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WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Wednesday it had ordered non-emergency personnel from US consulates in Karachi and Lahore, along with their families, to leave Pakistan due to security concerns.&nbsp;&quot;The Department of State ordered non-emergency US government employees and the family members of US government personnel from US Consulates Lahore and Karachi to leave Pakistan due to safety risks,&quot; the US embassy in Pakistan said in a statement.&nbsp;It said there was no change to the status of its embassy in the capital, Islamabad.&nbsp;On Tuesday, the US extended the closure of visa services at its embassies and consulates across Pakistan until Friday, March 6, citing the current security situation following nationwide protests.&nbsp;The suspension comes after demonstrations erupted in several cities over the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei during Israeli and American attacks in Iran.&nbsp;The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/us-cancels-all-visa-citizen-services-appointments-in-pakistan" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">US Embassy in Islamabad</a> confirmed that all visa appointments have been canceled until March 6 due to security concerns.&nbsp;Visa services have also been suspended at US consulates in Lahore and Karachi. According to the embassy, all scheduled appointments have been cancelled until further notice, with fresh dates to be communicated soon.&nbsp;

Foreign Affairs

The development comes after demonstrations erupted in several cities over the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei during US-Israeli attacks in Iran.

US orders non-emergency consular staff in Karachi, Lahore to leave Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The US Congress is set to vote this week on a resolution seeking to curb President Donald Trump&rsquo;s authority to conduct military operations against Iran without explicit legislative approval, lawmakers and aides said on Tuesday. The measure, introduced by Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, would direct the president to terminate the use of US armed forces in hostilities against Iran unless authorized by Congress or in response to an imminent threat, according to the text of the resolution and a statement from Kaine&rsquo;s office. &ldquo;We should not be going into a war in the Middle East or anywhere without good, solid reason that has had its tires kicked and that has demonstrated that is of a magnitude sufficient to warrant losses that could reach this scale,&rdquo; Kaine said. &ldquo;This President has asserted no real reason that is clear to the American public, and that&rsquo;s why the American public so far is so against this.&rdquo; The votes are expected midweek in both chambers and would invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution &mdash; a law passed during the Vietnam War to check a president&#39;s unilateral power to commit the country to armed conflict. In the Senate, the bipartisan resolution is led by Kaine and Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. According to TIME magazine, the president would require explicit congressional authorization to engage in further hostilities against Iran. The US Senate is expected to take up the measure first, Senate aides said, with a parallel resolution likely to be introduced in the US House of Representatives later in the week, according to House Democratic leadership staff. Several Republicans, however, defended Trump&rsquo;s actions as falling within his authority as commander-in-chief, according to floor speeches and party statements. &ldquo;I pray so hard for my colleagues to exercise the judgment that this is not the right time for more war,&rdquo; Kaine concluded. &ldquo;I pray that my colleagues will support the War Powers Resolution.&rdquo; The vote is expected on Wednesday, with the House likely to consider the measure later this week, congressional aides said.

US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat from New York, speaks to the press alongside Senator Tim Kaine (L), Democrat from Virginia, following a closed-door lunch meeting with Senate Democrats at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 3, 2026

Americas

Lawmakers move to reassert constitutional authority over military action as bipartisan senators push for the president to require explicit approval for further hostilities against Tehran, arguing the administration has not presented sufficient justification for continued escalation.

Congress to vote on Trump’s war powers as US-Israel strikes on Iran enter fifth day

TEHRAN: Iran will hold a three-day state funeral for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/iranian-embassy-in-pakistan-condemns-ayatollah-khameneis-assassination" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">assassinated in US-Israeli strikes</a>, official news agency IRNA said.&nbsp;&quot;Starting at 10:00 pm (1830 GMT), the faithful will be able to pay a final homage to the body of the martyred guide of the nation, by visiting the Imam Khomenei grand mosque&quot; in Tehran, Irna said, citing a statement from the Islamic Development Coordination Council.&nbsp;Khamenei was 86 years old when he was killed, and will be buried in his home city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran. More to follow.

People mourn the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran (AFP/File)

Middle East

Khamenei was 86 years old when he was assassinated, and will be buried in his home city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran.

State funeral for Ayatollah Khamenei to begin Wednesday evening

LONDON: The British government announced Tuesday that it would stop issuing education visas to nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, and Sudan and work visas for Afghans as part of its broader clampdown on asylum seekers. The Home Office said there had been a surge in asylum applications by students from those countries, and almost 135,000 asylum seekers in total had entered the UK using legal routes since 2021. &quot;Britain will always provide refuge to people fleeing war and persecution, but our visa system must not be abused,&quot; said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood in a statement. &quot;That is why I am taking the unprecedented decision to refuse visas for those nationals seeking to exploit our generosity.&quot; The Home Office said the number of asylum applications by students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, and Sudan had &quot;rocketed&quot; by more than 470 percent between 2021 and 2025. Migration has become a major issue in British politics, with the hard-right Reform UK surging in opinion polls with its anti-migration stance. Successive governments have struggled to contain small boats crossing the Channel from France, which bring large numbers of undocumented migrants. But the authorities also face pressure to reduce the number of asylum seekers entering on other routes. The Home Office said the government has &quot;reduced student asylum claims by 20 percent over the course of 2025, further action is needed as those arriving on study visas still make up 13 percent of all claims in the system&quot;.

The tail fins of British Airways planes are pictured at Heathrow Airport in west London on February 27, 2026. (AFP)

United Kingdom

London said asylum applications from students of the affected nations surged more than 470% between 2021 and 2025, with 135,000 people entering via legal routes since 2021, as authorities tighten controls amid mounting political pressure.

UK halts study visas for Afghanistan, three other countries

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to sever all trade with Spain after it refused to let US planes use its bases to attack Iran, while also lashing out at Britain for not cooperating more. Spain&#39;s left-wing government, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, one of Europe&#39;s most defiant leaders against Trump, has said that bases long used by US forces could only be allowed for activities consistent with the United Nations Charter. &quot;Spain has been terrible,&quot; Trump told reporters as he met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House. He also pointed to Sanchez&#39;s refusal to join NATO allies in a pledge to boost defense spending to 5% of GDP, a level pushed by Trump, who says the United States bears too much of a burden. &quot;So, we&#39;re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don&#39;t want anything to do with Spain,&quot; Trump said, adding that he had asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to &quot;cut off all dealings with Spain.&quot; It remains unclear what power Trump would have to &quot;end&quot; trade with Spain, after the Supreme Court struck down his use of emergency powers to impose arbitrary tariffs. Musing on the legalities, the 79-year-old property tycoon turned president said, &quot;I could tomorrow stop &mdash; or today, even better &mdash; stop everything having to do with Spain, all business.&quot; &quot;I have the right to ... do anything I want with it,&quot; he said. The Spanish government quickly responded that it had a &quot;mutually beneficial&quot; trading relationship with the United States and other countries. &quot;If the US administration wishes to review this relationship, it must do so while respecting the autonomy of private companies, international law and bilateral agreements between the European Union and the US,&quot; it said. &quot;Our country has the necessary resources to contain possible impacts, help sectors that may be affected, and diversify supply chains.&quot; Sanchez has called for dialogue to end the war on Iran, saying that &quot;one can oppose a hateful regime and at the same time oppose an unjustified and dangerous military intervention.&quot; Sanchez is also an outspoken critic of Israel, accusing it of carrying out genocide in its massive military operation in Gaza, an assertion Israel denies. US forces use the Rota naval base and Moron air base in Spain. During the 2003 Iraq invasion, Spain, then under conservative prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, staunchly backed the United States. &#39;Not happy&#39; with Britain Britain, a steadfast ally of the United States throughout the two World Wars and in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, also decided not to join the assault on Iran. &quot;I&#39;m not happy with the UK,&quot; Trump said, as he added of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer: &quot;This is not Winston Churchill that we&#39;re dealing with.&quot; Starmer said US fighter jets could use two UK air bases &mdash; one in Gloucestershire in western England and the other at the joint UK-US Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean &mdash; for a &quot;specific and limited defensive purpose.&quot; But Starmer said the United States was not authorized to use UK bases in Cyprus, one of which was struck by an Iranian-made drone. &quot;It&#39;s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land,&quot; Trump said in apparent reference to Diego Garcia. &quot;There would have been much more convenient landing there, as opposed to flying many extra hours.&quot; Trump, after a series of flip-flops, has denounced Starmer for agreeing to return the Chagos Islands, home to the Diego Garcia base and whose people were expelled by Britain, to Mauritius, and instead to lease the base. &quot;I will say the UK has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have,&quot; Trump said.

Spain's left-wing government has said that bases long used by US forces could only be allowed for activities consistent with the United Nations Charter; Spanish government says it had a "mutually beneficial" trading relationship with the United States and other countries.

Trump threatens Spain ties over Iran war refusal

WASHINGTON: Bill Clinton has offered an explanation for viral photos released as part of the Jeffrey Epstein files that show the former US president in a hot tub and a pool with a woman whose face is redacted. Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, testified last week before a Republican-led congressional panel investigating convicted sex offender Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Clinton told the House Oversight Committee he had no knowledge of the sex crimes of Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. During the deposition, the 79-year-old former president was asked about a photo that shows him in a hot tub with a woman whose face is covered with a black square and another picture of him in a swimming pool with Maxwell and an unidentified woman. Clinton said the photos were taken at a hotel during a visit he made to Brunei at the invitation of the Sultan, who was interested in helping with the Clinton Foundation&#39;s AIDS initiative. &quot;He invited me to stay there and he said, &#39;I want you to stay at this hotel and I hope you&#39;ll use the pool,&#39;&quot; Clinton said. &quot;I swam around. I sat in the hot tub for five minutes or whatever it was and I got up and went to bed,&quot; he said. &quot;I also believe that there was a Secret Service agent there at the other end of the pool.&quot; Clinton said he did not know the identity of the unidentified woman in the photos but he believed she was a member of the traveling party. &quot;I don&#39;t know who that is,&quot; he said. Asked if he had &quot;engaged in any sexual activities&quot; with the woman in the photos, Clinton replied: &quot;No.&quot; Hillary Clinton told the congressional panel that she did not know Epstein, and Bill Clinton said he broke ties with him before the financier&#39;s sex crimes came to light in 2008. Bill Clinton acknowledged during his testimony that he flew on Epstein&#39;s private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work. The depositions were held behind closed doors in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons reside, and the committee released videos of their testimony on Monday. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking minor girls to Epstein. Both Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump figure prominently in the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice but neither has been formally accused of any wrongdoing. Clinton told the committee that Trump, a one-time close friend of Epstein, &quot;never said anything to me to make me think he was involved in anything improper with regard to Epstein either.&quot;

Hillary says she did not know Epstein, Bill says he broke ties with him before the financier's sex crimes came to light in 2008, acknowledges that he flew on Epstein's private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work.



Ex-US president Clinton explains hot tub, pool photos from Epstein files

Israel says it has launched another “broad wave” of strikes after munitions debris fell in Tel Aviv following a new barrage of Iranian missiles; Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is to be buried in the holy city of Mashhad; and Donald Trump says the US Navy could escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz to safeguard shipping routes.

Israel army says begun 'broad scale strikes' in Tehran

WASHINGTON: Social media platform X announced Tuesday it would suspend creators from its revenue sharing program for 90 days if they post AI-generated videos of armed conflicts without disclosing they were artificially made, the company said.&nbsp;The policy change, announced by an X executive on the Elon Musk-owned platform, targets what the company described as a threat to information authenticity during wartime, as generative AI tools make it increasingly easy to produce misleading footage.&nbsp;&quot;During times of war, it is critical that people have access to authentic information on the ground,&quot; X&#39;s head of product Nikita Bier said, adding that current AI technologies make it &quot;trivial to create content that can mislead people.&quot;

Artificial Intelligence

Social media platform X said it will suspend creators for 90 days from its revenue-sharing program if they post AI-generated armed conflict videos without disclosure. The move aims to protect information authenticity during war time, amid growing misuse of generative AI tools.

X suspends revenue sharing for undisclosed AI war videos

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan passed on to Iran Saudi assurances that their territory would not be used for attacks against it. This resulted in minimal or no attacks by Iran on Saudi Arabia and Oman during the recent escalation, said Pakistan&rsquo;s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday.&nbsp;Addressing a media briefing at the Foreign Office in Islamabad, the foreign minister said that Pakistan remains engaged in &quot;shuttle communication&quot; to de-escalate the recent situation in the Middle East.&nbsp;&nbsp;Dar said he spoke with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, and mentioned the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed in September 2025.&nbsp;&nbsp;Based on the agreement, Dar said that he sought assurances from the Saudis and passed them on to the Iranian side, reiterating that Saudi territory would not be used for attacks against Iran. Because of these assurances, he said, there have been minimal or no Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia and Oman during the recent escalation.&nbsp;In the session, the foreign minister said that he has been in contact with foreign ministers of Turkey, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Palestine, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain, as well as representatives from the European Union, to promote diplomacy and dialogue.&nbsp;Regarding Afghanistan, Dar said that Pakistan continues to pursue regional connectivity, specifically a rail project connecting Uzbekistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan.&nbsp;He expressed disappointment that the current Afghan regime has failed to prevent its soil from being used by terrorist groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).&nbsp;Addressing concerns about stranded Pakistanis in Iran and the Gulf region amid the fluid security situation, Foreign Minister Dar noted that, with the exception of Oman and Saudi Arabia, most airspace in the region is currently closed.&nbsp;To assist stuck citizens, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has activated its Crisis Management Unit, which is operational 24/7.&nbsp;&nbsp;The minister said that 792 Pakistanis have already returned from Iran through various border points: 694 via Taftan, 59 via Ramdan, and 39 via Astara. Additionally, 46 students returned through Taftan and 62 through Ramdan, he added.&nbsp;Because the northern part of Iran is closer to Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijan government is providing &quot;Visa on Arrival&quot; and logistical support to Pakistanis, he added. So far, 64 Pakistanis have reached Azerbaijan from Iran; 42 have arrived in Lahore via Azal Airlines&nbsp;&lsquo;Unwarranted&rsquo;Earlier, Foreign Minister Dar sharply condemned the recent attack on Iran and the martyrdom of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for an immediate halt to regional escalation through diplomacy.&nbsp;Addressing the Senate, Dar described the Feb. 28 strike against Iran as &quot;unwarranted&quot; and expressed deep concern over the violation of international law, noting the &quot;age-old convention&quot; that heads of state should not be targeted.&nbsp;&quot;The government and the people of Pakistan join the people of Iran in their hour of grief and sorrow,&quot; Dar said, following a formal statement of condolence from the prime minister.&nbsp;The deputy prime minister revealed that, prior to the escalation, Pakistan had been actively mediating between the United States and Iran, alongside Oman.&nbsp;&nbsp;He noted that IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi had expressed optimism about the &quot;positive direction&quot; of the talks during a recent meeting in Austria.&nbsp;Dar told the Senate that Pakistan has consistently advocated for Iran&#39;s right to the &quot;peaceful use of nuclear energy.&quot; He disclosed that Pakistan had argued against the total destruction of Iran&#39;s nuclear infrastructure, supporting the 3.67% enrichment level previously accepted under the JCPOA, provided it remained under international surveillance.&nbsp;According to Dar, both Washington and Tehran had previously expressed willingness to use Islamabad as a venue for mediation.

Security

Pakistan passed on to Iran Saudi assurances that its territory would not be used for attacks against it, resulting in minimal or no attacks by Iran on Saudi Arabia and Oman during the recent escalation

Pakistan passed on Saudi assurances to Iran of no use of territory: Dar   

RIYADH: The US embassy in Riyadh on Tuesday warned of an imminent attack in the eastern Saudi city of Dhahran, home to much of the kingdom&#39;s energy installations along the Gulf coast.&nbsp;&quot;There is a threat of imminent missile and UAV attacks over Dhahran. Do not come to the US Consulate&quot; the embassy wrote on its official X account.&nbsp;The warning came just hours after the US mission in Riyadh was attacked by two drones that sparked a small fire on the embassy grounds, as Iran pressed on with retaliatory strikes across the Gulf.&nbsp;On Monday, the massive Ras Tanura refinery on Saudi Arabia&#39;s Gulf coast went into partial shutdown after a strike by drones.&nbsp;The complex run by the Saudi state oil giant Aramco is home to one of the largest refineries in the entire Middle East and a cornerstone of the kingdom&#39;s energy sector.&nbsp;Saudi Arabia is the world&#39;s biggest oil exporter, with most of its oil fields and petroleum infrastructure located along its eastern coast, across the Gulf from Iran.

Asia

The US embassy in Riyadh warned of imminent missile and drone attacks over Dhahran after two drones struck the mission. A strike also partially shut Ras Tanura refinery, highlighting threats to Saudi Arabia’s vital eastern oil infrastructure.

US orders non-emergency consular staff in Karachi, Lahore to leave Pakistan

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US orders non-emergency consular staff in Karachi, Lahore to leave Pakistan

Trump threatens Spain ties over Iran war refusal