RAWALPINDI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has set up pre-departure facilitation desks at all its zonal offices nationwide to assist international travellers, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Sunday, following widespread complaints over passenger offloading at airports.
The move comes after around 66,154 passengers were offloaded last year despite holding valid documents, particularly at Lahore and Karachi airports, amid a post-2024 Greece boat tragedy crackdown on migrant smuggling, which claimed several Pakistani lives.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had ordered the formation of a special committee to probe the frequent offloading of travellers, which has triggered growing concern and criticism from affected passengers.
Taking to his X account, Naqvi wrote: “Pleased to share that the Federal Investigation Agency (@FIA Pakistan) has launched Pre-Departure Facilitation Desks across all zonal offices with immediate effect.”
According to the FIA, the initiative aims to provide guidance and assistance to international travellers on immigration procedures and clearances, ensuring a smoother and more hassle-free travel experience.
The desks have been established in eleven zones – including Islamabad’s G/6 zonal office — and will be accessible for intending international travellers, as well as through helplines and email services.
An FIA spokesman told Dawn the desks will be operational for international travellers on Saturday and Sunday, with experienced immigration staff deputed to facilitate citizens.
“The immigration staff, headed by the assistant director and assisted by an inspector and a sub-inspector, will be available for citizens to provide them with details of visa documents required to travel, which visa is needed, a return ticket and how much currency they can keep with them, among other details,” he said.
The spokesman said the facilitation desks have been set up at FIA zonal offices for international travellers — both locals and foreigners — seeking travel-related information, with immigration staff available from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Sunday.
“Main zonal offices are located across the country, including Islamabad serving the federal capital territory, Karachi covering Sindh, Lahore covering Punjab, Peshawar covering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Quetta covering Balochistan. Zonal offices are also located in Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Multan,” he added.
Last month, FIA authorities told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development that it offloaded 66,154 passengers from Pakistani Airports in 2025 compared to 2024’s figure of 35,000.
Initially, FIA authorities were reluctant to share details of the large-scale offloading of international travellers, despite repeated media queries and complaints from passengers who said they were stopped despite holding valid travel documents.
Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Waters Syed Muhammad Mehar Ali Shah on Sunday said India’s claim of placing the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in “abeyance” has no legal basis and that the treaty remains fully in force under international law.
In April 2025, India held the IWT in abeyance following the attack on tourists in occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam that killed 26 — an incident New Delhi blamed on Islamabad without evidence. Pakistan termed any attempt to suspend its water share an “act of war”. In June, the Permanent Court of Arbitration held that India cannot unilaterally hold the treaty in abeyance.
Speaking on Geo News‘ programme ‘Jirga’, Shah talked about the legality of India holding the IWT in abeyance and said: “As far as holding the treaty in abeyance is concerned, the word ‘abeyance’ is not recognised under international treaty law. It is a coined term, because we believe India understands that it cannot suspend, breach or terminate the treaty.”
However, he cautioned that India’s continued non-cooperation within the rules-based framework, effectively sidestepping its obligations on self-created grounds, was “alarming” and prompted Pakistan to pursue a formal and carefully calibrated legal and diplomatic response.
“To address this, Pakistan is employing efforts carefully, and whatever steps are being taken are formal in nature,” he said.
He said the treaty was carefully negotiated to withstand political tensions and disputes, stressing that its dispute-resolution mechanism was designed to prevent unilateral actions.
About Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s threats of stopping the flow of Pakistan’s share of water, Shah asserted: “There is no room for stopping or partially stopping Pakistan’s water. This also goes against moral standards.
“Technically, if one party is stubborn on diverting the western rivers flowing into Pakistan, to reduce it to stop it, so naturally, there have been inter-basin transfer examples in the world,” he observed.
“When we gave the three eastern rivers to India, we have been facing consequences since the beginning of the treaty. Sutlej is always dry, barring the flooding season. Ravi is dry,” the water commissioner said.
Shah reiterated that any move by India to reduce water flows to Pakistan “would be considered an act of war”.
“There is no fixed amount of water allocated to Pakistan,” he said, adding that the waters should be available to Pakistan based on the “natural pattern of the western rivers”.
“So far, Chenab, Jhelum and Indus are receiving water in a natural pattern. But since April 24, 2025, India has created three such episodes, which we picked up — twice in May and once in December when they increased the flow, and then decreased the flow for a few days,” Shah pointed out.
Speaking about the procedures stated under the “well-thought-out” pact, Shah said one clause stated that in the face of conflict, Pakistan and India will peacefully solve the water matter. “Otherwise, they will hand it to a neutral party,” he added.
The official noted, “The 12th and last article of this treaty has four provisions. In the last paragraph, it says that with the passage of time, some changes can be made to the pact, but both parties have to mutually agree; otherwise, the pact will remain fully enforced.
“And it clearly says that no one party can unilaterally change it,” the water commissioner stressed.
Asked whether the IWT favoured India, Shah replied that the three eastern rivers — Beas, Ravi and Sutlej — have a “geographic advantage”, unlike the western rivers.
Recalling the history of water disputes between the two neighbours, Shah said India halted the rivers’ flow to Pakistan on March 31, 1948, which Pakistan protested on a bilateral level and took the issue to the United Nations.
After the IWT was agreed upon in 1960, India first violated the pact when it was building the Salal Dam, with which Pakistan had issues, and they were subsequently resolved through the treaty.
“The pact does not have a guarantor as such, but it has its own mechanism,” the official observed.
The water commissioner said the basic feature of the IWT was that the western rivers’ natural flow must not be altered.
“India was allowed to use the western rivers for hydroelectric power generation only in line with the pact guidelines. If there is a violation, then any party can take the matter to a third forum,” Shah said.
Providing an example of such an instance, Shah recalled that Pakistan decided to take the matter to a third forum when India built the Baglihar Dam on the western rivers, “violating five of the conditions”.
The official noted there were two third-party forums where conflicts could be taken — “one is a neutral forum, and the other is the Court of Arbitration forum”. The procedure for it, Shah added, was that the water commissioners must inform each other and suggest whether the matter should go to a neutral party or a court.
“So if one party does not agree to going to the court, for instance, then the matter must go to a neutral party, who will decide whether the matter falls within their expertise,” he explained, adding that internationally recognised experts are part of the team when the issue is taken to a neutral forum.
“When the Baglihar Dam decision was taken, it was not in favour of Pakistan. The extent of that decision was only confined to the Baglihar Dam and it did not apply to any future development plans,” Shah said.
The water commissioner highlighted that although Pakistan did not agree with the decision, it was binding under the IWT.
“So in order to stop India from taking future decisions based on the decision of the Baglihar Dam, Pakistan filed a case at the Court of Arbitration for a general interpretation.”
Detailing more water conflicts, Shah said that after Baglihar, Pakistan raised the issue about India constructing the 850 megawatt Ratle Hydroelectric Plant on the Chenab river bilaterally first, and also went to a third forum.
The water commissioner then mentioned that Pakistan had also raised objections on the Kiru and Kwar hydroelectric projects in India, whose designs New Delhi shared with Islamabad prior to the April 2025 developments.
New deadly clashes between protesters and security forces erupted in Iran over the weekend, rights groups and local media said on Sunday, as demonstrations first sparked by anger over the rising cost of living entered a second week.
At least 12 people, including members of the security forces, have been killed since the protests kicked off with a shopkeeper’s strike in Tehran on December 28, according to a toll based on official reports.
Overnight, protests featuring slogans criticising the Islamic republic’s clerical authorities were reported in Tehran, Shiraz in the south, and in areas of western Iran where the movement has been concentrated, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) monitor.
The demonstrations are the most significant in Iran since a 2022-2023 movement sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.
The latest protests have been concentrated in parts of the west with large populations of the Kurdish and Lor minorities, and have yet to reach the scale of the 2022-2023 movement, let alone the mass street demonstrations that followed the disputed 2009 presidential elections.
But they do present a new challenge for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — 86, and in power since 1989 — coming on the heels of a 12-day war with Israel in June that saw nuclear infrastructure damaged and key members of the security elite killed.
The protests have taken place in 23 out of 31 provinces and affected, to varying degrees, at least 40 different cities, most of them small and medium-sized, according to an AFP tally based on official announcements and media reports.
Deadly clashes
The Norway-based Hengaw rights group said that Revolutionary Guards opened fire on protesters in the Malekshahi county of the western Ilam province on Saturday, killing four members of Iran’s Kurdish minority.
The group said it was checking reports that two other people had been killed, adding that dozens more were wounded. It also accused the authorities of raiding the main hospital in the city of Ilam to seize the bodies of the protesters.
The Iran Human Rights NGO, also based in Norway, gave an identical toll of four dead, as well as 30 wounded, after “security forces attacked the protests” in Malekshahi.
Both organisations posted footage of what appeared to be bloodied corpses on the ground, in videos verified by AFP.
Iran’s Mehr news agency alluded to the clashes, saying a Revolutionary Guard was killed in a confrontation with “rioters” at a police office.
“Rioters attempted to storm a police station,” the Fars news agency reported, saying “two assailants were killed”.
In Tehran, sporadic demonstrations on Saturday night were reported in districts in the east, west and south, the Fars news agency said.
Videos verified by AFP showed security forces dispersing protesters who had gathered overnight and blocked a road by overturning garbage cans.
On Sunday, the vast majority of shops were open in the capital, although the streets appeared less crowded than usual, with riot police and security forces deployed at major intersections, AFP observed.
‘Growing confrontation’
The protests began last week with a shutdown by merchants in the Tehran bazaar, an influential economic hub, and spread to other regions as well as universities.
UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran Mai Sato said on Friday that “reports indicate growing confrontation between protesters and security forces”, and warned the violent response witnessed during the 2022-2023 movement “must not be repeated”.
HRNA said that over the last week, at least 582 people have been arrested.
Hengaw said almost all of those killed were from ethnic minorities, chiefly Kurds and Lors.
United States President Donald Trump said on Friday that the US was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters — a day before the American operation to capture Iran’s ally Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the remarks “reckless” and warned that the armed forces were “on standby” in the event of any intervention.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said on Sunday that his country stood in “solidarity with the struggle of the Iranian people”, adding it was possible they were “taking their destiny into their own hands”.
Publicly, Iranian officials, including Khamenei, have taken a conciliatory tone when it comes to protesters’ economic demands, while warning that destabilisation and chaos will not be tolerated.
• Women make up 40pc of the global agrifood workforce, nearly equal to men
• In Pakistan, 74pc of working women are engaged in farm sector
ISLAMABAD: The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has launched ‘International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026’, a global campaign aimed at recognising women’s indispensable yet often overlooked contributions to global agrifood systems and to galvanising efforts to close persistent gender gaps.
Women make up a significant proportion of the world’s agricultural workforce and play a central role across agrifood value chains — from production and processing to distribution and trade — while also ensuring household food security and nutrition. In 2021, agrifood systems employed 40 per cent of working women globally— nearly equal to men.
Despite their vital role, women’s contributions remain undervalued and their working conditions are often more precarious: irregular, informal, part-time, low-paid work that is labour-intensive and highly vulnerable. Women continue to face systemic barriers, including limited access to land, finance, technologies, education, extension services and participation in decision-making at all levels.
In Pakistan, approximately 74 per cent of women and girls engaged in the labour force work in the agriculture sector, which generates about 40pc of household income. However, protection issues faced by women farmers remain poorly documented and insufficiently addressed.
An FAO report on women farmers in Pakistan highlights the need to amend labour and agriculture policies at the federal and provincial levels to recognise all women performing work related to crops, fruits, vegetables, livestock, fisheries, poultry, dairy, forestry and post-harvest production as “farmers”, whether they work full-time or part-time, including those working on family farms without land ownership.
The report recommends setting a minimum wage for women farmers and ensuring wage parity with male agricultural workers for work of equal value. It also calls for the allocation of unused federal and provincial land to landless rural women farmers, along with access to water and input subsidies to support sustainable livelihoods.
Designated by the UN General Assembly in 2024, the International Year aims to highlight the challenges faced by women farmers and drive policy reforms and investment to advance gender equality, empower women and build more resilient agrifood systems. FAO, in collaboration with the Rome-based UN agencies — the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) — will coordinate activities throughout 2026.
Recent FAO reports, The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems and The Unjust Climate, reveal that women farmers typically cultivate smaller landholdings than men and face a 24pc productivity gap even on farms of equal size. Each day of extreme heat reduces the total value of crops produced by women farmers by three per cent compared to men.
At 4:21 on Saturday morning, President Donald Trump sent a message on his Truth Social platform: the United States had carried out a daring mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
The action came as a surprise, but according to sources familiar with the matter, planning for one of the most complex US operations in recent memory had been in the works for months and included detailed rehearsals.
Elite US troops, including the Army’s Delta Force, created an exact replica of Maduro’s safe house and practiced how they would enter the strongly fortified residence.
The CIA had a small team on the ground starting in August who were able to provide insight into Maduro’s pattern of life that made grabbing him seamless, according to one source familiar with the matter.
Two other sources told Reuters the intelligence agency also had an asset close to Maduro who would monitor his movements and was poised to pinpoint his exact location as the operation unfolded.
With the pieces in place, Trump approved the operation four days ago, but military and intelligence planners suggested he wait for better weather and less cloud cover.
At 10:46pm EST on Friday, Trump gave the final go ahead for what would be known as Operation Absolute Resolve, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine told reporters.
Trump, surrounded by his advisers at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, watched a live stream of the events.
How the hours-long operation unfolded is based on interviews with four sources familiar with the matter and details Trump himself has revealed.
“I’ve done some pretty good ones, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” Trump said on Fox News just hours after the mission was completed.
‘Massive’ operation
The Pentagon has overseen a massive military buildup of forces in the Caribbean, sending an aircraft carrier, 11 warships and more than a dozen F-35 aircraft.
In total, more than 15,000 troops have poured into the region for what US officials have long described as anti-drug operations.
According to one of the sources, Trump senior aide Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe formed a core team working on the issue for months with regular - sometimes daily - meetings and phone calls. They often also met with the president.
Late on Friday night and into early Saturday, Trump and his advisers huddled as a number of US aircraft took off and carried out strikes against targets inside and close to Caracas, including air defense systems, according to a US military official.
Caine said the operation involved more than 150 aircraft launched from 20 bases around the Western Hemisphere, including F-35 and F-22 jets, and B-1 bombers.
“We had a fighter jet for every possible situation,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”
Sources have told Reuters the Pentagon had also quietly moved into the region refueling air tankers, drones and aircraft specialising in electronic jamming.
US officials said the airstrikes hit military targets. Images taken by Reuters at the La Carlota air base in Caracas showed charred military vehicles from a Venezuelan anti-aircraft unit.
With the strikes taking place, US Special Forces made their way into Caracas heavily armed, including with a blowtorch in case they had to cut through steel doors at Maduro’s location.
Around 1 a.m. EST Saturday, Caine said, the troops arrived at Maduro’s compound in downtown Caracas while being fired upon. One of the helicopters was hit, but still able to fly.
Social media videos posted by residents showed a convoy of helicopters flying over the city at low altitude.
Once they reached Maduro’s safe house the troops, along with FBI agents, made their way into the residence, which Trump described as a “very highly guarded … fortress.”
“They just broke in, and they broke into places that were not really able to be broke into, you know, steel doors that were put there for just this reason,” Trump said.
“They got taken out in a matter of seconds.”
Maduro in custody
Once the troops were inside the safe house, Caine said, Maduro and his wife surrendered. Trump said the Venezuelan leader had tried to reach a safe room but was unable to close the door.
“He got bum rushed so fast that he didn’t get into that,” Trump said.
Some US forces were hit, Trump said, but none were killed.
As the operation unfolded, Rubio started to inform lawmakers that it was underway. The notifications only began after the operation started and not before, as is customary for key lawmakers who play an oversight role, officials told Reuters.
As the troops left Venezuelan territory, Caine said, they were involved in “multiple self defense engagements.”
By 3:20am EST, the helicopters were over water, with Maduro and his wife on board.
Almost exactly seven hours after Trump announced the operation on Truth Social, he made another post.
This time it was a photograph of the captured Venezuelan leader blindfolded, handcuffed and wearing grey sweatpants.
“Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima,” Trump wrote, referring to the amphibious assault ship.
• US president says ready to intervene if Iran kills protesters; Tehran warns intervention will put US troops, regional stability at risk
• Israel mounts online campaign urging Iranians to revolt; shares fake AI-generated videos, images
DUBAI: Donald Trump warned on Friday that the US was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran’s security forces killed protesters, prompting Tehran to caution that any intervention would destabilise the region already on edge as unrest spread across the country amid a spiralling economic crisis.
Clashes between demonstrators and security forces were reported in Iran’s several cities on Thursday, with at least six people said to have been killed in the first fatalities since protests over prices and the plunging rial escalated this week.
What began with shopkeepers striking in Tehran on Sunday has since rippled to at least 15 cities, largely in the west, in the most serious challenge to Iran’s clerical establishment since the nationwide protests of 2022.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump issued a blunt ultimatum. “If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” he wrote. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
The comments drew an immediate rebuke from Iran’s leadership. Supreme National Security Council head Ali Larijani warned that American involvement would threaten US forces in the Middle East.
“US interference in this internal matter would mean destabilising the entire region and destroying America’s interest,” Mr Larijani said in a post on the social platform X. ‘‘The US president “should be mindful of their soldiers’ safety”.
Other officials echoed the warning. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei scoffed at Trump’s offer to “rescue” protesters.
“Iranians will resolve their challenges through dialogue and mutual engagement, and will not permit any form of foreign interference,” Mr Baghaei said, citing the 1988 US downing of an Iranian passenger plane as evidence of American hostility.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s adviser Ali Shamkhani said Iranian security is a “red line” and any interventionist hand would be “cut”.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Iranian parliament speaker, wrote on X that if the US interferes, “all American bases and forces across the entire region will be legitimate targets”.
Israel backs protesters
While Tehran lashed out at Washington, it also faced an aggressive social media campaign from Israel. Israeli government accounts and officials publicly encouraged the demonstrators, framing the unrest as the beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic.
The Mossad’s official Farsi-language account posted on Monday: “Come together to the streets. It’s time. We are with you — not just from afar and in words. We are with you on the ground as well.”
Israel’s foreign ministry posted a cartoon on X depicting a lion and sun — symbols of pre-revolutionary Iran — crushing the current regime’s emblem. “The rise of Iranian lions and lionesses to fight against darkness,” the post read. “Light triumphs over darkness.”
Gila Gamliel, Israel’s minister of innovation, shared a video declaring that the protests by “mothers and fathers are justified”.
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli posted an image of a demonstrator waving the lion and sun flag, though some content shared by Israeli officials has faced scrutiny.
Several images and videos posted by Israeli accounts on social media platforms have been modified with the help of artificial intelligence tools.
One image posted by the Israel’s foreign ministry on X confirmed to have been manipulated using AI, according to detection tools.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly commented, reportedly to avoid giving Tehran an excuse to blame the unrest on “Zionist” meddling.
LAHORE: Gunmen on Friday attacked the convoy of Jhang Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Sheikh Fawad Akram — the brother of PTI Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram — leaving one of his guards dead and three others injured near Jhang’s General Bus Stand (GBS), said police.
Reports said the incident took place near a petrol pump near GBS, as Fawad was headed to his office.
The four security guards who were injured in the attack were rushed to DHQ Hospital. However, hospital authorities referred a critically injured guard to Faisalabad, but he succumbed to his injuries.
Jhang police, meanwhile, arrested four suspects, including two alleged gunmen and Fawad’s stepbrother, a statement from a police spokesperson read.
Police said that Fawad and his stepbrother were travelling in separate convoys when their vehicles collided with each other. The collision triggered a scuffle between guards from both groups.
The gunmen of another suspect, who was travelling with the stepbrother, allegedly opened fire on Fawad’s group, shooting four of his guards, the statement added.
Quoting Jhang District Police Officer Bilal Iftikhar Kayani, the statement read that strict action is being taken against the suspects and that “no concession would be made to those who challenge the law”.
“Turning a minor dispute into violence and firing is a threat to the peace of the society,” DPO Kayani was quoted as saying.
Recounting the incident on camera, Fawad said that he and his guards were unarmed at the time, as they were not allowed to carry weapons.
Meanwhile, Waqas issued a statement on his X account condemning the incident as a “cowardly and planned attack”.
“It is extremely alarming that a peaceful city, which had become a cradle of peace due to our collective efforts over the past several years, is today being dragged back into unrest due to a few miscreants and rogue elements,” Waqas wrote.
“I make an unequivocal demand from the Punjab Police that all suspects involved in the incident be arrested immediately, transparent and impartial investigations be ensured, and those responsible be given exemplary punishment in accordance with the law,” he added.
In a later statement, Waqas said that the deceased guard’s family blocked Gujranwala Road and placed his body in front of Jhang Civil Hospital.
“We stand with his family and will fully support him,” the PTI information secretary wrote. “We will never leave them alone—we will ensure Mohsin’s family gets justice and will knock on every door of justice.”
Reports said that over the past six months, Fawad’s stepbrother had joined hands with the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) to contest elections against Waqas and his father, provincial lawmaker Sheikh Muhammad Akram.
The GDA had also recently announced they would contest all future elections against the Sheikh family.
