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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the United Kingdom (UK) have reaffirmed their commitment to deeper cooperation on economic reforms, governance improvements and development priorities during a meeting in Islamabad between Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and UK Minister for Development Baroness Chapman, the Finance Division said on Tuesday.&nbsp;According to the ministry&rsquo;s statement, &ldquo;Both sides exchanged views on Pakistan&rsquo;s macroeconomic stabilization efforts and the Government&rsquo;s commitment to structural reforms in taxation, energy, state-owned enterprises, public finance management, and privatization.&rdquo;&nbsp;Aurangzeb thanked the UK for its backing at the International Monetary Fund, saying that support &ldquo;contributed to the successful completion of Pakistan&rsquo;s program reviews.&rdquo;&nbsp;He outlined progress on broadening the tax base, improving transparency through technology, and pushing governance reforms.&nbsp;The minister also highlighted work under way on energy-sector efficiencies, debt management, public-sector right-sizing, pension reform and fiscal sustainability aimed at creating space for social-sector spending.&nbsp;The discussion also covered Pakistan&rsquo;s devolved governance system, with both sides stressing the need for stronger federal&ndash;provincial coordination to boost investment in health, education, population management and climate resilience.&nbsp;Aurangzeb emphasized aligning development spending with national priorities and accelerating programs supported by the World Bank and other partners.&nbsp;Both delegations reviewed women&rsquo;s economic participation, demographic pressures and policy options for family planning and social-protection measures.&nbsp;The statement said, &ldquo;Baroness Chapman reaffirmed the United Kingdom&rsquo;s readiness to provide technical assistance, regulatory support, and capacity-building under ongoing partnerships, particularly in areas such as digitalization, governance reforms, investment climate improvement, and ease of doing business.&rdquo;&nbsp;It added that both sides reiterated their commitment &ldquo;to strengthening the long-standing partnership&rdquo; and agreed to continue close cooperation on shared development goals. Pakistan also welcomed prospects for expanded collaboration on economic management, climate and population policy, and financial-sector reforms.

Foreign Affairs

Pakistan’s Finance Minister met the UK’s Development Minister in Islamabad to discuss economic reforms, governance, and development priorities. Both sides agreed on macroeconomic stabilization, social-sector investment, women’s participation, federal–provincial coordination, and continued UK technical support.


Pakistan, UK vow deeper cooperation on reforms, governance, development priorities

HUNTINGDON: UK police said they had arrested two suspects Saturday as &quot;a number of people&quot; were taken to hospital and a &quot;large-scale&quot; emergency response was mobilised after a stabbing on a train in Cambridgeshire, eastern England. &quot;We are currently responding to an incident on a train to Huntingdon where multiple people have been stabbed,&quot; British Transport Police said on X, adding that &quot;two people have been arrested.&quot; Cambridgeshire police said: &quot;A number of people have been taken to hospital.&quot; A witness described seeing a man with a large knife and told The Times newspaper there was &quot;blood everywhere&quot; as people hid in the washrooms. Some passengers were getting &quot;stamped (on) by others&quot; as they tried to run, and the witness told The Times they &quot;heard some people shouting we love (you)&quot;. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the &quot;appalling&quot; incident was &quot;deeply concerning.&quot; &quot;My thoughts are with all those affected, and my thanks go to the emergency services for their response,&quot; Starmer said in a statement on X. &quot;Anyone in the area should follow the advice of the police,&quot; Starmer added, while his interior minister, Shabana Mahmood, confirmed two people had been taken into custody. &#39;Multiple patients&#39;&nbsp;Armed police were at the scene after being alerted around 7:40 p.m. local time (1940 GMT), and the train was stopped at Huntingdon, a market town in eastern England, police said. Dozens of emergency vehicles were deployed at the station, and people were being led away in space blankets, an AFP photographer saw. Local ambulance services mobilised a &quot;large-scale response&quot; to the station, including ambulances, air ambulances, and tactical commanders. &quot;We can confirm we have transported multiple patients to hospital,&quot; the East of England Ambulance Service said on X. Train operator London North Eastern Railway (LNER) said all its railway lines had been closed while emergency services dealt with the incident at Huntingdon station. LNER, which runs trains along the east of England and Scotland, urged passengers not to travel, warning of &quot;major disruption&quot;. It serves major stops including London, Peterborough, Cambridge, York, and Edinburgh, and trains are often very busy and packed with travellers. The mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Paul Bristow, said in a post on X: &quot;Hearing reports of horrendous scenes on a train in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire&quot;, adding that his &quot;thoughts are with everyone affected.&quot; Knife crimeKnife crime in England and Wales has been steadily rising since 2011, according to official government data. While Britain has some of the strictest gun controls in the world, rampant knife crime has been branded a &quot;national crisis&quot; by Starmer. His Labour government has tried to rein in their use. Nearly 60,000 blades have been either &quot;seized or surrendered&quot; in England and Wales as part of government efforts to halve knife crime within a decade, the interior ministry said Wednesday. Carrying a knife in public can already get you up to four years in prison, and the government said knife murders had dropped by 18% in the last year. Two people were killed -- one as a result of misdirected police gunfire -- and others were wounded in a stabbing spree at a synagogue in Manchester at the start of October in an attack which shook the local Jewish community and the country.

United Kingdom

UK police arrested two suspects after multiple people were stabbed on a train in Cambridgeshire, prompting a large emergency response. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the attack “appalling,” as several victims were hospitalized.

UK police arrest two after 'multiple people' stabbed on train

LONDON: Britain and Portugal were expected to recognize a Palestinian state on Sunday, ahead of a key week at the UN&#39;s gathering where a suite of nations are set to do the same to pressure Israel over Gaza.&nbsp;A growing number of longtime Israeli allies have shifted positions in recent months as Israel has intensified its Gaza offensive.&nbsp;The besieged Palestinian territory has suffered vast destruction, death and lack of food that have resulted in a major humanitarian crisis.&nbsp;World leaders will gather for a key debate at the UN General Assembly in New York this week, where the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be front and center.&nbsp;Around 10 nations are expected to recognize a Palestinian state in the coming days, with UK media outlets like the BBC reporting that Prime Minister Keir Starmer would announce the policy shift on Sunday -- over fierce Israeli objection.&nbsp;Starmer had said in July that Britain would formally recognize the State of Palestine if Israel did not take &quot;substantive steps&quot; towards a ceasefire with Hamas by the time the UN General Assembly convened.&nbsp;The Labour leader said at the time that the move would make &quot;a contribution to a proper peace process, at the moment of maximum impact for the two-state solution.&quot;&nbsp;In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused him of rewarding &quot;monstrous terrorism&quot; and appeasing &quot;jihadist&quot; ideology.&nbsp;Israel opposedPortugal&#39;s foreign ministry said on Friday that it would also formally declare its recognition on Sunday.&nbsp;Lisbon had already announced in July that it intended to do so, citing the &quot;extremely worrying evolution of the conflict&quot; as well as the humanitarian crisis and Israel&#39;s repeated threats to annex Palestinian land.&nbsp;Since then, Israel has bombarded Gaza, a UN-backed hunger monitor has declared a famine in part of the territory, and the Israeli military has said it will use &quot;unprecedented force&quot; to capture Gaza City.&nbsp;France and Canada are among the other Western nations planning to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN gathering in the coming week.&nbsp;Israel has vehemently opposed the moves and has reportedly threatened to annex the West Bank in response.&nbsp;UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told AFP on Friday that the world &quot;should not feel intimidated by the risk of retaliation&quot; from Israel.&nbsp;Israel&#39;s military campaign has killed at least 65,208 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Gazan health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Middle East

France and Canada are among the other Western nations planning to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN gathering in the coming week.

UK, Portugal to recognize Palestinian state ahead of UN debate

Reuters

LONDON, Sept 10: Prince Harry&#39;s foundation is to donate $500,000 to projects including the World Health Organisation to help develop prosthetics and provide other support for children from Gaza and Ukraine, his office said on Wednesday. The announcement came on the third day of the prince&#39;s visit to Britain, where he visited the Centre for Injury Studies (CIS), part of Imperial College London, to learn more about its work, especially its focus on injuries suffered by children and those sustained in natural disasters. &quot;No single organization can solve this alone,&quot; he said in a statement. &quot;Gaza now has the highest density of child amputees in the world and in history. It takes partnerships across government, science, medicine, humanitarian response and advocacy to ensure children survive and can recover after blast injuries.&quot; The CIS said children were seven times more likely to die from blast injuries than adults. The three grants announced by Harry and his wife Meghan&#39;s Archewell Foundation include $200,000 to the World Health Organization to support medical evacuations from Gaza to Jordan, and $150,000 to the Save the Children charity to provide ongoing humanitarian support in Gaza. The third grant of $150,000 was to the Centre of Blast Injury Studies, part of CIS, to help its efforts to develop prostheses that can support injured children, particularly those injured from the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. The Duke of Sussex, 40, opened laboratories of the Centre for Blast Injury Studies in 2013. Harry himself spent 10 years in the British military, during which he served two tours in Afghanistan, and he has made campaigning for veterans a priority, founding the Invictus Games for military personnel wounded in action. NOT JUST THE MONEY He was joined on Wednesday by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for a tour of the CIS, where he met with research teams working on a number of world-leading projects. &quot;I&#39;m really pleased about what he&#39;s doing, especially for the children of Gaza,&quot; Ghebreyesus said. &quot;It&#39;s not the money, it&#39;s also the passion and commitment I think I see.&quot; Showing him round was double leg amputee Dave Henson, a CIS ambassador, who has known Harry for more than a decade and was the first captain of the British Invictus team in 2014. &quot;It&#39;s been hugely important for raising the profile of the centre,&quot; Henson, who lost his legs in an explosion in Afghanistan in 2011, said of Harry&#39;s involvement. Harry, who now lives in California after stepping down from official royal duties in 2020, has spent the week visiting charities, including one in Nottingham, central England, where he announced a 1.1 million pounds ($1.49 million) donation to help young people in communities blighted by violence and knife crime. However, in a sign of his estrangement from his family, much of the media focus of the trip has been on whether he will meet his father King Charles, whom he last saw 20 months ago, shortly after it was announced that the 76-year-old monarch was undergoing treatment for cancer.

Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation pledged $500,000 in grants to support children injured in Gaza and Ukraine, funding medical evacuations, humanitarian aid, and prosthetic research. Harry toured blast injury labs with WHO chief Tedros, highlighting his long-standing advocacy for war victims.

Prince Harry donates $500,000 to help wounded children in Ukraine and Gaza

Ibrahim Babakhel

ISLAMABAD: The United Kingdom (UK) may suspend visa access for countries that refuse to take back deported nationals, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said after hosting a key meeting of the &ldquo;Five Eyes&rdquo; security alliance in London. &ldquo;If countries don&rsquo;t play ball, we will take action, including possibly cutting visas in the future,&rdquo; Mahmood told reporters at a press conference. The Five Eyes summit brought together security ministers from the UK, United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The talks focused on joint efforts to dismantle people-smuggling networks, tackle online child sexual abuse, and curb the spread of synthetic opioids. Mahmood emphasized that securing the UK&rsquo;s borders is her &ldquo;top priority.&rdquo; The UK already has migrant return agreements in place with countries including Albania, India, Vietnam, and Nigeria. Nations that fail to cooperate on deportations now risk visa restrictions for their citizens. So far this year, more than 30,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel in small boats. A figure Mahmood described as &ldquo;utterly unacceptable.&rdquo; Critics warn of diplomatic falloutOpposition politicians and migrant rights groups have warned that imposing visa sanctions could damage diplomatic relations and complicate forced removals. Still, Mahmood defended the approach, citing the scale of the migration crisis: &ldquo;I will do whatever it takes.&rdquo; Historic appointment, high stakesMahmood&rsquo;s appointment as Home Secretary is historic: she is the first Muslim woman and first British-Pakistani to hold the role. The milestone has drawn both praise and heightened scrutiny. As she moves to reshape UK immigration policy, Mahmood faces the dual challenges of delivering swift, visible results while managing the diplomatic and public pressures that come with one of Britain&rsquo;s most politically charged portfolios.

UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood warned that countries refusing to accept deported nationals could face visa suspensions

UK mulls visa restrictions for countries that refuse migrant returns

LONDON:&nbsp;British police announced on Sunday that they had arrested nearly 900 people at a demonstration the day before in support of Palestine Action. The government called on people to stop protesting in support of the banned campaign group. Britain proscribed Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation in July after some of its members <a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AS8N3NJ0AV&linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank">broke into</a> a Royal Air Force base and damaged military planes. That followed vandalism and incidents targeting defence firms in Britain with links to Israel. The group accuses Prime Minister Keir Starmer&#39;s government of complicity in what it says are Israeli war crimes <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/israel-hamas/" target="_blank">in Gaza</a>. Hundreds detained near parliamentHundreds of Palestine Action supporters have since <a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL1N3U1043&linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank">been arrested</a> at demonstrations, many of them over the age of 60. London police said 890 had been held following a protest near parliament in central London on Saturday, the highest number of detentions from a single such protest to date. Of those, 857 were detained for showing support for a banned group, while 17 were arrested for assaults on officers after police said the protest turned violent. &quot;The violence we encountered during the operation was coordinated and carried out by a group of people ... intent on creating as much disorder as possible,&quot; said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Claire Smart. &lsquo;Mass acts of defiance to continue&rsquo;The protest organisers, a group called Defend Our Juries, said that among those arrested were priests, war veterans, and healthcare workers;&nbsp;they included many elderly and some disabled. &quot;These mass acts of defiance will continue until the ban is lifted,&quot; a spokesperson said. Palestine Action&#39;s proscription puts the group alongside al Qaeda and Islamic State (Daesh), making it a crime to support or belong to the organization, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Limiting freedom of expressionHuman rights groups have criticised the ban as disproportionate and say it limits the freedom of expression of peaceful protesters. Defence minister John Healey said the firm action was needed to counter accusations by right-wing critics of &quot;a two-tier policing and justice system&quot;. &quot;Almost everyone shares the agony when we see the images from Gaza ... and for people who want to voice their concern and protest, I applaud them,&quot; he told Sky News. &quot;But that does not require them to link it to support for Palestine Action, a proscribed group.&quot; Many of those arrested in recent weeks were released on police bail. It was unclear how many were still in detention.

Nearly 900 people were arrested in London during a pro-Palestine Action protest, the largest number of detentions from a single such demonstration. Britain banned the group in July under anti-terror laws, sparking criticism from human rights advocates who say the move curtails free expression.

Articles tagged with "United Kingdom"

Pakistan, UK vow deeper cooperation on reforms, governance, development priorities

UK police arrest two after 'multiple people' stabbed on train

UK, Portugal to recognize Palestinian state ahead of UN debate

Prince Harry donates $500,000 to help wounded children in Ukraine and Gaza

UK mulls visa restrictions for countries that refuse migrant returns

Almost 900 people arrested at London Palestine Action protest, police say