WASHINGTON: Pakistan is among the countries that could benefit from a new United States temporary licence allowing selected energy-importing nations to access Russian oil, diplomatic sources told Dawn.
The US has introduced a 30-day general licence issued by the US Department of the Treasury to ease immediate supply pressures in global crude markets and provide relief to energy-vulnerable countries.
Diplomatic sources said the arrangement may also apply to Pakistan, though they cautioned that Islamabad might not be able to fully take advantage of the concession due to limited technical capacity.
US offers 30-day relief to energy-vulnerable countries
They noted that Pakistan has not previously imported Russian crude at scale and may lack the refining infrastructure required to process such shipments. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on a social media post released on Monday that his department is issuing a temporary 30-day general licence to “provide the most vulnerable nations with the ability to temporarily access Russian oil currently stranded at sea.”
“This extension will provide additional flexibility, and we will work with these nations to provide specific licences as needed,” he wrote in a post on X. “This general licence will help stabilise the physical crude market and ensure oil reaches the most energy-vulnerable countries.”
Bessent added that the licence will also help reroute existing supply to countries most in need by “reducing China’s ability to stockpile discounted oil”.
Nigeria’s military on Tuesday said that joint airstrikes with the United States had killed 175 Islamic State (IS) fighters in the country’s northeast, including the militant group’s global second-in-command.
The remote region has been gripped by an extremist insurgency since 2009, first by Boko Haram, then its offshoot and rival, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
According to the United Nations, more than 40,000 people have been killed and two million others displaced.
US and Nigerian forces killed Abu Bilal al-Minuki, an IS leader described as the “most active terrorist” in the world, at a remote village in the northeast last weekend.
The Nigerian military said on Tuesday that 175 IS militants had so far been “eliminated from the battlefield”.
“The joint strikes have resulted in the destruction of ISIS checkpoints, weapons caches, logistical hubs, military equipment and financial networks used to sustain terrorist operations,” it added.
As director of global operations for IS, al-Minuki provided strategic guidance on media and financial operations and “the development and manufacturing of weapons, explosives and drones”, according to the Nigerian military and the US Africa Command (Africom).
After the announcement of al-Minuki’s death, Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu thanked his US counterpart, Donald Trump, for his “leadership and unwavering support”.
He said he looked forward to “more decisive strikes against all terrorist enclaves across the nation”.
Senior figures
According to Tuesday’s military statement, the operations in the last few days have killed other key IS figures.
They include Abdal Wahhab, said to be a “senior leader” of ISWAP, “responsible for coordinating attacks and distributing propaganda”.
Abu Musa al-Mangawi was said to be a high-ranking ISWAP member, while Abu al-Muthanna al-Muhajir was a “senior media production team manager and close confidant to al-Minuki”.
Boko Haram and ISWAP have recently stepped up their attacks on villages, police stations and workers such as loggers and fishermen, as well as military bases, causing the deaths of several civilians and senior army officers.
The upsurge in attacks prompted Tinubu to declare a nationwide state of emergency in 2025 and the US president to threaten Nigeria with military intervention.
Trump has claimed that Christians in Nigeria were being “persecuted” and victims of a “genocide” carried out by “terrorists”. The government in Abuja and most experts reject the claim and point out that the violence generally affects Christians and Muslims without distinction.
The US military, in coordination with the Nigerian authorities, carried out airstrikes on December 25 last year in the northwestern state of Sokoto, targeting what Washington called jihadists.
Northern Nigeria has been grappling with violence from criminal gangs known locally as bandits, who frequently carry out attacks on villages and mass kidnappings for ransom.
Africom has also taken action against IS and al-Shabaab militants in Somalia, intensifying airstrikes since the beginning of the year.
KARACHI: An individual involved in a fatal hit-and-run incident on a major Karachi thoroughfare remains on the run days after his vehicle hit another, killing one person and injuring two teenagers.
On Thursday, a video of the incident went viral on social media. It showed a speeding double-cabin vehicle ploughing into a small car on Karachi’s Abdul Sattar Edhi Avenue in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) area. The double-cabin vehicle hit the other car with such force that it spun around multiple times before coming to a stop on the side of the busy road. The speeding vehicle did not stop, and the individual fled the scene.
South Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Syed Asad Raza told Dawn that Darakhshan police had lodged a first information report (FIR) against the absconding driver of the speeding SUV, and further legal proceedings were underway.
According to the FIR, seen by Dawn, at around 12:05am on May 14, 2026, a speeding Revo vehicle collided with a car at the crossing of main Sea View road and Khayaban-i-Bukhari in DHA Phase 6, Karachi.
As a result, three people travelling in the vehicle sustained serious injuries.
The injured were identified as driver Suleman Saleem, 33, Ameer Owais, 17, and Hamza Walika, 19.
All the injured were immediately shifted to the hospital for medical treatment; however, driver Saleem succumbed to his injuries during treatment, the FIR said.
DIG Asad further told Dawn that police had impounded the Revo vehicle involved in the accident, while the driver had fled the scene and was still at large.
Speaking on Geo News programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’, DIG Asad said police could not confirm reports that the suspect had fled to Balochistan.
However, he did confirm that the suspect had a domicile of Nasirabad, Balochistan, and had been identified by police through the Safe City Project.
The senior police official added that permission from the provincial government would be sought and the process would be launched to ensure his arrest.
“Raids are being conducted at various locations for the arrest of the suspect driver, who will be apprehended soon,” assured the senior police official.
Earlier, two police personnel were martyred on Monday when a speeding dumper truck crashed into a police van parked on the M9 Motorway within the limits of the Gadap City police station.
Three motorcyclists were also killed by hit-and-run drivers last week in the DHA and Gulistan-i-Jauhar areas of the metropolis.
ISLAMABAD: Opposition lawmakers on Monday staged a protest on the National Assembly floor, demanding proper medical care for incarcerated PTI founder and former prime minister Imran Khan.
During today’s session, PTI members did not point out a lack of quorum as the session commenced, which was chaired by Deputy Speaker Ghulam Mustafa Shah.
As soon as the session progressed, the leader of the opposition in the lower house, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, stood at his seat and said that the deadline had expired and the government was not providing the required medical care to the former prime minister.
“We had given the government time until Monday to mend its ways in this regard and had announced that we would not be part of the proceedings,” he said, adding that the opposition would also boycott the budget session.
However, as he spoke, his voice was cut off and his speech was not broadcast on any official channel.
PTI lawmakers also gathered around the Speaker’s seat and raised slogans in favour of their leaders.
They also held a shadow proceeding of the House and designated Achakzai as the Speaker.
The protest also continued during the Question Hour.
As soon as the Question Hour ended at around 6:18pm, the PTI lawmakers left the House, and Shahid Khattak, along with a few other PTI members, pointed out a lack of quorum in the National Assembly; they also left soon after the counting began.
But the treasury members were more than the required 86 MNAs, so the session continued. The House also approved amendments to two laws.
The National Assembly is set to meet again on Tuesday morning.
Govt denies deportation of Pakistanis from UAE
Meanwhile, responding to a question by MNA Mussarat Rafique, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhary said that all reports regarding the mass deportation of Pakistanis from the UAE were “incorrect and false.”
“These are all social media creations. In fact, we have not received any complaint from any person regarding deportation from any country, specifically the UAE,” he said.
He added that there were persistent crime-related cases, and those convicted and imprisoned were being repatriated.
The minister said that a total of 9,233 labour-related complaints were received from Pakistani workers, as reported by Pakistani missions in the Middle East. These included 5,321 from Saudi Arabia, 1,310 from Bahrain, 850 from Oman, while the rest were from Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait.
In response to another question, the government informed the House that 164,788 Pakistanis had been deported from Gulf countries in the last five years.
These included 108,029 from Saudi Arabia, 40,497 from the UAE, 9,814 from Oman, 2,971 from Qatar, 2,779 from Bahrain and 698 from Kuwait.
A US jury on Monday ruled against Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, finding the artificial intelligence company not liable to the world’s richest person for having allegedly strayed from its original mission to benefit humanity.
In a unanimous verdict, the jury in Oakland, California federal court said Musk had brought his case too late.
The jury deliberated less than two hours.
The trial had widely been seen as a critical moment for the future of OpenAI and artificial intelligence generally, both in how it should be used and who should benefit from it.
Following the verdict, Musk’s lawyer said he reserved the right to appeal, but the judge suggested he may have an uphill battle because whether the statute of limitations ran out before Musk sued was a factual issue.
“There’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot,” US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said.
In his 2024 lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI, its Chief Executive Sam Altman and its President Greg Brockman of manipulating him into giving $38 million, then going behind his back by attaching a for-profit business to its original nonprofit and accepting tens of billions of dollars from Microsoft and other investors.
Musk called the OpenAI defendants’ conduct “stealing a charity.”
OpenAI was founded by Altman, Musk and several others in 2015. Musk left its board in 2018, and OpenAI set up a for-profit business the next year.
People use AI for myriad purposes such as education, facial recognition, financial advice, journalism, legal research, medical diagnoses, and harmful deep-fakes.
Many people express distrust of the technology and worry it could displace people from their jobs.
The verdict followed 11 days of testimony and arguments where Musk’s and Altman’s credibility came under repeated attack.
Each side accused the other of being more interested in money than serving the public.
In his closing argument, Musk’s lawyer Steven Molo reminded jurors that several witnesses questioned Altman’s candor or branded him a liar, and that Musk did not give an unqualified yes when asked during the trial if he was completely trustworthy.
“Sam Altman’s credibility is directly at issue,” Molo said. “If you don’t believe him, they cannot win.”
Musk accused OpenAI of wrongfully trying to enrich investors and insiders at the nonprofit’s expense, and failing to prioritize AI’s safety.
He also contended that Microsoft knew all along that OpenAI cared more about money than being altruistic.
OpenAI countered that it was Musk who saw dollar signs, and that he waited too long to claim OpenAI breached its founding agreement to build safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity.
“Mr. Musk may have the Midas touch in some areas, but not in AI,” William Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI, said in his closing argument.
OpenAI competes with AI companies such as Anthropic and xAI, and is preparing for a possible initial public offering that could value the business at $1 trillion.
Microsoft has spent more than $100 billion on its partnership with OpenAI, a Microsoft executive testified.
Musk’s xAI is now part of his space and rocket company SpaceX, which is preparing a IPO that could exceed OpenAI’s in size.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not wrong to say that Pakistan’s power sector subsidy regime needs reform. Any serious policy practitioner knows that the present tariff structure is fiscally expensive, administratively weak, and vulnerable to misuse. But the IMF is wrong in how it has framed the problem, sequenced the solution, and identified the culprit.
Under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility, the government has committed to replacing the budgeted electricity tariff differential subsidy and cross-subsidy system with a targeted subsidy framework for low-income consumers, to be disbursed through the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) by the end of January 2027. On paper, this sounds neat. In practice, it risks becoming another exercise where the poor are asked to pay for the sins of the power sector’s political economy.
Firstly, the IMF’s core assumption is analytically weak. It argues that better-targeted subsidies will reduce incentives for higher-income consumers to overconsume electricity. But Pakistan’s protected consumer category is not an overconsumption subsidy. It is a volumetric survival threshold. Consumers with fewer than 200 units are not being encouraged to consume more; they are being forced to consume less.
A household that watches its meter like a patient watches blood pressure, avoids using fans excessively in June, delays ironing clothes, limits refrigeration, and fears crossing the 200-unit line is not overconsuming electricity. It is under-consuming modern energy in a climate-stressed country.
Electricity misuse should be addressed through targeted administrative correction, not blunt subsidy removal.
Secondly, there is no publicly available distributional analysis showing who will lose, who will gain, and by how much once tariff-based subsidies are replaced by BISP-linked transfers.
Electricity poverty is not identical to income poverty. A household may be poor but excluded from BISP. A tenant may pay the bill while the meter is registered in the landlord’s name. A joint family may consume more than 200 units because eight people live under one roof, not because they are affluent. A household with elderly patients, students, or heat-exposed workers may require more electricity than its poverty score suggests. A reform that ignores these realities will look clean in a spreadsheet but cruel on the ground.
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Thirdly, yes, there is misuse in the present system. Multiple meter installations are used in some cases to artificially split consumption and remain within protected slabs. This is a genuine governance problem. But misuse should be addressed through targeted administrative correction, not blunt subsidy removal.
The government should use CNIC mapping, premise-level verification, geographic information system tagging, power distribution company audits, smart metering for abnormal consumption patterns, and a “one protected connection per genuine household” principle with due process.
Fourthly, the IMF’s claim that subsidy removal will reduce theft is also questionable. Theft is not primarily a subsidy problem; it is a governance problem. It is linked to weak enforcement, political protection, poor metering, high-loss feeders, and distrust between consumers and distribution companies.
If tariffs rise sharply for vulnerable households while cash transfers are delayed, inadequate, or poorly targeted, the incentive for theft may actually increase. The system may end up producing exactly what it claims to prevent.
Fifthly, the industrial tariff argument deserves more honesty. It is true that cross-subsidies have burdened industry and hurt competitiveness. Pakistan cannot build exports on electricity tariffs that punish production. But the solution is not to remove household protection and merely hope that industrial tariffs will fall.
The government must transparently show how much industry will benefit, which sectors will gain, whether employment will rise, and whether export competitiveness will improve. Otherwise, subsidy removal becomes another policy ritual in which pain is immediate, benefits are promised, and accountability disappears into the fog.
Sixthly, the IMF is silent on the real elephants in the power sector: Independent Power Producers, capacity payments, underutilised plants, expensive contracts, imported fuel exposure, and poor planning. Pakistan’s power purchase cost is increasingly dominated by fixed capacity payments rather than actual energy consumed.
In plain terms, consumers are not only paying for electricity; they are paying for plants that often sit idle. This is the architecture of unaffordable power. Blaming protected consumers for the crisis is like blaming the dinner guest for the mortgage on the banquet hall.
Seventhly, real reform must begin on the cost side. Pakistan needs a transparent audit of generation contracts, capacity obligations, fuel indexation, plant utilisation, dispatch constraints, and transmission bottlenecks. It must renegotiate where possible, refinance where feasible, and retire or repurpose where necessary.
Imported coal and inefficient thermal assets should be considered for early retirement through climate finance, debt reprofiling, and carbon-credit mechanisms. A coal-to-clean strategy can reduce emissions, lower future capacity burdens, protect workers, and convert stranded liabilities into transition assets. If a climate-linked IMF facility cannot support such structural reform, then one may reasonably ask: what exactly is climate finance for?
The verdict is straightforward. Pakistan does need subsidy reform, but not blind subsidy removal. Reform must be evidence-based, distributionally tested, administratively realistic, and socially protective.
The 200-unit consumer is not the villain of Pakistan’s power sector. The real villains are expensive capacity, rigid contracts, weak governance, high losses, and delayed reform. The IMF must stop chasing ants while elephants roam freely in the power room.
The writer has a doctorate in energy economics and serves as a Research Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has termed Pakistan’s emergence as a key mediator between the US and Iran as a “shining moment in our history”, crediting the “political-military partnership” for the change in the country’s image internationally.
The premier made these remarks during an interview with The Sunday Times, as Islamabad remained engaged in efforts for de-escalation between the US and Iran.
“It’s one of the shining moments in our history. Pakistan is acknowledged worldwide as an honest mediator and as a country in which international leadership has full trust and faith. It’s our shining hour, and I feel a very proud Pakistani — as do 240 million Pakistanis,” he was quoted as saying in the interview published on Saturday night.
The PM’s expressed optimism even as military pressure and fears of renewed confrontation continue to shape the conflict that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.
While a deal for a complete end to the war is yet to happen, hostilities have largely ceased since the two sides agreed on a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire on April 8. Following the ceasefire, a first round of historic direct US-Iran talks was held in Islamabad on April 11 and 12, with Pakistan playing the role of a mediator. The talks had ended without an agreement, but also without a breakdown.
With challenges in convening a second round, Islamabad continues its peace efforts. The latest development on this front is Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s visit to Iran, where he has held meetings with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Parliament Speaker Bagher Ghalibaf.
Diplomatic sources said the visit was linked to Pakistan’s continuing efforts to revive the stalled Iran-US peace process after President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s latest response to American proposals.
In his interview with The Sunday Times, PM Shehbaz said he was “hopeful” of a second round of direct talks between the US and Iran, leading to lasting peace.
“By a stroke of good luck, we have been placed in this prestigious position,” he said.
“Fortunately, Iran trusts Pakistan as does the US administration — and also the Gulf states — and I’m grateful to Presidents Trump and Pezeshkian for accepting our invitation,” he added.
The PM said Pakistan’s efforts for peace were ongoing, adding that “peace is never won easily”.
“You have to have patience, sagacity and ability to move things despite the most difficult challenges.
“As we speak, we’re still doing our best to ensure that this peace effort achieves a long-lasting peace through another session here in Islamabad, and we are hopeful that will happen,” he said.
He further noted, “Our international image has completely changed through this partnership of our political and military hierarchy.”
The premier went on to praise Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, saying: “What we are seeing is team efforts of the political and military leadership. I must acknowledge that the Field Marshal has played a critical role, which will be recorded in history.”
He also commended the efforts of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who he said had been “engaging his counterparts and making untiring efforts”.
He was also asked recent border tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and reports of civilians’ killing in Afghanistan in attacks by Pakistan — an allegation that Islamabad has denied.
In his reply, PM Shehbaz said, “Our country is facing an onslaught of terrorism again despite our best efforts — whether it’s from Kabul, the TTP, the BLA and other externally sponsored proxies.”
He added, “With Afghanistan, we had no other choice but kinetic action against terrorist hideouts and support infrastructure. We have lost hundreds of police and soldiers. What do you do? We sent peaceful messages to Kabul, telling them we have to stay neighbours forever, we share a boundary spanning over 2,000km and that if there is peace, there will be prosperity for both of us.
“Those messages have been conveyed to Kabul not once but dozens of times. Our only demand was that they commit not to let those terrorist outfits operate from Kabul.”
The PM further stated, “What should we do? Have lunch or dinner with them while our innocent people are being killed? It’s our unwavering commitment to wash the stigma of terrorism from the face of this country. It’s a war we are fighting not just for Pakistan but the world over.”
