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After backlash over proposed law, state minister outlines more stringent measures for blue passport issuance

ISLAMABAD: After criticism on a bill seeking to allow the issuance of blue passports to former parliamentarians’ children, Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry has assured that measures would be taken to ensure that the travel document is used for “only official duties” abroad and issued for a limited time in most cases. The bill, seeking the issuance of blue passports to dependent children under the age of 28 of ex-members of parliament, was approved by a Senate panel on July 10. If the Members of Parliament Salaries and Allowances (Amendment) Bill, 2026 becomes law, the legislation would place former members of parliament on par with retired Grade-22 government officers, whose dependent children already enjoy the same entitlement. An official press statement released by the Senate Secretariat earlier this month noted that Chaudhry had “also agreed on the passing of the bill”. However, he later claimed he had opposed the bill during the July 10 proceedings of the Senate...
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Dar, Venezuelan FM emphasise 'considerable potential' for enhancing economic collaboration

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar held a phone call with Venezuela’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia on Sunday, with the two leaders emphasising the “considerable potential” for enhancing economic collaboration between their countries, the Foreign Office (FO) said. The two foreign ministers also exchanged views on the “longstanding friendly relations between Pakistan and Venezuela and reaffirmed their shared commitment to further strengthening bilateral ties”, the FO statement said. It added that they discussed opportunities to expand cooperation across a broad range of sectors, including trade, investment, business, agriculture, IT, and other areas of mutual interest. “Both sides underscored the considerable potential for enhancing economic collaboration and fostering stronger people-to-people contacts for the mutual benefit of the two countries,” the statement read. It said that Dar emphasised the...
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Underdogs, upsets, politics: The story of a World Cup that comes down to Argentina vs Spain

There is a version of this tournament that exists only in press releases: 104 games, three countries, a halftime show with more headline acts than most music festivals manage in a weekend, a Peace Prize nobody quite understands, hydration breaks timed to the minute. FIFA built something enormous this summer, then spent five weeks discovering that a football tournament, however large you make it, still insists on being decided by 22 people and a ball. Tonight, at the MetLife Stadium, Madonna, Shakira and BTS will perform to a crowd that mostly just wants them to hurry up so Argentina and Spain can get on with it. That, in miniature, has been the story of the last month: spectacle straining against substance and mostly, gloriously, losing. Noise before a ball was kicked Start with the noise, because there was so much of it before a ball was even kicked. The draw itself happened under a cloud, staged at a Kennedy Centre now reshaped in Donald Trump’s image, with enough absent artists ...
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1 missing, 6 injured in glacier burst incident in Swat's Kalam: Rescue 1122

SWAT: Search efforts were underway to trace a person who went missing after a glacier burst incident in Upper Swat’s Kalam Valley, Rescue 1122 said on Saturday. Six others were injured in the incident that took place in Kalam’s Matiltan area a couple of days. The glacier burst was reported once the survivors returned to the main Kalam bazaar. A man, identified as Syed Ali Shah, a resident of Khwazakhela, remained missing. According to his companions, he is believed to have died. However, his body has not yet been recovered. Initial reports indicated that three injured individuals received first aid from the Rescue 1122 medical team before being transferred from the Kalam Tehsil Headquarters Hospital to Central Hospital in Saidu Sharif for further treatment. Three other people sustained minor injuries and were reported to be safe. Rescue officials said that further verified information will be shared with the media and the public as it becomes availa...
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O, the passions of oily Turkish men

Even before the pehlwans square off in the mud, the air is already wrestling with a mix of bruised earth and olive oil. Men of all age and build, gleaming like magazine models from head to toe, prep for a day under the July sun in Edirne. For over six centuries, men have gathered in this northwestern Turkish city for Kırkpınar, the yağlı güreş or oil wrestling festival for what is considered the national sport. It has been around for so long that it was ancient by the time the Olympics were revived in 1896. “People say it’s all tall tales about the history of this festival. But whether you believe it or not, it’s all true,” says 59-year-old Yakup Kaya, as he weaves the taxi through Edirne’s cobbled streets and Ottoman-era lanes towards Sarayiçi Er Meydani, where Kirkpinar comes alive. Legend has it that in 1361 Suleyman Pasha, the son of the second Ottoman sultan, Orhan I, and his army of forty soldiers, marched through the Eastern Thracian province of Edirne. To kill time, the men ...
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Wanted terrorist killed in intelligence-based operation in Dera Ismail Khan: CTD

The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) said on Saturday that a wanted terrorist was killed during an intelligence-based operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Dera Ismail Khan district. According to a CTD statement, the slain terrorist was identified as Khalid alias Commander, who was wanted in multiple cases, including the targeted killing of CTD Constable Muhammad Ali, who was martyred on March 17, 2025. The department said that it had received confirmed intelligence through its technical team that Khalid was present in the Korai area within the limits of Shorkot police station. Acting on the information, a CTD Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team launched a targeted intelligence-based operation in the early hours of July 18 on the Tank-Dera Ismail Khan Road, the statement said. “During the operation, the terrorist was surrounded and told to surrender several times and attempts were made to arrest him. However, instead of surrendering, he opened indiscriminate fire on personnel,” t...
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Families of crew aboard crashed K2 Airways cargo plane push for international help to find black boxes

Relatives of the five crew members aboard a Boeing 737 cargo plane that crashed into the Arabian Sea off Karachi last week are urging an international search effort to find the flight recorders to determine the cause. Debris from the K2 Airways freighter was recovered shortly after the July 7 crash, but the water in the area is about 3,000 metres deep. Finding the “black boxes” would require a costly underwater search likely to need foreign assistance, according to aviation experts familiar with deepwater crashes such as Air France 447 in 2009 . The locator beacons on the 27-year-old plane were designed to transmit pings for only 30 days. Recovering the recorders could show whether a navigation system issue reported shortly before the crash was linked to a navigation component that relatives say was replaced before the flight. The Pakis­tan Airports Authority has not provided an update on the search operation for a week , and an industrial company with underwater search experti...
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