KARACHI: The son of slain former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto launched his formal political debut in a massive rally Saturday, vowing to resist extremism and stop the Islamic State group from gaining a foothold in the country.
Tens of thousands of people gathered to hear Bilawal Bhutto Zardari amid ultra-tight security measures in the Pakistan’s largest city Karachi, where crowds of supporters sang and danced, waving the flag of Bhutto’s main opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Bilawal, 26, is being groomed to lead the party by his father Asif Ali Zardari, who was Pakistan’s president from 2008 until last year.
In a speech that lasted around two hours, delivered in Urdu, the young leader condemned the homegrown Pakistani Taleban and other jihadi groups including the Islamic State, which controls large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
He expressed fears his country could breed its own extremists hellbent on sectarian war, telling the crowd: “One fine day another Osama Bin Laden would emerge... and some puppet would announce the opening of a Taleban office in Peshawar, which would ultimately become an Islamic State office.
“Civil war would begin all across the country in the name of religion.”
In typically confrontational style, he vowed to finish extremists and continue the rule of his family dynasty in Pakistan.
“Enemies of Pakistan you would be defeated... only Bhuttoism would prevail here,” he said.
Bilawal further blamed the country’s current political crisis on “domestic and foreign forces” collaborating in a plot to push Pakistan into chaos, taking a swipe at his populist opponents.
Rallies calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan had paralyzed parts of Pakistan’s capital, while security forces battle militants in a restive northwestern tribal area who routinely launch attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Khan’s opponents accuse him of having the patronage of Pakistan’s powerful military, and PPP party sources say Bilawal’s rally was planned to combat the political threat posed by the former playboy and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
“Foreign and domestic forces have been in collusion and they want to make Pakistan another Iraq and Syria,” Bilawal said.
“This will not be over until a puppet prime minister is installed (in Pakistan) so that everything is devastated and the civil war begins in the country.”
Bilawal vowed to carry on the legacy of his assassinated mother and revival of the party which shrank to its home province in the last elections.
“Bhuttoism is the name of Jihad against extremism, poverty, and destitution,” said the young leader, who was schooled in Dubai and at Oxford University and has a marked accent when speaking in Urdu, as English is his first language.
The rally marked the seventh anniversary of the devastating bomb attack that hit Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming parade in Karachi on October 18, 2007, killing 139 people in the deadliest single terror attack on Pakistani soil.
Bilawal arrived at the rally by helicopter and addressed the crowds from the same bullet and bomb-proof truck that his mother used for the ill-fated parade, which was meant to mark her triumphant return after nearly a decade of self-imposed exile.
She survived the bombing, but was assassinated in a gun and suicide attack in an election rally in Rawalpindi two months later.
“I start this journey for my people, for the martyrs, for my mother,” Bilawal wrote on his Twitter page ahead of the rally. “Boarding the truck bought back some painful memories.”
Analysts say the main purpose of Saturday’s rally was to present Bilawal as the true political heir to his charismatic mother, who twice served as prime minister.
Benazir Bhutto’s son vows defeat for jihadists in Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto’s son vows defeat for jihadists in Pakistan
Greece to adopt legislation against migrant ‘invasion’ from Libya
- Conservative lawmakers are expected to approve emergency legislation enforcing the temporary ban
- Proposed law to allow authorities to detain asylum seekers in camps for up to 18 months
Conservative lawmakers, who hold a parliamentary majority, are expected to approve emergency legislation enforcing the temporary ban, allowing authorities to detain asylum seekers in camps for up to 18 months.
“We have made the difficult but absolutely necessary decision to temporarily suspend the examination process of asylum applications for those arriving by sea from North African countries,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement to German tabloid Bild on Friday.
“This decision sends a clear message, leaving no room for misinterpretation, to human trafficking networks: Greece is not an open transit route. The journey is dangerous, the outcome uncertain, and the money paid to smugglers ultimately wasted,” he said.
Greece’s migration ministry says over 14,000 migrants have reached the country this year, including over 2,000 in recent days from Libya.
“Greece cannot have boats totaling 1,000 people a day,” Migration Minister Thanos Plevris told Skai TV, adding that the country will undertake a “draconian revision” of how it deals with migrants.
Plevris – formerly a member of the far-right LAOS party and now part of Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party – has called the recent influx an “invasion from North Africa.”
The move has been criticized by rights groups as a violation of international and EU law, and opposition parties have called it unconstitutional.
Noting an “exceptional” situation, European Commission migration spokesperson Markus Lammert said on Thursday: “We are in close contact with the Greek authorities to obtain necessary information on these measures.”
Greece took similar steps in 2020 during a migration surge at its land border with Turkiye.
To manage the influx, the government could reopen camps built after the 2015 migration crisis, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said this week.
Mitsotakis also told parliament that it would build up to two additional camps on the island of Crete.
Kremlin says it awaits ‘major statement’ from Trump
- Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Russia-Ukraine conflict
MOSCOW: Russia is awaiting the “major statement” that US President Donald Trump announced he would deliver on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
Trump told NBC News on Thursday that he will make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday, without elaborating what it will be about.
In recent days, Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
When asked about the new NATO weapons deliveries to Ukraine, Peskov called it “just business” as Kyiv had already been receiving weapons prior to this development.
Rubio meets China’s Wang in Malaysia amid trade tension
- Washington’s top diplomat is in Malaysia on his first trip to Asia since taking office
- Marco Rubio’s visit is part of an effort to renew US focus on the Indo-Pacific region
KUALA LUMPUR: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, their first in-person meeting at a time of simmering trade tensions between the two major powers.
Washington’s top diplomat is in Malaysia on his first trip to Asia since taking office, attending the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum alongside counterparts from Japan, China, South Korea, Russia, Australia, India, the European Union and Southeast Asian states.
His meeting with Wang comes amid escalating friction globally over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs offensive, with China this week warning the United States against reinstating hefty levies on its goods next month.
Beijing has also threatened to retaliate against nations that strike deals with the United States to cut China out of supply chains. Rubio’s visit is part of an effort to renew US focus on the Indo-Pacific region and look beyond conflicts in the Middle East and Europe that have consumed much of the Trump administration’s attention.
But that has been overshadowed by this week’s announcement of steep US tariffs on many Asian countries and US allies that include 25 percent on Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, 32 percent for Indonesia, 36 percent for Thailand and Cambodia and 40 percent on Myanmar and Laos.
Analysts said Rubio would be looking to press the case that the United States remains a better partner than China, Washington’s main strategic rival, during the visit. The State Department said Rubio met counterparts of Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia on Friday.
A day earlier, he told Southeast Asian foreign ministers the Indo-Pacific remained a focal point of US foreign policy.
China, initially singled out with tariffs exceeding 100 percent, has until August 12 to reach a deal with the White House to keep Trump from reinstating additional import curbs imposed during tit-for-tat tariff exchanges in April and May.
‘Bullying behavior’
China’s Wang has been fierce in his criticism of the United States in Kuala Lumpur and told Malaysia’s foreign minister the US tariffs were “typical unilateral bullying behavior” that no country should support or agree with, according to remarks released by Beijing on Friday.
He told Thailand’s foreign minister the tariffs had been abused and “undermined the free trade system, and interfered with the stability of the global production and supply chain.”
During a meeting with his Cambodian counterpart, he said the US levies were an attempt to deprive Southeast Asian countries of their legitimate right to development.
“We believe that Southeast Asian countries have the ability to cope with complex situations, adhere to principled positions, and safeguard their own interests,” Wang said, according to China’s foreign ministry.
The foreign secretary of US ally the Philippines said on Friday President Ferdinand Marcos Jr would meet Trump in Washington this month and discussions would include the increase in the US tariff on its former colony.
Rubio told reporters on Thursday he would also likely raise with Wang US concerns over China’s support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
“The Chinese clearly have been supportive of the Russian effort and I think that generally, they’ve been willing to help them as much as they can without getting caught,” he said.
Rubio met together with Japanese foreign minister and South Korea’s first vice foreign minister in Malaysia on Friday, at a time of concerns about the tariffs.
According to a US State Department statement, they discussed regional security and a strengthening of their “indispensable trilateral partnership” including security and resilience of critical technologies and supply chains, energy, trusted digital infrastructure, and shipbuilding.
Pakistani father kills daughter over TikTok account: police
- TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels
- Pakistani women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in the country
RAWALPINDI: Pakistan police on Friday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her account on popular video-sharing app TikTok.
In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces.
“The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said.
According to a police report shared with AFP, investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor.” He was subsequently arrested.
The victim’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” according to police in the city of Rawalpindi, where the attack happened, next to the capital Islamabad.
Last month, a 17-year-old girl and TikTok influencer with hundreds of thousands of online followers was killed at home by a man whose advances she had refused.
Sana Yousaf had racked up more than a million followers on social media accounts including TikTok, where she shared videos of her favorite cafes, skincare products, and traditional outfits.
TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels.
Women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.
However, only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2025.
Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what it calls “immoral behavior,” amid backlash against LGBTQ and sexual content.
In southwestern Balochistan, where tribal law governs many rural areas, a man confessed to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over TikTok videos that he said compromised her “honor.”
Wildfires force evacuations at Grand Canyon’s North Rim and Colorado’s Black Canyon national park
- The Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Arizona also closed Thursday because of a wildfire on adjacent Bureau of Land Management land near Jacob Lake
JACOB LAKE, Ariz: Visitors and staff at two national parks in the US West have been evacuated because of wildfires.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, about 260 miles (418 kilometers) southwest of Denver, closed Thursday morning after lighting sparked blazes on both rims, the park said. The wildfire on the South Rim has burned 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers), with no containment of the perimeter.
The conditions there have been ripe for wildfire with hot temperatures, low humidity, gusty winds and dry vegetation, the park said, adding that weather will remain a concern Friday.
The Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Arizona also closed Thursday because of a wildfire on adjacent Bureau of Land Management land near Jacob Lake. The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said it helped evacuate people from an area north of Jacob Lake and campers in the Kaibab National Forest nearby.
The fire began Wednesday evening after a thunderstorm moved through the area, fire officials said. It has burned about 1.5 square miles (3.9 square kilometers) with zero containment.
