LAHORE: As Lahore’s wealthy attend glitzy winter soirees, toasty bonfires and weddings in the cold months, the wave of bitterly low temperatures in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province this season has affected a huge number of people living life on the fringes.
These are people like Bilqees Bano, who lives on the banks of the River Ravi in a small, sparse hut with her three young children and husband, a daily wage earner who suffers from chronic asthma-- a condition that has deteriorated in the cold and smoggy weather.
“We live here in our one-room home. We collect wood, plastic bags and papers from the road to burn and warm our hut. When we burn wood to warm the room, it creates smoke which further hurts the health of my husband,” Bano said, holding back tears.
“He is unable to work and it has become difficult to feed our children because we have not stored any rations,” she said.
On Monday, most parts of the country came under the grip of severe cold, rain and snowfall, with eleven people killed due to heavy rain in Punjab. In southwestern Balochistan province, 25 people were killed in snow-related accidents.
Punjab’s laborers say, as a result of the cold wave, their businesses have shrunk and it has become increasingly difficult to find jobs.
“The trader is not coming to buy goods due to cold weather. We do loading and unloading and earn money. Our work has stopped,” Aman Elahi, a laborer, told Arab News.
“We search for work in the morning and gather at this place in the evening, light a bonfire and sit around it to save ourselves from the cold,” he added.
To escape the cold, some laborers working in Lahore city take refuge in government built shelter homes at night.
“We have 166 beds, and since the recent cold wave hit the city... all our beds are taken by the evening,” Asif Rasheed, who manages a Railway Station shelter home told Arab News.
Sitting by the road at Lahore’s old Mochi gate in the bitterly cold afternoon, Muhammad Boota Dholchi, a drummer, is unhappy with work prospects-- but the dreary weather has failed to muzzle his spirits.
“I am from Okara. I come here at 11 in the morning and wait for clients to take me to beat my drum on wedding functions,” he said, and added: “It’s the third day now without a job in sight. I haven’t earned a single rupee.”
He looked out at the grey, wet day, his drum sitting by his side. Mochi gate was replete with its usual bustle but everyone moved, it seemed, in slow, frozen motion.
“And then these people have the gall to accuse me of being in a bad mood!” Boota said with a wink, and broke out into a big smile.
ISLAMABAD: The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has issued an impact-based weather alert predicting isolated showers, thunderstorms, windstorms and dust storms over the next 24 hours in various parts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces and the federal capital of Islamabad.
In Punjab, the areas that may be affected include Rawalpindi, Attock, Jhelum, Chakwal, Mianwali, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Lahore, Narowal and adjoining regions, according to the NDMA.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, isolated rainfall, windstorm, thunderstorm and dust storm are expected in Chitral, Battagram, Kohistan, Kohat, Kurram, Bannu, Mardan, Peshawar, Swabi, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mansehra, Abbottabad, Dera Ismail Khan, Bajaur, Mohmand and surrounding areas.
“These weather conditions are likely to bring temporary relief from the prevailing heatwave,” the NDMA said in a statement.
“However, strong winds and thunderstorms may uproot weak trees and cause temporary power outages. Dust storms may damage fragile structures, rooftops, vehicles, and electrical infrastructure. Reduced visibility during storms may increase the risk of road accidents.”
The authority advised the public to not go near trees, billboards and other unstable structures during storms.
“Park vehicles in secure, covered locations and minimize outdoor movement,” it said. “NDMA is closely monitoring the situation and coordinating with relevant departments to ensure timely response and public safety.”
Last week, a child was killed and 11 people were injured as a thunderstorm hit upper parts of Pakistan, rescue officials said. In April, an intense hailstorm battered Pakistan’s capital and its surrounding areas. Several vehicles were damaged and house windows smashed as hailstones rained down from the sky on April 16.
Pakistan has seen erratic changes in its weather patterns which have led to frequent heat waves, untimely rains, storms, cyclones and droughts in recent years. Scientists have blamed the events on human-driven climate change.
In 2022, devastating floods, blamed on human-driven climate change, killed more than 1,700 Pakistanis, affected another 33 million and caused the country over $30 billion in economic losses.
ISLAMABAD: An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team has concluded its visit to Pakistan after discussions with authorities regarding the upcoming budget, broader economic policy and reforms under its ongoing $7 billion loan program, the lender said on Saturday.
The visit concluded hours after the Pakistani government announced it would now present the Budget 2025-26 on June 10, a delay from the earlier announced date of June 2, seen by many as a result of authorities’ struggle to finalize fiscal targets.
The Economic Survey 2024-25, which details performance of various sectors of the economy in the outgoing fiscal year, will be unveiled on June 9, a day before the budget presentation, according to the Pakistani finance ministry.
The discussions between Islamabad and the IMF team, led by Mission Chief Nathan Porter, began on May 19 and focused on recent economic developments, IMF program implementation, and the budget strategy for the next fiscal year.
“The authorities reaffirmed their commitment to fiscal consolidation while safeguarding social and priority expenditures, aiming for a primary surplus of 1.6 percent of GDP in FY2026,” Porter was quoted as saying by the IMF.
“Discussions focused on actions to enhance revenue — including by bolstering compliance and expanding the tax base — and prioritize expenditure. We will continue discussions toward agreeing over the authorities’ FY26 budget over the coming days.”
The IMF this month approved first review of Pakistan’s loan program, unlocking a $1 billion payment. A fresh $1.4 billion loan was also approved under the IMF’s climate resilience fund.
The IMF loan is vital for Pakistan which is trying to revive its debt-ridden economy that is expected to expand 2.68 percent by June, about one percent lower than the government’s earlier projection.
The IMF’s latest country report, issued last week, mentioned certain structural benchmarks for Pakistan’s economic reform program that officials said represented the natural progression of the measures already agreed upon, when Pakistan signed the Memorandum for Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) in September.
“These benchmarks are not surprises. They are deliberate follow-ons to earlier milestones,” Khurram Schehzad, an adviser to Pakistan’s finance minister, told Arab News this week, citing Pakistan’s parliamentary approval of the next budget in line with the IMF staff agreement as a second step toward the country’s goal of achieving a primary surplus of 2 percent of GDP by FY27.
“The first step was the FY25 budget [presented in June last year], which targeted a 1.0 percent surplus.”
Discussions between Pakistan and the visiting IMF team also covered ongoing energy sector reforms aimed at improving financial viability and reducing the high-cost structure of Pakistan’s power sector as well as other structural reforms which will help foster “sustainable growth and promote a more level playing field for business and investment,” according to the lender.
Pakistani authorities emphasized their commitment to ensuring sound macroeconomic policy-making and -building buffers.
“In this context, maintaining an appropriately tight and data-dependent monetary policy remains a priority to ensure inflation is anchored within the central bank’s medium-term target range of 5–7 percent,” the lender said.
“At the same time, rebuilding foreign exchange reserve buffers, preserving a fully functioning FX [foreign exchange] market, and allowing for greater exchange rate flexibility are critical to strengthening resilience to external shocks.”
The next IMF mission is expected to visit Pakistan in the second half of 2025 for next reviews its loan program and climate fund facility.
ISLAMABAD: As Indian and Pakistani guns fell silent after trading fire for days this month, the war over facts and fiction is far from over and fierce battle rages on social media as to who won, who distorted the truth, and which version of events should be trusted.
As both states continue to push competing narratives, experts warn that misinformation, censorship and AI-generated propaganda have turned digital platforms into battlegrounds, with real-world consequences for peace, truth and regional stability.
The four-day military standoff, which ended on May 10 with a US-brokered ceasefire, resulted from an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people last month. India accused Pakistan of backing the assault, a charge Islamabad has consistently denied.
While the truce between the nuclear-armed archfoes has since held, digital rights experts have sounded alarm over the parallel information war, which continues based on disinformation, censorship and propaganda on both sides, threatening the ceasefire between both nations.
Asad Baig, who heads the Media Matters for Democracy not-for-profit that works on media literacy and digital democracy, noted that broadcast media played a central role in spreading falsehoods during the India-Pakistan standoff to cater to an online audience hungry for “sensational content.”
“Disinformation was overwhelmingly spread from the Indian side,” Baig told Arab News. “Media was playing to a polarized, online audience. Conflict became content, and content became currency in the monetization game.”
A man clicks a picture of a billboard featuring Pakistan's Army Chief General Syed Asim Munir (C), Naval Chief Admiral Naveed Ashraf (R), and Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar Sidhu, along a road in Peshawar on May 15, 2025. (AFP/File)
Several mainstream media outlets, mostly in India, flooded the public with fake news, doctored visuals and sensationalist coverage, fueling mass anxiety and misinformation, according to fact-checkers and experts, who say the role of media at this critical geopolitical juncture undermined journalistic integrity and misled citizens.
“I think this is a perfect example of the media becoming a tool of propaganda in the hands of a state,” said prominent digital rights activist Usama Khilji, calling on those at the helm of television and digital media outlets to independently verify state claims using tools like satellite imagery or on-ground sources.
In Pakistan, X, previously known as Twitter, had been banned since February 2024, with digital rights groups and global organizations calling the blockade a “blatant violation” of civic liberties and a threat to democratic freedoms.
But on May 7, as Pakistan’s responded to India’s missile strikes on its territory that began the conflict, the platform was suddenly restored, allowing users to access it without a VPN that allows them to bypass such restrictions by masking their location. The platform has remained accessible since.
“We were [previously] told that X is banned because of national security threats,” Khilji told Arab News, praising the government’s “strategic move” to let the world hear Pakistan’s side of the story during this month’s conflict.
“But when we actually got a major national security threat in terms of literal war, X was unblocked.”
Indian authorities meanwhile blocked more than 8,000 X, YouTube and Instagram accounts belonging to news outlets as well as Pakistani celebrities, journalists and influencers.
“When only one narrative is allowed to dominate, it creates echo chambers that breed confusion, fuel conflict, and dangerously suppress the truth,” Khilji explained.
VIRTUAL WAR
Minutes after India attacked Pakistan with missiles on May 7, Pakistan released a video to journalists via WhatsApp that showed multiple blasts hitting an unknown location purportedly in Pakistan. However, the video later turned out to be of Israeli bombardment of Gaza and was retracted.
A woman wearing a T-shirt featuring ‘OPERATION SINDOOR’ checks her mobile phone near a market area in Ludhiana on May 17, 2025. (AFP/File)
On May 8, Indian news outlets played a video in which a Pakistani military spokesperson admitted to the downing of two of their Chinese-made JF-17 fighter jets. X users later pointed out that the video was AI-generated.
Throughout the standoff both mainstream and digital media outlets found themselves in the eye of the storm, with many official and verified accounts sharing and then retracting false information. The use of AI-generated videos and even video game simulations misrepresented battlefield scenarios in real time and amplified confusion at a critical moment.
Insights from experts paint a disturbing picture of how information warfare is becoming inseparable from conventional conflict. From deliberate state narratives to irresponsible media and rampant misinformation on social platforms, the truth itself is becoming a casualty of war.
AFP Digital Verification Correspondent Rimal Farrukh describes how false information was often laced with hate speech, targeting vulnerable communities like Muslims in India and Hindus in Pakistan.
“We saw dehumanizing language, misleading visuals, and recycled war footage, often from unrelated conflicts like Russia-Ukraine or Israel-Gaza, used to stoke fear and deepen biases,” she told Arab News.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Overseas Employment Corporation (OEC) will send skilled female beauticians to Saudi Arabia in response to a demand from a private firm in the Kingdom, state media reported on Friday, outlining the qualifications required for applicants.
The initiative comes as part of Pakistan’s long-standing labor export relationship with Saudi Arabia, which remains the top destination for Pakistani workers and contributes over $700 million in monthly remittances to the South Asian country.
Pakistan regularly sends skilled labor to Gulf nations, including medical professionals, engineers and technicians. The latest move targets the beauty and personal care sector.
“Overseas Employment Corporation, an attached department of the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, will export skilled workers (female beauticians) to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said.
It informed a Saudi firm is seeking beauticians for various roles, including senior hairdresser, nail technician (gel and acrylic), eyelash specialist, makeup artist, waxing and bleaching specialist and wig technician.
The required qualifications include a minimum of three years’ experience and an age limit of under 40 years.
APP said the firm will offer senior beauticians a monthly salary of 3,000 Saudi Riyals or approximately $800.
Employees will also receive free shared accommodation with furnishings and air conditioning, food allowance, and round-trip airfare, along with surface transport within Saudi Arabia if needed.
The news report said applications must be submitted via the OEC website by June 8.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia enjoy robust economic, defense and cultural ties.
The Kingdom hosts over 2.7 million Pakistani expatriates and remains the largest source of remittances to Pakistan, a crucial lifeline for the country’s cash-strapped economy.
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday stressed the need for balance across all economic policies to revive Pakistan’s export potential, saying his government wanted to take the country back to a place where its products were once again in global demand.
The remarks came during a meeting with Dr. Stefan Dercon, a prominent British economist and professor of economic policy at Oxford University.
Dercon, who previously served as the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) chief economist, is widely recognized for his work on poverty, institutional reform and economic development in low- and middle-income countries.
“A sound balance across all policies is essential to promote business,” the prime minister was quoted as saying in an official statement circulated by his office. “For Pakistan’s economic development, alignment between fiscal policy, taxation policy and production policy is necessary.”
“In the past, Pakistani products were in high demand globally and the country was counted among the world’s major exporters,” he continued. “We want to bring Pakistan back to that place.”
Sharif’s meeting with the British economist took place at a time when Pakistan seeks to strengthen its economy through increased exports and foreign investment, following signs of stabilization under an IMF-supported economic program.
He maintained that deep-rooted reforms were required to transition the national economy back toward export-led growth.
Dercon praised the direction of Pakistan’s economic policy and reform agenda, noting improving investor sentiment toward the country.
He particularly lauded Pakistan’s tariff rationalization efforts, which aim to simplify and streamline import duties to support industrial competitiveness.
The meeting was also attended by top members of the government’s economic team, including Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and senior officials from relevant departments.
