Europe sends part of its textile surplus to unregulated hubs, sometimes returning it to the same country of origin, tripling emissions in the process.
country: Pakistan
Stay updated with comprehensive news on Pakistan from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Pakistani politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Islamabad, Pakistani history, and cultural events.
An elderly couple recently had to flee their home in Karachi after their son was unjustly accused under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. Their case highlights how religious laws in the country are increasingly exploited for extortion and vendettas, leaving families vulnerable to threats and violence.
In Muslim-majority societies, discriminatory laws, cultural traditions, and religious justifications conspire to make the murder of women an accepted norm rather than a societal tragedy.
Amid the India-Pakistan conflict in May, Hyderabad’s famous Karachi Bakery — named after the founder’s hometown, which is in present-day Pakistan — was vandalized. Why is this well-loved Indian chain being villainized?
Here are the latest headlines.
I don’t want to be ‘rescued’ by Pakistan. I don’t want to be silenced by India. I want to grow in a space that allows me to be both Kashmiri and Indian without splitting my tongue in two. I want the world to know that patriotism can look like criticism, and loyalty can sound like longing.
Here are the latest headlines.
Here are the latest headlines.
Here are the latest headlines.
There were several high-profile facilities linked to the Islamist terror groups Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, but Indian sources claim to have also targeted camps that the military believes are the ‘roots’ of various terror attacks, including last month’s Pahalgam massacre in in Kashmir.
In the wake of the recent Kashmir attack, the Modi government has responded by demolishing homes allegedly linked to suspects, a move seen by some as more spectacle than justice. These retaliatory demolitions reflect a pattern of collective punishment that raises serious concerns about due process and human rights in conflict regions.
The Pahalgam terrorist attacks in Kashmir continue to stir the flames in the unstable political region of Kashmir. What can its government do to achieve peace?
In only a few days, Tuesday’s murder of 26 tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir has driven India and Pakistan to the edge of war. For obvious and not-so-obvious reasons, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
The massacre in northern Kashmir has reignited calls for retribution and nationalist bravado — but behind the noise lies a deeper challenge: can India’s leaders hold the line against communal rupture and resist falling into Pakistan’s strategic trap?
The strikes this month between Iran and Pakistan have brought the Baloch issue back to the forefront. The countries have long accused each other of harboring Baloch militant groups who are fighting for more regional autonomy.
The number of climate refugees is predicted to hit 1.2 billion by 2050, yet states are still not taking enough action. The Global South will be the most affected, but the West will not be spared.
From Rwanda to South Africa, examples abound of countries ending conflicts by boosting women’s rights and creating spaces for them to assume more leadership roles.
GWADAR — Landing at Gwadar International Airport is a bit like landing on the moon. The tarmac lies in the middle of a desert, and there’s no other aircraft in sight except for a C-130 from the United Arab Emirates Air Force. The place seems all but abandoned. In the area around the airport, houses […]
Using social media platforms, professors from Pakistan and India developed a course that looks at the two countries’ histories without nationalistic biases.
WAGAH — Here at the India-Pakistan border, thousands of men, women and children have gathered to watch a stunning ritual: On either side of the border, military march back and forth, as music roars and crowds cheer. Known either as the Wagah border ceremony, the lowering of the flags, or “Beating Retreat” ceremony, the ritual has been performed every day since 1959, as flags are lowered around sunset. “Summer, winter or in any kind of storm, whatever the weather or political conditions, the parade doesn’t stop,” said Sumer Singh, former Deputy Inspector General of India’s Border Security Force (BSF). The […]
KARACHI — A Turkish family is rushing out to a weekend protest in this populous Pakistani city; outside the Karachi Press Club, Turkish residents release doves as a sign of peace; 25 Turkish teachers plea for safety in Pakistan. These Turkish families have lived here for over two decades, teaching at a network of international schools led by Fethullah Gülen, a moderate Islamic cleric from Turkey, who currently lives in the United States. In the last 16 months, 28 Gülen schools and colleges across Pakistan have been shut down under pressure from the government in Ankara. Staff members now face […]
Cleared by the Central Board of Film Censors on appeal, top Pakistani director Shoaib Mansoor’s ‘Verna’ is a flawed film, but a wake-up call for a nation obsessed by patriarchal honor.
BENGALURU — In vintage crime novels, there is often someone murdered by slow poisoning, and arsenic has been a common weapon of choice. It works the same way in your body — slowly killing you — if it is present in the water you drink beyond a certain threshold. This is why it’s disturbing that, according to a new study, the groundwater along the densely populated Indus river basin in Pakistan is severely contaminated with arsenic, putting the health of over 50 million people at risk. Arsenic occurs naturally in Earth’s crust. It is used by humans in some alloys […]
PESHAWAR — Ayesha Rahmat, a 31-year-old mother of five, lives in a small, two-room house with an open kitchen in this northern Pakistani city. The smell of the bathroom cuts through the air. Ayesha has four daughters and a son, but her husband of more than 20 years, Rahmat Khan, is gone — Ayesha says his absence has left her in a desperate situation. “I have stopped taking my medicine as I don’t have money to buy it,” Ayesha said. “My children have only eaten one meal a day for the last month. We have not paid utility bills. The […]
In Pakistan, men dominate public life. There are very few occasions women can enjoy being out by themselves. But now there’s a place in Karachi that’s giving women the opportunity to enjoy a long-awaited cup of tea.
LAHORE — Over the past few months, the prestigious Al-Hamra Theater in this Pakistani city has been staging a first-of-its-kind play, one that very much pushes cultural boundaries in the conservative Muslim society. The play, called Teesri Dhun, focuses on the discrimination transgender people endure in Pakistan, where they are often shunned by families, schools and employers. Not only that, but the actors themselves are members of the transgender community. “The play highlights the problems transgender people face here,” says Neeli Rana, 40, who plays the lead role in Lahore. It’s a story line that resonates with Rana. “In 2006 […]
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has pledged to crack down on terrorism after the Easter Sunday attack that killed 72 people. But the tragedy has raised serious questions about the country’s strategy and the political factors at play.
QUETTA/JAKARTA/MELBOURNE — Five-year-old Mohammad Raza is holding a photograph of his uncle Sadiq Ali. He believes his uncle is in Australia and that he will soon send a toy airplane. But his grandmother knows that Sadiq Ali is detained abroad. Sadiq left, she says, because he didn’t see any hope for his future in Pakistan. “It was a tough time for him here,” she says, “He ran his own shop but got tired of having no work because the area was unsafe. So he left the country.” Sadiq, 22, is part of the Shia Hazara community in Quetta, a town […]
MINGORA — At 13, Hadiqa Bashir is herself just a child, but she’s already working to save girls from child marriage in rural Pakistan. Though it’s illegal in Pakistan, marrying young children to much older men is still widely practiced in the Swat Valley. Visiting Hadiqa Bashir today is a young girl, Shabana, who is with her mother. A white gauze covers her nose, and she explains the horrific reason why. “My mother-in-law asked my husband to complete his job today and she left the house,” Shabana says. “I had my young son with me, and my husband asked his […]
MINGORA — Neelam Ibrar Chattan makes breakfast for her mother and younger brother, serving them and rushing out the door without eating anything. As the young woman leaves, her mother Mariam Bibi recites Koranic versus in the hope of protecting her. Her husband died of heart attack about 12 years ago. “I encouraged Neelam because it was her father’s dream to be a social worker,” Bibi says. “I want my daughter to play her role for the people of the area and also fulfill the dream of her father. I know people don’t like her going out of the house […]
MELBOURNE — For nearly an hour the audience sits in silence as Feryal Ali Gauhar paces the stage, delivering a solo performance that spans three continents and tells the story of various women; mothers and daughters, the wealthy elite and domestic maids. All the characters in the play are based on real-life stories and have a common theme of gender-based violence and control at the hands of men. “It’s a very immediate medium,” she later explains. “For most women in the audience it is an experience that is close to them. The debate begins really on the journey home with […]
PESHAWAR — Schools in Peshawar now look like police stations, equipped with barbed wire, surveillance cameras and snipers after the Taliban’s December assault on a school that killed 132 students. Officials told schools to be prepared for other attacks, and in an extraordinary measure, the Khyber Pakhtunkua government is allowing teachers to keep guns at school. The local police are also now training female teachers in how to use guns. Ashraf Khan teaches in a primary school not far from the army public school that the Taliban attacked in December. The first thing he does in the morning when he […]
Though the Pakistan Taliban was responsible for the murders of 130 students in Peshawar, the local government believes some of the country’s longtime Afghan refugees harbor terrorists. Deportation and confinements have begun.
PESHAWAR — Shahana Khan had to wake her son up on the morning of December 16. He was late for school and she had to push him out the door. He was one of the 132 students who didn’t come home. “I cry all the time thinking I told him to go to school. I opened the gate for him,” mourns Shahana. At this time she would normally be making him breakfast: “I feel him in the house all the time and hear him. People say it’s just in my head but for me it is very real. I hear […]
KARACHI — In Pakistan and many other Asian countries, politicians are given preferential treatment on the roads, in airports, and in services while everyone else waits in line. So it’s not surprising that this lopsided system is breeding growing outrage. In a wealthy suburb of Karachi, where many high-profile politicians live, a small middle-aged man stands at a busy traffic intersection. Wearing a long a black gown with a sign that reads “NO VIP,” he says that while your house is yours, the public road is for everyone. With him is a group of around 50 protesters who have been […]
India and Pakistan are arch enemies whose ongoing Kashmir conflict shows no signs of ending. So will the film kiss between a beloved Pakistani actress and an India heartthrob be censored?
KARACHI — Khushboo Rafiq is the first person in her family not to pay a dowry, or bride price, to her husband Usman’s family. Khushboo works for an organization that advocates women’s rights. It was very important to her that her wedding represents the ideals and convictions on which she spends her professional efforts.” We used the wedding invitation to tell guests they should not bring any gifts,” she says. “We also made it very clear that no dowry was being paid. We also are donating our wedding dress to a charity for another couple to use in the future.” […]
The construction of Pakistan’s next tallest building in Karachi is seen by the country’s Hindu minority yet another attack in this Muslim-majority country of 180 million.
KARACHI — It’s time for the evening prayer at the Edhi Shelter Home in Karachi, Pakistan. For nine-year-old Rehmatullah Khan, it’s a reminder of a painful childhood past. His parents sent him to an Islamic boarding school in the northwestern city of Quetta when he was just three. “At seminary, my teacher would beat me and the other students,” he recalls. “The teacher would beat us for not memorizing the lessons or making a noise. He sometimes hit us with sticks and would punch me when the other students told him it was me making noise in the classroom.” After […]
KAPOOSAR — Pancho Mai is a villager in Kapoosar, located in the Tharpakar district. Today is the festival of Holi, but the 25-year-old mother is deep in mourning. Over the past three months, her three children have died. “They had fever for a few days, and then pneumonia killed each one of them,” she says numbly. Her mother-in-law, Kaplana Mai, had rushed the children to the only government hospital in the district. But it was too late. They died within days. This is not an isolated case. According to independent statistics reported by the local media, some 200 children, mostly […]