UAE’s new traffic rules from January: five-car cap, child seats, nine-hour limit

What changes for drivers, delivery riders and e-scooter users under regulations taking effect on January 1

19 minutes ago

US midterms 2026

Live results

Senate51 for control, 50 for Republicans

54Democrats

44Republicans

House218 for control

240Democrats

147Republicans

The seven Senate toss-ups

Michigan6am

Abdul El-Sayed

Mike Rogers

Texas6am

James Talarico

Ken Paxton

Maine6am

Troy Jackson

Susan Collins

Ohio5:30am

Sherrod Brown

Jon Husted

Iowa7am

Josh Turek

Ashley Hinson

Kansas6am

Adam Hamilton

Roger Marshall

Alaska10am

Mary Peltola

Dan Sullivan

Seats follow race calls by US election desks and are not official results. The Senate count starts from the 65 seats not on the ballot. Democrats include independents who sit with them. Poll-closing times are Pakistan time, Wednesday. Full results and coverage

Ask Pakistan. Get the proof.

Every answer from Thursday Times reporting and the official record. On WhatsApp too.

Featured

Cristiano Ronaldo in a red Portugal shirt and captain’s armband, chesting a football

Cristiano Ronaldo retires from Portugal after 23 years, 234 caps and 146 goals

The 41-year-old hands back the number 7 shirt, weeks after walking out of the national camp

3 hours ago

Illustration of a wooden armchair split by a jagged orange crack, with one broken leg

Occupied Kashmir’s ruling party is cracking over a promise it cannot keep

Aga Ruhullah’s exit is about Article 370, but also about how little power an elected government holds in Srinagar. Pakistan should read it carefully, and not overread it

7 min read

Illustration of a missile rising from an orange trail that begins as the flame of a gas stove

The Fa’az shows what Pakistan can do when it stays the course

The first homegrown air-to-air missile is a real achievement. On the day gas went on a timetable, its lesson of patience belongs in the energy sector too

7 min read

More stories

Illustration of an old black telephone on a tied stack of files, with an orange bill tag hanging from the handset

Twenty years is long enough to wait for $800m

9 min read

Illustration of a form on a clipboard with an orange tick, beside a house with a padlock on its door

Missed the tax deadline? Form ATL-U can save you the Rs25,000 charge

4 hours ago

Illustration of a robotic arm over an operating table, linked by a dotted signal to a distant control console

Pakistan’s first robotic telesurgery performed in Islamabad, university says

5 hours ago

The arched Mughal-era Akbari Gate of Lahore Fort, with weathered walls and a brick tower beside it

Lahore Fort’s Akbari Gate restored after being shut since British rule

5 hours ago

The domed towers of the red-brick Lahore High Court building among trees

FIA can’t pursue wilful default until a banking court rules, LHC says

6 hours ago

Two blue whales at the surface seen from the air, one sending up a tall blow

Blue whale found dead on Gwadar’s East Bay after two days off the coast

6 hours ago

The Shah Allah Ditta caves, with old stone walls built into a rock face in the Margalla foothills

Preservation work finished at Islamabad’s Shah Allah Ditta Buddhist caves

7 hours ago

Illustration of a smartphone showing an official-looking notice crossed out in orange

No, the PTA has not banned TikTok: viral notification is fake, regulator says

7 hours ago

Illustration of orange headphones resting on an open book

Spotify audiobooks reach Pakistan: what you get and what it costs

8 hours ago

Where the paper stands.

015 November9 min read

Twenty years is long enough to wait for $800m

Pakistan is still owed about $800m for PTCL, over 32 properties worth a fraction of that. Arbitration is the right step, if the state fixes its own file and sets a deadline

The money withheld is roughly nine times what Pakistan’s own valuers say the missing properties are worth.

Ten years on, Modi’s note ban has little to show for the pain

A decade after 86% of India’s cash was cancelled overnight, its own figures show cash, corruption and election money are all still there

4 min read
A falling oil price is not an energy policy

Oil’s sharp fall on hopes of an Iran deal is a welcome reprieve. Pakistan should spend it on storage, a pricing rule, a fairer levy and the solar shift its people have already begun.

7 min read
Four fiefdoms and a flag

Pakistan's four provinces are not an administrative map. They are four estates, kept intact by the men who profit from the distance between citizens and the state.

8 min read

The news, taken apart.

014 November5 min read

Why Congress changing hands won’t rewrite US-Pakistan ties

A Republican still walks the White House corridors and America’s shared interests with Pakistan have not moved. Any promise of relief for Imran Khan from a Democratic majority will fail, just as the last one did.

“What moved policy each time was what Washington needed in the region, and whether Pakistan could help provide it.”

Why Afghanistan is called a global hub of terrorism

UN monitors, US intelligence and Russia all warn of terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan, as Pakistan becomes the country most affected by terrorism.

9 min read
Through the Maldives, Pakistan stakes a claim to a bigger Indian Ocean role

A maritime security pact signed during President Muizzu’s visit gives Islamabad a foothold in waters New Delhi has long treated as its own backyard.

4 min read
With Badr, four Muslim powers bet on building their weapons together

Signed in Doha with little fanfare, the Badr memorandum joins Turkish factories, Qatari capital, Pakistani scale and an Indonesian market. Read as industrial policy rather than a pact, it may matter more than it looks.

7 min read

Words by
Dr Muhammad Bux Dharejo

Sehat Dehleez is Balochistan’s healthcare breakthrough

Free consultations, e-prescriptions, referrals and family health records on one public platform: Balochistan has built a model the rest of Pakistan can learn from.

Words by
Abdullah Esquire

Rethinking Musharraf

I grew up in a PML-N house where the general was the villain of every story. Fifteen years on, I've stopped believing it.

Words by
Raza Butt

Fazl’s quarrel with the establishment: principle, or political exclusion?

He spent a career negotiating at the table of power. Now, locked out of the room, Maulana Fazlur Rehman has begun to sound like the man he helped remove.

Words by
Raza Butt

The politics of collective security

The strongest defence of the Haramain would be one that keeps the turbulence of the region far from their gates. That is more than deterrence; it is stewardship of a trust larger than any single state.

T:NUMBERS

Pakistan in Numbers

The prices and figures behind your bills and savings, kept up to date.

See all the numbers

How Pakistan lives.

Iqbal Day long weekend: banks shut for three days, so sort your cash early

Westline

How markets and wars dictate society.

Read Westline

London

The backlog Britain built

Ministers of both parties have spent a decade blaming the people in the queue. The numbers point at the people running it.

Abdullah Esquire

London

The Tories edge past Reform, but credibility is the real fight

Abdullah Esquire

Washington

Trump’s infatuation with Munir is a love letter to charisma

The Editorial Desk

London

Every Starmer stumble brings Kemi closer

TT Monitoring Desk

Sultan Al Jaber on a stage screen at ADIPEC beside a graphic reading 1 billion barrels drained from global inventories

Hormuz crisis has drained nearly a billion barrels from world oil stocks, ADNOC chief says, as shipping hits 30% of a barrel’s cost

“The world has eroded its supply buffers,” Sultan Al Jaber tells the ADIPEC energy conference in Abu Dhabi, with diesel stocks at a 35-year seasonal low in some markets

2 November 2026

AI now ‘mostly smarter’ than top scientists, Sam Altman tells ADIPEC as ADNOC signs OpenAI deal

OpenAI chief says there must be “no room for debate” over human control, and names energy as the one challenge he faces today

2 November 2026

Sam Altman, Sultan Al Jaber and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled with others at the signing of the ADNOC, OpenAI and G42 partnership in Abu Dhabi

Binance freezes assets after $6.3 billion breach in what may be biggest crypto heist ever

The exchange suspended deposits and withdrawals and says it will cover all losses, as an analytics firm blames North Korea’s TraderTraitor unit and bitcoin slides to a six-week low.

30 October 2026

Binance co-chief executive Richard Teng, a former head of Abu Dhabi Global Market’s financial regulator, speaks at Binance Blockchain Week in Istanbul. — FILE/THE THURSDAY TIMES

Grey smoke rises over the towers of an oil refinery in a desert landscape

Aramco profit jumps 34.5% to $36.25bn despite attacks and lower output

Higher oil prices and a joint venture exit lifted the Saudi oil giant’s earnings, even as the Iran war cut its output and its facilities came under fire.

3 November 2026

A Patriot missile launcher silhouetted against the setting sun

Saudi-led coalition intercepts Houthi ballistic missile after strikes on Yemen’s Ras Isa port, as Houthis threaten Aramco

Civil defence alerts were issued and lifted across southern Saudi cities, while Houthi media say seven people were wounded in coalition strikes in Hodeidah province.

2 November 2026

A huge column of black smoke rises over an industrial site in Dammam

Huge fire at Dammam industrial complex after reported Yemeni strike, Iranian state media says

Saudi authorities have not commented on the claim about a strike in the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province.

1 November 2026

Field Marshal Asim Munir and other officers view a display of rifles at SSG headquarters in Tarbela

Field Marshal Munir visits SSG headquarters in Tarbela

He paid tribute at the Shuhada Monument and said indigenous capability and preparedness were essential

1 hour ago

NUST leads 90 Pakistani universities in QS Asia rankings, at 76th

Quaid-i-Azam University is 111th and LUMS 143rd, and NUST ranks second in Southern Asia

1 hour ago

The NUST campus in Islamabad under a cloudy sky, with a palm-lined road running past its buildings

Saudi envoy assures Pakistani workers of visas within 24 hours

The promise came in a meeting with Minister Salik Hussain, and details of how it will work are still to come

2 hours ago

Illustration of a passport beside a clock with an orange segment on its face

Field Marshal Asim Munir meets Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu in Islamabad on Wednesday. — FILE/THE THURSDAY TIMES

Asim Munir and Maldives’ Muizzu agree to deepen defence cooperation

The army chief met the Maldivian president in Islamabad on the second day of the first visit by a Maldivian head of state in 11 years, as the two countries signed a defence and maritime security pact.

21 October 2026

Foreign ministers, defence ministers and military chiefs of Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia at the first meeting of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement’s Strategic Political and Defence Committee in Istanbul. — FILE/THE THURSDAY TIMES

Makkah defence pact text shows a ten-year lock-in and a Pakistani first in line to run its secretariat

The 16-article agreement between Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia treats an attack on one as an attack on all, bars withdrawal for a decade and gives Pakistan the first turn as secretary-general.

21 October 2026

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, beside Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, after the three signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement on August 7. — FILE/THE THURSDAY TIMES

Türkiye plans parliamentary mandate to deploy military personnel to Saudi Arabia

An AK Party lawmaker told Reuters the request would follow ratification of the Makkah defence pact, which Ankara sent to parliament on Tuesday. There has been no official confirmation from Ankara, Riyadh or Islamabad.

21 October 2026