Author: Admin

President Asif Ali Zardari has given his assent to the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which empowers security forces with extended detention powers, and was passed through parliament amid opposition uproar. “The law is designed to ensure transparency and accountability in detentions, with a built-in three-year sunset clause to limit its duration. It includes judicial oversight and safeguards to provide recourse against misuse and abuse of power, unlike past arbitrary practices,” said President Secretariat Press Wing in a statement issued on Sunday. On August 19, the Senate passed the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act 2025, restoring lapsed powers that allow law enforcement agencies…

PUBLISHED August 31, 2025 KARACHI: In 2016, I authored the report Terrorism Prosecution in Pakistan (open-source, accessible via Academia and ResearchGate), which critically examined Pakistan’s anti-terrorism prosecution system through an empirical review of Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATCs) judgments and focus group discussions with police, prosecutors, and judges. That study highlighted systemic flaws: over-reliance on eyewitness testimony, neglect of forensic evidence, proliferation of tangential litigation, weak case management, and the pervasive “fear factor” discouraging witnesses from testifying. Nearly a decade later, Pakistan has traversed a turbulent trajectory in its fight against terrorism. While large-scale military operations after 2013 displaced militant groups from…

Sophie Turner’s personal life has once again become the focus of speculation following reports that she may have ended her relationship with Peregrine Pearson. The actress, best known for her role in Game of Thrones, previously confirmed her romance with the British aristocrat after her divorce from singer Joe Jonas. According to The Sun, Turner has been spotted on the celebrity dating app Raya, sparking suggestions that she has separated from Pearson for the second time. The 29-year-old is said to have uploaded nine photographs to her profile, including holiday snaps and a video of her dancing in a hotel…

PUBLISHED August 31, 2025 KARACHI: Once upon a time, Pakistan Television was our Harvard, our poetry club, our moral compass, and our neighborhood gossip hub, all wrapped in one black-and-white broadcast. In the evenings, life came to a polite halt. We sat watching Baseerat in the evening, a religious starter, then watched kid’s programmes, then Sindhi shows followed by Prime Time drama. That ended and the main news bulletin, khabarnama boomed through the house as fathers tried to absorb each and every word spoken by the newsreaders. In the later years, mothers told kids to finish homework before Ankahi started.…

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah visited Guddu Barrage  on Sunday along with senior provincial ministers and security officials to review the flood situation, saying the provincial administration was preparing for the possibility of a “super flood” of up to 900,000 cusecs. The chief minister was accompanied by Sindh Senior Minister Sharjeel Memon, Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro and Commander Coast Rear Admiral Faisal. The delegation arrived at the barrage by helicopter and monitored the river flow and vulnerable areas with the help of maps during the aerial survey. Speaking to reporters at the barrage, Shah noted that water…

By Dr Syed Akhtar Ali Shah | PUBLISHED August 31, 2025 KARACHI: After sixteen long years, President Asif Ali Zardari has recently notified the 11th National Finance Commission (NFC). This has triggered both hope and despair throughout Pakistan. According to the constitution, the NFC is responsible for determining how the federal government’s collected revenues will be divided between the federal government and the provinces. Therefore, the provinces’ financial independence and the welfare of their citizens are directly impacted by its decisions. The NFC’s discussions hold existential significance for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, a province that is heavily dependent on federal transfers and bears…

PUBLISHED August 31, 2025 KARACHI: Last month, a 12-year-old madrasah student in Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), died after what police and prosecutors allege was hours of torture by his teachers for missing class. Within days, eleven staff from the unregistered seminary were arrested; a Khwazakhela magistrate granted police custody. A parallel case emerged from Swabi where a cleric was detained for torturing a six-year-old for not memorising his lesson. The Swat boy’s father says teachers called later to claim the child had fallen in the toilet, but a FIR now cites sections 302 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code…

A monitor shows a three-dimensional image of a human heart at the Klaus-Tschira-Institute for Integrative Computational Cardiology, department of the Heidelberg University Hospital (Universitaetsklinikum Heidelberg), in Heidelberg, Germany, August 14, 2018. — ReutersA decades-old pill remains helpful for heart attack patients even with modern treatments that can prevent lasting damage to the heart muscle, two large trials have shown.Still unclear is whether all patients, or only some, benefit from so-called beta-blocker drugs, which are typically prescribed to everyone after a heart attack.Two sharply contradictory reports were presented on Saturday at a large cardiology meeting in Madrid and published in The…

President Asif Ali Zardari addresses at an event on September 23, 2024. — APPISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday signed into law the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2025, following its approval by both houses of parliament earlier this month.According to a statement issued by the Presidency, the legislation aims to strengthen the country’s counterterrorism framework while introducing legal safeguards and oversight mechanisms.“The law is designed to ensure transparency and accountability in detentions, with a built-in three-year sunset clause to limit its duration,” it said. “The law includes judicial oversight and safeguards to provide recourse against misuse and abuse of power,…

Chris Columbus, the original director of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, has ruled out any possibility of returning to the Wizarding World. Speaking to The Times of London, Columbus said it is “impossible” for him to come back to the franchise because of the political complications surrounding JK Rowling and her controversial views. “It’s never going to happen,” Columbus stated. “It’s gotten so complicated with all the political stuff. Everyone in the cast has their own opinion, which is different from [Rowling’s] opinion, which makes it impossible.” Columbus confirmed he has not…