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• German minister says move should spur Europeans as Pentagon announces withdrawal of 5,000 troops
• Two top US Republican lawmakers ​express ‘concern’ over decision
• Nato says it’s working with US to understand details of plan
• Transatlantic tensions simmer over Iran and tariffs

BERLIN: A planned drawdown of 5,000 US troops from Germany should spur Europeans to strengthen their own defences, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Saturday, as the continent scrambles to boost deterrence against Russia.

However, two top US Republican lawmakers expressed concern, saying the troops should not leave Europe.

The Pentagon announced the drawdown from Germany, its largest European base, on Friday, as a rift over the Iran war and tariff tensions place further strain on relations between the US and Europe.

As part of the US decision, a Biden-era plan to deploy an American battalion with long-range Tomahawk missiles to Germany has also been dropped — a blow to Berlin, which had pushed for the move as a powerful deterrent against Russia.

Republican lawmakers Senator Roger Wicker and Representative Mike Rogers, the chairs of the Senate and House armed services committees, said they were “very concerned”. They said the troops should not be moved from Europe, but moved east.

“Prematurely reducing America’s forward presence in Europe before those capabilities are fully realized risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to [Russian President] Vladimir Putin,” they said in a joint statement.

Pistorius said the partial withdrawal was expected and would affect a current US presence of almost 40,000 soldiers stationed in Germany.

“We Europeans must take on more responsibility for our own security,” Pistorius said, adding, “Germany is on the right track” by expanding its armed forces, speeding up military procurement and building infrastructure.

Trump called for a reduced military presence in Germany as far back as his first term and has repeatedly urged Europe to take responsibility for its defence. However, he stepped up the threat earlier this week after sparring with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has questioned Washington’s exit strategy in the Middle East.

Nato seeking details

A Nato spokesperson said the alliance was working with the US to understand the details of the decision.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country is seeking assurances of continued US support on Nato’s eastern flank amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, expressed concern about the latest setback to the alliance.

“The greatest threat to the transatlantic community are not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance. We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend,” Tusk wrote on X on Saturday.

The Pentagon decision means one full brigade will leave Germany and a long-range fires battalion that was due to be deployed later this year will be cancelled.

The long-range fires had been due to form a significant extra element of deterrence against Russia while Europeans developed such long-range missiles themselves.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2026

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Austrian police have arrested a man suspected of lacing jars of baby food with rat poison in what authorities presumed was an extortion scheme.

Police, cited by the APA news agency, said the suspect, aged 39, was apprehended in the state of Burgenland, south of Vienna. They did not name him nor say where exactly he was arrested.

He was charged with deliberately causing a public danger and attempted grievous bodily harm.

The arrest comes two weeks after Austrian authorities detected rat poison in baby food jars sold in some supermarkets. The jars were made by the German-based company HiPP, and German police became involved in the case.

Five tampered jars were recovered before they were consumed in the following days in Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Police said they believed the crime was carried out to extort the company, which put out a product recall in Austria.

One of the adulterated jars was bought in a Spar supermarket in Burgenland state, in the city of Eisenstadt. It was found to contain 15 microgrammes of rat poison.

Another jar sold in the same supermarket was suspected to have also been laced with poison, but it has not yet been recovered.

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ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Friday vowed to keep political influence out of more than 1,300 new appointments in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), two weeks after the country’s premier probe body advertised its largest hiring drive in years.

During a visit to FIA headquarters, Naqvi said “merit and transparency must be ensured at all costs” in the recruitment process.

His remarks came three days before the deadline for submitting online applications.

The promise of a merit-based process addresses a persistent concern for the FIA, which handles immigration, cybercrime, human trafficking and financial fraud cases.

The recruitment covers posts including assistant (BS-15), sub-inspector (BS-14), stenotypist (BS-14), upper division clerk (BS-13), lower division clerk (BS-11), assistant sub-inspector (BS-09), constable (BS-05), and drivers.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2026

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RAWALPINDI/LAHORE/KARACHI: Pakistan is confronting a stark weather dichotomy this week, as extreme heat scorches southern parts of the country while central and northern regions brace for widespread dust storms, rain, and potential landslides triggered by an incoming weather system.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) said that a fresh westerly wave is expected to approach the northwestern parts of the country on Saturday evening and would persist in the upper regions until May 5.

In sharp contrast, extreme heat has gripped much of Sindh. In Karachi, the maximum temperature is expected to rise to 39 degrees Celsius over the weekend, according to Chief Meteorologist Ameer Hyder.

Across the large swathes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the fresh westerly weather system is forecast to bring dust-thunderstorms and rain, with isolated heavy falls and hailstorms.

Chitral, Dir, Swat, Kalam, Shangla, Buner, Kohistan, Malakand, Battagram, Mansehra, Abbottabad, Balakot, Haripur, Mardan, Nowshera, Peshawar, Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, Khyber, Swabi, Charsadda, Kohat, Kurram, Hangu, Karak, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan and Waziristan are expected to witness thunderstorms, rains and hailstorms under the influence of the westerly wave from Saturday evening till Monday.

In Punjab and the federal capital, a similar weather pattern is forecast for the same period. “Dust-thunderstorm/rain with isolated hailstorm is expected in Murree, Galiyat, Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Attock, Chakwal, Jhelum, Khushab, Sargodha, Mianwali, Bhakkar, Faisalabad, Sahiwal, Jhang, Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Narowal,” the Met Office said.

Southern Punjab districts, including Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, and Rajanpur, are expected to witness rain-windstorms on May 3 and May 4.

The approaching system is also likely to affect Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir from the night of May 2 until May 5, bringing rain and wind-thunderstorms to Diamer, Astore, Skardu, Hunza, Neelum Valley and Muzaffarabad.

Parts of Balochistan, including Quetta, Ziarat, and Zhob, are also expected to see windstorms and thunderstorms from May 2 to May 4, while a dust-thunderstorm is predicted for upper Sindh on May 2 and May 3.

PDMA issues alert

Following the forecast, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) in Punjab issued an alert, directing the deputy commissioners of all respective districts to remain vigilant to address any “untoward situation” during and after the rains.

Both the PMD and PDMA have issued specific warnings and advisories. Authorities cautioned that windstorms, hailstorms, and lightning could damage weak structures such as electric poles, billboards, and solar panels.

Landslides could also take place in the “vulnerable areas of upper KP, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir on May 3 and May 4”, PMD said.

Farmers have been advised to manage their crops according to the weather conditions, as hailstorms and windstorms pose a threat to standing crops, particularly in KP and upper Punjab.

Moreover, the PMD has advised tourists and travellers to “remain extra cautious and avoid unnecessary travelling” during the forecast period. All relevant authorities have been instructed to remain on high alert and take necessary measures to prevent any loss of life or property.

Sindh districts sizzle at 46.5°C

Meanwhile, extreme heat has gripped much of Sindh, with the PMD reporting that the cities of Shaheed Benazirabad, Sakrand and Dadu topped the heat charts at 46.5 degrees Celsius on Friday. This was above the normal temperature by 2.8 degrees Celcius in Shaheed Benazirabad, 4.3 degrees Celcius in Sakrand and 3.8 degrees Celcius in Dadu.

In Hyderabad, temperatures crossed the 45 degrees Celcius mark. Meanwhile, Jacobabad hit 45 degrees Celcius.

Officials warned that persistent high temperatures could continue and urged residents to limit outdoor activity, stay hydrated and take precautions against heat-related illnesses.

As for Karachi, the city has seen a continued increase in daytime temperature over the week: from 35.2 degrees Celsius recorded on Wednesday to 36.1 degrees Celsius on Thursday and 37.5 degrees Celsius on Friday. “Over the next two days (Saturday and Sunday), we are expecting that it may go up to 38 to 39 degrees Celsius,” said Chief Meteorologist Ameer Hyder.

He said there was little chance of rain in the city before the monsoon.

Hyder called for conducting studies on the factors contributing to hot weather conditions in Karachi. “The most important one is the continued loss of green cover. The city has turned into a concrete jungle, and new plantations are hardly seen.”

The PMD noted that while neutral conditions persist for El Nino Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean Dipole, most global models suggest El Nino conditions are likely to emerge, with a 61 per cent chance, during the May-July period.

This could have further implications for weather patterns in the region, which typically sees its hottest months in May and June when temperatures in heat-prone areas can soar up to 52 degrees Celcius.

El Nino is a naturally occurring climate phenomenon that warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. It brings changes in winds, pressure and rainfall patterns.

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UNITED NATIONS: The escalating crisis in the Strait of Hormuz could push tens of millions into poverty, trigger a surge in global hunger and even tip the world toward recession, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday.

The closure of the vital waterway is “strangling the global economy,” the secretary general said in remarks to the press.

Guterres decried the restrictions on free passage through the strait, a crucial chokepoint, which he said is impeding the delivery of oil, gas, fertiliser and other critical commodities.

Even if restrictions on shipping and trade were lifted immediately, “supply chains will take months to recover, prolonging lower economic output and higher prices,” he said.

Setting out three possible trajectories for a world still reeling from the shocks of a pandemic and the war in Ukraine, Guterres said the best-case scenario would see global growth fall from 3.4 per cent to 3.1pc, with inflation rising to 4.4pc and trade slowing sharply.

If disruptions arising from Iranian attacks and threats and the US blockade of Iranian ports continue through midyear, the consequences would deepen significantly, he added.

Under that scenario, 32 million people would be pushed into poverty, 45 million more would face extreme hunger as fertiliser runs low and crop yields fall, and “hard-won development gains” could be reversed overnight.

In a worst-case scenario, where severe disruptions persist through the end of the year, “we confront the spectre of a global recession with dramatic impacts on people, on the economy, and on political and social stability,” he warned.

“These consequences are not cumulative. They are exponential,” Guterres stressed, cautioning that the longer the vital artery is choked, the harder it will be to reverse the damage.

Guterres highlighted diplomatic efforts underway to break the deadlock in the US-Iran talks.

“My message to all parties is clear: Navigational rights and freedoms must be restored immediately,” Guterres said. “Open the Strait. Let all ships pass. Let the global economy breathe again.”

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2026

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ON paper, the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) meeting convened for April 28 was about a routine administrative matter: the transfer of a few high court judges under Article 200 of the Constitution.

In reality, however, the proceedings evolved into a foundational clash over judicial accountability, the limits of administrative authority, and whether the Constitution permits a quiet correction of conduct without invoking formal removal mechanisms.

The extraordinary pre-meeting documentation — including recorded objections by Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi and a detailed report from the Islamabad High Court (IHC) — had already brought into the open a conversation that the superior judiciary usually handles behind closed doors: how to respond when a judge is perceived as professionally difficult, administratively overbearing or institutionally reluctant to hear certain cases.

The short answer, according to the report, is that Article 200 does not require reasons for a transfer. The more complex question now being weighed is whether a transfer can serve as a proportionate administrative response to conduct that falls short of impeachable misconduct under Article 209.

With IHC judges being transferred without formal proceedings or their consent, questions arise over judicial accountability and the limits of administrative authority

At the heart of the controversy lies a constitutional grey area. Article 200 empowers the president, on the recommendation of the JCP, to transfer a judge from one high court to another without requiring a formal inquiry. In contrast, Article 209 establishes the Supreme Judicial Council as a quasi-disciplinary forum for investigating incapacity or misconduct through a structured process.

The chief justice’s recorded objections — that the proposed transfers appeared “penal” in nature, deviated from a 2025 precedent based on federal representation, and could create administrative vacancies — were an attempt to introduce procedural safeguards.

The IHC report dismantles each ground with surgical precision, but in doing so, it raises a far more delicate question: if transfers are not penal, why was it necessary to record specific allegations of judicial reluctance, administrative interference and even a threat of imprisonment against a court officer?

That is the central tension. The report insists that Article 200 requires no reasons, yet it provides voluminous reasons — naming judges, including Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Babar Sattar, and detailing their alleged conduct.

For the careful observer, this is not a contradiction. It is a signal. The mover of the requisition is not hiding behind constitutional ambiguity; they are building a public record that the transfers are neither whimsical nor retaliatory but rooted in documented institutional dysfunction.

The report states that Justice Kayani, along with two other named judges, has “on various occasions, shown reluctance in hearing and finally adjudicating matters pertaining to taxation, fiscal liabilities and allied revenue disputes”.

Tax litigation, the document notes, frequently involves “substantial questions relating to public revenue, statutory interpretation, commercial obligations and fiscal governance, often concerning liabilities amounting to billions of rupees”.

No allegation in the response document carries more weight than the episode attributed to Justice Babar Sattar. To threaten a Deputy Registrar (Judicial) with imprisonment and lock-up “solely on account of the number of cases marked before the Bench” is not, by any measure, routine judicial demeanour. It touches the raw nerve of judicial administration, particularly the relationship between a judge and the court’s administrative machinery.

‘Victims of their own behaviour’

Legal experts note that such conduct, if proven, exists in a constitutional penumbra. It is unlikely to meet the high threshold of “misconduct” under Article 209, which has historically required evidence of corruption, moral turpitude or persistent disregard of judicial standards.

Yet, it is also not conduct that a chief justice or the JCP can comfortably ignore. The report’s solution is to treat it as a legitimate consideration for administrative reassignment — a transfer away from a court where that judge’s relationship with registry officers has, allegedly, become dysfunctional.

This is precisely what worries senior lawyers and bar associations. The Islamabad Bar Council’s statement, demanding a “structured, periodic and across-the-board rotation policy”, is not a naive call for bureaucracy.

It is an attempt to pre-empt exactly what is unfolding: case-specific, judge-specific transfers that, however well-intentioned, will inevitably be perceived as punitive by the judge in question and his supporters.

Perhaps the most revealing subtext of the current crisis is the absence of unanimity among the bar. The Islamabad Bar Council’s vice chairman and executive committee chairman issued a strong statement against the transfers, invoking “mala fide intent”.

But the council’s own chairman of the disciplinary committee, Hafeezullah Yaqoob, broke ranks spectacularly, stating that the transferred judges “became victims of their own behaviour” and that lawyers only require “patient hearing and respect”.

That public fracture within the bar is significant. For years, superior court judges have relied on an almost reflexive bar support whenever executive or judicial leadership moved against a colleague.

Yaqoob’s intervention suggests that a segment of the legal community, particularly practitioners who appear before the IHC on a daily basis, has grown weary of judicial conduct that makes their work harder: reluctance to hear tax or property matters, restrictive listing directions limiting benches to five or six cases a day, and open-court roster interventions that bypass institutional channels.

The response document explicitly cites these very issues: “directions…limiting matters to be fixed before certain Benches to only five or six cases per day” and “encroachment upon the administrative authority vested in the office of the Chief Justice”.

For the working lawyer facing backlogs measured in years, a judge who will not hear property disputes or criminal appeals is not a hero of judicial independence. He is a bottleneck.

The Islamabad High Court Bar Association adopted a more measured position, calling for transparency, uniformity and principled consistency without explicitly opposing the transfers.

Barrister Qasim Nawaz Abbasi, secretary of the IHCBA, said transfers should not be used as a tool for victimisation.

He added that if high court judges could be transferred on such grounds, then similar accountability standards should apply to the district judiciary, where complaints are often more serious.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2026

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Oil prices shot higher Wednesday on concerns of an extended blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, while Wall Street stocks mostly slid as investors awaited a US Fed rate decision and a slew of tech firm earnings.

Both main oil contracts jumped nearly six per cent after President Donald Trump warned Tehran on Wednesday that it should “get smart soon” and capitulate to Washington’s demands for tight controls on its nuclear programme, as a US naval blockade turned the screws on Iran’s economy.

Meanwhile, the United States could extend its naval blockade of Iran for months more, oil executives were told in a meeting with Trump, an administration official said.

Analysts warned that such a move would prompt Iran to maintain its own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the vital oil shipping route at a near standstill.

The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged later in the day, with markets closely watching its guidance on inflation as energy costs soar.

The dollar drifted higher against its main peers.

“The longer the conflict persists and the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, the more pronounced the inflationary pressures are likely to become,” said Anna Macdonald, investment strategy director at Hargreaves Lansdown.

International benchmark oil contract Brent crude for June delivery rose to $117.81 a barrel, its highest level since the fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran came into effect.

“The market is increasingly shifting towards a view that no longer expects a quick and lasting peace, nor an immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Global Risk Management.

Kathleen Brooks, research director at trading platform XTB, warned: “This is a new phase of the war in Iran, and we could now see oil prices go back to the March highs around $120 per barrel for Brent.”

With talks to end the Middle East war appearing to be at a standstill, investors’ attention turned to earnings updates.

Wall Street’s main stock indices were mostly lower in late morning trade.

“As with other financial markets, investors appear to be happy to sit on their hands ahead of tonight’s monetary policy announcement from the Federal Reserve’s FOMC, and as four constituents of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ prepare to release their latest earnings updates after the close,” said David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation.

Investors will be paying particular attention to spending on artificial intelligence by Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft — and whether it is translating into revenue.

“Given the outsized weighting of these companies in the index, and the enormous capital expenditure they have announced to build AI capabilities, these results will be closely watched by investors,” Hargreaves Lansdown’s Macdonald added.

Tech stocks took a hit on Tuesday following a report in the Wall Street Journal that ChatGPT-maker OpenAI had missed targets on user numbers and revenue.

Stock markets in London, Paris and Frankfurt finished in the red, despite some major companies spiking on strong earnings reports.

Shares in Swiss banking giant UBS jumped more than three percent as its net profit rose 80pc in the first quarter, beating expectations.

Strong quarterly profit growth led shares in German sportswear giant Adidas to jump more than eight percent in Frankfurt.

After a weak lead from Wall Street, Asian stock markets mostly rose Wednesday, with Hong Kong up more than one percent.

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