Pakistan News

Posts

US thrash Paraguay in LA to launch home FIFA World Cup in style

The United States opened their World Cup campaign with a 4-1 win over Paraguay on Friday, powered by a first-half double from striker Folarin Balogun, but the victory was tempered by concern over the fitness of Christian Pulisic. The emphatic Group D win marked a dream start for the co-hosts, whose four goals were their most ever in a World Cup match. Balogun became the first US player to score twice in a World Cup game since the 1930 tournament. “Amazing result,” US captain Tim Ream said. “It’s exactly the way we wanted to start the tournament.” The US broke through Paraguay’s vaunted defence in the seventh minute when Pulisic deftly split two players and found Weston McKennie, whose cross was kicked into the net by Damian Bobadilla for an own goal. Shortly after the first-half hydration break, Pulisic raced with the ball up the left side and sent a perfect cross to Balogun, who angled his shot past the diving goalkeeper Orlando Gill for a 2-0 lead. B...

A year after deadly Air India crash, families await answers

Families of those killed in last year’s Air India plane crash gathered at the site on Friday to mark the anniversary of the disaster, still awaiting answers about its cause. On June 12, 2025, a Boeing 787 crashed into a medical college shortly after take-off in India’s western city of Ahmedabad, killing 260 people in the deadliest air disaster for a decade. Indian authorities are expected to issue an interim report in the coming days, a source of frustration to the victims’ relatives, who had been expecting a final disclosure. Suresh Patni, a driver, came to the site where the plane exploded in a ball of flame, engulfing his teenage son Akash at his family’s tea stall. “We are here today only to remember him on his first death anniversary,” Patni told AFP. Family members of Air India plane crash victim Akash Patni pay tribute at remembrance portraits set up for him at the crash site on the first anniversary of the disaster in Ahmedabad on June 12. — AFP ...

Bangladesh, India to coordinate patrols on border, share intelligence amid migrant tensions

Bangladesh and India have agreed to deepen cooperation along their shared border with improved intelligence sharing and coordinated patrols, according ‌to a joint statement released on Friday, amid strained relations over alleged undocumented migration. Dhaka has accused Indian authorities of attempting to force migrants across the border without due process, complicating efforts to stabilise ties following the 2024 ousting of Sheikh Hasina and India’s broader effort to identify and deport undocumented migrants. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and India’s Border Security Force (BSF) described the discussions as “cordial, positive and forward-looking”, according to the statement ⁠released at the end of a four-day meeting of top border officials in New Delhi. The regular talks also covered “illegal, inadvertent and forcible crossing at border areas,” an increasingly contentious issue in recent months. Bangladesh and India share a more than 4,000-kilometre border, one of the world...

100, not out…

THIS is not an obituary. Far from it. It is a tribute to someone who is completing the first 100 years of a crowded, productive life. Syed Babar Ali was born on June 30, 1926. For the past few weeks, numerous relatives, friends, business associates and educationists have joined in celebrating his centenary. Eleven years ago, in 2015, he recounted his life in a published memoir Learning from Others . He compressed 89 years of his life into 237 succinct pages. How does one compact 100 years of his life into 800 words? Yet, perhaps that is what he would wish — to have his life set down on a single sheet of paper. Every Pakistani — the living and the yet unborn — should read this memoir, if they wish to understand who was who, who did what and when, and how a single person has beneficially affected the lives of millions of us Pakistanis. Syed Babar Ali was born into money. His father Syed Maratib Ali had a flourishing business in Ferozepur and post-1947 in Lahore. That enabled Babar to ...

Pakistan passed at diplomacy, let’s get the degrees rolling now

Pakistan’s prominence in global diplomacy has risen in recent months as a result of the role the country has played in brokering negotiations between the USA, Iran and the Gulf countries. Inevitably, however, this will lead to questions about the ways in which its leaders are seeking to translate this recognition in a manner that supports people in the country as well as the wider region. A clear area in which Pakistan can leverage its current global standing is the higher education sector. The stakes are considerable. Pakistan has one of the world’s largest youth populations, and demand for higher education is rising. Recent analysis by QAA (2025) notes that Pakistan has over 250 million people, around a third of whom are under 14, with university enrolment growing by more than 50 per cent over a decade. UK transnational higher education provision in Pakistan also grew from around 7,985 students in 2019–20 to 13,575 in 2022–23. Transnational higher education refers to the arrang...

Google Cloud outage in India after third-party data centre fire triggers shutdown

Alphabet’s Google Cloud said that some customers in India experienced intermittent network disruptions on Wednesday after a fire at a third-party data centre triggered an emergency shutdown of networking equipment. The cloud-computing unit said the fire led to an emergency power shutdown at the facility, isolating a local point of presence in Delhi and reducing network capacity across the metropolitan area. Google Cloud did not say when the fire occurred or whether it caused property damage or injuries. Such disruptions can cascade across businesses and users, slowing apps, websites, and internal company systems. The incident affected network traffic from Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and nearby regions, causing periods of elevated latency, the company said on its status page. Google Cloud, one of the world’s largest cloud providers, competes with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure and is widely used to process large data volumes and ...