ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday ordered Prime Minister Imran Khan’s sister, Aleema Khanum to pay Rs29.4 million in taxes and fines after she was named as an owner of an undeclared property in the UAE.
Following a report submitted by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), a three-judge bench, headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Saqib Nisar, added that Khanum’s failure to pay the requisite taxes and fines would result in the confiscation of her properties.
Salman Akram Raja, Khanum’s counsel told the court that his client had acquired the properties in Dubai in 2008 and that the money to purchase the said properties was sent using legal banking channels. He added that details of the bank transactions and properties have been submitted to the court.
Khanum, who was also present in the court at the time of the decision, said that she had bought the property worth $370,000 by paying 50 percent of the amount herself and the rest using a mortgage.
According to a written testimony submitted to the Federal Investigation Agency, she said she acquired the properties through earnings from her businesses abroad. “I sold my properties and the FBR was notified about this development in advance,” she said in her written testimony.
Earlier, taking suo motu notice of the matter, the apex court said that the money siphoned off abroad without payment of taxes, and through illegal channels, represented either illegally-acquired cash and assets or kickbacks from public contracts.
“Such money creates gross disproportion, inequality, and disparity in society, which warps economic activity and growth, and constitutes plunder and theft of national wealth,” the court said, before directing the FBR to submit a report of the case after a week.
SC orders PM Khan’s sister to pay Rs29.4mn for undeclared assets abroad
SC orders PM Khan’s sister to pay Rs29.4mn for undeclared assets abroad
- Revenue body identified Aleema Khanum as the owner of a property in the UAE
- Top court directs officials to submit a report of the case after a week
Two Pakistani Taliban militants killed in Karachi counterterror raid, police say
- Weapons, explosives, suicide vest recovered in joint CTD-FIA operation in Keamari district
- TTP has long maintained presence in Karachi, linked to extortion, killings and major attacks
KARACHI: Two suspected militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) were killed in an intelligence-led security operation in Karachi, police said Thursday, amid growing concerns about the outfit’s efforts to regroup in urban centers across the country.
The TTP, also known as the Pakistan Taliban, has operated in the southern port city for over a decade, often in coordination with sectarian or ethnic militant outfits. The group has been linked to a series of high-profile attacks, including the 2014 assault on Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport and the 2023 siege of the Karachi Police Office. In addition to violence, the network is known to engage in extortion, targeted assassinations and intimidation campaigns in the city.
The latest operation, carried out jointly by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Sindh Police and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), took place in the Askani area of Karachi’s Keamari district after authorities said they received “reliable intelligence” regarding a plot to carry out “subversive activities.”
“Two terrorists affiliated with the banned organization Fitna Al-Khawarij (TTP) were neutralized in the gunfight,” CTD official Mazhar Mashwani told Arab News, adding that the identification of the militants was ongoing through biometric and intelligence verification.
Security forces recovered a pistol, a Kalashnikov rifle, explosives and a suicide vest from the site of the operation. The vest was later defused by a bomb disposal unit, Mashwani added.
Criminal cases are being registered under anti-terrorism and explosives laws at the CTD Police Station.
Though large-scale security operations have weakened the TTP’s organizational infrastructure in Karachi, police officials say sleeper cells remain active, often operating in alliance with other militant groups.
Pakistan has experienced a sharp increase in militant violence since November 2022, when a fragile truce between the state and the TTP collapsed. While the violence has been most intense in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, the presence of TTP-linked cells in Karachi, the country’s commercial capital, remains a serious security concern.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government of sheltering TTP leaders and fighters involved in cross-border attacks, though Kabul denies the allegation and insists Pakistan address its own internal security challenges.
Pakistan deputy PM to visit Kabul for rail project pact with Afghanistan, Uzbekistan
- Agreement will launch joint feasibility study for UAP railway link connecting Central Asia to Pakistani ports
- Pact seen as one of the first tangible outcomes of renewed engagement between Islamabad and Kabul
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will travel to Kabul today, Thursday, to sign a framework agreement to conduct a joint feasibility study for the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (UAP) Railway Project, the foreign office said in a statement.
The UAP Railway Project aims to establish a vital trade and transit corridor linking Uzbekistan with Pakistan via Afghanistan, offering the Central Asian republics direct access to Pakistani seaports. The rail link is expected to significantly boost regional connectivity, facilitate trade and contribute to long-term economic integration and political stability in the broader region.
For Pakistan, which seeks to position itself as a regional connectivity hub, the UAP railway is also strategically important in strengthening economic ties with Central Asia and securing stable transit through Afghanistan, a country whose internal security dynamics continue to impact broader regional development goals.
“The DPM/FM’s visit underscores the importance Pakistan attaches to the successful realization of the UAP Railway Project,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The signing of the Framework Agreement on Joint Feasibility Study between the three participating countries in Kabul will be an important step toward its implementation.”
Uzbekistan and Afghanistan signed an agreement in 2017 to extend a railroad connecting the two countries that would eventually give Uzbekistan a direct link to seaports.
Landlocked Uzbekistan’s access to marine shipping is very limited.
RENEWED ENGAGEMENT
While in Kabul, Dar will also meet Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister and is scheduled to call on the country’s acting prime minister. The meetings will cover a wide range of bilateral issues as well as regional and international developments.
The visit comes amid a tentative thaw in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, which have been strained in recent years due to a surge in militancy in Pakistan that Islamabad blames on Afghan-based insurgent groups.
Islamabad has repeatedly urged the Taliban-led government to prevent militant groups, particularly Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), from launching attacks on Pakistani security forces and other targets from Afghan soil. Kabul denies harboring militants.
In December, the Afghan Taliban said bombardment by Pakistani military aircraft in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province had killed at least 46 people, most of whom were children and women.
Pakistan has not confirmed the strikes but has said that it is carrying out “anti-terrorist operations” against militants it blames for attacks in Pakistan and who it says have safe havens in Afghanistan, a charge that Kabul denies.
Efforts to repair the fractured ties gained momentum during a China-hosted trilateral dialogue in Beijing in May between the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. Islamabad and Kabul agreed in principle to send ambassadors to each other’s country as soon as possible, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had announced after the summit.
The upcoming signing of the UAP railway pact, a long-discussed infrastructure project championed by all three governments, is also being seen as one of the first tangible outcomes of renewed engagement between Islamabad and Kabul.
Pakistan calls Gaza aid system ‘a death trap,’ urges restoration of UN-led relief channels
- Israel dismantled UN-run aid sites, set up a system where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed
- Pakistan urges global action as Gaza is ‘starved and shattered’ amid failing aid delivery mechanisms
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations on Wednesday criticized the current humanitarian aid delivery mechanism in Gaza, saying it had “morphed into a death trap” for civilians, as hundreds of people have been killed while trying to access basic supplies like food and medicine.
Speaking at a UN Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmed, raised alarm over the dismantling of the earlier UN-coordinated aid system and its replacement by a restricted structure under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which he said lacked both scale and neutrality.
“The current aid mechanism is clearly failing those it claims to serve,” Ahmed said. “According to the UN Human Rights Office, 798 aid-related killings have occurred since late May, 615 of them at or near distribution sites.
The prior UN-coordinated system of more than 400 well-networked distribution points has been dismantled. In its place, a heavily restricted system under the GHF now operates with just a handful of designated aid sites.”
The Pakistani diplomat noted the situation was forcing desperate civilians to traverse active combat zones in search of basic necessities.
“While some aid has trickled into Gaza, the volume is vastly inadequate,” he added. “Its implementation is flawed, and it falls far short of the standards demanded by international humanitarian law. Most gravely, the system has morphed into a death trap.”
The remarks came amid growing international concern over the humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where more than 58,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands wounded since the start of Israeli military operations in October 2023.
Aid groups and UN agencies have warned that fuel, food and medical supplies are nearing critical shortages, while bureaucratic hurdles and border closures continue to delay relief deliveries.
Ahmed urged the Security Council to back the restoration of “full, unhindered and impartial humanitarian access” through UN-led channels, including the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and to push for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.
“The world cannot stand by as Gaza is starved and shattered,” he said. “Let us not grow numb to the daily toll: it is not just another headline, another ticker, another statistic. Behind each number is a life: a person with a story, a dream extinguished a family torn apart.”
US to destroy Pakistan and Afghanistan bound food aid in UAE after Trump-era freeze
- Nearly 500 metric tons of fortified biscuits to be incinerated or landfilled in UAE
- Supplies intended for Pakistan, Afghanistan could have fed 27,000 people for a month
With 1,100 metric tons of emergency food rations nearing expiry in a US government warehouse in Dubai after President Donald Trump’s aid freeze, it took a warning of “wasted tax dollars” for a top US official to eventually agree to a deal for the supplies to be used, sources told Reuters.
The deal saved 622 metric tons of the energy-dense biscuits in June, but 496 metric tons, worth $793,000 before they expired this month, will be destroyed, according to two internal US Agency for International Development memos reviewed by Reuters, dated May 5 and May 19, and four sources familiar with the matter.
The wasted biscuits will be turned into landfill or incinerated in the United Arab Emirates, two sources said. That will cost the US government an additional $100,000, according to the May 5 memo verified by three sources familiar with the matter.
The delays and waste are further examples of how the freeze and then cutbacks, which led to the firing of thousands of USAID employees and contractors, have thrown global humanitarian operations into chaos.
A spokesperson for the State Department, which is now responsible for US foreign aid, confirmed in an email to Reuters that the biscuits would have to be destroyed. But they said the stocks were “purchased as a contingency beyond projections” under the administration of former President Joe Biden, resulting in their expiration.
Trump has said the US pays disproportionately for foreign aid, and he wants other countries to shoulder more of the burden.
His administration announced plans to shut down USAID in January, leaving more than 60,000 metric tons of food aid stuck in stores around the world, Reuters reported in May.
The food aid stuck in Dubai was fortified wheat biscuits, which are calorie-rich and typically deployed in crisis conditions where people lack cooking facilities, “providing immediate nutrition for a child or adult,” according to the UN World Food Programme.
The WFP says 319 million people are facing acute levels of food insecurity worldwide. Of those, 1.9 million people are gripped by catastrophic hunger and on the brink of famine, primarily in Gaza and Sudan.
FOOD SECURITY
After Jeremy Lewin and Kenneth Jackson, operatives of the budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, were appointed acting deputy USAID administrators and began terminating food security programs, USAID staff were barred from communicating with aid organizations that were asking to take the biscuits, two sources said.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was “entirely false” that USAID staff were barred from communicating with aid groups, and that “there was no direction given ... not to engage.”
Reuters, however, reported that a January 25 email sent by Jackson emphasizing a “complete halt” to all foreign assistance banned USAID staff from any communications outside of the agency unless approved by their front office.
“Failure to abide by this directive...will result in disciplinary action,” said the memo reviewed by Reuters.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on May 21 that no food aid would be wasted, as USAID staff were waiting for Lewin to sign off on a deal to transfer the 622 metric tons of biscuits to the WFP for distribution before they began expiring in September.
That agreement was approved in June after weeks of waiting, according to five sources familiar with the matter, and the May 19 memo verified by two of the sources.
Both sources told Reuters that Lewin, who now runs the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance, did not respond to the request for weeks.
The State Department official said the memo had to go through revisions and edits before Lewin could sign it on June 2.
Eventually, USAID staff sent a memo to Lewin warning him that the biscuits had a limited shelf-life and that the agency would have to pay an estimated $125,000 to have them destroyed, resulting in “wasted tax dollars,” unless an agreement was struck with WFP to take them, both sources said.
Lewin finally signed it, clearing the way for USAID staff to save the 622 metric tons of biscuits, valued at just under $1 million, now destined for Syria, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, according to the memo.
Lewin did not respond to requests for comment.
The State Department official said Lewin cleared the transfer in a “timely manner,” and that consideration had to be given to finding shipping options that were not several times more expensive than the value of the biscuits.
Both sources said it took until early July to begin sending the stocks because generally it requires weeks of work to rearrange shipments after supply chains are disrupted.
A WFP official said it had signed an agreement to receive the biscuits.
The supplies slated for destruction could have fed around 27,000 people for a month, according to a Reuters analysis using figures from WFP. Those stocks were originally intended for USAID partners in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Alexandra Rutishauser-Perera, the director of nutrition at Action Against Hunger UK, said: “We knew the suspension of USAID funding would have immediate consequences, and the destruction of emergency food, at a time when acute hunger is at its highest on record, underscores the unintended consequences of such funding cuts.”
The United States is the world’s largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38 percent of all contributions recorded by the United Nations. It disbursed $61 billion in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data.
The Trump administration notified Congress in March that USAID would fire almost all of its staff in two rounds on July 1 and September 2, as it prepared to shut down.
In a statement on July 1 marking the transfer of USAID to the State Department, Rubio said the US was abandoning what he called a charity-based model and would focus on empowering countries to grow sustainably.
“We will favor those nations that have demonstrated both the ability and willingness to help themselves and will target our resources to areas where they can have a multiplier effect and catalyze durable private sector, including American companies, and global investment,” he wrote.
Pakistan’s Punjab reports 63 deaths in 24 hours as monsoon toll rises to 103
- Heavy rains continue to lash the most populous province, injuring nearly 400 and damaging homes
- Authorities have declared a rain emergency in Rawalpindi after 230 millimeters of rain in 15 hours
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s most populous province of Punjab said on Thursday 63 people were killed and 290 injured in the last 24 hours due to heavy monsoon rains, as downpours continued across parts of the country including the federal capital Islamabad and neighboring Rawalpindi, which has declared a rain emergency.
The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) of Punjab said in a statement the deaths were reported from multiple districts, including 15 in Lahore, nine in Faisalabad, nine in Okara, five in Sahiwal and three in Pakpattan.
Many of the casualties occurred in roof and building collapses, particularly in older or poorly constructed homes.
“So far, 103 people have died and 393 have been injured due to monsoon rains this year,” the PDMA said. “In the last 24 hours alone, 63 people have died and 290 have been injured due to monsoon-related incidents.”
The statement added that 128 homes had been damaged and six livestock animals killed.
Authorities have urged residents to vacate unsafe structures, avoid flood-prone areas and keep children away from exposed electric infrastructure.
Medical care is being provided to the injured, with the provincial administration of Punjab saying families of those killed would receive financial compensation under its relief policy.
In Rawalpindi, city authorities declared a rain emergency after more than 230 millimeters of rain fell over the past 15 hours, according to Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) officials.
“The water level in Nullah Leh is rising rapidly,” the managing director of the agency, Muhammad Saleem Ashraf, said in a statement, noting water flows of 20 feet at Katarian and 19 feet at Gawalmandi.
Heavy machinery and emergency teams have been deployed in low-lying areas, and residents have been advised to avoid unnecessary movement.
In Islamabad, intermittent rainfall has continued for several hours.
Sanitation teams have been carrying out drainage operations in waterlogged areas.
Pakistan, which contributes less than one percent to global greenhouse gas emissions, is among the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Rising temperatures, erratic weather patterns and shifting monsoon cycles have made extreme weather events more frequent and severe.
In 2022, record-breaking monsoon rains and glacial melt triggered catastrophic floods that killed more than 1,700 people, displaced millions, and submerged large parts of the country.
Recovery efforts are still ongoing, as climate-linked disasters continue to strain Pakistan’s infrastructure and economy.
