fares through a small window, the same one that now stands chipped and silent. 

Barkat Ali, known as Barkat Mohgi Wala, recalls seeing Gurdit Singh before Partition. “Small eyes, wearing a bushirt,” he says. Then the road came. Blacktop ran alongside the tracks. Buses and motorbikes took over. Ticket sales dwindled until, in the late 1990s, Pakistan Railways locked the doors. Inside now, the air is dry and still. The timetable board hangs on the wall, its Urdu lettering cracked like old porcelain. Faint red and blue lines on the fare chart are barely visible, the numbers rubbed to shadows.

The plaster is marked with graffiti, names, slogans and quick sketches in pen and charcoal. Outside, the platform is broken in places, the bricks uneven and sprouting tufts of grass. Beyond it, the tracks stretch straight into the haze, two metal rails glinting before they vanish into green. No train stops here. Toba Tek Singh was developed by the British toward the end of the 19th century when a vast canal system transformed scrub and dust into farmland. By 1906 the district had 148,984 people and 342 villages. Gojra, now a tehsil of Toba Tek Singh, earned the nickname “hockey city” for its champion teams. The city itself was named after a Sikh saint and was founded in the early years of the colonization era. Before Partition, Toba Tek Singh had a sizable Sikh population, many of whom had migrated from Eastern Punjab when the British began developing the region. 

Most of the villages carried the names of Sikh or Hindu personalities. In 1947 they left for India. In their place came Muslims from Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Amritsar. The city’s own name comes from Tek Singh, a Sikh who tended a pond, toba in Punjabi, and offered water and shelter to travelers. When officials later tried to rename it Fareed Abad, locals refused. The name stayed. Across Punjab many old names have been painted over. At the railway station, however, the paint is giving way. Nur Pur still claims the wall in bold strokes. Beneath it, Kot Gurdit Singh is returning, each season sharpening its outline. It is as if the wall is speaking, insisting the place was once called something else, that it belonged to another time. The building is silent, the ticket window empty, the timetable frozen. The trains have long gone, the people have moved on. But the name is coming back, letter by letter.

The Sindh Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) on Saturday said that it found involvement of the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in the target killing of a man in Badin district and arrested six suspects in this connection.

On July 30, the CTD had said it arrested four suspected members of a banned separatist militant group in Karachi over charges of killing a man in Badin’s Matli on May 18. During interrogation, the suspects had confessed that they had gunned down the victim, identified as Abdul Rehman. A case was registered under terrorism charges.

According to a statement by the law enforcement agency today, “In a joint operation, Sindh CTD and the state intelligence agencies traced the network working for the Indian intelligence agency RAW (Research & Analysis Wing) and arrested six suspects.”

It added that the 45-year-old victim was “an innocent citizen who actively participated in welfare work”.

“The suspects escaped after unjustly killing him,” the statement said, adding that the Indian media had expressed “immense joy” over the murder and claimed that “an Indian enemy was killed in Pakistan”.

The statement further said that the provincial government had appointed a joint investigation team under the leadership of the CTD deputy inspector general of police for investigation.

“During the investigation, thoroughly reviewing all aspects, including suspects’ statements, records and bank transactions, there was clear evidence suggesting the involvement of the banned organisation Sindh Revolutionary Army in the facilitation of RAW,” it said, adding that teams have been formed for further arrests.

Speaking during a press conference today, CTD Additional Inspector General (AIG) Azad Khan said, “Based on technical information, four suspects, Umair Asghar, Sajjad, Ubaid and Shakeel were arrested on July 8. Upon investigation, there was proof of their links to RAW.”

He continued, “The investigation also proved that the mastermind of this (killing), residing in a Gulf state, was an Indian agent and handler Sanjay Kumar alias Fauji.”

He explained that Sanjay had hired a resident of Sheikhpura named Salman. “On May 12, Salman travelled to Hyderabad and stayed at a hotel. His four accomplices came from Muridke and Sheikhpura,” he said, adding that they monitored the target’s movements for five days.

AIG Azad said that three of the suspects — Shakeel, Ubaid and Sajjad — went to Matli to carry out the killing, adding, “Umair and Salman stayed at the hotel in Hyderabad and handled the operation from there.”

“Sanjay stayed in contact [with them] from a foreign country throughout the incident,” he explained, adding, “Salman returned to the Gulf country through Karachi airport and escaped to Nepal.”

He further noted, “CTD also found that RAW spent a ton of money, sending money through banks and various sources.” Within terror financing, the CTD arrested Arsalan on Aug 17 and Talha Umair on Aug 22, he said.

The CTD recovered one 9mm pistol, one 30 bore pistol, one 125cc motorcycle and mobile phones from the suspects, he said. He added that RAW also utilised a separatist organisation and further investigation is underway.

The official also stated that “such extra-territorial killings” are considered state-sponsored terrorism under international law.

Noting the Indian spy agency’s previous involvement in “similar actions in other countries”, he said, “They use criminal elements, terrorist groups and proxies. That was also the modus operandi in this case, as evident in the facts on RAW’s involvement during our investigation.”

On Monday, an anti-terrorism court in Karachi remanded a suspected RAW agent in the CTD’s custody, Muhammad Arsalan, over his alleged terror financing and facilitation in this targeted killing case.

The CTD claimed that initial interrogation revealed Arsalan and Umair’s involvement in terror financing, while the remaining suspects were directly linked to the targeted killing of the citizen. It added that an “Indian national” had given them the target and paid Rs3 million.

In June, four suspected Indian agents were arrested in a raid carried out in Karachi’s Quaidabad area. “The suspects had made videos and captured pictures of the country’s sensitive installations, which they used to send to RAW using specialised software,” police claimed.

The process of receiving applications under the government’s Hajj Scheme 2026 has officially concluded, with 118,060 pilgrims applying from across Pakistan.

According to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the application window—opened on a first-come, first-served basis through online platforms and designated banks—was closed after an overwhelming response filled the quota within just 17 days. Officials said the quota was exhausted much earlier than in previous years due to the strong rush of applicants.

Pilgrims applied for both long and short-duration packages. The ministry confirmed that half of the total Hajj expenses were deposited as the first installment, while the remaining amount will be collected later in the second phase.

With applications now complete, the ministry will begin processing and verifying the forms before issuing further instructions to the selected pilgrims. Authorities added that the early closure of applications will allow this year’s Hajj preparations to proceed on an accelerated timeline.

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Saturday granted the police a five-day physical remand of PTI founder Imran Khan’s nephew Shershah Khan in a case pertaining to the Jinnah House attack during the May 9, 2023 riots.

The Lahore Police arrested Shershah, son of Imran’s sister Aleema Khan, from outside his home on Friday. His brother Shahrez Khan, who was picked up on Thursday, was also handed over to police custody yesterday for eight days over the same allegations.

ATC Judge Manzer Ali Gill presided over today’s hearing, where PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja appeared as Shershah’s counsel and Imtiaz Sipra as the prosecutor.

The prosecution sought a 30-day physical remand, while the defence counsel requested that the suspect be discharged from the case. Judge Gill then granted the police Shershah’s five-day custody.

On May 9, 2023, PTI supporters, protesting Imran’s arrest, staged violent protests throughout the country, vandalising military installations and state-owned buildings, while also attacking the Lahore corps commander’s residence.

Following the riots, the state launched a crackdown on the PTI, with thousands of protesters and top party leadership arrested. Scores of PTI leaders have recently been convicted in cases over the riots and disqualified from their parliamentary roles.

Addressing a press conference outside the Lahore ATC, Aleema said her sons had not committed any crime to warrant arrest.

“What is their crime? Their crime is that they are Imran Khan’s nephews … that they are Imran Khan’s family,” she said.

She said that the arrests aimed to put “pressure” on Imran and his family, but added that they were not succumbing to this pressure.

“This is a fight of every Pakistani — it is a duty of every Pakistani — that for this country, its freedom … they play their part,” Aleema said.

She added, “We can play our part by standing with Imran Khan, because he is standing for Pakistan.”

With both Shahrez and Shershah now in police custody, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said it was “alarmed” by the arrest of Imran’s two nephews.

“The fact that the arrests were made 27 months after the incident is difficult to understand for any independent observer, having occurred at a time when the trials of other accused persons have been long underway or already concluded,” the HRCP said in a statement.

The commission said it was “deeply concerned about the further backsliding of citizens’ rights and expresses its disappointment in the policing and legal system, particularly when it comes to dealing with political opponents”.

“We demand that the authorities ensure transparency and the rule of law in all such matters,” the HRCP added.

Shahrez’s wife, Maria, wrote on her newly made X account that the triathlete was in Chitral on May 9, 2023 at her family home.

She shared a purported image of the metadata of a group photo taken in Chitral that day of Shahrez with her family and friends.

Imran’s son Kasim Khan, who along with his brother Sulaiman has been more vocal in recent months about his imprisoned father, had termed his cousins’ arrests as “blatant state repression”.

Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry defended the arrests yesterday, saying they could not be chalked off as “fake, fabricated [or] politically motivated”.

He asserted that both siblings were present at the scene of the Jinnah House vandalism.

ATC hearing

Similar to the request made in Shahrez’s case, the prosecution today sought Shershah’s 30-day physical remand in the Jinnah House attack case registered at the Sarwar Road police station.

“The suspect was present at the crime scene. A weapon was used at the site,” Sipra told the court, adding that Shershah was allegedly seen in a video from the incident.

“The suspect’s social media accounts have to be recovered,” he contended.

On the other hand, Raja argued that the arrest was “illegal”, noting it was made 27 months after the incident.

“The suspect had appeared in this same court yesterday with Shahrez and was arrested the same day,” the PTI counsel said. “Where was the police for 27 months?” he asked.

Raja, citing the Supreme Court’s previous directives related to videos, contended that a video had “no value [as evidence] till the person who recorded it appeared in court and spoke of its authenticity”.

Aleema’s lawyer, Advocate Rana Mudassir, detailed that Shershah was arrested while on his way home after appearing for his brother’s case hearing.

“This case is like Shahrez’s case. We request that the court discharge Shershah from the case,” Mudassir pleaded.