A Voice of the Unheard Saturday, September 12, 2026
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is pressing ahead with its mediation between Washington and Tehran even as the diplomatic framework it built has expired and American sanctions pressure closes in on Islamabad itself. Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, accompanied by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, spent Monday on a daylong...
COLOMBO: The war in the Gulf has arrived in Sri Lanka’s tea ledgers. Exports of Ceylon Tea fell sharply over the first seven months of 2026, with shipping disruption across the Middle East compounding weaker demand in several key markets and contributing to a $67 million decline in export earnings. Tea exports during January–July dropped...
DHAKA: Bangladesh has signalled it is prepared to join the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye should the founding members extend a formal invitation, in what would mark a significant realignment for a country that has long avoided rival geopolitical blocs. Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman told parliament on Thursday that Bangladesh’s...
NEW DELHI: Five weeks after the Cockroach Janta Party folded up its tents at Jantar Mantar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still absorbing the political cost of the most serious public challenge of his third term. The movement began with an insult. On May 15, 2026, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant compared unemployed youth...
KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban government has outlawed public protest across the entire country under a sweeping new police law, in what rights organisations are calling one of the harshest measures imposed during five years of Taliban rule. The legislation — known as the “shurta” law, using the Taliban’s preferred term for police — was approved by...
KATHMANDU: The death toll from the catastrophic glacier collapse on the Nepal–China border climbed to 547 in Nepal on Friday, Nepal Police said, as rescuers pressed deeper into shattered valleys where entire villages have simply disappeared — and then pulled back again as a newly formed lake on the border began to overflow. Nepal’s National...
LAHORE: Renowned Urdu poet Ahmad Faraz was remembered across the country on Tuesday on his 18th death anniversary, with literary circles, universities and readers marking the passing of a writer whose ghazals remain among the most widely recited in the language. Born on January 12, 1931, in Kohat, Faraz emerged as one of the most...
GENEVA: Periods of extreme heat are becoming more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting as climate change warms the planet, the UN weather agency said on Tuesday — and it made the point by reaching back to the famously hot European summer of 1976. Parts of Europe are currently enduring their fifth heatwave of a summer...
BEIJING: Heavy rain pounded Beijing on Wednesday as the remnants of Typhoon Dolphin swept across northern China, flooding key roads and stranding vehicles after the storm set rainfall records in central and eastern provinces. The capital declared its second-highest rainstorm warning, suspending 250 bus routes and closing 150 tourist attractions, while 10 subway lines ran...
MIAMI: New research suggests the strongest predictor of how much screen time a young child gets may not be the child at all — it may be how stressed the parent is. Researchers at the Center for Children and Families at Florida International University surveyed 822 caregivers raising children aged four to eight, collecting online...