Pakistan's Prime Minister's youth program is expanding its reach to 170 million citizens, offering 100,000 jobs through a digital hub and targeting a Rs250 billion disbursement for its business loan scheme.

Reports indicate that most of the Pakistani immigrants missing after a recent boat capsize off Italy had left their country disguised as Umrah pilgrims or on visit visas to other nations.

Overseas Pakistanis could be required to obtain mandatory Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) membership, incurring a fee of Rs10,000.

Iranian attacks have reportedly injured six people in Kuwait and one in Abu Dhabi, with a UAE telecoms site also targeted. Three Pakistanis were injured in a UAE port incident, prompting Pakistan's Prime Minister to call for restraint.

Pakistani politician Bilawal Bhutto Zardari stated that Pakistanis are paying the price for an 'illegal war' on Iran and warned that the conflict could engulf the world, urging the government to utilize BISP.

Public service announcements call for carpooling, responsible consumption as Iran conflict drives up fuel prices

Facing limited job opportunities and low wages, young Pakistanis are increasingly exploring online gaming as a means to generate income and make ends meet.

‘Pakistanis won’t kill...’: Row over anti‑vaccine advocate calling out medical staff because they are foreigners

Usman Anees, a Pakistani concert pianist, is making history with his debut performance in Dubai, challenging the traditional dominance of Western, Russian, and Chinese pianists on the global stage.

Jemima Goldsmith, former wife of PTI founder Imran Khan, claimed the government is recommending his sons travel on National Identity Cards for Overseas Pakistanis (Nicop) to strip them of British protection.

Harman Singh Kapoor, an Indian-origin restaurateur in the UK, was arrested days after he announced the closure of his restaurant, citing alleged threats from Pakistanis and police inaction. Kapoor claims his Sikh faith was targeted.

As Middle East war jolts oil markets, Pakistanis rethink how they live and work  Arab News

'I particularly call on our nationals in Qom to cooperate with us in their immediate repatriation,' ambassador wrote

Two Pakistani men have been sentenced to 11 and 3 years in prison for kidnapping and beating three young Indian migrants who arrived in Trieste via the Balkan route, demanding a 15,000 euro ransom.

Diplomats told to shelter in Riyadh

Islamabad facilitating thousands of stranded Pakistanis in Gulf amid Iran conflict, FM says  Arab News

Pakistani nationals hauled suitcases across the border from Iran, describing missiles being launched and travel chaos as they scrambled to leave the country after the US and Israel launched strikes…

First group safely crosses Gabd–Rimdan border

First group of evacuees safely crossed the Gabd–Rimdan border and re-entered Pakistan

Directs authorities to ensure safe return of stranded citizens via Azerbaijan

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 27 - Five landings occurred in Lampedusa, with a total of 144 migrants, between night and early morning. Coast Guard and Guardia di Finanza patrol boats rescued the small boats and dinghies carrying between 6 and 64 Bangladeshis, Egyptians, Syrians, and Pakistanis. According to those who arrived at Molo Favarolo, including women and minors, the boats set sail from Tajoura, Zuwarah, and Garabulli in Libya and from Zarzis in Tunisia. Yesterday, there were six landings on the ...

Afghanistan has launched offensive operations against Pakistani military positions along the border, the Taliban's spokesperson said on Thursday, in retaliation for recent Pakistani airstrikes.

Pakistanis, including tourists, travelling to the United Kingdom (UK) will now be able to do so with an e-visa, receiving confirmation by email rather than stickers in passports, according to a statement issued by the British High Commission on Wednesday. In July 2025, the UK government introduced an e-visa system for Pakistanis; however, it was limited to study or work visas. Applicants applying for general visitor visas were still required to obtain a physical visa. In the statement release...

An Indian restaurant in London has closed its doors after 16 years, with the owner attributing the closure to online harassment and alleged attacks by Pakistanis.

Sieben Terroristenlager und Verstecke der pakistanischen Taliban sowie des Islamischen Staates wurden laut Islamabad aus der Luft attackiert. Kabul meldete mehrere Tote

“Why did you start driving inDrive?” It’s my go-to icebreaker with drivers in Pakistan. Lately, the answers have been unsettlingly similar. “I used to work in the development sector,” one man told me. “Then I lost my job.” I’ve heard that line — or a version of it — too many times to dismiss as coincidence. Since the United States pulled the plug on its aid apparatus, the fallout has been immediate. On the surface, the shutdown of USAID is being framed as just another abrupt policy reversal — a bureaucratic casualty in an era of disruption. But look closer, and it reveals something far more profound: the cumulative weight of domestic and international tensions that have been simmering, both within and beyond the US for decades. Cycles of aid, cycles of distrust The first source of strain lies beyond US borders. From its inception as a Cold War instrument, American foreign aid has been shaped by an enduring tension between its declared objectives of development and altruism and its underlying strategic and political calculations. This duality has long been apparent to the recipient elites and the broader public alike. During the Cold War, many governments acquiesced, in part because Western donors faced little competition and alternative sources of assistance were scarce. That landscape has since changed. As non-traditional donors, most notably China and the Gulf states, have expanded their presence, and as domestic political incentives within recipient countries have shifted, scepticism toward USAID has become more explicit and politically salient. In countries such as Pakistan, where mistrust of American intentions runs deep, US assistance is often perceived less as generosity than as intrusion. What is now framed as a backlash against American aid is better understood as the culmination of a long-simmering tension and a legacy of mutual misperceptions between donor and recipient. Pakistan’s experience with US foreign aid agency illustrates this dynamic with particular clarity. American assistance to Pakistan has never been linear or predictable; instead, it has unfolded in cycles closely attuned to Washington’s shifting strategic priorities. During the Cold War, aid was channelled primarily through a security-alliance framework aimed at containing the Soviet bloc, with economic assistance tightly coupled to military cooperation. These flows declined sharply after the 1965 war, reinforcing perceptions of US aid as conditional, transactional, and reversible. Another peak in this equation followed in the 1980s, when General Ziaul Haq aligned Pakistan with the US in opposing Soviet expansion in Afghanistan. Yet with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent imposition of US sanctions on Pakistan’s nuclear programme under the Pressler Amendment, assistance once again contracted. It was only after 9/11 that the aid surged anew, this time framed around counterterrorism and stabilisation. Even at its height, however, much of this assistance remained shaped by security imperatives, short funding horizons, and heavy reliance on contractors, rather than long-term institution-building. For many Pakistanis, therefore, the shutdown of USAID feels less like an abrupt rupture than the latest turn in a familiar cycle of engagement and disengagement. The second factor is bureaucratic pathologisation. Like many large organisations, aid agencies are susceptible to institutional dysfunction, and USAID has been no exception. In practice, particularly in contexts such as Pakistan, as commissioner on the Afghanistan War Commission Andrew Wilder has noted, its programmes increasingly came to be structured through a security lens rather than a development one. Key decisions were made in Washington, filtered through multiple layers of contractors, and ultimately deployed on the ground with limited scope for local input. At the same time, bureaucratic incentives privileged projects with easily quantifiable indicators, favouring what could be measured over what was substantively effective. These patterns were neither accidental nor new, nor are they unique to the US. Over time, however, they eroded both the legitimacy and the perceived effectiveness of USAID, among recipients abroad and critics at home. These institutional dynamics had tangible consequences on the ground. In Pakistan, USAID funding became heavily concentrated in sectors aligned with stabilisation and security objectives — such as service delivery in so-called “fragile” districts or rapid-impact infrastructure — often at the expense of slower, politically unglamorous investments in local institutional capacity. NGOs and development professionals structured entire career paths around USAID project cycles, only to see those opportunities vanish when priorities shifted or funding was abruptly frozen. The result was a hollowing out of local expertise and institutional memory. When aid was withdrawn, it left behind far fewer durable institutions than its scale and visibility might have led one to expect. The mismatch between stated development objectives and the underlying security logic was further compounded by an overreliance on quantifiable metrics to demonstrate impact. This tendency was reinforced by a development ecosystem shaped by the overproduction of economists and political scientists trained as methodological specialists rather than regional experts. Programmes designed in Washington often prioritised what could be easily counted — number of schools built, clinics refurbished, trainings delivered, or kilometres of roads completed — over whether such interventions meaningfully strengthened local institutions. In Pakistan, this logic was especially evident in sectors such as education, health, and local governance, where projects were assessed primarily through output indicators rather than sustainability or local ownership. Multiple layers of contractors further diluted accountability and blurred responsibility once funding cycles ended. Over time, this produced a paradox: USAID became both omnipresent and poorly understood — associated with large budgets and extensive reporting, but yielding limited and uneven institutional impact. That credibility gap left the agency especially exposed when domestic political support in the US began to erode. The third major factor behind the dismantling of the aid lies in the domestic backlash within the US against international cooperation. Opposition to foreign aid, multilateralism, and international institutions long predates Donald Trump, reflecting decades of polarisation over globalisation and America’s role in the world. By the time Trump entered office, hostility toward international engagement was already deeply embedded in US politics. In this context, shuttering a highly visible aid agency became a potent domestic signal; it becomes a way to demonstrate responsiveness to voters who view global commitments as costly, wasteful, or illegitimate. Dismantling USAID was therefore less a recalibration of foreign policy than an act of domestic political theatre. The US government’s official justification for shutting down USAID frames the move as a response to “China’s exploitative aid model” and a means of advancing American “strategic interests in key regions around the world”. It is true that China has dramatically expanded its development footprint and largely operates outside the traditional Western aid framework. But that explanation doesn’t hold up to deeper scrutiny. If Washington were genuinely seeking to compete with Beijing in the development arena, the more coherent response would have been reform and reinvestment, not withdrawal. Moreover, Chinese and US aid are not direct substitutes. They target different sectors, rely on distinct instruments, and frequently operate alongside one another in the same countries — Pakistan among them — without displacing each other. In Pakistan, Chinese assistance has concentrated on large-scale infrastructure and energy projects, while USAID has focused primarily on education and health. Chinese aid typically flows through bilateral, government-to-government channels, whereas US assistance has often bypassed the Pakistani state, working instead through NGOs and contractors. China’s rise may well be sharpening anxieties in Washington, but it does not, on its own, explain why the US would choose to erode its own institutional capacity in response. A looming domino effect The shutdown of USAID, then, should not be understood as a one-off policy blunder or an idiosyncratic choice tied to a single administration. Rather, it reflects the convergence of long-accumulating tensions: between the professed ideals and strategic deployment of aid abroad; between development objectives and bureaucratic practices within aid agencies; between international commitments and domestic political incentives at home. USAID’s collapse is best understood not as the cause of these pressures, but as their most visible manifestation. The consequences of this decision extend well beyond the fate of a single agency. They reveal the fragility of the broader international aid regime, which ultimately depends on the willingness of a small number of leading powers to absorb the political and financial costs of institutionalised cooperation. When that willingness erodes, institutions lose both credibility and purpose and eventually collapse. Signs of this erosion are already evident, as other major donors, including the United Kingdom and Germany, begin to scale back their own aid commitments. What is at stake, then, is not merely the dismantling of USAID, but the gradual unravelling of an international aid regime built on mutual trust and a sustained commitment to lifting the world’s poorest out of poverty.

Tens of thousands of Indian and Pakistani fans have converged on Colombo for a high-voltage cricket clash, leading to heightened security measures.

More than 10,600 Pakistani nationals, including students, pilgrims, and other travelers, have returned from Iran in a recent influx.

An unsuccessful social media post by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has garnered significant attention and gone viral.

Five terrorists, including two high-profile Pakistani individuals categorized as 'A+', have been arrested in Jammu and Kashmir. One of the arrested had evaded authorities for 16 years and was involved in establishing the LeT network.

A new scholarship program has been announced for overseas Pakistanis, with details provided on how eligible candidates can apply for the financial aid.

Pakistan's Prime Minister expressed concern after three Pakistani citizens were injured in the UAE following a missile interception near Khor Fakkan, where a drone was also detected near a telecom site in Fujairah.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported that 109 Pakistanis were among at least 2,722 individuals from the Asia-Pacific region who died or disappeared last year while attempting to cross illegally into other countries.

The prolonged silence regarding stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh for 54 years is testing the state's responsibility, justice, and moral credibility.

The Pakistani government is proposing property tax cuts and a self-declaration regime, along with lower withholding tax, as part of a plan to attract overseas Pakistanis.

More than 450 Pakistani pilgrims are reportedly stranded in Karbala, Iraq, and have appealed to their government for urgent intervention to facilitate their return.

At least 23 Asian nationals, including four Pakistanis, have been killed or are missing in the ongoing US-Iran war, leading to widespread grief among families, particularly during Eid.

Pakistanis are facing a sharp increase in fuel prices, which is impacting motorists and the broader economy, highlighting the deeper implications of energy costs beyond individual consumers.

On March 10, as the US-Israel war with Iran entered its second week, the Bahrain government announced the arrest of six persons hailing from Asian countries — five of them Pakistanis — on charges of filming, publishing and reposting “videos related to the effects of the treacherous Iranian aggression”. The Iran conflict — which broke out on February 28 after the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on the Islamic Republic and assassinated then-supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,...

The two citizens died from missile debris during the interception of Iranian missiles

• ‘Cooperation’ with UK authorities has kept Islamabad off visa ban list so far • Rejection rate of asylum claims by Pakistanis at 70pc, but very few deportations • Shadow home secy pushes for tougher measures LONDON: As the UK bans visas to a handful of countries that have high asylum cases, Pakistan has come under renewed scrutiny after questions were raised about the low number of deportations. The development comes days­ after the UK put an ‘emergency brake’ on visas for the first time on...

MoFA says Special Facilitation Desks established at Pakistan's missions abroad to assist stranded Pakistanis

Pakistanis are returning home, crossing the Taftan border from Iran, likely due to the ongoing instability and conflict in the region.

Pakistanis in UAE, GCC asked to exercise utmost caution amid US-Iran war  Khaleej Times

A new report indicates that four out of ten Pakistanis believe the country is heading in the right direction, with optimism particularly high among men, various income classes, and rural residents.

Pakistani embassy in Abu Dhabi issues advisory for its citizens amid regional tensions  Khaleej Times

The United Kingdom has transitioned to a digital e-Visa system for Pakistani citizens, eliminating physical passport stickers while maintaining current processing times.

Harman Singh Kapoor, owner of Rangrez restaurant in London, is closing it after 16 years, citing rising costs, online harassment, and lack of police support.

Ramazan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, is a time when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, focusing on prayer, charity and deepening their connection with the Almighty. Homes and mosques come

After completing seven to eight years, a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship will be available

A video from Jammu prison shows inmates attacking police, leading to the escape of three individuals, including two Pakistanis.

A recent survey indicates that 93% of Pakistanis support a ceasefire role, with 75% expressing hope for peace in the region.

Speaking to NDTV, Azar said, "We don't trust the Pakistanis. And I think that, you know, don't get over-enthusiastic to the degree that the Americans trust them.

More than 80 migrants are missing after a boat that departed a Libyan coastal town capsized in the central Mediterranean, according to the UN migration agency. At least two bodies have been recovered from the approximately 120 people on board.

Overseas Pakistanis residing in the UAE could potentially be subject to a mandatory Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) membership, which would include a fee of Rs10,000.

The IMF is resisting a cut in the oil levy, despite the government's push for consumer relief amidst a global price surge. This is reported by Geo News.

Qatar has suspended its visa-on-arrival facility for Pakistani nationals, a decision reportedly made in the context of the ongoing Middle East conflict.

Director Marcel Barrena has completed filming his latest movie, 'El 47,' which celebrates multiculturalism through a cricket team composed of Pakistanis and Indians, and used the occasion to speak out against racism.

Pashtun Pakistanis in Balochistan have celebrated Eid by participating in traditional games, showcasing cultural festivities during the holiday.

Air ticket prices in Pakistan have jumped by up to 30% due to a travel rush for Eidul Fitr celebrations and increasing jet fuel costs, as overseas Pakistanis return home.

Laut pakistanischen Angaben wurden Militäranlagen und „Terroristenverstecke“ getroffen. Afghanistan dementiert das.

Pakistan will das Regime in Kabul zwingen, seine Verbindungen zu den pakistanischen Taliban zu kappen.

Pakistanische Gruppen sind zu Gesprächen in Kabul. Es handelt sich laut einem pakistanischen Geheimdienstmitarbeiter um einen ersten Kontakt ohne Verpflichtungen

As the Gulf airspace shuts down amid regional strikes, thousands of Pakistanis remain stranded abroad

Logistical hurdles mount for people fleeing Iran

Pakistanis at remote border describe scramble to leave Iran  Kuwait Times

Most people wheeled bulky luggage over the frontier's foot crossing, while freight lorries formed a long line

Pakistan's Foreign Office has issued an advisory for its citizens living in the Middle East, activating a crisis cell and urging vigilance amidst regional developments.

A potential agreement between Kabul and Islamabad is crucial to prevent widespread conflict across the region, from Turkey to India.

Pakistan's interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, briefed the Prime Minister on successful talks in Rome and Poland, securing work permits and visa waivers for Pakistanis. The discussions also led to a reported 47% decrease in illegal migration to Europe.

Says the people and armed forces of Pakistan are always ready to protect the country’s security and sovereignty

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi reiterated a decision to issue over 10,000 work visas for skilled Pakistani workers, aiming to promote legal migration.

An Indian-origin restaurant owner in London claims he was forced to shut down his eatery after 16 years, citing repeated 'disturbances and attacks by Pakistanis' among other factors.

ISLAMABAD: Around 31.9 million births registered with union councils (UC) in 2025 are yet to be added to the record in the National Database and Registration Authority’s (Nadra) central database, according to an annual performance report. The report was recently submitted by Nadra to the interior ministry, according to which a total of 227m individuals are registered with the authority. Overall, nearly 97 per cent of Pakistan’s population is now included in the registration system, according to the report, which also shows that 52pc of the registered individuals are males and 48pc are females. As for biometric data, Nadra’s system contains facial records of 170m people, iris data of seven million individuals and 1.68 billion fingerprints, the reports says. During 2025 alone, the report states, some 445m biometric verifications were carried out, contributing to “improved transparency” and “strengthening of digital governance systems”. According to the report, national registration increased by 4pc in 2025, registration of children under the age of 18 rose by 11pc, renewal of expired identity cards increased by 24pc and cancellation of identity cards following death registration surged by 900pc. Female registration also saw an 8pc rise during the year. The reports says that by end of the year, 938 registration centres were operational nationwide. The authority established 75 new centres 138 new counters, while another 126 counters were installed at existing offices. The reports say that 231 mobile registration vans remained active during the year, including 33 satellite-equipped units for remote areas. At the UC level, 62 registration counters were operational while six new counters were set up in five countries abroad to facilitate overseas Pakistanis. According to the report, the Pak Identity mobile application was used to handle 15pc of Nadra’s total workload. The app was downloaded more than 12m times, enabling citizens to access services without visiting registration centres. In 2025, the federal government approved the National Registration and Biometric Policy Framework to further strengthen the unified registration system. Amendments to national identity card regulations were also introduced, biometric child registration certificates were launched for children as young as three, and family registration certificates were granted formal legal status. According to the report, Pakistan’s identity registration system now has near-complete coverage, though efforts are still required to further improve the registration of women and young children in certain areas. Clear policy recommendations have been proposed to close the remaining gaps entirely, the report says.