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State of confusion

FROM the looks of it, America has no exit strategy to extricate itself from the disastrous war with Iran. US President Donald Trump has alternated between issuing bombastic threats to the Iranians, to claiming that peace was at hand, sometimes making a sharp U-turn within hours. This is not how responsible statecraft plays out. In the past, he had threatened to destroy Iranian civilisation, while more recently he said the US was ready to use “Military Terror … not seen since World War II” against the Islamic Republic. In his latest pronouncement, the US leader has given Iran a “last chance” to choose between a “deal [or] total surrender”. The five-month-old war has shown that the Iranians have mostly remained unfazed by Mr Trump’s threats. The chaos at the White House is understandable. Mr Trump jumped headfirst into the war on Feb 28 at Israel’s persuasion, without doing his homework. Perhaps if he had studied the mistakes his predecessors had made i...
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Cotton production jumps 32 per cent

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Textile mills have become reliant on imports amid falling cotton output.—PPI/file LAHORE: Phutti (seed-cotton) arrivals at ginning factories rose by more than 32 per cent year-on-year by July 31, driven by a sharp increase in Sindh despite a slight decline in Punjab, according to the figures released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) on Monday. The PCGA fortnightly report revealed that phutti arrivals reached 785,822 bales by July 31, up 32.33pc from 593,821 bales received during the corresponding period last year. It showed that Punjab’s arrivals stood at 298,150 bales, down 1.1 per cent from a year earlier, while Sindh recorded 487,672 bales, marking a record 66.82pc increase despite recent monsoon rains. Balochistan also posted a 52.67pc rise in arrivals to 22,900 bales. Cotton Ginners Forum Chairman Ihsanul Haq pointed out a significant discrepancy between the PCGA figures and the Punjab government’s Crop Reporting Service (CRS). While...
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At least 3 killed in rain-related incidents across Punjab; parts of Lahore inundated

LAHORE: At least three people were killed and three others injured in rain-related incidents across Punjab on Monday, while torrential monsoon rains inundated roads and low-lying neighbourhoods in several cities, disrupting traffic, restricting public movement and causing urban flooding. The Flood Forecasting Division (FFD) of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) on Saturday forecast heavy to very heavy rainfall across parts of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan until Aug 4. According to a loss and damage report by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), a man was killed and another injured when a house collapsed in Uch Sharif area of Bahawalpur district, while two children drowned in Khushab. Two more people were injured in separate roof collapse incidents in Mandi Bahauddin and Lodhran. The report also recorded a house damaged in Bahawalpur. Separately, authorities reported nine deaths in incidents not directly linked to rain or flooding. These included the drown...
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Myanmar's detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi meets Red Cross official

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Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday, after years of questions over the health and well-being of the 81-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner. Suu Kyi has been in detention since February 2021, when an elected civilian government led by her was ousted by Myanmar’s military in a dawn coup, plunging the impoverished Southeast Asian nation into turmoil. Since then, Suu Kyi’s exact whereabouts and health condition have been difficult to determine, with no foreign leader or envoy having publicly met with her despite requests for contact from countries in the region that have excluded Myanmar’s leadership from their summits. Suu Kyi met with Arnaud de Baecque, Resident Representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Myanmar, in the capital Naypyitaw on Monday, government spokesperson Khine Khine Soe said in a message via Telegram. The ICRC confirmed that a delegate had met with...
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Widening cost of conflict

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When a memorandum of understanding (MoU) intended to bring the Iran war to a formal close within sixty days was announced on June 14, the world, particularly Asian economies dependent on Gulf oil, breathed relief. The Strait of Hormuz, which had been largely shut to shipping since late February, seemed to be slowly reopening, and oil prices retreated from their crisis peaks. The damage the conflict had inflicted on Asian economies — on growth, household budgets, and government finances — appeared to be contained as the ceasefire, no matter how fragile, between the US and Iran spawned hopes of a lasting peace in the region, which supplies around 90 per cent of energy to the Asian economies. But, barely a month into the ceasefire, fresh hostilities broke out between the US and Iran. Though Pakistan and other mediators have kept pushing both to return to the MoU — a 14-point framework under which Washington and Tehran agreed to halt hostilities and reopen H...
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PML-N poised to grab lion’s share in AJK

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RAWALPINDI: People receive ballot papers from election officials as they wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Millat Colony, during the second phase of elections to the AJK Legislative Assembly.—Online • Initial tally shows ‘N’ leading second phase of elections • PPP set to win two refugee, two territorial seats; alleges widespread rigging • Polling in two constituencies postponed till tomorrow • Sporadic violence hits AJK capital • Bilawal says PML-N ‘crossed all limits’, accuses party of using violence • Azma eyes victory, says voters ‘deeply impressed’ by Maryam’s performance as CM MUZAFFARABAD: The PML-N appeared in a comfortable position to consolidate its lead over the PPP in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly after unofficial results from the AJK polls’ second phase showed it ahead in most contests, including the refugee seats spread across Pakistan. By late Sunday night, the Election Commission ha...
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At Nepal school, outpouring of grief for climber Nirmal Purja

As rescuers recovered the body of climbing legend Nirmal Purja on Sunday, grief rippled hundreds of kilometres away in Nepal at the school where he first displayed the grit that would make him world-famous. At the Small Heaven School in Chitwan district, friends, teachers and students gathered around a framed photograph of the 43-year-old British-Nepali climber, adorned with flowers. Lighting candles, they shared with AFP their memories of the boy they knew long before he became one of the most celebrated figures in modern mountaineering. “When he was missing, we were praying for him and spent sleepless nights,” Dhiraj Bahadur Panta, a school friend of Purja, told AFP , his voice quivering with emotion. “It was not only me and my friends. I think people all over the world who knew him… prayed for him. But it was his fate; no one could avoid it.” Purja was killed alongside nine other climbers after they were caught in a deadly avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak on Thursday. News ...
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