• Party claims budget differs from figures shared during pre-budget consultations • Questions provinces’ capacity to meet IMF-linked revenue targets • Another round of talks expected soon
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday once again conveyed his concerns over the federal budget to Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, indicating that he would not speak during the ongoing budget debate in the National Assembly unless all of the party’s reservations were addressed.
“Bilawal sahib has decided that he will not deliver his speech unless all promises made by the government with the PPP regarding the budget are fulfilled,” a source close to the PPP chairman told Dawn after the meeting.
In the huddle with Dar held at Parliament House, Mr Bhutto-Zardari was accompanied by senior PPP leaders, including Sherry Rehman, Naveed Qamar, Raja Pervez Ashraf and Ijaz Jakhrani.
The source said Bhutto-Zardari appeared upset with the budget, stating that it was different from the document shared with the PPP. In fact, the government has shown us something different from what was presented in the National Assembly,” the source told Dawn. He added that another round of talks between Bhutto-Zardari and Dar was expected to be held soon.
Later, speaking to reporters after the meeting, the PPP leader expressed hope that their concerns would be addressed. “By the grace of Allah Almighty, our reservations will be addressed. We have again discussed the matter with Dar sb,” he said.
Responding to a question regarding the formation of a government in Gilgit-Baltistan after recent elections, Bhutto-Zardari expressed confidence that the PPP would form its government there.
Several rounds of talks had already taken place in recent weeks between the PPP leadership and the deputy prime minister on the budget issue.
Sources said the latest meeting indicated that either the government had not incorporated the PPP’s proposals or that key concerns remained unresolved.
The discussion also covered expenditure priorities, development spending, including the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), and broader economic issues such as fiscal sustainability, public welfare, development initiatives and inclusive growth.
The IMF has reportedly asked the federal government to introduce additional revenue measures worth around Rs430 billion in the upcoming budget, along with a similar amount expected from the provinces.
In this connection, the PPP asked Dar to suggest how provinces could increase their tax revenues. PPP leaders have opposed new taxes and hoped the government would change its approach to taxation to provide relief to the inflation-hit masses.
Another source told Dawn that the PPP team stressed during the meeting that the government should focus on broadening the tax base rather than exerting pressure on the same class.
Microsoft is changing how it charges for its software for the first time in two decades, moving to bill customers with a pay-as-you-go model each time they use its new AI agent.
The change, prompted by the soaring cost of artificial intelligence, came Tuesday as the company launched Copilot Cowork — an AI “agent” that can independently carry out office tasks like drafting documents, building spreadsheets and sending emails.
The tool still requires a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription, but now every task it runs is billed separately, based on how much computing power it consumes.
Copilot Cowork is Microsoft’s take on so-called “agentic” AI, a wave that has gripped Silicon Valley and turned the simple chatbot into an assistant capable of acting on a user’s behalf.
Like rival tools on Google’s and Amazon’s enterprise platforms, it can be handed an assignment and run with it on its own, sometimes for several hours.
Microsoft says one customer used it to compare nearly 4,000 documents in a matter of hours, and that the assistant can prepare complex meetings by synthesizing emails, internal documentation and calendars.
The reason for the new pricing comes down to cost: running these AI systems demands vastly more computing power than a search engine or a chatbot, and usage can vary widely from one user to the next.
The new plan will be “like you’re filling up your gas tank at the pump,” Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s executive vice president for Copilot and agents, told AFP.
Under the old system “there’s not one overarching user license that makes sense,” he said, given that different users consume widely varying levels of computing power.
The turn is a notable one for Microsoft, whose office software has relied for some two decades on fixed, predictable subscription fees.
“This is a big evolution for us … which has been a user subscription-based business for so long, for really like two decades,” Lamanna acknowledged, calling the new approach “the only way to make the model work.”
To guard against runaway bills, the service is disabled by default, and companies can cap spending per employee, per team or per department.
Microsoft is not alone in taking this route. Its programming subsidiary GitHub moved to usage-based billing in early June, sparking anger among developers, some of whom saw their bills shoot up.
Anthropic, one of the United States’ AI flagships, announced in early June that its newest cutting-edge models would soon be billed by usage rather than included in subscriptions, even premium ones.
Another way to ease the bill: users will be able to choose which model is used, more or less powerful and therefore more or less expensive.
At general availability, Copilot Cowork runs on Anthropic models, including Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 4.6, while customers on the “Frontier” tier can use the state-of-the-art GPT 5.5.
A “significantly cheaper” model, named Cowork 1, is coming soon for everyday tasks.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signalled his willingness to submit the recently negotiated Iran agreement to Congress for review, as lawmakers from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers demanded access to a deal whose full terms remain closely guarded.
Speaking during a meeting with United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in France, Trump suggested he had no objection to congressional scrutiny of the accord, which was announced over the weekend and is expected to formally be signed in Geneva on Friday by Vice President JD Vance.
“What I would like to do is send it to Congress and say, ‘You shouldn’t approve it.’ And they will approve it,” Trump said, appearing to joke about the review process.
The agreement, signed electronically on Sunday by Trump and Vice President JD Vance, is designed to end four months of military confrontation between Washington and Tehran and reopen the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz.
But the administration has yet to release the text of the memorandum of understanding, leaving lawmakers uncertain about the future of Iran’s nuclear programme, sanctions relief and verification mechanisms.
The secrecy surrounding the accord has triggered demands for greater transparency on Capitol Hill, where memories remain fresh of the bruising debate over the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated by President Barack Obama.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said lawmakers lacked sufficient information to judge the agreement.
“I don’t know enough about it to say” whether it is a good deal, Thune told reporters.
“My understanding of what it entails — again, not having seen anything — I think the issues are going to be compliance and, ‘How you’re going to enforce that and what are the financial incentives the Iranians are going to have from our country?’”
Republicans broadly welcomed the apparent diplomatic breakthrough, but several made clear that support would depend on the final details.
Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, called for lawmakers to be given the opportunity to examine the agreement before endorsing it.
“The MoU, I want to see it myself. The way Iran describes it is awful. The way we describe it makes sense to me. Let’s look at it and see what it actually is,” Graham said.
In a separate statement, he noted that any nuclear agreement with Iran would ultimately require congressional review and approval.
“Under our law, any nuclear deal with Iran will be sent to Congress for review and a vote. I look forward to reviewing the final product,” he said, adding that Vice President Vance and other negotiators should personally brief lawmakers.
The unease among some Republicans has been reinforced by analyses suggesting that the war failed to achieve its original objective of fundamentally weakening the Iranian state.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr argued that “the war’s initial aim — to deliver a death blow to the Islamic Republic — has proved unattainable.” Instead, they wrote, “rather than breaking Iran, the crucible of war has transformed it in unanticipated ways.”
Such assessments have added to concerns among conservatives who fear the administration may eventually settle for a framework that leaves key elements of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact while providing Tehran with significant economic relief.
Democrats, meanwhile, welcomed efforts to end the conflict but sharply criticised the administration’s decision to go to war in the first place.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer urged the White House to provide a full briefing to Congress and questioned the overall wisdom of the military campaign.
“There are still many unknowns about Trump’s negotiations with Iran. But we know this for certain: we are worse off than before Trump began this foolish war of choice,” Schumer said.
Senator Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that the proposed agreement appeared to offer fewer restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme than the Obama-era accord that Trump abandoned during his first term.
“So, we have spent billions of dollars. We’ve lost 14 personnel killed in action, hundreds wounded, and we’ve disrupted the world economy. And we’re getting basically less than what we had under the JCPOA, which President Trump walked away from,” Reed told Fox News.
Representative Seth Moulton, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was even more blunt, describing the emerging arrangement as “basically a surrender document” from Trump to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
“$100 billion of taxpayer money already put into this war, 14 Americans dead, and we get a deal that just reopens the strait that was already open before he started the war? How is that a win?” Moulton asked.
The Trump administration maintains that the agreement represents a significant diplomatic success, ending hostilities and restoring maritime traffic through one of the world’s most important energy corridors.
Yet many of the most contentious questions — including the fate of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile and the scope of sanctions relief — appear to have been deferred to follow-on negotiations expected over the next 60 days.
That uncertainty has left both supporters and critics awaiting details of a deal that could soon become the subject of a major congressional battle.
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution extending the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) until June 17, 2027, while highlighting concerns over Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, terrorism threats, human rights situation and regional stability.
The resolution, drafted by China and adopted by all 15 UNSC members, reaffirms the UN’s central role in supporting peace and stability in Afghanistan and maintaining engagement with the country’s de facto authorities and other stakeholders.
Although Pakistan is not mentioned by name in the text, several provisions of the resolution carry direct implications for Islamabad, particularly on refugee returns, regional security, counterterrorism cooperation and economic connectivity.
The Security Council directed Unama to support efforts to create conditions conducive to the “voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return and reintegration of internally displaced persons and refugees,” an issue of particular relevance to Pakistan, which continues to host a large Afghan refugee population.
The resolution also mandates Unama to facilitate dialogue involving Afghan authorities, regional countries and the wider international community, potentially creating an additional multilateral framework for regional engagement on Afghanistan.
On security issues, the council expressed “serious concern over the presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan, which continue to constitute a threat to international peace and security” and reaffirmed the importance of combating terrorism in the country.
The UNSC further called for regional and international cooperation to prevent and address the illicit trade in and destabilising accumulation of small arms and light weapons and their diversion in Afghanistan and the wider region.
The resolution stresses the importance of regional cooperation and connectivity and directs Unama to support efforts aimed at promoting peace, stability and economic development, priorities that neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, have repeatedly highlighted in discussions on Afghanistan’s future.
The Security Council voiced deep concern over Afghanistan’s economic and humanitarian conditions, describing the need to strengthen humanitarian assistance and support for basic human needs as critical to the country’s long-term self-reliance.
It reiterated the importance of ensuring “full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access for all people in need across Afghanistan” and tasked Unama with coordinating humanitarian assistance and strengthening cooperation among aid agencies operating in the country.
The mission was also directed to support efforts to facilitate access to assets belonging to Afghanistan’s Central Bank for the benefit of the Afghan people and to promote accountability, transparency and the effective use of aid.
A substantial portion of the resolution focuses on human rights, particularly the situation of women and girls.
The council expressed “serious concern regarding the increasing and widespread erosion of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, in particular for women and girls,” and said the absence of such rights and freedoms makes peace, stability and prosperity in Afghanistan unattainable.
It urged the reversal of policies and practices inconsistent with Afghanistan’s international human rights obligations and called for full access for Afghan women working for the United Nations to UN premises throughout the country.
The resolution further directed Unama to promote inclusive, representative and participatory governance and to support “the full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women” as well as the participation of minorities, youth and persons with disabilities.
Beyond its humanitarian and political responsibilities, Unama will continue to monitor and report on political and security developments, economic conditions, human rights, governance issues, the illicit economy, natural disasters, water scarcity and environmental challenges.
The UNSC requested the UN Secretary-General to submit reports every three months on the situation in Afghanistan and on the implementation of Unama’s mandate.
It also requested a strategic review of the mission by March 31, 2027, aimed at improving coordination across UN activities in Afghanistan, eliminating duplication and addressing challenges that could hinder implementation of its mandate.
The Security Council stressed the critical importance of maintaining Unama’s presence throughout Afghanistan and called on all Afghan stakeholders to ensure the safety, security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel across the country.
KARACHI: Two bureaucrats have been booked over an advance payment of Rs8.5 billion to contractors of the Yellow Line BRT project in an alleged case of misuse of authority, it emerged on Monday.
The Yellow Line is planned to connect Quaidabad’s Dawood Chowrangi with Numaish and will exclusively use electric buses to ensure it remains environmentally friendly.
The advance payment, which caused significant financial losses to the Sindh government, violated the contract, as the contractors were required to arrange financing from the commercial market.
The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has registered a first information report (FIR) against the then project director (PD) of the Karachi Mobility Project (KMP), Zameer Abbasi, its then director of procurement, Jhaman Das, and others on behalf of the state. The FIR was lodged by Inspector Mohammed Sher Zaman Awan of ACE District South.
The FIR was registered under Sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by a banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, a will, etc), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 477-A (falsification of accounts) of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with Section 5(2) of Act II of 1947 (the Prevention of Corruption Act), which pertains to punishment for criminal misconduct.
The case was registered on the basis of an inquiry conducted by the Chief Minister’s Inspection, Enquiries and Implementation Team Department (CMIE&ITD) into alleged financial mismanagement in the Karachi Mobility Project (KMP) for the Yellow Line, which is being implemented with assistance from the World Bank.
The inquiry focused on three construction contracts in particular: the New Jam Sadiq Bridge, Depot-I at Dawood Chowrangi and Depot-II at Indus Hospital.
“The project suffered from gross maladministration, blatant financial indiscipline, and both implicit and explicit losses to the government,” the FIR stated.
Referring to the record and statements, it said that “there is no denying the fact that the project’s financial management is marred with severe indiscipline to the extent of criminal negligence in connivance with the contractors”.
The “financial indiscipline [and] fraud” appeared to be in collusion with Jhaman Das, an employee of the Local Government Department, and the contractors were “in league with Zameer Abbasi in seeking the favours”, as per the official documents.
The FIR further claimed that it had been proven that the Assignment Account facility had been “grossly misused” by the two bureaucrats, which amounted to “corrupt practices, to say the least”.
It was pointed out in the official documents that there was no specific clause in the contracts for advance payment or financial assistance to the contractors.
“The contractors could have arranged financing through the commercial market instead,” the documents said. “It’s a clear contractual violation.”
Additionally, the “financial assistance” of Rs8.5bn was “unsecured and without any bank guarantee, seriously putting government interests in jeopardy”.
“This is a violation of public trust, financial indiscipline and favouring contractors at the cost of government loss.”
The documents further stated that “the financing cost of Rs1,250m (at 15 per cent) is an implicit loss to the government and undue profit to the contractors”.
“The accused persons, in connivance with each other, committed criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, preparation of false records, abuse of official position, blatant financial indiscipline, and caused both implicit and explicit losses to the government, resulting in wrongful loss to the public exchequer and wrongful gain to themselves,” the FIR alleged.
It was further stated in the FIR that the role of other persons involved in the project would be determined in due course during the investigation.
FOR a few hours on Saturday, it appeared that the long diplomatic effort led by Pakistan to end the US-Iran war was approaching its culmination.
President Donald Trump spoke of signing an agreement on Sunday, while Pakistani and Qatari mediators echoed the same with high confidence.
Interestingly enough, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also remarked that a deal had never been closer. Still, within hours, Tehran publicly pushed back against reports that a signing ceremony was imminent, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei making it clear that no agreement would be signed that day.
Still, as these lines were being written, it was not clear whether the delay was temporary or whether the negotiators were struggling to bridge differences that remain unresolved. Such uncertainty, in any case, isn’t unusual in diplomacy especially when it is taking place between arch rivals like the US and Iran.
MoU looks driven less by reconciliation than by exhaustion
Even so, the broad contours of the proposed arrangement are now sufficiently visible to assess what kind of agreement is taking shape and why it is generating sharply different reactions among the stakeholders.
The first point to understand is that the proposed memorandum does not appear to be a peace agreement in the conventional sense. It has not been, as per the details leaked so far, formulated to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme, settle issues pertaining to sanctions, address the regional balance of power, or settle the future of Iran’s regional partners and allies.
Instead, it is emerging as an armistice plus framework essentially prepared to stop escalation, reopen the Strait of Hormuz for restarting regional trade halted due to hostilities and create a structured negotiating process for unresolved disputes.
That distinction matters because the agreement is being driven less by reconciliation than by exhaustion of the warring sides. The emerging arrangement, therefore, looks less like a grand bargain and more like a temporary stabilisation mechanism reached after a costly confrontation in which neither side achieved enough to justify prolonging the conflict.
The most defensible reading of the draft texts and public statements available so far is that the agreement would establish a renewable 60-day truce built around a limited number of practical measures.
Those measures include the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, removal of obstacles affecting maritime traffic, gradual easing of the American blockade affecting Iranian shipping and ports, temporary sanctions waivers, partial release of frozen Iranian funds and the launch of a diplomatic process to address more difficult questions at a later stage.
Therefore, a conservative reading of the imminent deal is that its immediate objective is to restore stability in the Gulf rather than resolve the disputes that produced the war.
The nuclear issue
American officials continue to present the process as a pathway towards eventual dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program and disposition of its highly enriched uranium stockpile. Iranian officials, meanwhile, insist that the memorandum presently under discussion is focused on ending hostilities and restoring stability, while nuclear issues would be addressed separately at a later stage.
The available drafts appear to reflect this contradiction rather than resolve it. References reportedly exist to future discussions on stockpile management, downblending and longer-term enrichment restrictions, yet the same texts suggest that the nuclear file is effectively deferred until after the expected MoU takes effect.
Diplomatically speaking, it is a process agreement intended to create conditions under which such negotiations might later become possible.
The same caution applies to reports that the imminent MoU includes mutual non-attack guarantees and non-interference commitments in Iran’s domestic affairs by the US.
Economic terms
The economic component of the proposed MoU is equally important. According to details circulating in diplomatic and regional circles, Iran will reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial navigation without imposing transit tariffs on passing vessels, although it would be able to charge for ancillary services such as fuel, insurance, port support and environmental protection measures.
The arrangement would also create a pathway for the release of approximately $12 billion in Iranian assets frozen abroad, though not entirely in the form Tehran had originally sought. Iranian negotiators reportedly pressed for direct access to the funds, while the US wants a mechanism under which a substantial portion of the money would be used only for humanitarian purposes.
Draft texts circulating in diplomatic circles contain language relating to reciprocal restraint and respect for sovereignty. However, these provisions remain unconfirmed and should be best seen as draft level formulations rather than established commitments. Their inclusion, if it finally happens, would carry considerable political significance, particularly for Tehran, but one can only hope that they will survive into the final text.
These issues, besides others, may explain the reluctance by the relevant stakeholders despite visible diplomatic momentum.
Some commentary in Iran has attributed the objection to signing on Sunday to symbolism. Those pushing this notion suggest that Tehran may be reluctant to hand President Trump a diplomatic success on his birthday. Similar explanation has also been given for having the MoU digitally signed. Tehran doesn’t want to give a picture of peace deal signing to Trump, which he can flaunt around.
Symbolism undoubtedly matters in Iranian politics, where perceptions of dignity and resistance often influence political decision making. But as external observers, merely focusing on symbolism risks overlooking the more substantive debate already underway inside Iran.
The strongest resistance to the MoU is coming from conservative political circles and constituencies associated with the Revolutionary Guards, who are deeply concerned about the sequencing of concessions that Iran is believed to be giving to the US, especially with regard to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Their argument is relatively straightforward, which is that after reopening Hormuz, Iran will be left with reduced leverage, which it accumulated during the conflict as it would enter the main negotiations.
For many in Tehran, the memory of the 2015 nuclear agreement and the subsequent US withdrawal from it remains difficult to ignore. The central question raised by critics is therefore not whether diplomacy is desirable, but whether Iranian concessions are being front loaded while American obligations remain conditional and reversible.
This internal debate appears to be exerting greater influence on the timing of the agreement than procedural issues surrounding the signing of the MoU itself.
The intensive diplomatic activity that followed Tehran’s hesitation about signing on the day announced by Trump reflected the fear among mediators that a delay may lead to unexpected complications.
Flurry of diplomatic activity
Reports from multiple diplomatic channels suggest that both Pakistan and Qatar intensified contacts with Iranian officials after the statement that signing will not be done on Sunday.
Qatari engagement has been publicly acknowledged, while regional diplomats suggested that a late-night conversation between Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir and Araghchi on the issue also took place. Although not all such accounts have been independently verified, they illustrate the degree to which regional actors have become invested in securing an agreement. That investment is understandable because almost every regional actor sees potential benefits in stabilisation, even if their reasons differ.
Although the emerging agreement appears to promise wider regional de-escalation, the future of Hezbollah remains unresolved. Events over the past 10 days leave little doubt that any serious deterioration in the Israel-Lebanon theatre could quickly test the understandings currently being negotiated.
Ultimately, the significance of the agreement will depend less on the ceremony surrounding its signature than on the details contained in the final text. Those details will determine whether the memorandum becomes the starting point of a broader diplomatic process or merely a pause before another cycle of confrontation.
Germany won their first opening match at a World Cup since lifting the trophy in 2014 as they eased to a 7-1 win against debutants Curacao in their opening Group E match in Houston on Sunday.
The Germans will face stiffer tests against group rivals Ecuador and Ivory Coast but the win against the tiny Caribbean nation puts them in a good position to progress to the knockout stages for the first time since 2014.
An early German goal by Felix Nmecha was cancelled out by a deflected strike from Livano Comenencia which had the Curacao fans, known as the Blue Wave, out of their seats in Houston.
However, Nico Schlotterbeck, Kai Havertz with a double, Jamal Musiala, Nathaniel Brown and Deniz Undav scored to put to bed any possibility of one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history.
Germany settled early, Nmecha scoring a beauty in the sixth minute, receiving the ball from Florian Wirtz and curling the ball round a Curacao defender and past goalkeeper Eloy Room.
The goal had coach Julian Nagelsmann letting out a huge roar.
Nmecha, who like Musiala played for England at junior level before choosing Germany, went close minutes later with a rasping effort from outside the box.
German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who at 40 is the oldest German player ever to appear at a World Cup and is playing in his fifth global tournament, had had little to do until Comenencia struck with a shot which took a deflection.
While Germany’s ‘senior citizen’ shook his head ruefully, the oldest coach to ever appear at the finals, 78-year-old Dick Advocaat, was up out of his seat arms raised.
The drinks break allowed the Germans to regroup.
Soon after the restart Schlotterbeck’s header was brilliantly turned over the bar by Room.
The four-time world champions huffed and puffed round the Curacao goal, but time and again desperate defending frustrated the Germans.
However, the Curacao defence cracked in the 38th minute when an unmarked Schlotterbeck headed home from a corner for his first goal for his country.
The Germans went into the break with a two-goal advantage as Havertz stroked home a penalty after Nmecha had been brought down by Riechedly Bazoer.
Germany struck 69 seconds into the second half, Musiala running on to Joshua Kimmich’s pass and scoring from a tight angle.
It should have been 5-1 just after the hour mark but Leroy Sane sent his effort wide with only Room to beat.
Where Sane came up short Brown did not as the fullback fired home just before the second hydration break.
Substitute Undav made it six with his seventh goal in his last seven international appearances.
Havertz rounded it off with his 24th goal for Germany to replicate the same scoreline as they famously recorded against hosts Brazil in the 2014 semi-finals.
