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Caretaker PM to take oath today on Pakistan’s 77th Independence Day

An undated file photo of Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwarul Haq Kakar. (Photo courtesy: @anwaar_kakar/Twitter)
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Updated 14 August 2023
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Caretaker PM to take oath today on Pakistan’s 77th Independence Day

  • Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar was unanimously nominated as caretaker PM by outgoing government, opposition this week
  • Kakar, viewed by analysts as close to Pakistan’s military, began his political career in 2008 and comes from Balochistan
Updated 14 August 2023
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani politician Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar will take the oath of office as Pakistan’s new caretaker prime minister today, Monday, the country’s 77th Independence Day, the foreign office confirmed in a statement.

President Dr. Arif Alvi approved Kakar’s appointment on Saturday after outgoing PM Shehbaz Sharif and leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Raja Riaz, unanimously announced him as a candidate for the post.

On Sunday, Kakar wrote on Twitter that he would relinquish his position as a senator and member of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) before taking up the role of caretaker prime minister.

“It is tomorrow [Monday] at 3.00 pm,” Pakistan’s foreign office said about Kakar’s signing-in-ceremony in a statement to the media on Sunday evening.

Analysts who have closely observed Kakar’s political career say he is close to Pakistan’s powerful military, which has held sway over the country’s politics over the past seven decades.

He entered the political fray in 2008 and started his political career from the platform of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) party before joining the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in 2012. He is among the founding members of BAP, widely viewed as a creation of the military establishment in 2018 to rule Pakistan’s largest and most volatile province of Balochistan after general elections that year.

Apart from running the caretaker administration’s day-to-day affairs, Kakar’s main challenge would be to oversee the upcoming general elections in Pakistan. He will take over the reins of the country at a time of heightened political crisis in Pakistan, with former prime minister Imran Khan, arguably the country’s most popular politcian, behind bars on graft allegations and elections expected to be delayed.

General elections were scheduled to be held in November this year, 90 days after the National Assembly’s dissolution. However, the outgoing Sharif government’s decision to approve the results of the 2023 digital census means the election regulator would be required to redraw hundreds of constituencies as per those results. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will be able to provide an election date once the constituencies are redrawn and the vote is thus widely expected to be delayed to as far ahead as February.

Topics: caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar General election 2023

Pakistan to participate in upcoming International Taekwondo training camp in Sharjah

Updated 19 sec ago
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Pakistan to participate in upcoming International Taekwondo training camp in Sharjah

  • Saudi Arabia, UAE, Uzbekistan, Russia and other countries to take part in camp underway in Sharjah till Feb. 5
  • Camp to provide athletes opportunity to engage in high-level training sessions, foster international collaboration
Updated 19 sec ago
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is participating in the upcoming 11th Sharjah International Taekwondo Training camp alongside teams from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and other countries, state-run media recently reported. 

Taekwondo is a traditional Korean martial art practiced across 206 countries, according to the official Olympics website. In taekwondo, hands and feet can be used to overcome an opponent but the trademark of the sport is its combination of kick movements.

Pakistan’s team arrived in Sharjah this week to participate in the international training camp, which will be underway till Feb. 5, state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported. More countries expected to join in the coming days. 

“The 11th Sharjah International Taekwondo Training Camp will provide a valuable opportunity for athletes to enhance their skills, engage in high-level training sessions and foster international collaboration in the sport,” APP said on Sunday. 

Pakistan has made some gains in the martial art sport over the past few months. In October 2024, Pakistan’s taekwondo team made history by winning the 6th Asian Open (Khyurogi) Taekwondo Championship held in Indonesia from Oct. 14-17 last year. 

Pakistani twin sisters Manisha Ali and Maliha Ali, hailing from the country’s northern Hunza valley, were part of the team that secured three gold, three silver, and two bronze medals in the championship. 

The tournament featured over 275 athletes from across Asia, including participants from India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Nepal and Indonesia.

The same month Pakistan’s youngest taekwondo champion Ayesha Ayaz took part in the Qatar International Open Taekwondo Championship. Ayaz was among 1,440 players from 40 countries who competed in the event across four categories: cadet, juniors, youth and adults.
 

Topics: Pakistan UAE ties 11th Sharjah International Taekwondo Training camp International Taekwondo Training camp

Pakistani firms showcase national heritage, tourism services at New York travel show

Updated 21 min 32 sec ago
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Pakistani firms showcase national heritage, tourism services at New York travel show

  • Financial Times, CNN recently featured the South Asian country among top destinations worldwide to visit in 2025
  • In a bid to boost tourism, cash-strapped Pakistan last year began offering free visas to citizens of over 120 nations
Updated 21 min 32 sec ago
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: More than a dozen Pakistani firms and provincial tourism departments showcased the country’s heritage and tourism potential at the Travel & Adventure Show 2025 in New York, Pakistani state media reported on Sunday.
For over 20 years, the Travel & Adventure Show has connected more than 2.7 million travel enthusiasts and over 16,500 unique travel advisers with over 5,800 different exhibiting companies from around the world, influencing over $7 billion in travel bookings, according to the show’s website.
This year, the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), in collaboration with the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) and the Pakistani consulate in New York, set up the Pakistan Pavilion at the show held on Jan. 25-26.
“Pakistan Pavilion showcased Pakistan’s breathtaking destinations, rich cultural heritage, and a wide range of tourism services,” the Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported.
Pakistan Pavilion received the award for ‘Best Partner Pavilion’ at the Travel & Adventure Show 2025, according to the report. A large number of attendees visited the pavilion and expressed their keen interest in mountaineering, and adventure and religious tourism.
Pakistan is home to the ancient Indus Valley and Gandhara civilizations, sacred places of Sikhs and Hindus and followers of other faiths as well as five of the 14 world peaks above the height of 8,000 meters in its north.
International business publication Financial Times recently featured Pakistan in its list of 50 places worldwide to visit on holidays, citing its “dramatic mountain scenery” and an improved security situation as reasons worth visiting the area.
Pakistan’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) region also made it to CNN’s list of 25 destinations that are particularly worth visiting in 2025. Thousands of tourists and foreign climbers visit the sparsely populated northern region each year for expeditions on various peaks, paragliding and other sports activities.
In a bid to boost its tourism sector, cash-strapped Pakistan also began offering free visas online to citizens of more than 120 nations in August 2024.

Topics: Pakistan tourism Travel & Adventure Show 2025 Pakistan US Ties

Pakistan fears lower production as ‘severe’ drought dents winter harvest

Updated 26 January 2025
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Pakistan fears lower production as ‘severe’ drought dents winter harvest

  • Pakistan ranks among countries most vulnerable to climate change, which scientists say is making extreme weather events more common and more severe
  • Analysts say a fast-growing population, climate change and poor resource management with an over-reliance on Indus River are all spurring water scarcity
Updated 26 January 2025
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan fears lower production as a “severe” winter drought has ravaged several crops in the country’s breadbasket, an official said on Sunday, stressing the need to build more water reservoirs and restore wetlands.
The South Asian country — home to more than 240 million people — ranks among the nations that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which scientists say is making extreme weather events more common and more severe.
According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), rainfall from Sept. 1 to Jan. 15 was 40 percent below normal across Pakistan, with Sindh, Balochistan, and Punjab being the most affected provinces with deficits of 52 percent, 45 percent, and 42 percent respectively.
Muhammad Saleem Shaikh, a spokesperson for Pakistani climate change ministry, said the ongoing severe drought is in fact part of a larger trend of increasing climate variability that threatens to disrupt agriculture and exacerbate water shortages, the state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported.
“Reduced water availability due to low rainfall was adversely impacting the growth of crops like wheat, a staple food, as well as vital cash crops like potato, leading to fears of lower production and rising food prices and their shortages in future,” he was quoted as saying.
“The ongoing winter drought conditions in the country underscore the urgent need for a unified response to address the country’s water crisis.”
The agriculture sector contributes nearly a quarter of Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) and employs 37 percent of the national labor force, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.
Pakistan generally relies on water from the Indus river which bisects the country from north to south, where it empties into the Arabian Sea.
But analysts say a fast-growing population, climate change and poor resource management with an over-reliance on a single water source are all spurring scarcity.
Shaikh said building water reservoirs, restoring wetlands and promoting drought-tolerant crop varieties is vital to mitigating recurring and intensifying drought risks in the country.
“Rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge and the adoption of modern irrigation methods like drip and sprinkler systems are no longer optional,” he said. “They are critical tools in our survival weaponry.”

Topics: pakistan agriculture food security Drought

Pakistani women voted differently from men in 18 percent communities in 2024 general election — report

Updated 26 January 2025
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Pakistani women voted differently from men in 18 percent communities in 2024 general election — report

  • Pakistan held a general election on Feb. 8 last year that was marred by a mobile Internet shutdown and unusually delayed results
  • The polls threw up a hung parliament and were followed by weeks of protests over vote count fraud, an allegation denied by authorities
Updated 26 January 2025
SAIMA SHABBIR

ISLAMABAD: Women voters in 18 percent communities in the jurisdiction of male and female polling stations voted differently from their men counterparts during General Elections in Pakistan in Feb. 2024, a Pakistani election monitor said on Sunday.
Pakistan held its general election on Feb. 8, 2024 that was marred by a mobile Internet shutdown and unusually delayed results. The polls threw up a hung National Assembly and were followed by weeks of protests by opposition parties over allegations of rigging and vote count fraud.
Pakistani election authorities denied the allegations, and Shehbaz Sharif, who was favored by a coalition of political parties, secured a comfortable win over Omar Ayub of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), which was backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.
The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), which aims to promote electoral transparency in Pakistan, compared results of male and female polling stations in the same communities and found that in 82 percent of the communities, male and female voters’ choice of winner was aligned.
“In 18 percent of the communities, male and female voters diverged in their choice of winner as they returned different winners from their respective polling stations,” FAFEN said in its report issued on Sunday.
“Compared to rural areas, communities in urban areas showed more divergent choices among male and female voters.”
The federal capital of Islamabad had the highest proportion (37 percent) of electoral communities with different winners in male and female polling stations. Balochistan had the second-highest proportion (32 percent), followed by Sindh (19 percent) and Punjab (18 percent), while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) had the lowest proportion (13 percent) of such electoral communities, according to the report.
Of the 3,884 communities where women’s choice of winner for National Assembly (NA) seats was different, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won more support from women in 1,260 communities, followed by the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) in 1,027 and the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) in 694 communities. Regional trends showed that while the PTI performed well across the country in terms of women voters’ choice, the PML-N remained strong in Punjab, and the PPPP dominated in Sindh.
The assessment included 21,188 communities, comprising 42,804 comparable male and female polling stations. In 37 NA constituencies, the largest proportion of voters in female polling stations did not vote for the winning candidates, according to the report.
In 226 NA constituencies, the largest proportion of voters in female polling stations voted for the constituency winner. In 166 of those NA constituencies, compared to voters in male polling stations, a larger proportion of voters in female polling stations polled for the winner.
Pakistan’s National Assembly has a total 336 seats, of which members are directly elected on 266, 60 are reserved for women and a further 10 for religious minorities.
“In seven constituencies – NA-43 Tank-cum-Dera Ismail Khan, NA-49 Attock-I, NA-55 Rawalpindi-IV, NA-87 Khushab-I, NA-94 Chiniot-II, NA-128 Lahore-XII and NA-163 Bahawalnagar-IV – the lead at female polling stations determined the winner,” FAFEN said.

Topics: Pakistan election 2024 women voters

Trump refugee embargo cancels hope for Afghan migrants in Pakistan

Updated 26 January 2025
AFP
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Trump refugee embargo cancels hope for Afghan migrants in Pakistan

  • Trump’s order to pause admissions for 90 days starting Jan. 27 has blocked around 10,000 Afghans from entry in US
  • Tens of thousands more applications in process have also been frozen, according to a US-based non-profit AfghanEvac
Updated 26 January 2025
AFP

ISLAMABAD: After working for years alongside the United States to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan, Zahra says she was just days from being evacuated to America when President Donald Trump suspended refugee admissions.
She sold her belongings as she awaited a flight out of Pakistan, where she has been embroiled in a three-year process applying for a refugee scheme Trump froze in one of his first acts back in office.
“We stood with them for the past 20 years, all I want is for them to stand up for the promise they made,” the 27-year-old former Afghanistan defense ministry worker told AFP from Islamabad.
“The only wish we have is to be safe and live where we can have peace and an ordinary human life,” she said, sobbing down the phone and speaking under a pseudonym to protect her identity.
The 2021 withdrawal of US-led troops from Kabul ended two decades of war but began a new exodus, as Afghans clamoured to escape Taliban government curbs and fears of reprisal for working with Washington.
Trump’s executive order to pause admissions for at least 90 days starting from January 27 has blocked around 10,000 Afghans approved for entry from starting new lives in the United States, according to non-profit #AfghanEvac.
Tens of thousands more applications in process have also been frozen, the US-based organization said.
“All sorts of people that stood up for the idea of America, now they’re in danger,” #AfghanEvac chief Shawn VanDiver told AFP.
“We owe it to them to get them out.”
Trump’s order said “the United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees,” and stopped the relocation scheme until it “aligns with the interests of the United States.”
But campaigners argue the country owes a debt to Afghans left in the lurch by their withdrawal — which Trump committed to in his first term but was overseen by his successor president Joe Biden.
A special visa program for Afghans who were employed by or on behalf of the United States remains active.
But the more wide-reaching refugee scheme was relied on by applicants including ex-Afghan soldiers and employees of the US-backed government, as well as their family members.
With America’s Kabul embassy shut, many traveled to neighboring Pakistan to enter paperwork, conduct interviews and undergo vetting.
Female applicants are fleeing the country where the Taliban government has banned them from secondary school and university, squeezed them from public life and ordered them to wear all-covering clothes.
“I had a lot of hopes for my sisters, that they should graduate from school and pursue education,” said one of five daughters of an ex-government employee’s family seeking resettlement from Pakistan.
“All my hopes are shattered,” said the 23-year-old. “I have nightmares and when I wake up in the morning, I feel like I can’t fall asleep again. I’m very anxious.”
The European Court of Justice ruled last year that Afghan women have the right to be recognized as refugees in the EU because Taliban government curbs on women “constitute acts of persecution.”
This week, the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor said he was seeking arrest warrants for Taliban government leaders because there are grounds to suspect they “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.”
Moniza Kakar, a lawyer who works with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, said some women told her they “prefer suicide than going back to Afghanistan.”
The Taliban government has announced an amnesty and encouraged those who fled to return to rebuild the country, presenting it as a haven of Islamic values.
But a 2023 report by UN rights experts said “the amnesty for former government and military officials is being violated” and there were “consistent credible reports of summary executions and acts tantamount to enforced disappearances.”
Last summer, Pakistan’s foreign ministry complained as many as 25,000 Afghans were in the country awaiting relocation to the United States.
Islamabad announced a sweeping campaign in 2023 to evict undocumented Afghans , ordering them to leave or face arrest as relations soured with the Taliban government.
At least 800,000 Afghans have left since October 2023, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
But Afghans awaiting refugee relocation have also reported widespread harassment to leave by authorities in Pakistan.
A foreign ministry spokesman told reporters this week Trump’s administration had not yet communicated any new refugee policy to Pakistan.
Islamabad is following “the same old plan” where Washington has committed to taking in refugees this year, Shafqat Ali Khan said.
Afghans awaiting new lives abroad feel caught between a canceled future and the haunting prospect of returning to their homeland.
“I don’t have the option of returning to Afghanistan, and my situation here is dire,” said 52-year-old former Afghan journalist Zahir Bahand.
“There is no life left for me, no peace, no future, no visa, no home, no work: nothing is left for me.”

Topics: Afghan Taliban Afghan migrants US President Donald Trump

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