ISLAMABAD: Every autumn on the mountainous Karakoram Highway, part of the ancient Silk Road, groups of Pakistani merchants living in China's far west would wave goodbye to their Chinese wives and cross the border to spend winter in their home country.
As the snow piled high, the men would stay in touch with their families by phone, longing for the spring thaw that would allow them to be reunited in Xinjiang.
But last year many of their calls suddenly went unanswered.
Their families, they learned, had disappeared into a growing network of shadowy "re-education centres" that have swept up the region's Uighur Muslim minority over fears of Islamic militancy crossing the border from Pakistan.
"My wife and kids were taken away by the Chinese authorities in March last year and I haven't heard from them since," said Iqbal, a Pakistani businessman who declined to give his surname over concern about his family's safety.
Last July, he headed to China to find them, but was turned away at the border. Authorities "said my wife was in 'training' and the government was taking care of my kids", he told AFP.
"I begged them to let me talk to my daughters, but they refused."
Iqbal is one of dozens of merchants from Gilgit-Baltistan who return to Pakistan for visa reasons or to run their businesses and have been unable to contact their Uighur families living in China, according to Javed Hussain, a member of the local assembly for the Pakistani region that borders Xinjiang.
Earlier this month, the delegates passed a unanimous resolution protesting the "illegal detention" of the men's families.
"The Chinese authorities should at least allow the men to meet their wives and children," Hussain said.
"China is our friend and this incident will leave a bad taste."
China's foreign ministry said that the "two sides are maintaining communication about problems related to interactions between both countries' people", while Pakistan's said the issue was being "actively discussed with the government of China".
Like many of the men, Iqbal's family lived in Kashgar, an ancient city along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a trade route connecting China's far west to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.
In recent years, China has heavily pushed its relationship with Pakistan, investing tens of billions of dollars in CPEC infrastructure projects in the country, and Beijing has upgraded the treacherous mountain road connecting Gilgit-Baltistan to Xinjiang.
But China has had difficulty reconciling its desire for development with fears that Uighur separatists will import violence from Pakistan.
Chinese authorities have long linked their crackdown on Xinjiang's Muslims to international counter-terrorism, arguing that separatists are bent on joining foreign extremists like Al-Qaeda.
Uighurs have been tied to mass stabbings and bombings that left dozens dead in recent years across the country. Riots and clashes with the government killed hundreds more.
Over the past year, China has turned to increasingly drastic methods to eliminate what it describes as the "three forces": terrorists, religious extremists and separatists.
In 2017, the government flooded Xinjiang with tens of thousands of security personnel, with police stations on nearly every block in urban areas and tough regulations to "eliminate extremism".
This included the increased use of compulsory "re-education" for anyone suspected of harbouring separatist sympathies.
Iqbal and the other Pakistani men believe their wives -- and even business associates -- have been targeted because they received calls and messages from Pakistan.
"Any communication from Pakistan is considered a threat," said Qurban, a businessman who has worked in Kashgar for over 30 years.
"One of my employees, a Uighur, was picked up two years back just because he was in touch with me when I went to Pakistan."
Chinese authorities have denied the existence of re-education centres.
But regulations against extremism adopted by Xinjiang last March call for authorities to step up political re-education.
In Kashgar alone, more than 120,000 people -- about three percent of the area's population -- were being held in the facilities in January, according to Radio Free Asia.
An AFP review of state media reports and government documents verified the existence of at least 30 such centres and almost 4,000 cases of people being sent to them.
Regulations posted on a local website in Xinjiang's Hejing county explained that even minor transgressions of strict religious regulations can be punished with up to three months in a centre.
Ali, a businessman who lost contact with his wife in December, said she had been taken by authorities to do a "sort of training where they teach them about Communism and prepare them to be patriotic citizens".
"My wife told me that Chinese police had come to her house and asked her about the calls from Pakistan and asked her to explain her links with ETIM," said Ali, referring to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a militant group China has accused of attempting to foment Uighur separatism.
He plans to cross the border in May to find his family, but has been told his children are in the custody of the Chinese government and doesn't know if he will see them again.
"They never tell you anything, they just say your family will come back to you when they finish their training."
Pakistanis distressed as Uighur wives vanish in China dragnet
Pakistanis distressed as Uighur wives vanish in China dragnet
Pakistan’s legendary Wasim Akram praises his statue amid social media flak
- Statue installed outside Hyderabad’s Niaz Stadium in April shows Akram bowling in 1999 World Cup team kit next to statue of a tiger
- Fans have been mocking statue saying, “only thing that looks real is the ball,” while face looked more like Hollywood hero Sylvester Stallone
KARACHI: Legendary Pakistan cricketer Wasim Akram saluted on Thursday the “effort” of the artist who created a statue of him that has spawned scorn on social media.
The statue of Akram — one of the greatest left-arm fast bowlers to play the game — was installed outside the southwestern city of Hyderabad’s Niaz Stadium in April.
Akram is shown bowling wearing the kit of the 1999 World Cup team, when Pakistan were runners-up.
Nearby is a statue of a tiger.
One fan mocked the statue, saying: “The only thing that looks real is the ball,” adding the face looked more like Hollywood hero Sylvester Stallone.
The affable Akram, however, took to social media to praise the effort.
“Lots of talk about my sculpture being erected at Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad. Mine is definitely better than the tiger,” he posted on X.
“It’s the idea that matters. Credit to the creators, full marks for the effort and thanks to everyone involved.”
Australia has a history of placing statues of their iconic players outside their stadiums, while India unveiled one of master batter Sachin Tendulkar outside a stadium in Mumbai in 2023.
Niaz stadium chief Shiraz Leghari told AFP: “The artist did his best effort, but accepts it doesn’t resemble (Akram) a hundred percent.”
Akram is one of the country’s most celebrated cricketers, having represented Pakistan in 104 Tests and 356 ODIs with 414 and 502 wickets respectively.
He was the leading wicket-taker in the 1992 World Cup when Pakistan claimed the trophy.
Pakistan, Saudi firm launch $150 million minerals complex to cut imports, boost exports
- Initiative is being facilitated through provincial government of Punjab and Pakistan’s SIFC investment facilitation body
- Anfal Group’s engagement marks one of the first foreign-led projects under SIFC’s umbrella in the minerals sector
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has launched a $150 million minerals processing complex in Punjab province in collaboration with Saudi-based Anfal Group, a private industrial company, aiming to reduce chemical imports and expand mineral-based exports, state media reported on Thursday.
The initiative is being facilitated through the provincial government of Punjab and Pakistan’s Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) — a powerful civil-military body established in 2023 to fast-track foreign investment in key sectors such as mining, agriculture, energy, and information technology. The council brings together civilian ministries, the military, and provincial governments to streamline decision-making and reduce bureaucratic delays in large-scale projects.
The new complex is part of Pakistan’s push to attract foreign investment into its underdeveloped mineral sector. The project is expected to save Pakistan approximately $2.9 billion annually by substituting chemical imports and will create new export opportunities for processed minerals, including rock salt.
“The project will... open new opportunities for the export of key chemicals, including rock salt,” Radio Pakistan reported.
The Anfal Group’s engagement marks one of the first foreign-led projects under the SIFC’s investment umbrella in the minerals sector.
Based in Saudi Arabia, Anfal specializes in industrial chemicals, construction materials, and salt processing. Its entry into Pakistan aligns with Islamabad’s broader strategy to partner with Gulf investors in value-added resource development.
With global demand rising for critical minerals, Pakistani officials hope such partnerships will help transform the sector from a largely extractive industry into one that generates jobs, revenue, and export earnings through processing and value addition.
Pakistan holds untapped mineral reserves worth an estimated $6 trillion, including copper, gold, lithium, coal, rock salt, and iron ore. Despite this, the sector contributes just 3.2 percent to GDP, and mineral exports account for less than 0.1 percent of global trade.
The country produces around 68 million tones of minerals annually, yet value addition remains minimal, with most raw materials exported without processing. Notable reserves include the massive Reko Diq copper and gold mine in Balochistan, which is being developed by Canada’s Barrick Gold in partnership with Pakistani state entities.
Pakistan also hosts the world’s second-largest salt mines, significant coal reserves in Sindh’s Thar region, and emerging lithium deposits in northern Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In April, Pakistan hosted its first Minerals Investment Forum, where the government unveiled the National Minerals Harmonization Framework 2025, intended to streamline licensing, regulation, and investment facilitation in the extractives sector.
Pakistan ranks last among 148 nations in WEF global gender gap index
- Pakistan has closed just 56.7 percent of its overall gender gap, down from 57 percent in the previous year
- While Pakistan recorded improvements in education, broader gender equality remained elusive
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has ranked last among 148 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, underscoring persistent gender disparities in political and economic representation despite modest gains in female literacy.
The annual report, released this week, assesses gender parity across four key dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
“Occupying the bottom rank of the index (148), Pakistan sees its overall parity score decline from last year’s edition from 57 percent to 56.7 percent,” the report said, marking the second consecutive annual decline in parity.
While Pakistan recorded improvements in education, the report noted that broader gender equality remained elusive.
The country showed a 1.5 percentage point gain in educational attainment, raising its parity in this area to 85.1 percent, driven partly by a rise in female literacy from 46.5 percent to 48.5 percent, according to WEF.
“Part of the shift is driven by an increase in female literacy rates from 46.5 percent to 48.5 percent,” the report said.
However, it cautioned that the improvement at the university level was partially due to a decline in male enrollment, rather than a significant surge in female participation.
In contrast, the country’s economic participation and opportunity index fell by 1.3 percentage points, amid a widening income and wage gap. The report noted a marginal increase in income disparity and a four-percentage-point rise in perceived wage inequality.
Women continue to make up a small share of Pakistan’s labor force — just 22.8 percent, according to a 2024 World Bank report — and few hold leadership or managerial positions.
Pakistan also saw a notable regression in political empowerment, with parity dropping from 12.2 percent in 2024 to 11 percent in 2025. While women’s representation in parliament rose slightly by 1.2 percentage points, the share of women in ministerial positions dropped from 5.9 percent to zero, according to the WEF.
“Overall Pakistan has closed +2.3 of its gender gap since 2006,” the report noted. “However, this year’s results are a second consecutive drop from the economy’s best score of 57.7 percent achieved in 2023.”
Pakistan has consistently ranked near the bottom in past editions of the Global Gender Gap Index and the 2025 report underscores the country’s ongoing struggle to create equitable opportunities for women, particularly in the political and economic spheres. Progress in education, while encouraging, remains insufficient to offset broader systemic inequalities.
Pakistan mulls linking provincial funding to population control under revised revenue-sharing scheme
Pakistan mulls linking provincial funding to population control under revised revenue-sharing scheme
- NFC Award is constitutional formula that governs how tax revenues are shared between federal government and provinces
- Proposed reform in formula would shift financial incentives away from population size alone and toward demographic efficiency
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s planning ministry will propose changes to the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award — a constitutional formula that governs how tax revenues are shared between the federal government and provinces — in an effort to reward regions that manage to control population growth, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said on Thursday.
The proposed reform would shift financial incentives away from population size alone and toward demographic efficiency. Pakistan, a country of over 240 million people, has its population growing at around 2 percent annually. This rate is significantly above the global average, placing Pakistan among the world’s faster-growing nations.
Under the existing NFC Award, 57.5 percent of the divisible tax pool is allocated to Pakistan’s four provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Of this, 82 percent is distributed based on population size, effectively rewarding provinces like Punjab and Sindh that have higher population growth.
“In the next NFC Award, the Planning Ministry will propose a revision of the resource distribution formula,” Iqbal told reporters during a briefing on Pakistan’s development budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
“This creates a negative incentive. If a province manages to control its population, it is effectively penalized with a reduced share of resources.”
The NFC Award remains a politically sensitive subject in Pakistan, with provinces often reluctant to surrender financial shares. However, Iqbal said reform was essential for sustainable development.
The current NFC Award was agreed in 2010 under Article 160 of the Constitution, which requires periodic review and consensus among the federal and provincial governments. The 2010 award introduced a more balanced distribution formula than previous iterations, which were based solely on population. It included additional criteria such as poverty and backwardness (10.3 percent), revenue collection and generation (5 percent), and inverse population density (2.7 percent).
Despite these adjustments, Iqbal argued that population remained an overwhelming factor in determining provincial allocations and discouraged provinces from investing in family planning or demographic control measures.
“We must shift toward incentivizing demographic efficiency, rewarding provinces that control population growth effectively,” he said.
“This change is only possible through a revised NFC formula, as in my view, the current formula is regressive and needs to be restructured on a progressive basis, linking resource allocation not just to population but also to factors like industrial performance, educational outcomes, and governance efficiency.”
Iqbal described Pakistan’s current 2.5 percent annual population growth rate as “the biggest challenge” facing the country and said that without effective population control, economic development efforts would be undermined.
To address the issue at the national level, Iqbal said the government would establish a Pakistan Population Council chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, with participation from provincial and regional governments.
“WATER SECURITY”
Iqbal also highlighted the growing threat of water scarcity, particularly after neighboring India’s unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a 1960 World Bank-brokered agreement that allocated the use of the Indus River system’s waters between India and Pakistan.
India announced it was holding the treaty in abeyance after a conflict with Pakistan last month over the disputed Kashmir region, which both countries rule in part but claim in full.
“Our focus in the development budget is Pakistan’s water sector, as we must treat water as a fundamental element of our national strength, especially as neighboring countries have begun to weaponize water, a deeply concerning development,” the planning minister said.
He added that while India could not legally block Pakistan’s share of water under the treaty, it could still affect the flow of rivers that irrigate nearly 80 percent of the country’s agricultural land.
In response, Pakistan has prioritized the completion of two major dam projects, Diamer Bhasha Dam and Mohmand Dam, aiming to finish both by 2030. Originally, Diamer Bhasha Dam was scheduled for completion in 2032.
“We have resolved to complete the Diamer Bhasha Dam and Mohmand Dam on an emergency basis and our goal is to complete the Diamer Bhasha Dam by 2030,” Iqbal said, adding that the two dams would together add 7 million acre-feet of water storage capacity, 6 million from Diamer Bhasha and 1 million from Mohmand.
A federal task force led by the Deputy Prime Minister and comprising all four provincial chief ministers had been formed to oversee the implementation of water infrastructure projects, the planning minister said.
45 minutes to pack up a lifetime as Pakistan’s foreigner crackdown sends Afghans scrambling
- Local aid groups in Afghanistan say they are unable to cope with the large influx of returning Afghans
- Iran has also been deporting Afghan nationals, with hundreds of thousands returning home since April
TORKHAM, Afghanistan: The order was clear and indisputable, the timeline startling. You have 45 minutes to pack up and leave Pakistan forever.
Sher Khan, a 42-year-old Afghan, had returned home from his job in a brick factory. He stared at the plainclothes policeman on the doorstep, his mind reeling. How could he pack up his whole life and leave the country of his birth in under an hour?
In the blink of an eye, the life he had built was taken away from him. He and his wife grabbed a few kitchen items and whatever clothes they could for themselves and their nine children. They left everything else behind at their home in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Born in Pakistan to parents who fled the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ensuing war, Khan is one of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have now been expelled.
The nationwide crackdown, launched in October 2023, on foreigners Pakistan says are living in the country illegally has led to the departures of almost 1 million Afghans already.
Pakistan says millions more remain. It wants them gone.
Leaving with nothing to beat a deadline
“All our belongings were left behind,” Khan said as he stood in a dusty, windswept refugee camp just across the Afghan border in Torkham, the first stop for expelled refugees. “We tried so hard (over the years) to collect the things that we had with honor.”
Pakistan set several deadlines earlier this year for Afghans to leave or face deportation. Afghan Citizen Card holders had to leave the capital Islamabad and Rawalpindi city by March 31, while those with Proof of Registration could stay until June 30. No specific deadlines were set for Afghans living elsewhere in Pakistan.
Khan feared that delaying his departure beyond the deadline might have resulted in his wife and children being hauled off to a police station along with him a blow to his family’s dignity.
“We are happy that we came (to Afghanistan) with modesty and honor,” he said. As for his lost belongings, “God may provide for them here, as He did there.”
A refugee influx in a struggling country
At the Torkham camp, run by Afghanistan’s Taliban government, each family receives a SIM card and 10,000 Afghanis ($145) in aid. They can spend up to three days there before having to move on.
The camp’s director, Molvi Hashim Maiwandwal, said some 150 families were arriving daily from Pakistan — far fewer than the roughly 1,200 families who were arriving about two months ago. But he said another surge was expected after the three-day Islamic holiday of Eid Al-Adha.
Aid organizations inside the camp help with basic needs, including health care. Local charity Aseel provides hygiene kits and helps with food. It has also set up a food package delivery system for families once they arrive at their final destination elsewhere in Afghanistan.
Aseel’s Najibullah Ghiasi said they expected a surge in arrivals “by a significant number” after Eid. “We cannot handle all of them, because the number is so huge,” he said, adding the organization was trying to boost fundraising so it could support more people.
Pakistan blames Afghanistan for militancy
Pakistan accuses Afghans of staging militant attacks inside the country, saying assaults are planned from across the border — a charge Kabul’s Taliban government denies.
Pakistan denies targeting Afghans, and maintains that everyone leaving the country is treated humanely and with dignity. But for many, there is little that is humane about being forced to pack up and leave in minutes or hours.
Iran, too, has been expelling Afghans, with the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, saying on June 5 that 500,000 Afghans had been forced to leave Iran and Pakistan in the two months since April 1.
Rights groups and aid agencies say authorities are pressuring Afghans into going sooner.
In April, Human Rights Watch said police had raided houses, beaten and arbitrarily detained people, and confiscated refugee documents, including residence permits. Officers demanded bribes to allow Afghans to remain in Pakistan, the group added.
Searching for hope while starting again
Fifty-year-old Yar Mohammad lived in Azad Kashmir for nearly 45 years. The father of 12 built a successful business polishing floors, hiring several workers. Plainclothes policemen knocked on his door too. They gave him six hours to leave.
“No way a person can wrap up so much business in six hours, especially if they spent 45 years in one place,” he said. Friends rushed to his aid to help pack up anything they could: the company’s floor-polishing machines, some tables, bed-frames and mattresses, and clothes.
Now all his household belongings are crammed into orange tents in the Torkham refugee camp, his hard-earned floor-polishing machines outside and exposed to the elements. After three days of searching, he managed to find a place to rent in Kabul.
“I have no idea what we will do,” he said, adding that he would try to recreate his floor-polishing business in Afghanistan. “If this works here, it is the best thing to do.”
