ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s United Nations ambassador on Tuesday raised concerns about the possibility of a “refugee exodus” from Iran into neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan, as tensions in the Middle East remain high despite the US announcing a ceasefire between Tehran and Israel.
Pakistan shares a porous 900-kilometer-long border with Iran in its southwestern region, which is prone to militant violence and illicit activities such as smuggling. Analysts have warned that a long-term war between Israel and Iran, which began on June 13 after Tel Aviv attacked Iranian nuclear facilities, can lead to a large number of refugees heading toward Pakistan and other neighboring countries.
However, hopes of calm returning to the region were spurred on after US President Donald Trump announced early Tuesday that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire.
“We are also concerned about the potential destabilizing impact of the situation in Iran following unprovoked Israeli attacks,” Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, said during a Security Council session.
“A refugee exodus into neighboring countries— including Afghanistan and Pakistan— could pose significant new challenges,” he said. “This might imperil the already fragile condition in Afghanistan.”
We are also concerned about the potential destabilizing impact of the situation in Iran following unprovoked Israeli attacks. A refugee exodus into neighboring countries—including Afghanistan and Pakistan—could pose significant new challenges. This might imperil…
— Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the UN (@PakistanUN_NY)
The Pakistani envoy was speaking on the prevalent situation in Afghanistan, including the lack of opportunities for women and the surge in militant attacks in the country.
Ahmad said Islamabad wished to see a prosperous Afghanistan but warned that Pakistani Taliban fighters were operating from the country. He said that Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) with around 6,000 fighters has safe havens close to the border with Pakistan, posing direct threat to Islamabad’s national security.
“As part of our defensive measures, Pakistan has confiscated a significant cache of modern weapons originally left behind by international forces in Afghanistan,” Ahmad said.
Afghanistan has repeatedly rejected Pakistan’s allegations that TTP fighters use its soil to launch attacks against Islamabad. Kabul has urged Pakistan to resolve its security challenges internally, without blaming Afghanistan.
IRAN-ISRAEL CEASEFIRE
Trump announced the “complete and total” ceasefire between Tehran and Tel Aviv through a social media post on Tuesday, with the development taking place after Iran launched a limited missile attack Monday on a US military base in Qatar.
Iran said it was retaliating for the American bombing of its nuclear sites, adding that as long as Israel stopped its attacks early Tuesday morning, it would halt theirs.
Israel did not immediately acknowledge any ceasefire, but there were no reports of Israeli strikes in Iran after 4 am local time. Heavy Israeli strikes continued in Tehran and other cities until shortly before that time.
The US strikes against Iran over the weekend prompted fears of a wider regional conflict. Iran had said the US had crossed “a very big red line” with its risky gambit to strike with missiles and 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.
Pakistan has consistently denounced Israel’s military action against Iran and in Gaza, calling on the international community to intervene and impose an immediate end to the conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy.
ISLAMABAD: ’s GO Telecommunications Group will launch an Artificial Intelligence (AI) hub in Pakistan this month to jointly develop digital solutions and empower the youth, the Pakistani IT ministry said on Saturday.
The announcement comes during IT and Telecommunications Minister Shaza Khawaja’s visit to to discuss bilateral cooperation under Saudi Vision 2030 and Pakistan’s National AI Policy 2025.
She met with GO Telecommunications Group CEO Yahya bin Saleh Al-Mansour in Riyadh to discuss collaboration in digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence and human capital development.
“Pakistan and share a deep and evolving partnership rooted in mutual growth and digital progress,” the IT ministry quoted Khawaja as saying.
“Through initiatives like GO AI Hub Pakistan, we aim to strengthen collaboration in emerging technologies, empower youth through digital skills and accelerate our shared vision of a connected, knowledge-driven future.”
Pakistan and share deep religious, cultural, diplomatic, and strategic ties, particularly in trade and defense. The Kingdom hosts over two million Pakistani expatriates, who make up the largest source of remittances for the South Asian nation.
Both countries are now planning to forge a partnership in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity, Pakistani state media reported this week.
The GO AI Hub will be a specialized center for AI technologies and digital innovation, designed to foster knowledge transfer and capacity building, according to the IT ministry.
The two figures also discussed digital infrastructure expansion, data center development and the establishment of a technical talent development center in Pakistan for future collaboration.
The GO Telecommunications Group chief said his discussions with Pakistan’s IT minister underscored the “strong potential for cooperation between the Kingdom and Pakistan,” the Pakistani IT ministry said.
“The group’s expansion into the Pakistani market aligns with our strategic vision of diversification and strengthening partnerships with friendly and brotherly nations,” he was quoted as saying.
Khawaja earlier this week met with President of Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (DAIA) Dr. Abdullah bin Sharaf Al-Ghamdi in Riyadh, the state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported.
The two figures discussed promoting enhanced bilateral cooperation under the framework of Saudi Vision 2030 and Pakistan’s National AI Policy 2025.
is consolidating its economy on modern lines under the Vision 2030, which is a strategic development framework intended to cut the Kingdom’s reliance on oil. It is aimed at developing public service sectors in the Kingdom such as health, education, infrastructure, information technology (IT), recreation and tourism.
Pakistan, on the other hand, approved the National AI Policy 2025 in July to democratize artificial intelligence, aiming to enhance public services and generate employment opportunities for the youth.
The policy aims to create 50,000 AI-driven civic projects and 1,000 local AI products in the next five years, according to Pakistani state media. The government intends to make the use of AI inclusive through the distribution of 3,000 annual AI scholarships and facilitate 1,000 research projects, the state media said.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) has suspended the license of a private carrier, Serene Air, over persistent non-availability of aircraft, coupled with frequent flight cancelations, the authority said on Saturday, adding the move is in line with the country’s aviation policy.
The Air Operator Certificate (AOC) of Serene Air was withdrawn after all five aircraft in the airline fleet were deemed “unserviceable,” prompting a wave of cancelations affecting both domestic and international passengers, according to the PCAA.
Launched in 2017, the airline aspired to “modernize” Pakistan’s commercial aviation but struggled with mounting operational setbacks, including frequent flight cancelations in recent years.
“Out of the airline’s total fleet of five aircraft, none are currently available for flight operations,” the PCAA said in a statement.
“Even if a single aircraft becomes serviceable, as claimed by the airline, operations cannot be permitted as this would constitute a clear violation of the National Aviation Policy (NAP) 2023.”
Serene Air has yet to issue a statement in response to the development.
Irshad Ghani, who heads an aviation consultancy firm, said the closure reflects deep-rooted financial fragility in Pakistan’s aviation industry.
“Twelve airlines have shut down since the sector’s inception [in 1947],” Ghani said. “Aviation is capital-intensive, and when losses mount, investors often prefer to exit quickly rather than absorb further costs.”
Ghani said the collapse of Serene Air leaves behind only four active carriers, the state-run Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Airblue, Fly Jinnah and Sial Air, to serve the domestic market.
“Until yesterday, the number was five,” he noted. “The market itself is not that large and rising airfares are pushing many families to opt for road travel instead.”
To resume operations, Serene Air would require at least three aircraft and re-apply for the license and meet all regulatory benchmarks.
Pakistan’s aviation sector has long faced turbulence, plagued by weak regulatory oversight, underinvestment and a loss of international trust, particularly after a 2020 pilot license scandal that led to ban on the Pakistani flag carrier in the US, UK and European Union (EU). While the EU and the UK have lifted the restriction, the debt-ridden airline remains barred from flying to the US.
Past casualties included Shaheen Air International, Air Indus and Bhoja Air, all of which were grounded over financial or safety concerns. PIA remains the dominant domestic operator but continues to operate under massive debt and unresolved privatization.
ISLAMABAD: Authorities have imposed a partial curfew in the northwestern South Waziristan district near the Afghanistan border in Pakistan’s restive northwest, amid a surge in militant attacks against security forces.
The partial curfew in the South Waziristan district comes weeks after a military convoy was ambushed in the district, when “armed men opened fire from both sides with heavy weapons,” killing 12 security personnel and wounding four, a local government official said. The Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack in a message on social media.
Pakistan has witnessed a sharp increase in militant attacks in its northwestern districts bordering Afghanistan, where the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups have mounted their attacks in recent months, frequently targeting security forces convoys and check-posts, besides targeted killings and kidnappings of law enforcers and government officials.
The curfew was imposed in Serwekai tehsil of South Waziristan on Kandahari to Siplatoi and Baron to Molay Khan routes from 6am till 7pm on Saturday in view of a threats to the movement of security contingents and logistics that may result in loss of civilian life and property, according to KP Additional Chief Secretary for Home and Tribal Affairs, Muhammad Abid Majeed.
“People are requested to abide by the restriction and cooperate with concerned authorities,” Majeed said in a notification.
The Pakistani Taliban have stepped up their attacks against the security forces since a fragile truce with the government broke down in Nov. 2022. The group is separate from but has been emboldened by the return of the Taliban to Afghanistan in Aug. 2021.
Last year was Pakistan’s deadliest in nearly a decade, with more than 1,600 deaths, nearly half of them soldiers and police officers, according to the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies.
Islamabad has frequently accused Afghanistan of allowing the use of its soil and India of backing militant groups for attacks against Pakistan. Kabul and New Delhi both deny the allegation.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday that the acceptance of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan by Hamas has created a window for a ceasefire, promising Islamabad’s continuous support to everlasting peace in Palestine.
The statement came a day after Trump ordered Israel to stop bombing the Gaza Strip after Hamas said it had accepted some elements of his plan to end the nearly two-year war and return all the remaining hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Hamas said it was willing to hand over power to other Palestinians, but that other aspects of the plan require further consultations among Palestinians. Senior Hamas officials suggested there were still major disagreements that required further negotiations.
In a post on X, the Pakistan prime minister said they were closer to a ceasefire in Gaza than they have been since Israel launched the war on Gaza that has killed more than 65,000 Palestinian.
“The statement issued by Hamas creates a window for a ceasefire and ensuring peace that we must not allow to close again,” he said. “Pakistan will continue to work with all its partners and brotherly nations to everlasting peace in Palestine.”
Under the plan, which Trump unveiled earlier this week alongside Netanyahu, Hamas would release the remaining 48 hostages — around 20 of them believed to be alive — within three days. It would also give up power and disarm.
In return, Israel would halt its offensive and withdraw from much of the territory, release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and allow an influx of humanitarian aid and eventual reconstruction. Plans to relocate much of Gaza’s population to other countries would be shelved.
Trump earlier presented the roadmap in a meeting with leaders of Pakistan, , the UAE, Indonesia, Turkiye, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan last month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session.
The US president appears keen to deliver on pledges to end the war and return dozens of hostages ahead of the second anniversary of the war on Tuesday. He welcomed the Hamas statement, saying: “I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE.”
“Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it’s far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out,” Trump wrote on social media.
Sharif, who has gained favor with Trump since publicly endorsing him for a Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a ceasefire in a four-day Pakistan-India military standoff in May, the US president and Muslim leaders who last month came together to resolve the crisis.
“Gratitude is due to President Trump, as well as to leaderships of Qatar, Saudia Arabia, UAE, Turkiye, Jordan, Egypt, and Indonesia who, met with President Trump on the sidelines of #UNGA80 for the resolution of the Palestinian issue,” he added.
Pakistan’s solar-powered farming deepens fears of long-term water crisis
Farmers are increasingly ditching diesel and grid power as Pakistan undergoes a solar revolution fueled by cheap Chinese-made panels
The solar boom has coincided with the rapid depletion of water tables in Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province, documents show
Updated 04 October 2025
Reuters
MURIDKE: Out in the fields near Pakistan’s city of Muridke in Punjab province, rice farmer Karamat Ali’s cows and buffalos once provided his family with milk until earlier this year, when he sold about a dozen of them to buy a set of solar panels.
Ali now uses his panels to power a tube well, which is composed of a water well and a motorized groundwater pump. The solar device allows Ali to irrigate his crops with greater ease and frees him from depending on the erratic electricity grid and pricey diesel to extract groundwater.
“It keeps my costs low because it runs without diesel and keeps my water supply running smoothly,” Ali said.
A worker installs a folding solar panel unit, to run a tube well, the motorised pump that taps groundwater, in a rice field in Muridke, Sheikhupura District in Punjab province, Pakistan, on August 12, 2025. (REUTERS)
As Pakistan undergoes a solar revolution fueled by cheap Chinese-made panels, farmers like Ali are increasingly ditching diesel and grid power for sun-powered tube wells, according to interviews with growers, as well as government officials and analysts.
The solar boom has coincided with the rapid depletion of water tables in Pakistan’s most populous province, according to previously unreported Punjab water authority documents viewed by Reuters. The documents did not pinpoint any cause.
Farmers who spoke to Reuters said they had started irrigating their rice paddies several times a day, which would not have been possible without solarised pumps. They are also choosing to grow more thirsty rice crops than in previous years, with the size of rice fields increasing 30% between 2023 and 2025, US Department of Agriculture data shows.
Women farmers plant rice saplings in a field in Muridke, Sheikhupura District in Punjab province, Pakistan, on August 11, 2025. (REUTERS)
There are no recent official estimates on the number of tube wells in Pakistan, which doesn’t require their registration. But so widespread is their use that farmers choosing to power the devices with solar are set to drive a 45 percent collapse in the amount of grid electricity consumed by the agriculture sector in the three years through 2025, said energy economist Ammar Habib, who serves as an adviser to Pakistan’s power minister. His estimate was based on consumption data published by the national energy authority.
Reuters’ calculations based on Habib’s data, which were reviewed by Habib and Lahore-based renewables analyst Syed Faizan Ali Shah, indicate that some 400,000 tube wells that once relied on electricity have switched to solar. Farmers dependent on such panels have likely purchased an additional 250,000 tube wells since 2023, Habib estimated, signalling that the sun now powers roughly 650,000 such devices across Pakistan.
The explosion in availability of cheap solar panels is posing a particular threat to water levels in the South Asian bread basket of Punjab.
The water table has shrunk below 60 feet — a level designated as critical by the provincial irrigation department — across 6.6% of Punjab as of 2024, according to maps published for internal use by water authorities and seen by Reuters.
Adnan Hassan, Senior Research Officer, checks the dipmeter to examine the ground-water level from a borehole, at the Irrigation Research Institute in Punjab Irrigation Department, in Lahore, Pakistan, on August 13, 2025. (REUTERS)
That marks an increase of some 25% between 2020 and 2024, while the deepest pockets — with water levels beyond 80 feet — more than doubled in size during the same period.
Punjab Irrigation Minister Muhammad Kazim Pirzada said there are around 10 cities in the province where water has been seriously depleted.
His department told Reuters it was continuing to study the relationship between tube wells and groundwater depletion, but that it had undertaken measures to protect the water table.
But for many farmers in Punjab, the threat to the water table is a problem for tomorrow.
“Solar panels should be installed at all cost,” said 38-year-old subsistence farmer Rai Abdul Ghafoor, who has been saving for a purchase.
Mian Muhammad Kazim Ali Pirzada, Minister of Irrigation, Punjab, speaks on mobile phone next to a portrait of the Chief Minister of Punjab Maryam Nawaz Sharif during an interview with Reuters in Lahore, Pakistan, on August 12, 2025. (REUTERS)
The switch to solar has allowed 61-year-old Mohammad Naseem to save some 50,000 rupees ($175.21) monthly on electricity and diesel since he bought his panels four years ago. That is 25 percent more than the minimum monthly wage in Punjab.
“I sleep near it. I arrange to guard it at night; we remain vigilant so that it doesn’t get damaged,” said Naseem, who prizes his panels so much that he dismantles them every evening and brings them home from the fields.
While poor farmers are still reliant on diesel and grid power, many agriculture-dependent villages have pooled sums to purchase the panels as communal property.
Hajji Allah Rakha, an 80-year-old farmer who has 16 panels, shares them with two other families. Electricity bills have gone down significantly, benefiting everyone who invested in the technology, Rakha said.
Zaheer, 29, an employee of Punjab Irrigation Department, uses a dipmeter to check the ground water level at a borehole, in Babakwal, Sheikhupura District in Punjab province, Pakistan, on August 13, 2025. (REUTERS)
Shahab Qureshi, a businessman selling solar panels in the provincial capital Lahore, said the solar boom has many farmers using all means to get their hands on the device.
“They would sell land, jewelry, or take loans just to get the solar panels,” Qureshi said.
Meanwhile, federal and provincial officials have started to pay more attention to the slow-boiling crisis, especially after India suspended its participation in an accord governing the sharing of water from the critical Indus River system earlier this year.
Punjab began aquifer-recharge pilots, which aim to slow depletion and ensure stable groundwater supply, at more than 40 sites before India’s April move, though officials said such projects have grown in importance since.
The province is also reviving old infrastructure such as the Ravi Siphon, a colonial-era tunnel that helps stabilize flows from the Ravi River. Officials hope that improving conventional irrigation methods will reduce the need for farmers to extract groundwater.
“What we are injecting in the aquifer, that quality must be equal to the drinking water quality. If you inject polluted water from the roads to the aquifers, then the next generation will suffer the consequences,” said Adnan Hassan, a researcher for Punjab’s irrigation department.
