Maham Khan

ISLAMABAD: In a world of Michelin stars, molecular gastronomy, and heated debates over whether pineapple belongs on pizza, the British Kebab Awards quietly remind us that nothing sparks joy&mdash;or friendly rivalry&mdash;quite like meat on a skewer. The 14th annual ceremony, held on February 24, 2026, at the Park Plaza Westminster Hotel, gathered Britain&rsquo;s kebab elite, an industry contributing roughly &pound;2.8 billion to the UK economy, according to the British Kebab Awards 2026 report. That&rsquo;s a lot of spice and a lot of votes for extra mint&nbsp;sauce. Founded by Ibrahim Dogus, the awards honor everything from Turkish doner and shish to restaurants brave enough to serve kebabs with a side of haute cuisine. Scotland&rsquo;s Shawarma King retained its crown for the fifth consecutive year (2022&ndash;2026), proving that consistency &ndash;&nbsp;like a good marinade &ndash;&nbsp;is everything. Belfast&rsquo;s The Sphinx won Best Kebab House in Northern Ireland, while Gillingham&rsquo;s Master Kebabs earned Takeaway of the Year, showing that you can be both quick and legendary, a rare talent in any kitchen. Finalists included Liverpool&rsquo;s Kemal Coskuncay of Casa Rima, a two-time Chef of the Year, and Coventry&rsquo;s Istanbul, the city&rsquo;s oldest kebab house, established in 1984. With over 20 award categories, no skewer went uncelebrated&nbsp;&ndash; from regional honors across Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to specialty awards for Greek, Lebanese, and Kosher shawarma. Service and innovation prizes, including Kebab Van of the Year and Best Vegan Kebab, proved that kebabs are as adaptable as they are delicious &ndash; yes, even kale can be on a skewer now. While Turkish cuisine remains the backbone, South Asian and Persian restaurants are increasingly staking their claim on the podium. London&rsquo;s Persian Palace (North and West London finalist, 2026), Newtownards&rsquo; Lahore Kebab House (Northern Ireland finalist, 2025), Glasgow&rsquo;s Asian Tandoori and Real Spice Cumbernauld (Scotland semi-finalists, 2025), Bellshill&rsquo;s Spices Bells Hill (Scotland finalist, 2025), and Enniskillen&rsquo;s Chaska (Northern Ireland finalist, 2025) show that kebabs can be as colorful as your spice rack &ndash;&nbsp;and just as bold. The awards may lean Turkish/Middle Eastern (doner, shish, and meze dominate) but South Asian chefs shine in parallel celebrations like the Asian Curry Awards, ARTA, and Curry Life Awards, honoring tandoori, mixed grills, and seekh kebabs. In other words, Britain&rsquo;s kebab culture is now a buffet of multicultural excellence, with every region bringing its own marinade to the table. This year also welcomed newcomers like Arslanbey Kebab (Best Newcomer) alongside fine-dining innovators like Beybaba Turkish Restaurant and Pircio, proving that kebabs can be street food, supper, or haute cuisine &ndash;&nbsp;sometimes all at once, and sometimes with Instagram-worthy flair. Following the 2025 ceremony, which celebrated Shawarma King, The Mantl, Losh Bar &amp; Grill, E.G. Charcoal Grill, and Grove Kebab Van, the 2026 awards reminded everyone that skewers are about more than meat. They are about community, creativity, and the occasional friendly rivalry. And let&rsquo;s face it: they make a mean Instagram story, too. Whether Turkish, Persian, or South Asian-inspired, a good kebab is proof that flavor knows no borders &ndash; and good grill etiquette is always appreciated.

 A food inspector examines the kebab grill during an inspection in a snack bar in Stuttgart. (AFP)

Food

The 14th British Kebab Awards celebrated Britain’s finest skewers, from Turkish doner to South Asian and Persian flavors, proving that kebabs bring spice, skill, and a dash of friendly rivalry.

The British Kebab Awards 2026: Skewers, sauces, and slightly competitive grins

ISLAMABAD: The debate over how to write &quot;strong female characters&quot; has consumed Hollywood for years. But in the folklore of Pakistan, etched into tombs, preserved in 17th-century manuscripts, and sung across five distinct regions, women have been swimming rivers, crossing deserts, debating clerics and slaying demons for half a millennium. Consider Sohni, from Sindh&#39;s Shahdadpur, where her tomb still stands. Every night, she navigates the treacherous Chenab River on an unbaked clay pot to reach Mahiwal, who waits passively on the opposite bank. She is the risk-taker, the boundary-crosser, the agent of her own desire. When the pot dissolves and she drowns, it is her conscious choice to enter the water rather than accept a life without autonomy. Mahiwal is merely the prize at the finish line. Or Sassui, immortalized in Shah Jo Risalo and anchored to the Kech-Makran route in Balochistan. She walks barefoot across the blistering Thar Desert to find her kidnapped lover Punnhun. The entire Hero&#39;s Journey, the trials, the suffering, the confrontation with the antagonist, belongs to her.&nbsp; Punnhun sleeps. Sassui acts. When threatened with assault by a shepherd, she doesn&#39;t wait for rescue; she commands the earth itself to open and swallow her, protecting her agency through spiritual ascension. She is neither damsel nor deity, she is sovereign. These aren&#39;t anomalies. They&#39;re the rule. In Punjab&#39;s Jhang district, a tomb dated 1471 CE verifies the existence of Heer. In Waris Shah&#39;s epic, she doesn&#39;t weep silently when forced into marriage, she engages the Qazi in fierce theological debate, citing Islamic jurisprudence to argue that forced marriage violates divine law. She schools the clergy. Ranjha, meanwhile, is a passive flute-player content to herd her buffaloes. He is her disciple, not her savior. From the Pashtun highlands of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa comes Gul Makai, preserved in 17th-century prose manuscripts. This woman stops an inter-tribal war by wielding the Quran as rhetorical weapon. She forces an all-male Jirga (council) to submit to her interpretation of sacred text. Her agency is intellectual, theological, revolutionary. Malala Yousafzai didn&#39;t choose this name accidentally. Even the &quot;damsel&quot; archetype collapses. In Sindh&#39;s Sehwan region, Momal builds a palace rigged with lethal puzzles to test and reject male suitors. She controls the gaze, the space, the rules. In Balochistan&#39;s heroic age, Hani is forced to marry the powerful Mir Chakar Rind to save her true love. She refuses to consummate the marriage for thirty years by turning her body into an unconquerable fortress. Her &quot;no&quot; is more powerful than a king&#39;s armies. And then there&#39;s Durdana Chelmard from folk anthologies, the monster-slayer who dresses as &quot;the strength of forty men&quot; to kill the demon terrorizing her kingdom, not for glory, but because the men failed. She is Gretel defeating the witch while Hansel cowers in the cage. These Pakistani tales, with their documented tombs, 17th-century manuscripts, and centuries-old oral traditions, prove that female agency runs deep in human storytelling. Women swimming rivers. Women crossing deserts. Women debating scripture. Women slaying monsters. Not as exceptions. As archetypes. Perhaps the answer to writing strong women isn&#39;t innovation. Perhaps it&#39;s remembering what storytellers already knew five hundred years ago.

Culture

From Sindh's river-swimmers to Balochistan's warrior queens, verified Pakistani folktales feature women who debate clerics, cross deserts, and slay demons—while men wait passively as prizes.

Pakistan's folktales: Where strong women slay demons, men wait passively

ISLAMABAD: While 235 million Indians struggle in multidimensional poverty, their government has locked in weapons contracts worth over $23 billion in 2025 alone, a military spending spree that analysts warn is accelerating a dangerous arms race across one of the world&#39;s most densely populated and nuclear-armed regions.&nbsp;The scale of the buildup is staggering. The defense ministry in New Delhi signed 193 contracts totaling 2.09 trillion Indian rupees ($23.28 billion) in the 2024-25 cycle, according to India&#39;s Press Information Bureau. Domestic manufacturers secured 92% of orders under the &quot;Atmanirbhar Bharat&quot; self-reliance initiative, marking India&#39;s most aggressive military expansion in decades.&nbsp;The timing is stark. India ranks 130th on the UN Human Development Index, with 235 million people facing multidimensional poverty and 269 million vulnerable to falling into poverty, according to the 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index published by the UN Development Programme and Oxford University. Yet the Indian Union Budget for Financial Year 2025-26 allocates 13.45% of total federal expenditure to defense and just 2.54% to education.&nbsp;An examination of India&#39;s weapons contracts reveals a coordinated strategy to achieve military dominance across South Asia while forcing regional neighbors into reactive militarization that diverts resources from development priorities and increases the risk of catastrophic miscalculation.&nbsp;Arsenal from three continents The acquisition spree draws from an unlikely coalition of suppliers. India and the US renewed their 10-year Defense Framework Agreement on Oct. 31 during meetings between Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in Kuala Lumpur, according to statements from both defense ministries.&nbsp;Under the renewed framework, Washington approved $45.7 million in Javelin anti-tank guided missiles and $47.1 million in Excalibur precision-guided artillery shells capable of two-meter accuracy at 70-kilometer range, according to US Defense Security Cooperation Agency notifications. The US also approved 113 additional GE-F404 engines for India&#39;s Tejas fighters.&nbsp;The centerpiece of American military sales remains a $3.9 billion procurement of 31 MQ-9B Predator armed drones with 1,000-kilometer operational range, scheduled for 2029 delivery. Negotiations have advanced for six additional P-8I Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and co-production of Stryker infantry combat vehicles, according to Indian defense sources.&nbsp;France and India signed a $7.6 billion Inter-Governmental Agreement in April for 26 Rafale Marine fighters equipped with SCALP cruise missiles offering 300-kilometer standoff range and HAMMER precision munitions, according to the French Defense Ministry. The aircraft will deploy aboard carriers INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya.&nbsp;Russia has continued deliveries of the S-400 Triumf air defense system despite Western sanctions, with three regiments now operational, according to Indian media reports. Indian media reported the systems were utilized during border incidents in May and December. Moscow and New Delhi signed a $248 million contract in March for engines to upgrade India&#39;s T-72 tank fleet, including technology transfer for licensed domestic production, according to Russia&#39;s state-owned Rostec Corporation.&nbsp;Indigenous push Domestic production has accelerated dramatically under the &quot;Atmanirbhar Bharat&quot; initiative. State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited received $6.98 billion for 156 Prachand light combat helicopters, according to company statements. The Defense Acquisition Council approved $28 billion in procurements covering the Nag Missile System Mk-II, BrahMos fire control systems, indigenous medium-altitude long-endurance drones, ground-based electronic intelligence systems and naval surface guns, according to India&#39;s Press Information Bureau.&nbsp;Additional contracts finalized 307 Advanced Towed Artillery Gun Systems valued at $768.5 million, 425,000 close-quarter battle carbines for $308.5 million, and various ammunition types for Pinaka Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers totaling $1.13 billion, according to Ministry of Defense procurement data. The Cabinet Committee on Security approved development of the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft fifth-generation fighter program in May, according to government statements.&nbsp;&quot;The next warfare frontier is swarm drone attacks,&quot; said Dr. Masood ur Rehman Khattak, assistant professor of international relations at International Islamic University Islamabad, whose doctoral research examined Indian military strategic thinking and its implications for South Asian deterrence stability. &quot;We saw this in the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel-Iran confrontations and the Pakistan-India standoff in May. India is heavily investing in this domain.&quot;&nbsp;Cost of guns over development The opportunity cost becomes clear in comparative terms. The $3.9 billion allocated for armed drones alone could fund approximately 15,000 schools or 500 hospitals based on Indian government construction estimates obtained through Right to Information requests.&nbsp;Trilateral arms race The spending surge extends beyond South Asia&#39;s bilateral dynamics. India faces strategic challenges with China along the disputed Line of Actual Control, where persistent infrastructure buildup by the People&#39;s Liberation Army necessitates &quot;modernization and operational preparedness&quot; to maintain the status quo, according to the Ministry of Defence Annual Report 2024-25.&nbsp; In the Indian Ocean Region, the Indian Maritime Doctrine 2025 formally recognizes the threat of &quot;military encirclement&quot; due to China&#39;s expanding naval presence and dual-use base network including facilities at Djibouti, Gwadar and Hambantota. The competition between India-Pakistan and India-China creates interlocking security dilemmas that ripple through global great power relations. The US has positioned India as a counterweight to Chinese influence through weapons sales and strategic partnerships, while Russia maintains defense cooperation with New Delhi despite Western pressure over Ukraine.&nbsp;&quot;Countries involved in strategic competition do not compromise on defense expenditure,&quot; said Dr. Attiq ur Rehman, a defense analyst specializing in South Asian security, nuclear politics and defense studies. &quot;India has adopted a balanced policy with all great powers &mdash; receiving S-400 systems from Russia while maintaining US strategic partnership &mdash; positioning itself as an essential customer for nations seeking to constrain Chinese influence regionally.&quot;&nbsp;Regional reckoning The arms buildup forces reactive militarization across the region. Pakistan has relied primarily on Chinese military assistance, including JF-17 Thunder fighters jointly produced with China and Type 054A frigates, according to Pakistani military sources. Regional states will be forced to divert scarce resources from development priorities into military modernization, perpetuating cycles of competition that benefit no population.&nbsp;The pattern mirrors historical precedents. Arms buildups preceded the wars of 1965, 1971 and 1999, each time undermining diplomatic efforts and confidence-building measures that had sought to reduce tensions. India launched a massive modernization program following the 1962 Sino-Indian War while Pakistan received substantial American military aid through the 1954 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute military expenditure data.&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;The conventional imbalance automatically creates dangerous dynamics,&quot; Khattak said. &quot;This dynamic is extremely dangerous for the region. India is now focusing heavily on artillery with extended ranges &mdash; systems like Dhanush, ATAGS and Vajra K9 that far exceed the range of older systems. They&#39;re adding capabilities systematically, and this creates pressures that make the entire regional security environment more volatile.&quot;&nbsp;Advanced weapons systems lower crisis thresholds and compress decision-making timelines during confrontations, reducing space for diplomatic resolution, according to conflict studies research from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.&nbsp;Dr Rehman noted that the great power competition adds another layer of complexity. &quot;India has positioned itself as essential to constraining Chinese influence, which ensures continued weapons flows from both Western and Russian suppliers despite geopolitical tensions,&quot; he said.&nbsp;Guns-and-butter equation The 2025 acquisitions fundamentally alter South Asia&#39;s military equilibrium. The trajectory threatens to transform one of the world&#39;s most densely populated regions into an arena of intensifying military competition, where advanced weapons systems and compressed crisis timelines increase the risks of miscalculation and escalation.&nbsp;In a region where nuclear-armed neighbors have fought four wars since 1947, where over 500 million people live within potential strike range of the weapons systems India is now deploying (as per UN and SIPRI), and where a single miscalculation could trigger catastrophe on a scale the world has never seen, the $23 billion question is not what India can buy with its defense budget. It is what the entire subcontinent will pay for it.&nbsp;The Rafale fighters, the Predator drones, the S-400 systems &mdash; each represents a choice. Not just between guns and butter, but between a future where South Asia&#39;s 2.096 billion&nbsp;people can pursue development and prosperity, or one where they remain hostage to an arms race that enriches defense contractors in Washington, Paris and Moscow while schools go unbuilt, hospitals remain understaffed and hundreds of millions stay trapped in poverty that military spending helps perpetuate.&nbsp;India&#39;s defense ministry calls it strategic autonomy. History may record it as a collective suicide note, written in weapons contracts and signed by governments that chose military dominance over human development in one of the world&#39;s most vulnerable regions.

India

New Delhi chooses guns over development, signing $23 billion in weapons contracts that threaten regional catastrophe and perpetuate poverty.

Guns over schools: How India's military buildup is bankrupting South Asia's future

The phone call comes at 9pm, after a long day at work. The man on the other end, introduced through her mother&#39;s WhatsApp network, is pleasant enough. 20 minutes in, he mentions that he can&#39;t cook. Or clean. His mother does everything, he explains, but of course after marriage, that would be his wife&#39;s responsibility. &quot;You&#39;ll still work, naturally,&quot; he adds. &quot;We want a modern woman.&quot; The woman, in her mid-20s, sits in her room and feels a familiar exhaustion. This is the third such call this week. Different men, same script: they want a working woman who will also shoulder all domestic responsibilities. &quot;This is not feminism,&quot; she says, recounting the experience weeks later. She requested anonymity to speak freely about family matters. &quot;Feminism was meant to make our life easier, not harder.&quot; 250 years ago, Jane Austen was born in Hampshire, England. The novelist would create some of English literature&#39;s most beloved characters: Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, Anne Elliot; women navigating the constraints of Regency-era marriage markets with wit and intelligence. Austen&#39;s genius lay not in imagining escape from the system, but in documenting how intelligent women operated within it. Her heroines couldn&#39;t opt out of marriage, economic survival depended on it, but they could resist, delay and ultimately choose partners who offered genuine respect alongside financial security. That tension between autonomy and constraint, individual preference and family pressure, remains startlingly alive in modern Pakistan. Here, the marriage market Austen satirized has evolved but not disappeared, migrating from drawing rooms to WhatsApp groups, from calling cards to biodata profiles. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/8ba2624f-2eee-4643-b7e6-aa6e455d2db1-drawing boards to whatsdapp.jpeg" alt="drawing boards to whatsdapp.jpeg" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">The marriage market Austen satirized has evolved but not disappeared, migrating from drawing rooms to WhatsApp groups. (Illustration from Pride and Prejudice/Jane Austen&#39;s House)</figcaption></figure> Pakistan TV Digital spoke with four women who recently navigated or are currently navigating Pakistan&#39;s rishta system, the network of family connections and matchmakers through which most marriages are still arranged. Their experiences, shared on condition of anonymity, reveal how Austen&#39;s observations about marriage as transaction rather than romance remain uncomfortably relevant. Economics of eligibility The woman, living in Islamabad, describes how proposals arrive: Her mother has joined numerous WhatsApp groups dedicated to matchmaking. When a man&rsquo;s profile appears, it gets forwarded to daughters deemed age-appropriate. &quot;You don&#39;t even want to talk to them,&quot; her mother said after weeks of resistance. She finally relented. What followed were conversations lasting one to two hours, mandatory auditions with prescribed questions. Do you pray five times daily? Can you cook? In &quot;Pride and Prejudice,&quot; accomplished women needed music, drawing, languages. Today&#39;s requirements are different but identical in spirit. Several families specified height requirements: between 5 feet 4 inches and 5 feet 6 inches. &quot;My son is so tall, we want a girl that looks great next to him,&quot; mothers explained. &quot;Even if the guy had no prospects himself, he wanted a perfect wife: has to be religious and &#39;homely,&#39;&quot; she says. The word &quot;homely&quot; in Pakistani usage means domestically skilled, but the expectation is clear. The cruelest irony, she notes, is that families explicitly want working women, dual incomes are increasingly necessary, but refuse to adjust expectations around domestic labor. Unspoken rules A Pakistani woman in her early 30s who holds a foreign passport but lives in Pakistan remembers when the pressure began. &quot;From an early age, since the teens, they were telling us to mentally prepare for marriage,&quot; she says. &quot;Mind you, I was just 24 when the pressure intensified.&quot; She resisted. Proposals came and were rejected. She became engaged once, then broke it off. Her parents, she says, &quot;almost gave up on me.&quot; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/c621a95d-c5a6-4daf-ab0f-79224ad9e023-AustenIllustrations3.webp" alt="AustenIllustrations3.webp" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Two centuries after the novelist skewered Regency-era matchmaking, her observations about family pressure and women&#39;s constrained choices remain startlingly relevant. (Illustration from Pride and Prejudice/The Mary Sue)</figcaption></figure> In Austen&#39;s &quot;Persuasion,&quot; Anne Elliot is persuaded at 19 to reject Captain Wentworth because he lacks fortune and connections. The novel&#39;s tragedy isn&#39;t that Anne made the wrong choice; it&#39;s that the choice was never truly hers to make. Family pressure overrode her own judgment. Rare success A 28-year-old woman based in Karachi describes a smoother experience, though one that still operated through the rishta infrastructure. &quot;My parents joined every WhatsApp rishta group on the planet,&quot; she says. She&#39;s currently working in the corporate sector and married two years ago. The proposal came through a family friend. When asked how she knew he was right, her answer is simple: &quot;I felt calm and comfortable with him.&quot; &quot;Marriage is not constant happiness, but long-term emotional safety and partnership,&quot; she says. &quot;I believe the strongest marriages operate with a mindset of &#39;us versus the problem.&#39;&quot; Darker edge For a woman based in Peshawar who married in her early 20s, the process became traumatizing. A proposal came through family friends. The prospective in-laws made their expectations clear: She would not be allowed to study further or work. &quot;They earn enough to feed me,&quot; she recalls them saying. They openly discussed their wealth while explaining her economic contribution would be unnecessary. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/277410c8-7eff-4bca-a973-45f50fbbc660-AFP__20061030__Del69818__v2__HighRes__PakistanSocialMarriageMass.jpg" alt="AFP__20061030__Del69818__v2__HighRes__PakistanSocialMarriageMass.jpg" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">A Pakistani Christian bride shows off her jewellery during a mass wedding ceremony of about 55 couples in Lahore. (AFP)</figcaption></figure> Her family immediately rejected the proposal. Instead of ending there, it became a pressure campaign. &quot;They started insisting and started pressurizing my parents through our mutual friends to say yes,&quot; she says. The mutual friends became intermediaries, delivering messages about what a good match it was, how turning them down was insulting. Persistent question None of the women interviewed have given up on marriage. Like Austen&#39;s heroines, they&#39;re not revolutionaries attempting to dismantle the system. They&#39;re pragmatists trying to find decent outcomes within constraints they didn&#39;t choose. &quot;I&#39;m not against arranged marriages,&quot; one told me. &quot;I&#39;m against the hypocrisy. Say you want a housewife, fine. Say you want a working woman who will also be your mother&#39;s replacement, that&#39;s honest at least. But don&#39;t dress up exploitation as feminism.&quot; What strikes me most is how little has fundamentally changed since Austen&#39;s era. The mechanisms are more efficient, WhatsApp can connect families across continents instantly, but the underlying calculation remains: women as assets to be acquired, their worth determined by attributes that serve family interests. The question Austen asked repeatedly was: Given that you must operate within this system, how do you preserve your dignity and autonomy? How do you find genuine partnership in a transactional market? <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/bab8a1d3-b617-4a41-965a-589303f1c123-P-CE-Brock.jpg" alt="P-CE-Brock.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Anne Elliot talking to Captain Wentworth &quot;in spite of the formidable father and sister in the background&quot;. (Illustration from Jane Austen&#39;s novel Persuasion/Jane Austen Society of Australia)</figcaption></figure> Elizabeth Bennet rejects Mr Darcy&#39;s first proposal and only accepts his second when he&#39;s demonstrated genuine respect. Anne Elliot spends years alone rather than settle. The women navigating Pakistan&#39;s rishta market are making similar calculations: seeking the same elusive balance between practical necessity and personal fulfillment.

Blogs

Two centuries after the novelist skewered Regency-era matchmaking, Austen's observations about family pressure and women's constrained choices remain startlingly relevant.

Marriage market: How Jane Austen's England lives on in Pakistan's rishta culture 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will officially revive one of South Asia&rsquo;s most vibrant spring festivals next month, as the Punjab government lifts a ban of more than a decade on Basant, the centuries-old kite-flying celebration once halted after deadly incidents caused by razor-sharp kite strings.&nbsp;Punjab&rsquo;s Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb announced the decision on X, declaring: &ldquo;Spring returns to the city of heritage and festivals. Lahore&rsquo;s skies will speak in color again, reclaiming our glory for the world.&rdquo;&nbsp;She said Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif &ldquo;has approved&rdquo; the return of Basant from February 6 to 8 in Lahore, the first officially sanctioned celebration since 2007. <div class="fr-embed"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; line-height: 2;"><iframe id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 672px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="X Post" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1998711272876159402&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fmain.d1wrm1qseko1cp.amplifyapp.com%2Farticles%2Fnew%2F&sessionId=333af8a47caec9ae1a27b53b80cbf02f1fc98b03&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</iframe></div>The festival historically transformed Lahore into a citywide spectacle, with entire neighborhoods turning into open-air gatherings and thousands of participants flying brightly colored kites in rooftop competitions. At its peak in the early 2000s, Basant drew international tourists and Pakistani expatriates who traveled home specifically for the event.&nbsp;Aurangzeb noted the festival would be celebrated &ldquo;across Lahore after 25 years,&rdquo; emphasizing that although small-scale celebrations persisted despite the ban, authorities had long blocked any formal or citywide events.&nbsp;A major safety operation is already underway. Lahore has begun installing protective antennas on motorcycles to prevent injuries caused by stray kite strings.&nbsp;&ldquo;Safety is CM Punjab priority,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Let every kite soar and every ride be safe, together we&rsquo;ll make Lahore happy, historic and secure.&rdquo;&nbsp;Why Basant turned deadlyOver the years, competitive kite-flying pushed enthusiasts to coat their strings, known locally as &ldquo;dor,&rdquo; with ground glass, metal or chemicals to gain an advantage.&nbsp;These sharpened strings could slice through rivals&rsquo; kites but also caused widespread harm, cutting electrical lines, triggering blackouts and, most tragically, injuring or killing motorcyclists who collided with the nearly invisible strings.&nbsp;By 2007, authorities attributed dozens of deaths to Basant-related incidents, including falls from rooftops and motorcycle accidents. The Punjab government banned the festival that year, and any attempts at revival in subsequent years were halted following new casualties.&nbsp;The ban hit Lahore&rsquo;s traditional kite-making families particularly hard, forcing many artisans to abandon their craft.&nbsp;New law sets strict controlsBasant&rsquo;s revival follows the introduction of the Basant Ordinance 2025, which sets strict safety rules aimed at preventing the tragedies that once made the festival deadly.&nbsp;Metallic and chemical-coated strings remain banned; only approved cotton strings may be used. Manufacturers and sellers must register with authorities and label each product with a QR code for tracking. &ldquo;Every kite string and seller registered, QR coded and monitored,&rdquo; Aurangzeb said, stressing rigorous enforcement.&nbsp;Penalties for violations include fines of up to Rs100,000 ($353.7) and possible imprisonment of up to three years.&nbsp;Motorcycles are being equipped with vertical antennas designed to deflect or break dangerous strings. &ldquo;On CM Punjab&rsquo;s direction a city-wide campaign to install safety antennas on all motorbikes starts tomorrow,&rdquo; she said, adding: &ldquo;Every motorbike in Lahore will have Antenna for safety before and during Basant.&rdquo;&nbsp;Aurangzeb said the festival belongs to the people but requires collective responsibility. &ldquo;Basant belongs to the people, its success is our collective responsibility. The Basant Ordinance 2025 will be fully enforced and implemented.&rdquo;</div>

It will be the first officially sanctioned celebration since 2007, when the a centuries-old kite-flying festival was prohibited after metal-coated strings killed dozens of people.

Punjab revives Basant festival after long ban with new safety rules

For decades, Pakistan has hosted one of the world&#39;s largest refugee populations, providing sanctuary to millions of Afghans fleeing conflict. But by October 2025, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declared that Pakistan could no longer sustain this burden, citing security threats and socio-economic challenges. The result: over 1.47 million Afghan nationals repatriated in what Islamabad said is an orderly but necessary response to an escalating crisis.&nbsp; The numbers tell a grim story. Between 2023 and 2025, Pakistan experienced a devastating wave of terrorist attacks with alleged or confirmed links to Afghanistan. In January 2023, a suicide bomber killed 95 people at a Peshawar mosque. In July 2023, an attack on a political rally in Bajaur claimed over 50 lives. By December, 23 soldiers died in a military post attack in Dera Ismail Khan.&nbsp; In 2023, Pakistan&#39;s former Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti stated that 14 of 24 suicide bombings in that year alone&nbsp;involved Afghan nationals. The pattern continued into 2024 and 2025. After seven soldiers were killed in North Waziristan in March 2024, Pakistan&#39;s defense minister declared that terrorism against Pakistan was &quot;mostly being conducted from Afghanistan.&quot; Most recently, in November 2025, a suicide bombing at an Islamabad district court killed 12 people. Pakistani officials stated that the bomber was an Afghan national and the attack was orchestrated from Afghanistan. For Pakistan, these aren&#39;t isolated incidents but evidence of a systemic problem: militant groups, particularly Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), operating from Afghan territory to launch cross-border attacks. Pakistani officials have repeatedly asked the Afghan Taliban of preventing its soil from being used by these militant groups. Despite diplomatic assurances to the contrary, the Taliban regime has done little. The diplomatic efforts were genuine but ultimately futile. Throughout 2025, Pakistan engaged in multiple rounds of high-level talks with Afghanistan&#39;s Taliban government, mediated by Qatar and Turkey. In April, Pakistan&#39;s Foreign Minister visited Kabul. In May, trilateral talks were held in Beijing. When deadly border clashes erupted in October, three separate negotiation rounds were convened in Doha and Istanbul. All failed. Pakistan demanded verifiable action against militant groups; Afghanistan either could not or would not deliver. The humanitarian dimension of this crisis cannot be ignored. According to an International Organization for Migration report in late November,&nbsp;435,279 Afghan nationals returned to Afghanistan between July and September alone. 93% left through self-organized returns, driven overwhelmingly by fear of arrest. The deportees came from areas that had suffered terrorist attacks: 28% from Quetta, 11% from Pishin. In September 2025, a suicide bombing at a political rally in Quetta, near Pishin, was claimed by the ISIS-K. This is the tragic calculus of national security meeting humanitarian obligation. Pakistan has legitimate security concerns. When diplomatic channels fail and attacks continue, a government faces pressure to act decisively. The international community has largely remained silent, treating this as a bilateral issue rather than a regional crisis requiring multilateral solutions. Afghanistan&#39;s Taliban regime has proven unable or unwilling to control militant groups within its borders, leaving Pakistan with few options. Meanwhile, Afghan refugees become pawns in a security crisis not of their making. There are no easy answers here. Pakistan&#39;s security concerns are real and documented. The failure of diplomatic engagement left Islamabad feeling it had exhausted peaceful options. But the mass repatriation of over a million people, many of whom have known only Pakistan as home, raises profound questions about refuge and the limits of hospitality when national security appears threatened. What remains clear is that this crisis demands more than bilateral negotiations that end in deadlock. It requires sustained international engagement, pressure on the Afghan&nbsp;Taliban to deny sanctuary to militant groups, and genuine support for both Pakistan&#39;s security needs and the humanitarian needs of displaced Afghans. Without it, we&#39;re left with what we have now: a tragic situation where everyone loses, and the most vulnerable pay the highest price.

When diplomatic channels fail and attacks continue, a government faces pressure to act decisively.

Pakistan's refugee crisis: When security concerns force difficult choices

24 years ago, the twin towers fell in Lower Manhattan, reshaping not just the skyline but the lived reality of every Muslim in America. This January, Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in as New York City&#39;s 111th mayor&mdash;its first Muslim, first South Asian, and first African-born leader.&nbsp; The geographic irony is almost too perfect: a Muslim mayor taking office in the very city whose police department once mapped every mosque within 100 miles, where &quot;wearing traditional Islamic clothing&quot; was listed as a radicalization indicator, where informants infiltrated wedding parties and college rafting trips in the name of counterterrorism. The distance between those two moments&mdash;between surveillance subject and City Hall&mdash;tells a story not just of individual achievement but of collective survival, political awakening, and the hard-won transformation of a community that refused to disappear. Since at least 2002, the NYPD&#39;s Intelligence Division engaged in what can only be described as systematic religious profiling. The Demographics Unit mapped 28 &quot;ancestries of interest&quot; associated with Muslim populations while explicitly excluding non-Muslims like Coptic Christian Egyptians or Iranian Jews. Undercover officers embedded themselves in mosques, bodegas, coffee shops, and barber shops. Their job, according to civil liberties groups, was to &quot;live the life of a fake Muslim&quot; inside these communities. The statistics are staggering: anti-Muslim hate crimes jumped from 28 incidents in 2000 to 481 in 2001 alone. But numbers can&#39;t capture what surveillance does to a community&#39;s soul. As Dr. Debbie Almontaser, a longtime Muslim advocate, testified: &quot;The community was traumatized because of how invasive the surveillance was.&quot; Trust evaporated&mdash;not just between Muslims and law enforcement, but among Muslims themselves. You couldn&#39;t be certain your neighbor wasn&#39;t an informant. Abdullah Ahmad, a Pakistani-American Brooklynite, who grew up in the 2000s, remembers this atmosphere vividly. &quot;Growing up in New York, it was a lot of Islamophobia,&quot; he recalls. &quot;That smear campaign mentality, the stigmatism that came from the Bush administration and everything after, it shaped how we moved through the world.&quot; Yet this is also where the story turns. Because surveillance, for all its trauma, had an unintended consequence: it politicized a generation. When your community is under siege, you have two choices:&nbsp;retreat or organize. New York&#39;s Muslims chose organization. Mamdani&#39;s victory carries symbolic weight that no single person should have to bear. A 2017 Pew Research survey found that 75% of US&nbsp;Muslims agreed there is &quot;a lot of discrimination&quot; against their community. The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion noted that &quot;widespread negative representations of Islam, fear of Muslims generally, and counterterrorism policies have served to perpetuate, validate and normalize discrimination.&quot; Into this climate steps a 34-year-old who spent his early years in Uganda and Cape Town, a &quot;third culture kid&quot; who once worked as a foreclosure prevention counselor in Queens. He&#39;s being asked to represent not just eight million New Yorkers but, symbolically, 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide. Yeliz Coban, a Turkish-American Brooklynite,&nbsp;understands this weight differently. &quot;It feels like being heard,&quot; she says simply. &quot;Not just being spoken at or spoken about, but truly listened to. It feels like someone who understands both the quiet resilience and the heavier burdens that Muslim communities have carried. His win isn&#39;t just symbolic&mdash;it&#39;s emotional. It feels like the city finally made space for us at the table.&quot; But the political opposition Mamdani faces reveals how precarious this moment remains. President Trump branded him a &quot;communist&quot; and vowed &quot;political retribution.&quot; Sitting members of Congress used fear-mongering, warning that his election would cause &quot;another 9/11.&quot; Trump even endorsed independent Andrew Cuomo&mdash;his political opponent&mdash;to prevent a Muslim from leading America&#39;s largest city. Masroor Jehangiri, a Pakistani-American living and studying in Staten Island, a predominantly Republican-leaning borough of NYC, feels both pride and anxiety. &quot;As a Muslim, I certainly feel proud and enabled that a person from our background can now become mayor of one of the greatest cities in the world,&quot; he says. &quot;This also comes with worry about how much Mamdani can actually deliver seeing how bad the political opposition has gotten. But I&#39;m glad his campaign revealed the mindsets of the politicians that lead us.&quot; Here&#39;s what makes Mamdani&#39;s victory genuinely transformative rather than merely symbolic: he didn&#39;t win by running away from controversy or making himself palatable to power. He won by building the largest grassroots campaign in New York history&mdash;100,000 volunteers knocking on three million doors. He won by centering economic justice: freezing rents for two million New Yorkers, making buses free, creating universal childcare, building 200,000 affordable housing units. &quot;A year ago, almost nobody had heard of Zohran Mamdani,&quot; Masroor notes. &quot;He used social media and multiple mediums to connect with younger generations, but he was also out on the streets doing ground work, genuinely connecting with everyday New Yorkers. For the first time, we witnessed a politician being genuine and honest,&nbsp;who doesn&#39;t seem trained to say certain answers but rather knows what answers people want.&quot; Abdullah saw this authenticity firsthand. &quot;Zohran has been a person of the community since the very beginning. He can speak to folks in Harlem because of his Ugandan background, or with all the desis [South Asians] in Jackson Heights.&nbsp;I recently had friends who went out for Halloween, and he was at the clubs speaking. No other politician would do that. I went to Yemeni delis, and they still have his posters up.&quot; This matters because it reframes the narrative. Mamdani isn&#39;t asking Muslims to be grateful for a seat at the table&mdash;he&#39;s reorganizing the entire table around working people&#39;s needs. South Asian voter turnout in the 2025 NYC primary increased by 40% compared to 2021, not because of identity politics but because a candidate finally spoke to their lived economic reality. The path from surveillance to City Hall wasn&#39;t inevitable, it was built. Built by Muslims who refused to self-censor out of existence, who organized despite fear, who raised their children to claim space rather than apologize for occupying it. Abdullah captures this generational shift perfectly: &quot;This 9/11 rhetoric is sort of ending. Yeah, you can instill fear from the Trump administration or Cuomo or whatever. But I think love and hope trumps all of that.&quot; Yeliz&#39;s hopes are more personal but no less powerful: &quot;My prayer is that Mamdani leads with integrity, keeps his promises, and shows this city that representation isn&#39;t something to fear but something that can expand our collective sense of belonging. If he does that, even those hesitant now will see that this moment isn&#39;t a threat, it&#39;s an opportunity.&quot; 24&nbsp;years ago, Muslim New Yorkers became surveillance subjects in their own city. Today, one of their own will lead it. That transformation didn&#39;t erase Islamophobia or solve systemic discrimination. But it proved something more important: that communities under siege can organize their way to power, that the children of immigrants can reshape the cities that once profiled them, that the distance between &quot;suspect community&quot; and City Hall is shorter than it looks&mdash;if you&#39;re willing to knock on three million doors. The future isn&#39;t certain, but it&#39;s no longer being written about Muslims. It&#39;s being written by them.

Articles

The geographic irony is almost too perfect: a Muslim mayor taking office in the very city whose police department once mapped every mosque within 100 miles.

New York once surveilled its Muslims, now Zohran Mamdani leads it

In late October 2025, Indian audiences watched a Bollywood hero demand a DNA test of the Taj Mahal. In &ldquo;The Taj Story&rdquo;, the protagonist claims the 17th-century mausoleum was originally a Hindu temple &lsquo;stolen&rsquo; by Muslim rulers. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has repeatedly rejected this theory, and centuries of historical and architectural records credit Mughal emperor Shah Jahan with commissioning the monument for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Yet in Narendra Modi&rsquo;s India, history is increasingly subject to reinterpretation. When cinema becomes a vehicle for myth presented as fact, and when millions absorb propaganda as entertainment, it amounts to a systematic reframing of Muslim contributions to the subcontinent, and of the identities of the 200 million Muslims who live in India today. India&rsquo;s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have refined a strategy of cultural revision: rewrite textbooks, challenge monument origins, recast Mughal history as occupation, demolish mosques and build temples in their place, and enlist Bollywood as a mass-scale amplifier. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/6cb9827c-b2ee-4b47-837d-1d998cce1d25-2.png" alt="2.png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Paresh Rawal promoting his movie The Taj Story on X.</figcaption></figure> The temple that never was The claim that the Taj Mahal was once a Shiva temple, &ldquo;Tejo Mahalaya,&rdquo; originated with P.N. Oak&rsquo;s 1965 book. Historians and the ASI have long dismissed the idea. In 2022, India&rsquo;s Supreme Court rejected a petition to open 22 sealed Taj Mahal rooms to search for Hindu idols, calling the request &ldquo;publicity interest litigation.&rdquo; The ASI has stated that the rooms are simple maintenance spaces. Even within India, voices are raising eyebrows over this narrative. Before the film premiered, many were quick to label it as propaganda.&nbsp; &quot;I think this story is pure propaganda,&rdquo; one Indian X user bluntly put it. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/bd64d234-dec7-4248-a489-c62aad1266b5-3.png" alt="3.png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">An Indian X user stated that the entire story was &quot;pure propaganda&quot;. (X)</figcaption></figure> Some went further, openly hoping for the movie to flop &quot;badly&rdquo;. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/e36968de-f78d-4d9a-838b-627efa0fb68d-7.png" alt="7.png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">(X)</figcaption></figure> One particularly sharp-witted user quipped, &ldquo;Nothing says trusted research like watching a movie [and] rewriting history! 22 mystery chambers, divine murtis, courtroom &lsquo;eyewitnesses&rsquo;&mdash;all checked. &quot;Next up: history books sold at the popcorn stand. Taj Mahal facts brought to you by Bollywood, not archaeologists.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/4d663e50-9c31-4bc8-ab9e-45ee20c20879-9 (this).png" alt="9 (this).png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">(X)</figcaption></figure> And it wasn&rsquo;t just the narrative itself that irked people. The main actor&#39;s shifting stance didn&rsquo;t go unnoticed. A user unearthed an&nbsp;October 2017 post&nbsp;from Paresh Rawal, where he had stated, &ldquo;Taj Mahal&mdash;Symbol of Love becomes the symbol of Hate!!!(sic)&nbsp;Stupid [and] unnecessary [and] sad [and] pathetic controversy.&rdquo; As the&nbsp;user wryly noted, it looks like Mr. Rawal may have had a &quot;change of heart&quot;&hellip; or perhaps a change of narrative. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/0db6e1bb-c756-4612-a431-f3ae9829f95f-6.png" alt="6.png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">(X)</figcaption></figure> When myth shapes law The Taj Mahal&nbsp;debate evokes an earlier, far more consequential case: the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. Hindu nationalist groups spent decades claiming the 16th-century mosque stood atop the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram. In December 1992, tens of thousands demolished the mosque. The violence and riots killed thousands. After a 17-year inquiry, the Liberhan Commission named BJP and RSS leaders &ldquo;responsible&rdquo; for the demolition. But in 2019, the Supreme Court, while declaring the mosque&rsquo;s destruction illegal, awarded the land to a Hindu trust. In January 2024, Modi inaugurated a new temple on the site in a nationally televised ceremony. The message many took from the sequence was clear: demolish first, wait, then receive recognition. Rewriting identity in classrooms The historical revision extends to classrooms. School textbooks have been reworked to minimize the cultural, architectural, and scientific contributions of Muslim dynasties, particularly the Mughals, who shaped Indian identity for centuries. Mughal emperors are increasingly framed as &ldquo;foreign occupiers&rdquo; rather than rulers whose legacy is interwoven with Indian music, language, art, and city-building. Curriculum is not neutral. What children learn determines who they believe belongs. The politics behind the rewrite Proponents of these changes argue they are restoring &ldquo;authentic Hindu history&rdquo; suppressed by earlier scholars and Muslim rule. But the effect is to cast Indian Muslims as historical outsiders in their own country. If the Taj Mahal, a globally recognized symbol of India, is reframed as &ldquo;originally Hindu,&rdquo; then Muslim claims to Indian cultural heritage are weakened. If mosques are reclassified as former temples, then every mosque becomes contested. Pluralism erodes quietly, long before violence erupts, through shifts in who is considered rightful. What is at stake The Taj Mahal itself will not change. Marble does not respond to political pressure. But the idea of India that built the Taj, a state where Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and other communities participated together in shared cultural production, may not survive if historical narrative becomes a tool of exclusion. The transformation unfolding is not simply about monuments or textbooks. It is about defining who belongs in the world&rsquo;s largest &#39;democracy&#39;. When a nation with 1.4 billion people and one of the world&rsquo;s largest Muslim populations reorders its history around a singular religious identity, the implications are global. Cinema scenes can become political reality. A fictional demand for a monument&rsquo;s DNA test reflects a deeper shift: the attempt to rewrite not just history, but citizenship itself.

India’s ruling BJP have refined a strategy of cultural revision: challenge monument origins, recast Mughal history as occupation, demolish mosques and build temples in their place, and enlist Bollywood as a mass-scale amplifier.

Taj Mahal: Hindu nationalist revisionism reshapes India’s monuments and memory

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is advancing a strategy to expand its meat and agricultural exports, aiming to position itself as a major player in the global halal market through regulatory reforms, infrastructure upgrades, and international partnerships, officials and industry experts said. The country aims to capture a larger share of the global halal market, valued at about $407.8 billion in 2023, according to a report by ICRIC, an affiliate of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Success could generate billions in foreign exchange and create jobs for millions, though infrastructure deficits and regional competition pose significant challenges. Untapped export potential Pakistan has 251.3 million livestock, with a growth rate of 3.18% annually since 2006, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics&rsquo; 7th Agricultural Census released in August 2024. The sector accounts for 63.6% of agricultural GDP and 14.97% of the total GDP, as per the Economic Survey 2024-25 released in June 2025. The Ministry of National Food Security and Research reported in June this year&nbsp;that over eight million rural families rely on livestock as their main livelihood. Despite this massive base, meat exports reached just $512 million with 123,515 tons in fiscal 2024 &mdash; a 20% increase from $426 million but under 3% of total exports, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data reported in July 2024. Over 97% of Pakistan&#39;s approximately 2.2 million tons of meat production is consumed domestically, according to the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan&#39;s Meat Export Strategy 2023-2027. The government aims to address&nbsp;barriers through infrastructure investment, skills training and technology upgrades to modernize processing facilities, improve cold storage networks and strengthen disease control systems. Infrastructure challenges Infrastructure deficits remain the primary obstacle. In September 2025, the government announced plans to establish modern abattoirs and processing facilities nationwide to meet international halal standards. Outdated cold chains limit capacity. Production costs reach $5 per kilogram compared with India&#39;s $3.5 per kilogram, as revealed during a meeting with PM&rsquo;s&nbsp;Special Assistant Haroon Akhtar Khan with industry stakeholders on October 20, 2025. Foot and Mouth Disease restricts access to premium markets. October 2025 discussions with Malaysia and Qatar addressed these challenges while opening cooperation channels. Pakistan also vowed to improve disease control, breeding programs and traceability systems. Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Rana Tanveer Hussain said at an October 19, 2025, meeting that Pakistan would overcome production costs and cold chain deficiencies through targeted interventions and public-private partnerships. International cooperation International partnerships provide access to expertise, technology and markets. October 2025 meetings with Australia, Malaysia, Qatar and the United States secured technical support. The Samsons Group is partnering with the Ministry of National Food Security and Pakistan Agricultural Research Council to improve livestock breeds, feed quality and disease control.&nbsp; The partnership aims to position Pakistan in, while promoting value-added products and agro-tourism in areas including Malam Jabba Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Australia, which exported 1.69 million metric tons of beef in 2024, according to Meat and Livestock Australia, will provide technology transfer.&nbsp; Discussions with Qatar and US focused on improving livestock genetics, disease management and research to enhance compliance and market access in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and beyond. Private sector role Private sector engagement drives the strategy. Government partnerships with private companies aim to modernize processing and boost export potential through capital investment. Their focus on value-added halal products aligns with growing global demand for certified, sustainable food. Government-backed initiatives, including Samsons Group&rsquo;s Malam Jabba Valley project, combine mountain agriculture and livestock development to create rural income and enhance sustainability. Economic visionPakistan&rsquo;s livestock population grew from 143 million in 2006 to 251.3 million in 2024, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Dr. Ikramul Haq, a leading Pakistani economist, says this growth presents a major opportunity for the country. &ldquo;Pakistan has huge potential in this sector, thanks to its rapidly growing livestock population. With one of the largest livestock populations in the world, this subsector is vital, accounting for more than 60% of the country&rsquo;s total agricultural economy,&rdquo; he said. He noted that boosting productivity, quality and compliance could drive significant growth in domestic and international markets. Pakistan aims to increase competitiveness in key markets. The United Arab Emirates accounted for 39% ($200 million) and Saudi Arabia 28% ($142 million) of meat exports in fiscal 2024, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data. Expansion targets include Europe and Southeast Asia. The strategy positions Pakistan as a major player in the halal market, leveraging its large livestock population, established halal practices, strategic location between Middle Eastern and Asian markets, and a young workforce.

Economy

Pakistan is pursuing reforms, infrastructure upgrades, and international partnerships to expand its halal meat exports, though outdated facilities, disease control gaps, and logistics challenges continue to limit competitiveness.

Pakistan targets global halal market with reforms to boost meat exports

ISLAMABAD: At the recent Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Geneva, an Indian representative from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Aparajita Sarangi, claimed that &ldquo;Kashmir is an integral part of India&rdquo; and that &ldquo;the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India was completely legal and irrevocable.&rdquo;&nbsp;However, a fact-based review of international documents and ground realities shows that this claim does not align with historical, legal, or international facts.&nbsp;1. Kashmir&rsquo;s status is defined by the UN as disputedThe United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed resolutions in 1948 and 1949, specifically Resolutions 47 and 51, that recognized Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory. These resolutions called for a free and impartial plebiscite to determine whether the region&rsquo;s people wished to join India or Pakistan.&nbsp;That plebiscite has never been held, and the region&rsquo;s status therefore remains undecided under international law.&nbsp;&ldquo;Kashmir&rsquo;s future must be determined by its people, not by unilateral declarations,&rdquo; Pakistan maintains in its consistent position before international forums.&nbsp;2. World&rsquo;s most militarized regionIf Kashmir were truly an &ldquo;integral part&rdquo; of India, it would not require the presence of hundreds of thousands of troops. Independent global assessments describe Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir as one of the most militarized zones in the world, with a long history of armed resistance and civilian unrest dating back to 1947.&nbsp;3. India&rsquo;s 2019 actions contradict international commitmentsIn August 2019, India revoked Article 370 of its constitution, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special autonomous status. Pakistan and international observers have called this action a violation of UN resolutions and an attempt to alter the region&rsquo;s demographic and political identity.&nbsp;Since then, Pakistan has marked August 5 as &ldquo;Youm-e-Istehsal,&rdquo; or Day of Exploitation, observing it as a reminder of what it calls India&rsquo;s &ldquo;unilateral and illegal actions&rdquo; in the occupied territory.&nbsp;4. Human rights concerns remain documented&nbsp;International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have reported arbitrary detentions, restrictions on free speech, and limitations on movement in Indian-occupied Kashmir since the revocation of Article 370.&nbsp;Reports by Reuters and AFP indicate ongoing fears of demographic changes and suppression of dissent in the region.&nbsp;5. Global and Kashmiri voices call for self-determinationThe All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and other Kashmiri political groups continue to demand implementation of the UN-mandated plebiscite. In 2025, APHC spokesperson Abdul Rashid Minhas reaffirmed the group&rsquo;s commitment to peaceful self-determination, despite restrictions and detentions.&nbsp;&ldquo;Kashmiris remain steadfast in their demand for the right to decide their own future,&rdquo; Minhas said earlier this year.&nbsp;Prominent Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik, currently imprisoned, has also consistently called for self-determination and an internationally supervised plebiscite.&nbsp;6. International concern over India&rsquo;s stanceDebate over India&rsquo;s 2019 actions has extended to foreign parliaments and academic circles. A 2020 US Congressional discussion raised concerns that India&rsquo;s decision could destabilize South Asia and escalate tensions with Pakistan.&nbsp;The Harvard Law Review (2021) described India&rsquo;s Kashmir policy as resembling &ldquo;settler colonialism,&rdquo; referring to demographic engineering through new domicile laws.&nbsp;Dispute recognized by the worldWhile India insists that Kashmir is an &ldquo;internal matter,&rdquo; the United Nations, international law, and decades of unresolved conflict demonstrate otherwise.&nbsp;Until the promised plebiscite is held and the will of the Kashmiri people is respected, the status of Jammu and Kashmir will remain disputed, not integral to India.&nbsp;As Pakistan consistently asserts: &ldquo;Kashmir&rsquo;s future lies in the right of its people to self-determination, not in unilateral claims.&rdquo;

Indian army soldiers light earthen lamp on a fence to celebrate Diwali, near the Line of Control in Akhnoor sector, Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. October 16, 2025. (AP)

Fact Check

Kashmir remains a UN-recognized disputed territory despite Indian claims. International law and UN resolutions call for a plebiscite to determine the region’s final status through the will of its people.

Fact Check: Why Kashmir can never be an integral part of India

HANGZHOU: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz ended his two-day visit to China on Thursday in the tech hub of Hangzhou, identifying &quot;challenges that we must overcome together&quot; after meeting President Xi Jinping and announcing an Airbus deal. Merz&#39;s first official visit to China came as Berlin and Beijing seek to build on decades-old economic ties to weather global uncertainty sparked by US President Donald Trump&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/trump-announces-hike-in-us-global-tariff-rate-from-10-to-15" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">tariff blitz</a>&nbsp;and erratic foreign policies. China, the world&#39;s number two economy, overtook the United States last year to become Germany&#39;s biggest trade partner. At the same time, Berlin regards the Asian country as a systemic rival to the West. The German leader was accompanied in China by a large delegation of business leaders, including executives of auto giants Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes. Merz visited a Mercedes plant in Beijing on Thursday morning, where he was shown a demonstration of self-driving vehicles. He then travelled to Hangzhou, where he visited the sites of Germany&#39;s Siemens Energy and Chinese&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/japan-introduces-ai-robot-monk-to-the-public" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">humanoid robot</a>-maker Unitree. The eastern city is home to several other major Chinese tech companies like AI unicorn&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/inside-chinas-buzzing-ai-scene-year-after-deepseek-shock" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">DeepSeek</a>&nbsp;and e-commerce giant Alibaba. European business leaders, who broadly complain China is flooding the EU market with cheap goods, have urged Merz to keep a cavernous trade imbalance at the top of his agenda. Germany&#39;s trade deficit with China hit a record $105 billion last year. &quot;We have good cooperation in China. However, there are also some challenges that we must overcome together,&quot; Merz said Thursday, singling out &quot;issues relating to competition&quot; and &quot;high capacity in China&quot;. Merz said consultations between his government and Beijing &ndash; interrupted by political developments in Berlin and the pandemic &ndash; would take place &quot;at the beginning of next year at the latest, possibly even this year&quot;, with China as host. &#39;New levels&#39; Following talks with Xi and top Chinese leaders in the capital on Wednesday, Merz said that China had agreed to purchase up to 120 Airbus aircraft, adding that it &quot;demonstrates how worthwhile such trips can be&quot;. Other contracts were in the pipeline, Merz added. The two leaders stressed their commitment to developing closer strategic relations, with Xi telling Merz he was willing to take relations to &quot;new levels&quot;. Merz said he had also touched on the sensitive topic of Taiwan, the self-ruled island China claims as its territory and which it has not ruled out the use of force to annex. Any &quot;reunification&quot; must be done peacefully, Merz said. He also discussed the Ukraine war with Xi, who, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, said diplomacy was &quot;key to the issue&quot;. Merz said he urged Beijing to use its influence over Moscow, such as choking off the supply of items with potential military uses. &quot;I hope that in my talks I was able to foster a little understanding for the fact that the leadership of this country should also contribute to ending the war in Ukraine,&quot; Merz told reporters on Thursday before departing for Berlin. Merz was the latest in a string of Western leaders to court Beijing recently. He follows Britain&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/britains-starmer-hails-good-progress-after-meeting-chinas-xi" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Keir Starmer</a>, France&#39;s Emmanuel Macron and Canada&#39;s Mark Carney, as they recoil from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/trump-announces-hike-in-us-global-tariff-rate-from-10-to-15" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">mercurial policies</a>&nbsp;of Trump, who is also expected to visit from March 31.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz gives a statement at Siemens Energy plant in Hangzhou, in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province on February 26, 2026. (AFP)

Europe

Asia

Merz's first official visit to China comes as Berlin and Beijing seek to build on decades-old economic ties to weather global uncertainty sparked by US President Donald Trump's tariff blitz and erratic foreign policies.

Merz says Germany, China must overcome trade gaps 'together'

Web Desk

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan&rsquo;s Federal Minister for Interior and Narcotics Control, Mohsin Naqvi, announced that Pakistan, Italy, Spain, and Greece have agreed on a coordinated strategy to fight illegal migration, human smuggling, and drug trafficking, including a joint policy framework and a rapid-response mechanism. Naqvi, in a post on X on Thursday, wrote that he had a productive meeting in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/pakistan-security-agencies-seize-over-135-million-in-nationwide-antismuggling-operations" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rome</a>&nbsp;with his counterparts from Italy, Spain, and Greece at the 4-nation&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/pakistan-navy-ship-seizes-drugs-worth-nearly-1-bn-in-arabian-sea" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">conference</a>&nbsp;on curbing illegal migration. <div class="fr-embed"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" title="X Post" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=2026935215914975708&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fmain.d1wrm1qseko1cp.amplifyapp.com%2Farticles%2F&sessionId=359767f66ae58c6eb6812d51c17a3cb8284785ef&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 652px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</iframe></div></div>&ldquo;Pakistan, Italy, Spain &amp; Greece agreed on a coordinated strategy against&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/pakistan-customs-seizes-266000-worth-of-smuggled-goods-near-afghan-border" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">illegal migration</a>, human smuggling and narcotics, including a joint policy framework and rapid-response mechanism.&rdquo; &ldquo;European partners appreciated Pakistan&rsquo;s strong actions, noting a 47% reduction in illegal migration, and agreed on enhanced EU-supported capacity building,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Consensus also reached on promoting legal pathways to effectively counter illegal migration, repatriation of criminals to face the law, and holding the next meeting in Pakistan later this year,&rdquo; he said.

Foreign Affairs

Pakistani interior minister says ‘European partners appreciated Pakistan’s strong actions, noting a 47% reduction in illegal migration, and agreed on enhanced EU-supported capacity building.’

Pakistani, European ministers agree on coordinated strategy to combat illegal migration

PARIS: The United Nations announced Thursday the approval of the first carbon credits under a global market aimed at reducing emissions, a mechanism that has faced scrutiny over greenwashing concerns. The UN-run market, established under the Paris climate accord, allows companies and countries to offset their excess emissions by financing projects that cut greenhouse gases in other nations. Critics fear that if set up poorly, such schemes can undermine the world&#39;s efforts to curb global warming by allowing countries or companies to greenwash &mdash; or overstate &mdash; their emissions reductions. The first credits issued under the new carbon market involve a project in Myanmar that distributes efficient wood-burning cook stoves that reduce harmful household air pollution and ease pressure on local forests, the UN&#39;s climate agency said. Implemented in partnership with a South Korean company, the project will generate credits that will count towards the climate targets of South Korea and Myanmar. The UN climate agency said the credited emissions reductions are 40%&nbsp;lower than under a previous scheme as more conservative calculations are applied under the new Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM). &quot;Our focus is on building confidence in this market from the outset, and this first issuance shows that the system is working as intended,&quot; Jacqui Ruesga, vice chair of the UN body supervising the PACM, said in a statement. More than two billion people around the world cook using open fires or inefficient stoves fueled by kerosene, coal or biomass such as wood, crop waste or dung, according to the World Health Organization. The resulting air pollution kills millions of people each year. The stoves in the Myanmar project burn woody biomass more efficiently, meaning it needs less fuel and spews far less smoke inside the home. But at current rates, only 78% of the population is expected to have access to clean cooking by 2030, the WHO said. &quot;Clean cooking protects health, saves forests, cuts emissions and helps empower women and girls, who are typically hardest hit by household air pollution,&quot; UN climate chief Simon Stiell said. &quot;The opportunities presented by this UN carbon market across all regions are vast, particularly now that strong environmental safeguards, robust standards, and a clear system for redress are in place to ensure integrity, inclusiveness and efficiency,&quot; he said. The 2015 Paris Agreement, which commits the world to limiting warming to well below 2C and ideally at 1.5C, also envisaged that countries could take part in cross-border trade of carbon reductions. New rules were agreed at the UN&#39;s COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024 for the carbon market mechanism. At the time, Greenpeace said the agreement left loopholes that would allow fossil fuel companies to continue polluting. But other environmentalists said that, while not perfect, it provided some clarity that was absent from global efforts to regulate carbon credits.

Smoke Stacks. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs.)

Climate

The UN-run market, established under the Paris climate accord, allows companies and countries to offset their excess emissions by financing projects that cut greenhouse gases in other nations.

UN approves first carbon credits under Paris Agreement

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will outline its stance on Israel&rsquo;s recent move to annex parts of the occupied West Bank at an upcoming ministerial meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), according to Foreign Office Spokesperson Tahir Andrabi on Thursday. Speaking at a weekly press briefing, Andrabi said that Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will represent Pakistan at the OIC&#39;s Open-Ended Extraordinary Ministerial Session, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 26-28. The meeting &ldquo;has been convened to consider the illegal decision by the Israeli occupation authorities aimed at expanding settlements, pursuing annexation, and attempting to impose Israel&#39;s sovereignty over the occupied West Bank,&rdquo; the spokesperson said. Dar will present Pakistan&rsquo;s case during the session. <div class="fr-embed"><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fphoto.php%3Ffbid%3D1374272581405477%26set%3Da.251429287023151%26type%3D3&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="748" style="border:none;overflow:hidden;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</iframe></div> In a Facebook post, the Foreign Office said Dar will &ldquo;hold sideline meetings with counterparts from OIC&rdquo; member states. Andrabi said Israel&rsquo;s measures in the occupied West Bank have drawn condemnation from the OIC and other Muslim states, as well as &ldquo;European and other world countries,&rdquo; including Brazil, France, Denmark, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. &ldquo;In this statement, we described these changes as wide-ranging and amounting to reclassifying Palestinian land as so-called Israel state land, accelerating illegal settlement activity, and further entrenching Israeli administration,&rdquo; he said. Restating Pakistan&rsquo;s long-standing position on Israel&rsquo;s occupation of Palestinian lands, Andrabi said the country issued &ldquo;a joint statement&rdquo; with &ldquo;eight other countries&rdquo; condemning a statement by the US ambassador to Israel suggesting it would be acceptable for Israel to exercise control over territories belonging to Arab states. He said Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, along with the OIC Secretariat and the League of Arab States, &ldquo;strongly condemned&rdquo; the remarks. The US envoy&rsquo;s comment was &ldquo;dangerous, inflammatory, and clear violation of international law and the UN Charter,&rdquo; Andrabi said. He added that it threatened regional security and stability. Separately, Andrabi addressed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif&rsquo;s recent state visit to Qatar at the invitation of the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. PM Sharif met the Qatari emir and discussed enhancing cooperation in several areas, including economic ties. Both sides agreed on resolving international disputes peacefully through &ldquo;dialogue&rdquo; and &ldquo;diplomacy.&rdquo; Sheikh Tamim will &ldquo;visit Pakistan later this year,&rdquo; he added. During the visit, PM Sharif also met Qatar&rsquo;s defense minister, Sheikh Saud Al Thani, who expressed interest in expanding defense cooperation between the two countries and &ldquo;appreciated the professionalism and expertise of Pakistan&#39;s armed forces.&rdquo;

Foreign Office Spokesperson Tahir Hussain Andrabi speaking at a weekly press briefing in Islamabad, on February 26, 2026. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs/X)

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will represent Pakistan at the Open-Ended Extraordinary Ministerial Session of the OIC.

Pakistan to raise concerns over Israel actions in West Bank at OIC Ministerial: Foreign Office

ISLAMABAD: The Bangladesh government will pilot the distribution of 500,000 Krishak Smart Cards to farmers in 15 upazilas (sub-districts) within 180 days as part of a 2023-28 development program.&nbsp; If successful, the initiative will expand nationwide,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/bangladesh-signals-push-to-revitalize-saarc" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bangladeshi</a> media reported on Thursday. The program aims to register 22.7 million&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/govt-aims-to-launch-family-card-scheme-before-eid-bangladeshi-relief-minister" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">farmers</a> nationwide by 2028.&nbsp;Digital card system&nbsp;A meeting chaired by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/bangladesh-vows-to-reform-policies-attract-foreign-investment-in-jute-sector" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Prime Minister Tarique Rahman</a> in Dhaka on Monday directed authorities to roll out the digital card system as part of a technology-driven support framework for farmers. Abul Kalam Azad, coordinator of the PARTNER programme, said the Food and Agriculture Organization is collecting data to prepare the beneficiary list.&nbsp; Once the FAO submits the data and the feasibility study is complete, the Department of Agricultural Extension will finalize the beneficiary list and select the upazilas.&nbsp;Financial, logistical incentives&nbsp;The card will initially register 500,000 farmers, including landless peasants, small and medium farmers, lessees, and landowners.&nbsp; Cardholders will be able to access financial and logistical incentives, agricultural advisories, weather information and other services. If the pilot proves successful, nationwide registration will follow.&nbsp; The PARTNER project, launched in 2023, has a total budget of $1.343 billion, funded by the World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the Bangladesh government.

Bangladesh

The program aims to register 22.7 million farmers across the country by 2028; a meeting chaired by PM Rahman in Dhaka directed authorities to roll out the digital card system for farmers. Cardholders will be able to access financial and logistical incentives, agricultural advisories, weather information and other services.

Bangladesh to distribute 500,000 farmer cards in 180 days

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: capitalize; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: nowrap; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;" id="isPasted">GENEVA: Iran and the United States began indirect talks in Switzerland on Thursday, a last-ditch bid to avert war following the biggest American military build-up in the Middle East in decades. The Oman-mediated discussions follow repeated threats from Donald Trump to strike Iran, with the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/us-presses-missile-issue-as-new-iran-talks-to-open-in-geneva" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">US president</a>&nbsp;last Thursday giving Tehran 15 days to reach a deal. The US and Iranian delegations arrived at the venue at the Omani ambassador&#39;s residence amid tight security, following a protest by Iranian exiles at their talks last week who threw objects at the Iranian motorcade. Oman&#39;s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi later confirmed that discussions had begun, saying the two sides had expressed &quot;unprecedented openness to new and creative ideas and solutions&quot;. Iran&#39;s president insisted ahead of the talks that the Islamic republic was not &quot;at all&quot; seeking a nuclear weapon. &quot;Our Supreme Leader has already stated that we will not have nuclear weapons at all,&quot; President Masoud Pezeshkian said, in a reference to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. United Nations nuclear chief Rafael Grossi would likely also attend the discussions in Geneva, Iran&#39;s foreign ministry spokesman said. While Iran has insisted the talks focus solely on its nuclear program, the US wants Tehran&#39;s missile program and its &#39;support&#39; for groups in the region curtailed. As part of the dramatic US build-up, the USS Gerald R Ford, the world&#39;s largest aircraft carrier, sent to the Mediterranean this week, left a naval base in Crete on Thursday, an AFP photographer said. The developments follow massive protests in Iran. &#39;Sinister nuclear ambitions&#39;&nbsp;In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump accused Iran of &quot;pursuing sinister nuclear ambitions&quot;, though Tehran has always insisted its program is for civilian purposes. Trump also claimed Tehran had &quot;already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they&#39;re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America&quot;. The Iranian foreign ministry called these claims &quot;big lies&quot;. The maximum range of Iran&#39;s missiles is 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) according to what Tehran has publicly disclosed. However, the US Congressional Research Service estimates they top out at about 3,000 kilometers -- less than a third of the distance to the continental United States. Trump&#39;s State of the Union accusations in Congress were delivered in the same forum in which then-president George W Bush laid out the case for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ahead of Thursday&#39;s talks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Iran must also negotiate on its missile program, calling Tehran&#39;s refusal to discuss ballistic weapons &quot;a big, big problem.&quot; He followed up by saying, &quot;The president wants diplomatic solutions&quot;. But US Vice President JD Vance told Iran to take Trump&#39;s threats &quot;seriously,&quot; saying the US president had a &quot;right&quot; to use military action. &quot;You can&#39;t let the craziest and worst regime in the world have nuclear weapons,&quot; Vance told &quot;America&#39;s Newsroom&quot; on Fox News. &#39;A historic opportunity&#39;&nbsp;Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is leading the Iranian delegation at the talks, had called them &quot;a historic opportunity,&quot; adding that a deal was &quot;within reach.&quot; The US will be represented by envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump&#39;s daughter Ivanka. The two countries held talks earlier this month in Oman, then gathered for a second round in Geneva last week. A previous attempt at negotiations collapsed when Israel launched surprise strikes on Iran last June, beginning a 12-day war that Washington briefly joined to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. In Jan., Tehran launched a mass crackdown on nationwide protests. Protests have since resumed around Iranian universities.

Middle East

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterates that Tehran is not seeking nuclear weapons in line with the policy set by the country’s Supreme Leader; on Feb. 19, Trump said Iran had 15 days to make a deal.

Iran-US talks begin in push to avert war

ISLAMABAD: The US has levied a preliminary countervailing duty (CVD) of 126% on specific Indian solar products, citing unfair subsidies, according to an Indian media report.&nbsp;This move is expected to disrupt the growing momentum of solar exports from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/global-ai-summit-in-india-still-without-final-statement" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">India&nbsp;</a>to the US and raise concerns about increasing domestic competition and regulatory uncertainty. On Feb. 24, the US Department of Commerce announced its preliminary affirmative determination in investigations into imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/potholes-killed-over-9400-from-2020-to-2024-in-india" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">India</a>.&nbsp; The investigation also includes parallel anti-dumping probes into solar cells from these countries.&nbsp;&nbsp;Final determination&nbsp;A final determination in the countervailing duty investigations is scheduled for July 6. The new duties come at a time when the US already imposed a 10% across-the-board tariff under the Trump administration, further complicating trade relations. Despite the steep tariff, many leading Indian solar manufacturers have downplayed the immediate impact.&nbsp;&nbsp;Impact on market dynamics&nbsp;However, analysts warn that the duties could disrupt trade flows, put downward pressure on domestic prices, and affect overall profitability.&nbsp; Rating agency Icra highlighted that increased regulatory uncertainty could dampen export volumes, which stood at 3 GW in 2025.&nbsp;&nbsp;Solar stocks&nbsp;Crisil Intelligence added that Indian modules could become at least 30% more expensive than US-made ones, potentially impacting market dynamics. Following the announcement, solar stocks in India dropped sharply, with Waaree Energies falling 10.47%, Premier Energies 6.27%, and Vikram Solar 5.45%, the Indian media report said.

On Feb. 24, the US Department of Commerce announced its preliminary affirmative determination in investigations into imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from India; final determination in countervailing duty investigations is scheduled for July 6.

US imposes 126% duty on Indian solar exports, raising trade concerns

HAVANA: Cuba said Wednesday it thwarted an attempted armed infiltration from the United States, after its coast guard opened fire on a Florida-registered speedboat near the island&rsquo;s northern coast, killing four people and wounding six. In a statement, Cuba&rsquo;s Interior Ministry said the vessel was intercepted about one nautical mile from Cayo Falcones island. As Cuban authorities approached, &ldquo;shots were fired from the illegal speedboat,&rdquo; injuring the commander of the Cuban patrol craft. &ldquo;As a result of the clash, at the time of this report, on the foreign side, four aggressors were killed and six others were wounded,&rdquo; the ministry said, adding that the injured were evacuated and provided medical assistance. The ministry said assault rifles, handguns, Molotov cocktails and other military-style equipment were recovered from the vessel, registered in Florida under the number FL7726SH. The 10 occupants were identified as Cubans living in the United States. Those arrested after the exchange of gunfire claimed they &ldquo;intended to carry out an infiltration for the purposes of terrorism,&rdquo; according to Cuban authorities. In a subsequent statement, the ministry released the names of seven of the individuals and said most had prior records in Cuba for &ldquo;criminal and violent activity.&rdquo; &nbsp;A man allegedly sent from the United States to participate in the operation was arrested on Cuban soil and confessed, it added. The incident marks a fresh source of tension between Havana and Washington. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States was seeking its own account of events and would &ldquo;respond accordingly.&rdquo; &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not going to base our conclusions on what they&rsquo;ve (Cuba) told us, and I&rsquo;m very, very confident that we will know the full story of what happened here,&rdquo; Rubio told reporters during a visit to St. Kitts and Nevis. &ldquo;As we gather more information, then we&rsquo;ll be prepared to respond accordingly.&rdquo; Florida&rsquo;s attorney general ordered an investigation into the killings. The state lies just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Cuba across the Florida Straits and has long been a focal point for Cuban migration. Cuban authorities frequently report incursions by speedboats from the United States into their territorial waters. Such incidents are often linked to people-smuggling or drug trafficking and have at times involved chases and armed confrontations with border guards. The shootings come amid broader strains between the two countries. President Donald Trump in January imposed a sweeping oil blockade on Cuba following the US ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, a key ally of Havana. Before Maduro&rsquo;s removal on Jan. 3, Cuba relied on Venezuela for roughly half of its fuel needs. Facing pressure from Caribbean leaders concerned that severe fuel shortages could destabilize the island&rsquo;s economy, Washington later said it would allow limited shipments of Venezuelan oil for &ldquo;commercial and humanitarian use,&rdquo; provided they went through private entities rather than the Cuban government or military-controlled businesses. Cuba&rsquo;s economy, already weakened by decades of US trade restrictions dating back to the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro, has been pushed to the brink in recent months. Chronic shortages of food and medicine and daily blackouts have fueled an exodus of Cubans, many heading to southern Florida. Mexico this week dispatched two military vessels carrying nearly 2,200 tons of aid to the island, its second shipment in under a month, while Canada announced Can$8 million ($5.8 million) in additional assistance on Wednesday.

Cuban coast guard ships docked at the port of Havana on February 25, 2026.(AFP)

Americas

Cuba says it killed four and wounded six people aboard a Florida-registered speedboat, describing it as armed and planning a terrorist infiltration after an exchange of gunfire near its northern coast, escalating tensions with the United States.

Cuba kills four on US-registered speedboat trying to 'infiltrate'

KYIV: US President Donald Trump spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of a fresh round of talks Thursday aimed at ending Russia&#39;s invasion, both sides said on Wednesday. A White House official gave AFP no further details about the call, which came a day before Ukrainian and US envoys were to meet, and ahead of new trilateral talks with Russia expected in early March. But Zelensky wrote on social media that he had spoken with Trump, and that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were on the call. &quot;Our teams work intensively and I thanked them for all their work and for their active involvement in the negotiations and the efforts to end the war,&quot; he added. According to Ukrainian presidential adviser Dmytro Lytvyn, the conversation &quot;lasted about 30 minutes.&quot; Ukraine&#39;s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov will meet Witkoff and Kushner in Geneva on Thursday, Kyiv announced. Russian state news agency Tass later said that the Kremlin&#39;s economic affairs envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, also plans to be in the city. &quot;Dmitriev plans to arrive in Geneva on Thursday to pursue negotiations with the Americans on economic issues,&quot; it cited an unnamed source as saying. The meetings are the latest round of negotiations spearheaded by Trump that so far have failed to make meaningful progress on ending Europe&#39;s deadliest conflict since World War II. Washington is pushing to bring an end to the war triggered by Russia&#39;s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago, which has left hundreds of thousands of dead and destroyed swathes of territory, particularly in eastern and southern Ukraine. Preparatory talks&nbsp;Zelensky said his call with Trump &quot;discussed the issues that our representatives will address tomorrow in Geneva during the bilateral meeting, as well as preparations for the next meeting of the full negotiating teams in a trilateral format at the very beginning of March.&quot; &quot;We expect this meeting to create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders&#39; level. President Trump supports this sequence of steps. This is the only way to resolve all the complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war,&quot; he added. The Ukrainian leader has already said that a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, should take place to resolve the most difficult issues in the talks. The talks, based on an American plan unveiled at the end of last year, are deadlocked primarily on the fate of the Donbas, the industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been the epicenter of the fighting. Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine&#39;s eastern Donetsk region, and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave at the negotiating table. But Ukraine has rejected the demand and signaled it would not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.

Ukraine's lead negotiator Rustem Umerov will meet Witkoff and Kushner in Geneva on Thursday; Russian state news agency says Kremlin's economic affairs envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, also plans to be in the city.

Trump, Zelensky speak before Ukraine-US talks in Geneva

GENEVA: The United States and Iran are set to hold indirect talks in Switzerland on Thursday, aiming to strike a deal to avert a fresh conflict and end weeks of threats. The new round of negotiations in Geneva comes after the US carried out a massive military build-up in the region and President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to strike Iran if a deal is not reached. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump accused Iran of &quot;pursuing sinister nuclear ambitions.&quot; He also claimed Tehran had &quot;already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they&#39;re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.&quot; The Iranian foreign ministry called these claims &quot;big lies.&quot; The maximum range of Iran&#39;s missiles is 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) according to what Tehran has publicly disclosed. However, the US Congressional Research Service estimates they top out at about 3,000 kilometers &mdash; less than a third of the distance to the continental United States. The dispute between the countries mostly revolves around Iran&#39;s nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at building an atomic bomb but Tehran insists is peaceful. However, the US has also been pushing to discuss Iran&#39;s ballistic missile program, as well as Tehran&#39;s support for armed groups hostile towards Israel. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Iran must also negotiate on its missile program, calling Tehran&#39;s refusal to discuss ballistic weapons &quot;a big, big problem&quot; on the eve of the talks. He followed up by saying, &quot;the president wants diplomatic solutions.&quot; Iran has taken anything beyond the nuclear issue off the negotiating table and has demanded that the US sanctions crippling its economy be part of any agreement. &#39;Neither war nor peace&#39;&nbsp;Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Wednesday he had a &quot;favorable outlook for the negotiations&quot; that could finally &quot;move beyond this &#39;neither war nor peace&#39; situation.&quot; Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is leading the Iranian delegation at the talks, has called them &quot;a historic opportunity,&quot; adding that a deal was &quot;within reach.&quot; The US will be represented by envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump&#39;s daughter Ivanka. The two countries held talks earlier this month in Oman, which is mediating the negotiations, then gathered for a second round in Geneva last week. A previous attempt at negotiations collapsed when Israel launched surprise strikes on Iran last June, beginning a 12-day war that Washington briefly joined to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. In January, fresh tensions between the US and Iran emerged after Tehran engaged in a crackdown on widespread protests that have posed one of the greatest challenges to the Islamic republic since its inception. Trump has threatened several times to intervene to &quot;help&quot; the Iranian people. Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said, &quot;The region seems to expect a war at this point.&quot; In January, there was &quot;a big push by a number of Middle Eastern states to convince the US not to&quot; strike Iran. &quot;But there&#39;s a lot of apprehension at this point, because the expectation is that this time, a war would be &quot;bigger&quot; than the one in June.

The new round of negotiations in Geneva comes after the US carried out a massive military build-up in the region; President Trump has threatened to strike Iran if a deal is not reached, accuses Iran of 'pursuing sinister nuclear ambitions.'

Articles by Maham Khan