The flydubai plane landed in Tabuk at 9:45 am (11:45am PKT) and its “captain and copilot were found to have injuries and were transported to hospital”, a statement from the company operating the airport said.

The low-cost carrier had earlier said flight FZ 1073 “experienced an incident while en route”. “The aircraft has landed safely in Tabuk Airport (TUU) and all passengers are safe and accounted for.”

Several Israeli media outlets reported that a fight had broken out between the plane’s pilots, reportedly causing a distress signal to be activated.

Israeli media also reported that two other pilots were flying on the plane as passengers, and that they had taken over the controls to carry out the emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

Neither the airline nor authorities of the countries involved provided details on what happened on board or on the pilots’ nationalities, but some Israeli media said one was Omani and the other Emirati.

According to data from the Flightradar website, the aircraft suddenly lost altitude during the flight, dropping from nearly 34,000 feet at 05:21am GMT to less than 17,000 feet at 05:22am GMT (10:22am PKT).

The flight from Dubai diverted over Jordanian airspace towards Saudi Arabia, transmitting a general emergency signal before transmitting another emergency signal that indicates a possible unlawful interference several minutes later, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24.

The Boeing 737 plane then again transmitted the general emergency signal before landing at Tabuk airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia, the website said.

There were 180 Israelis on board the plane, according to Israel’s far-right national security minister Ben Gvir, who claimed the incident involved a “terrorist”.

‘Going down very fast’

An AFP correspondent in Tabuk, where the plane landed, saw heavy security near the airport, with several police vehicles and an ambulance parked at the terminal. Access to the terminal remained open.

At Ben Gurion airport, families gathered to await the return of their loved ones.

Yasmin Abukasis, mother of passenger Miryam Shira Ohayon, told AFP that her daughter called her from Saudi Arabia: “She said one pilot tried to kill the other pilot with a knife. They heard shouting”.

Another passenger went to the cockpit “and saw a lot of blood. She started screaming ‘come help’ and some people went in and caught the guy”, she added.

“All the while, the plane started going down very fast. People thought they were going to die.”

She added that two other pilots in the back later took over the controls.

Israeli media, citing anonymous sources, reported that the passengers on board had stepped in to separate the two pilots during their altercation, publishing photos of a passenger with a bloodied T-shirt.

Channel 12 reported that authorities were investigating whether or not one of the pilots had attempted a possible suicide by trying to crash the plane, with the other pilot apparently intervening to prevent the crash.

In a video from inside the plane that was reposted by Israeli social media users, one passenger, blood dripping from an open wound on his head, pleaded for assistance and said they were descending into Saudi Arabia, with which Israel has no diplomatic relations.

“We are here during an attack on the plane. We just subdued the terrorists and are preparing to land,” the man said in Hebrew.

Israeli jets scrambled

Israel’s Kan public broadcaster, Times of Israel and Channel 12 reported that the Israeli military had scrambled fighter jets after fears of a possible hijacking — with the hypothesis later dismissed.

Times of Israel, citing Kan, said the Mossad intelligence agency, Shin Bet and the Israeli military were involved in the investigation into the incident.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged that one of the pilots had planned to crash the plane and kill its mostly Israeli passengers, who stopped a “major disaster”.

“During the flight, as they approached the country, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot, and apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board,” Netanyahu said in a video message, calling the passengers “heroes” who “prevented a major disaster”.

Netanyahu’s office earlier said he had held consultations on the matter and was “monitoring developments”.

“The incident is under control, and all measures are currently being deployed in order to return the Israeli passengers safely to Israel,” a statement said.

Meir Zohar, the father of passenger Ido Zohar, told AFP his son had told him by text message that he was well, but that he had no other news.

“He told us that everything is okay, he didn’t tell me that much.”

Flydubai operates daily flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv, a route that is popular among Israeli nationals.

It is not the first time a flight between Israel and the UAE has landed in Saudi Arabia. A Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Riyadh in September 2025 due to a medical emergency, Israeli media reported at the time.

The maritime police force of semi-autonomous Puntland said on Tuesday that it had recovered the MT Honour 25 in an operation. The Palau-flagged oil tanker had 19 crew members on board, including 10 Pakistanis.

In a statement on Wednesday, FO said: “Pakistan is deeply saddened by the tragic loss of five crew members during the operation to recover the hijacked vessel, MT Honour 25, off the coast of Somalia.

“Among those who lost their lives are three Pakistani nationals: Rafiullah Khan, Syed Kashif Umer and Mahmood Ahmed Ansari.”

The FO added that four crew members were also injured, including three Pakistani nationals. “The injured have been taken to a nearby hospital and are receiving medical care,” it added.

The surviving crew members of MT Honour 25 “have been brought safely ashore at Bandar Beyla”, a town in Puntland, according to FO.

“Pakistan’s team at the Embassy in Djibouti is proceeding to Bandar Beyla to assist the Pakistani nationals.”

The FO said it remains in close contact with the Somali authorities and other concerned stakeholders through its missions and relevant authorities.

“Every possible effort is being made to ensure proper medical care for the injured, facilitate the transportation of the mortal remains of the deceased, and ensure the safe return of the surviving Pakistani crew members,” the statement read.

On Tuesday, “The naval and ground units of the Puntland Maritime Police Force conducted a planned operation in the Dharin-Bar area of Bandar Beyla district,” Puntland maritime police said in its initial statement.

In another late-night statement, it announced that the operation had concluded and the recovered vessel was “now safe and under the Puntland government’s control”, adding that 21 suspected pirates were apprehended, while operations to locate the remaining members continue.

“Before the operation begun, the pirates on board the ship killed five of the crew. Among those killed were three from Pakistan, one from Myanmar and one from India,” it said.

After the MT Honour 25’s hijacking in April, months had passed with no progress either in negotiations or the payment of the ransom, said to be around $3 million, for the recovery of the hostages.

The hostages were said to be victims of an “ownership crisis”, as it was not clearly established who owned the ship — the man previously thought to be an owner was later revealed to be more likely a middleman who hired them.

Since its hijacking, the crew had made several emotional videos and audio appeals, reporting that they had run out of clean water, food and medicine. Meanwhile, their families launched an international appeal, calling on foreign governments, the United Nations (UN) and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to take coordinated action to help secure the release of their loved ones.

For its part, the FO maintained that it remained “actively engaged” to secure the release of the sailors.

Last month, in a meeting with the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) head, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar pressed for “urgent and effective institutional intervention” for the return of the Pakistani sailors.

Somali piracy has seen a resurgence, with at least 15 attacks since April, the highest since 2013.

Medics said an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle killed at least four people and wounded 14 others in Gaza City’s Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood, while an earlier airstrike on an apartment elsewhere in the city killed a woman.

Later on Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike outside a mosque in Khan Younis killed one person and wounded others, medics said, taking the day’s death toll to at least six.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on any of the reported strikes.

Israel, which claims Hamas has been rearming and launching attacks in violation of an October ceasefire, has stepped up strikes on the group in recent weeks. Hamas has denied trying to carry out attacks or rebuild its arsenal and accuses Israel of undermining the Gaza peace deal.

Last year’s US-brokered ceasefire calls for eventual reconstruction of the territory. But little progress has been made as negotiators have failed to agree on terms for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops.

Israeli airstrikes have continued, with at least 1,400 Palestinians killed in Gaza since the ceasefire, according to the territory’s health officials, while Israel claims four of its soldiers have been killed.

Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, launched after Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel in October 2023.

Police were called to the Royal Air Force Fairford base in southwest England on Sunday after a resident saw several vans “acting suspiciously”, triggering an evacuation of the nearby village and the declaration of a “major incident”.

“Those vehicles have been subject to extensive examination… and we can confirm that no improvised explosive devices were found. However, a quantity of petrol was recovered,” National Counter Terrorism Policing head Laurence Taylor said.

The development came as British media reported that a member of the group called police around an hour before a local farmer alerted officers after spotting the men and vans.

There have been huge questions around the incident after five London-based Britons were released on bail Monday after being arrested early Sunday on explosives and terror offences, with Washington criticising their release.

“I understand why this development will have come as a surprise to many, but I’d like to reiterate that it was an investigative decision,” Taylor added, after US President Donald Trump said he was “surprised” by the decision.

“I wouldn’t have done that,” Trump told reporters, as his Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged a “foreign actor” was involved.

Speculation was rife about the incident near the Fairford airbase, which is used by the US military to launch strikes on Iran.

Iran’s embassy in London has said it “categorically rejects and strongly condemns” speculation that Tehran was involved.

The latest update lends credibility to some theories that the men could be fuel thieves, as energy prices rise in the UK.

But the scare forced 85 homes in a nearby village to be evacuated, with many residents having to stay elsewhere for at least one night.

Police said they had searched homes in London and were hoping to stand down investigative operations on Wednesday.

‘Embarrassing’

A resident in the neighbouring village of Kempsford, Patricia, 60, told AFP it was “very embarrassing that people around the world thought it was a terrorist attack. But in the end, no — it’s a lot of noise for nothing”.

The security scare became public after a farmer living in the village of Whelford near the airbase rang police after seeing the three vans blocking a road and a group of masked men fleeing the scene.

British media later reported that officers had already been alerted by one of the suspects before the farmer’s call, although police have not publicly commented on the reports.

Armed officers arrested the five men — all London residents in their mid-20s — on suspicion of explosives offences and, later, “suspicion of preparing a terrorist act” under anti-terror laws.

Police said the men “remain under investigation and must adhere to strict conditions while we continue our work”.

Security at the base had reportedly been heightened recently.

Britain gave Washington permission in March to use Fairford for “specific defensive operations into Iran” to destroy Iranian missiles at source.

US bombers and other planes have since been seen taking off and landing from the base — the only one on Britain’s mainland used for this purpose.

Aerial footage of the vans showed they appeared to contain barrels, and at least one was marked with a fake logo and phone number, giving the false impression that it was owned by a legitimate diesel delivery firm.

The legitimate firm said in a statement on its website that “neither the vehicle nor any of the individuals involved has any connection whatsoever with Fuel2U”, adding it was cooperating with the police.

“It’s a bit odd they were here in the middle of the night,” one local told AFP as she did some gardening in the nearby village of Kempsford.

“If they were true terrorists, they wouldn’t have released them,” she added, asking not to give her name.

A British military camp was the victim of a “security breach” last year after intruders cut through a fence to steal fuel from a tanker.

At his Labour Party’s annual conference on Tuesday, Burnham, who campaigned to stay in the EU in a 2016 referendum on membership, argued the nation should again consider options for “Britain’s long-term relationship with our European partners”.

He said Britain’s departure from the bloc had failed to fulfil its supporters’ pledge of “taking back control”, and instead had made the nation weaker, especially on the economy and on dealing with high levels of immigration.

Britain could ‘go all the way’

Speaking to the BBC, Burnham again said Britain should consider several options for a future relationship, including not only full membership but also rejoining the EU’s single market or a customs union, reigniting a divisive debate that has split the country for the last 10 years.

“We could stay as we are. That’s definitely an option, if people think this is the right place to stay,” Burnham said, listing certain options including one to “go all the way”.

It is not clear how Burnham will canvass opinion on the EU, but he said in his conference speech that he would “take the opportunity around the summit to lay out to you, to lay out to the country, what I believe the different options are”.

An EU-UK summit was postponed from July 22 following Keir Starmer’s resignation as prime minister, and it could now happen in November, although any formal move would have to wait until the next election, due by mid-2029.

Londoners who Reuters spoke to on their morning commute largely supported an effort to rejoin the bloc, although there were doubts.

“I’m sort of open to getting closer to Europe, but I’m not sure the country needs another Brexit debate all over again,” actuary Roy Taylor, 59, said.

Polling mixed when conditions considered

Burnham said the options should be assessed based on “what is doable” and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Burnham has said he will stick to Starmer’s government pledges made at the last election in 2024, which included the promise to “stay outside of the EU” and no return to the single market, the customs union or freedom of movement.

Another issue would be whether the EU would want to offer Britain re-entry on terms which Burnham might favour.

Polls show a majority of Britons would support joining the EU, but that often falls away when any requirements are considered, such as contributing to budgets and adopting the euro.

Brexit vote triggered years of upheaval

Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, ending more than four decades of membership and triggering years of political upheaval, with successive governments grappling with the economic and diplomatic consequences of that vote.

Burnham, who replaced Starmer in July, has said he would like Britain to rejoin the EU in his lifetime, and his message at conference that Brexit had failed to make Britain richer was welcomed by many in his Labour Party.

“I am very clear, and I will say this bluntly: Brexit has caused more harm than good,” he told the BBC. “So the question is, what do we do about that?”

But Britain’s populist Reform UK party, led by veteran Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, criticised Burnham’s plans, blaming the Labour government for low economic growth rather than the referendum vote when Britain voted to leave the EU.

“Andy Burnham has barely been prime minister five minutes and he’s already trying to sneak us back into Brussels via the back door,” Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, said.

Coalition troops were deployed to Iraq and Syria in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group, which had seized large swathes of territory, committing massacres and forcing thousands of women and children into slavery.

The group was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but coalition forces stayed on to battle the group’s remnants.

The United States and Iraq agreed in 2024 to wind down the coalition’s mission, and its troops withdrew gradually from bases across the country, restricting their presence to the autonomous northern Kurdistan region.

On Wednesday, the US announced the mission’s formal conclusion.

“Today, the United States and our Coalition partners formally concluded Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, consistent with the September 2024 US-Iraq joint statement and US national interests,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The US Department of Defence, however, added that it would “continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners”.

‘Sovereignty’

The US-led coalition did not defeat IS alone. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters played an important role in crushing IS, as did powerful Iraqi factions.

The Iraqi government, which celebrated the withdrawal, believes it will deprive armed factions of the excuse they have used to retain their arsenal.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi hailed the end of the mission as the start of a new chapter.

“A new phase has begun, defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, unity of decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends,” Zaidi said at a ceremony on Wednesday.

He had also declared that October 1 would be celebrated as Sovereignty Day.

It is “a national occasion that affirms the completion of Iraq’s path toward sovereignty and consolidates the presence of the state and its institutions”, the heads of Iraq’s executive, legislative and judicial branches said on Monday.

They added that “the presence of weapons outside state authority must be addressed… in line with timelines set by the government, in a manner that strengthens state sovereignty”.

Intensified attacks

Zaidi, who came to power this year with the US’s blessing, has vowed to reinforce the state’s monopoly on arms and ensure that armed factions hand over their weapons to the state.

His government initially set September 30 as the deadline for factions to disarm, but later withdrew the time limit as talks continued to “regulate” weapons — an issue that has fuelled division and is expected to take much longer to resolve.

With several powerful groups refusing to disarm, senior politicians have intervened and are now hoping to work out a compromise deal.

Factions have put forward conditions that include not only the withdrawal of foreign troops, but also an end to American political and economic interference.

The powerful Kataeb Hezbollah group said the withdrawal of “the occupation forces… is a start towards achieving full sovereignty”.

But the group also threatened Zaidi’s government.

“A government that doesn’t work for the good of its people will be brought down by all possible means,” it said.

Many armed groups have long demanded the withdrawal of US troops and have begun targeting them with drones and missiles, triggering US retaliatory strikes that killed several faction commanders over the years.

The Sweden-based Right Livelihood Foundation honoured Haider “for breaking barriers, as the first female lawyer from her Hazara community, to challenge ethnic, state and patriarchal persecution, guided by the conviction that no human being is illegal.”

According to the foundation’s website, Haider in 2018 “led a seven-day hunger strike against the targeted killing of Hazaras” that led to direct negotiations between the army chief and Hazara women, “resulting in a sustained decrease in attacks against the community”.

It added that Haider had combined legal work with street activism and community empowerment, securing “justice for thousands targeted or ignored by those in power, specifically ethnic, gender and religious minorities, as well as refugees”.

“Her law firm has also helped restore freedom of movement for more than 600 political activists and human rights defenders,” the Right Livelihood Foundation said.

Haider is a founding member of the Women’s Democratic Front as well, the foundation said, adding that she “helped pioneer Balochistan’s first Women’s March, a street mobilisation that sparked discussions on feminism across the deeply patriarchal region”.

Through her organisation ‘We the Humans’, Haider has “helped over 400 widows of terrorism victims gain financial independence”, the foundation said.

“Despite detention, cyber-harassment and death threats, she continues to work towards a world where, in her words, ‘no human being is illegal’,” the foundation said.

The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980, when Swedish-German stamp collector Jakob von Uexkull sold part of his collection to fund it, after the foundation behind the Nobel Prizes refused to create new awards in the fields of environmental protection and international development.

A prominent US artificial intelligence researcher and two women-led rights groups were also recognised.

The jury said in a statement it had chosen US artificial intelligence researcher Timnit Gebru “for challenging concentrated power in artificial intelligence and pioneering digital technology rooted in justice, lived experience and human agency.”

Gebru is known for her work examining how biases influence AI and in 2017, Gebru co-founded Black in AI.

The foundation also gave the nod to the Rural Women’s Assembly — a grassroots movement of more than 178,000 small-scale farmers across 11 Southern African nations.

The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), which the jury described as “Georgia’s oldest and most prominent human rights organisation,” was also honoured.

Tarar made the remarks while addressing a ceremony organised by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad to launch a report on the IWT issue.

Water and the IWT remain a contentious issue between India and Pakistan, following New Delhi’s unilateral abeyance of the accord in April last year — a move that was followed by a brief military conflict between the two sides in May 2025.

Following India’s move, Pakistan termed any attempt to suspend its water share an “act of war”, noting the IWT had no provision for unilateral suspension. It later argued that Delhi’s action was a violation of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

“We are a peaceful nation, but we cannot allow India to weaponise water because it is the basic right of the 240 million people of Pakistan,” Tarar said, drawing attention to the “wider precedent involved”.

“If a state can unilaterally put a binding international water treaty in abeyance despite established dispute resolution mechanisms, the implications extend to transboundary water governance across the world,” Tarar warned, adding that it may have implications for countries sharing water under similar frameworks.

Tarar reiterated that Pakistan will continue to engage the international community and defend the country’s vital national interests.

At the outset of his address, Tarar said, “I take great pride in the fact that wherever we go, we say we are the people of the Indus Valley [..] we identify ourselves with the Indus waters.”

He noted that when the treaty was signed, the signatories “did not envisage that there would come a time a few decades down the line when conditions in India would deteriorate so much that they would be legally ignorant, morally bankrupt and devoid of ethics”.

Tarar held that the IWT was legally binding upon both parties. “It contains stipulations that this legal instrument cannot be unilaterally revoked, rescinded, or altered,” Tarar added.

He further stated that the treaty cannot be “unilaterally altered, revoked, rescinded or held in abeyance, for that matter, but even if there is a dispute, both the parties have to adhere to the terms and conditions of the treaty”.

At this, Tarar recalled an August ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), saying, “The court upheld Pakistan’s stance, giving legitimacy and strength to the argument that there cannot be a unilateral attempt to change the status of this treaty”.

In its August order, the PCA had backed Pakistan’s stance, declaring that the IWT between the two countries remained fully in force, as India had no justification for ending or suspending the agreement.

Tarar further stated that Pakistan had approached the issue diplomatically: “We have engaged the international community and presented our point of view — legal and diplomatic — and as a nation-state, which respected the rights of others, in a manner that has been most effective.”

At this, the information minister recalled Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s speech at the recent United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

“PM Shehbaz said that the IWT is the lifeblood of our people and our region, and any attempt to usurp this right be treated as an act of war,” Tarar said.

Tarar stated that Pakistan’s position on the IWT remained “absolutely clear,” adding that the treaty was an “instrument of peace and stability for the region”.

He noted that India had justified its actions with “alleged cross-border terrorism”; however, he went on to highlight sacrifices made by Pakistan in the fight against terrorism.

“We have economic losses of over $50bn over the past many decades,” Tarar said.

He continued: “When one Pakistani citizen lays down their life, yes, it is to make Pakistan safe, but it also makes the world a safer place.”

Tarar, drawing a contrast with neighbouring India, said, “India has illegally tried to alter the status of the IWT and has been accused at the international level of transnational aggression”.

Shifting his attention back to the IWT, Tarar said India’s actions were “highly condemnable” and unjustifiable at a “legal, diplomatic, and moral level”.

The IWT allocates the eastern rivers — Ravi, Beas and Sutlej — to India, while the western rivers — Indus, Jhelum and Chenab — are largely allocated to Pakistan. The 1960 water-sharing agreement has also established mechanisms for data-sharing and dispute resolution.

Still, since its 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US has held effective control of the country’s oil revenue dollars, giving Washington extraordinary leverage over Baghdad’s affairs, with implications for regional dynamics involving Iran.

How does the US control Iraq’s oil revenues?

This stems primarily from the management of Iraq’s oil income through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

After the 2003 invasion, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), led by the US, set up the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), held at the New York Fed, and designed to collect the oil revenues for use in reconstruction and development efforts.

The Fund also aimed to protect the Iraqi oil revenues from lawsuits and claims relating to Saddam Hussein’s rule.

An executive order by then president George W. Bush to set up the arrangement has been renewed by every president since. The DFI eventually became an account of the Central Bank of Iraq at the New York Federal Reserve, as it remains today.

What leverage does this give the US over Iraq?

Oil is Iraq’s most important revenue source, making up about 90 per cent of the state budget. This gives Washington significant sway over the country’s economic and political stability.

When the Iraqi government asked US troops to leave in 2020, Washington reportedly threatened to cut Iraq’s access to the New York Federal Reserve funds, with Baghdad ultimately backing down.

While Iraq has gained more control over its financial affairs since the early years of the occupation, the link highlights the enduring influence of the US on the economic landscape of Iraq, even as the latter seeks to assert sovereignty and independence.

Why has the arrangement endured for so long?

The system helped anchor Iraq’s financial stability and safeguards state finances, government officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

It boosts international confidence in the management of oil income, eases access to US dollars needed for trade and imports, and protects revenues from external claims and financial shocks, including claims by creditors and lawsuits, they said.

The arrangement supports exchange-rate stability and underpins confidence in the Iraqi economy, while working to strengthen domestic financial institutions and assert greater economic sovereignty, they added.

It also allows the government to push back against some actors, such as Iran-allied groups, who seek fewer curbs on dollar access. Last year, the US imposed sanctions on Iraqi banks and individuals it accused of laundering money for Iran.

How has this arrangement affected Iraq?

The heavy curbs on US dollar supply led to a parallel, informal market for dollars, resulting in a price spread between the official exchange rate set by the central bank and that on the black market.

The price difference is essentially a risk premium for dealing outside the formal system.

In his second term, President Donald Trump has pursued a campaign of maximum pressure on Iran, with Iraq often caught in the crossfire as Tehran has used it as a vital economic lung.

The war he launched with Israel against Iran on February 28 added further pressure on Baghdad.

What is the status of Iraq’s oil revenue management?

Iraqi oil revenues remain in the custody of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

CBI has historically used dollar auctions, formally known as the foreign currency window, as the main mechanism to supply dollars. Private banks and exchange houses could bid daily to purchase US dollars using Iraqi dinars.

Iraq formally ended the auction system at the start of 2025 after significant US pressure, part of a broad crackdown on alleged siphoning of dollars to sanctioned parties, especially Iran.

Header image: A stage with a banner for Sovereignty Day in Baghdad, Iraq on September 30, 2026. —Reuters

The movement succeeded, the government was overthrown, and the quota system was largely scrapped — but the reform has had unintended consequences.

Women are securing a shrinking share of public sector jobs in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people.

Tothapi Azad, a 25-year-old Dhaka University graduate, supported calls to end quotas — but says she should have supported retaining them for women.

“For me, who had my family’s support, a quota might not have been essential — but for an average woman, it was essential,” she told AFP.

“A job is a tool for women’s empowerment. For rural women, it is more than that — a survival tactic, a shield to resist domestic violence.”

Data shows that the share of female government recruits has fallen since quotas were cut, shrinking an already limited number of civil service roles held by women.

‘Uncomfortable’

Until 2018, quotas accounted for 56 per cent of Class I posts, the top ranking civil service and public sector jobs.

That included 10pc for women, as well as 30pc for descendants of those who fought for Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.

Another 16pc was reserved for underprivileged regions and people with disabilities.

In 2018, after student protests, the then prime minister Sheikh Hassina scrapped quotas.

In 2024, it was proposed to reinstate quotas, sparking student protests.

That escalated into a mass uprising, and Hasina was overthrown.

Today, 93pc are filled on merit. A 7pc quota is reserved for those related to freedom fighters and other smaller groups, and there is no quota for women.

The Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC), which runs the recruitment examinations, has around 300,000 applicants each year for 2,500-3,000 Class I jobs.

Before the quota was scrapped in 2018, women accounted for up to 35pc of recruits, including both quota and merit-based appointments.

That has dropped to 19pc, according to figures from the last exam round.

A BPSC official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the body “finds the outcome uncomfortable”, but that its “duty is limited to conducting the examination”.

AKM Abdul Awal Majumdar, a former bureaucrat, backs merit-based recruitment but advocates coaching to help women compete.

“My female colleagues were unparallelled,” he said.

The government elected in February also backs merit-based recruitment.

Md Abdul Bari, a public administration minister, described it as a “rational reform” in parliament.

But some officials fear the decline in female recruitment will become increasingly visible.

“At this moment, at least 21 women are leading 21 districts,” said a female bureaucrat with 20 years of experience, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“In 10 years’ time, there won’t be this many women in the service.”

‘Can’t continue’

The impact goes beyond the civil service.

Police data shows that only 267 women out of 2,651 candidates qualified as constables this year.

Only six of the 184 candidates who qualified as police sub-inspectors were women. No women qualified as sergeants, compared with 96 men.

“We can’t continue without them,” a police officer told AFP, noting that every station has dedicated desks for women and children.

Bangladesh previously had 60pc quotas for women in primary teaching positions. That has also ended.

Asif Shahan, a Dhaka University professor of Development Studies, said fewer women in government would impact policymaking.

“Their issues get reflected in policy,” he told AFP.

The debate has split students.

Md Mazharul Islam, a Dhaka University students’ union career advisor, a supporter of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, backs a merit system.

“Society was much more conservative before, and girls were not allowed to pursue higher education,” he said.

“That has changed.”

Philosophy student Adity Islam said abolishing the women’s quota was wrong.

“We measured women across all walks of life with the yardstick of female students at Dhaka University,” said Islam, who is involved in leftist politics.

“Cutting the quota for women would eventually impact the overall governance system. We have already seen that in some districts. So aspiring candidates in many other places will lose hope.”

Header image: This photograph taken on September 7, 2026 shows Dhaka University students walking across the campus in Dhaka. —AFP

The assurance followed the controversial remarks by US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, who described Jammu and Kashmir as an “important part of India” during a visit to Srinagar on Aug 19.

According to Pakistani diplomatic sources, Islamabad sought clarification from Washington on whether Gor’s remarks signalled a policy shift. US officials told their Pakistani interlocutors there had been “no change in our position” and that Washington continued to regard Kashmir as a dispute requiring resolution between Pakistan and India.

The sources also pointed to President Trump’s previous offer to help resolve the Kashmir dispute, saying the offer reflected Washington’s view that the issue remained unresolved.

Trump’s offer to help resolve Kashmir dispute highlighted

Gor’s remarks had caused concern in Islamabad. During a meeting with Omar Abdullah, who heads the government in India-held Kashmir, the US ambassador described the territory as “an important part of India”. He also indicated that Washington was reviewing its ‘Do not travel’ advisory for the region in light of what he described as improvements in the security situation.

Pakistan subsequently protested the remarks and summoned the US chargé d’affaires in Islamabad, saying the ambassador’s comments were inconsistent with its understanding of the longstanding US position and relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

The issue was discussed during a media interaction in Washington involving Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Rana Muhammad Qasim Noon and Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Rizwan Saeed Sheikh.

Mr Noon reaffirmed Pakistan’s political, diplomatic and moral support for the Kashmiri people and said lasting peace in South Asia could not be achieved without resolving the dispute in accordance with UNSC resolutions. He said the dispute could not be treated as settled.

He urged the international community to pay greater attention to allegations of human rights violations in India-held Kashmir, citing concerns over disappearances, detentions, demographic changes and efforts to alter Kashmir’s political and cultural identity.

Mr Noon also linked the dispute to the broader security situation in South Asia, arguing that the presence of three nuclear-armed states underscored the importance of resolving outstanding disputes peacefully.

Similarly, Amb Sheikh said Kashmir remained part of the international and UN framework and that its peaceful resolution was essential to regional and wider international peace and stability. The embassy later issued a statement reflecting these positions.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

The raid, along with another attack on a different West Bank village on Tuesday, comes amid mounting international criticism of settler violence, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed in an address last week to the United Nations.

Settlers stormed the village of Jalud in the northern West Bank as the military attempted to accompany a Palestinian family back to their home after they had been displaced by settler attacks two months earlier.

The Israeli military said “more than 100 Israeli rioters” were in the area of Jalud overnight and soldiers and border police tried to disperse them. “As a result of the clashes, three Israel Border Police officers were lightly injured, and a security forces vehicle was damaged,” it said in a statement.

One person was arrested and two minors were taken in for questioning, police said.

The military said the settlers had blocked roads, set tyres on fire and thrown rocks at security forces, also setting fire to Palestinian buildings and vehicles in the village.

It added that the attack had prevented the return of the family, who had been displaced “following several incidents of (Israeli) nationalist crime against them”.

‘No justification’

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and has been accelerating settlement expansion there. Some 500,000 Israeli settlers live among three million Palestinians.

Netanyahu condemned the attack, which he blamed on “a small group of rioters”.

Their actions “cause great harm to that community and interfere with our forces as they carry out their mission”, he said.

President Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, called the attack “a moral stain, an assault on the rule of law and our most fundamental values as a people and a nation”.

Such criticism is rare for attacks in which the victims are Palestinian. Settler attacks against Palestinians including beatings, vandalism and arson averaged six a day in the first half of the year, according to the United Nations.

Recent weeks have also seen high-profile attacks against Israelis in the West Bank, including the shooting death of a settler by a Palestinian. Israel has voiced outrage and imposed diplomatic repercussions after Britain, the Netherlands and other countries imposed sanctions against products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

Rising settler ambitions

Mahmoud al-Toubasi, a member of the family seeking to return to Jalud, said that he and his relatives had left the house more than two months ago, and that it had been occupied by settlers until the attack on Tuesday.

“My wife, my son and I went to the house in the car, accompanied by an army vehicle in front of us and another behind us,” he said. Settlers attacked the group upon their arrival at the house and were pushed back by soldiers with pepper spray, he added.

“We were not physically injured, but we suffered some choking from the pepper spray,” Toubasi said. In a separate attack Tuesday, dozens of settlers from hilltop outposts raided the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, residents said.

Al-Mughayyir is the scene of frequent attacks due to its isolated location and the presence of several settlement outposts all around it. In a separate incident in the town of Beitunia near Ramallah, dozens of settlers came to hold a prayer for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot using loudspeakers, Mayor Ribhi Dawla said.

“This gathering is a dangerous precedent,” he said. “There are ambitions for settlements in the area, they placed a caravan in the western part of the town and installed an iron gate.” In another incident on Tuesday evening, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported that its crews were “treating three people who were assaulted and beaten by settlers in the Jamala area near Ramallah” and taking them to hospital.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

WASHINGTON / TEHRAN: Ahead of a possible agreement over the Strait of Hormuz, both the US and Iran turned up the rhetoric against each other, with President Donald Trump once again expressing confidence that the war in the Middle East will end “very, very soon”.

Iranian state media quoted Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying that he expected a formal answer on Tuesday to Tehran’s proposal to open the troubled waterway.

The remarks came as the British maritime agency reported that an “unknown projectile” struck a ship in the strait, sparking a fire on board that was subsequently extinguished.

Qatari intermediaries “presented ideas, and we discussed them; they are set to raise the matter with the American side once more, after which the final US response will be conveyed to us”, Araghchi had said late on Monday night.

Mr Araghchi, who is in New York for the UN General Assembly, said the current focus was solely on the Strait of Hormuz, and the reopening of the strait was contingent upon the fulfilment of certain conditions that they have communicated to “the other side”.

Earlier, US and Iranian officials spoke separately with mediators on Monday as part of a renewed effort to end the seven-month war, according to officials of both countries.

On Tuesday, Qatari foreign mi­n­­­i­stry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said there had been “several meetings and messages have been exchanged, including some in New York and earlier. Current efforts are focused on building com­mon ground between the parties.”

As a precondition for ending its blockade, Iran is demanding a seven-day ceasefire across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, where its ally Hezbollah is regularly bombed by Israel.

It is also demanding the unfreezing of its assets abroad, the lifting of sanctions on its oil sector and an end to the US naval blockade on its ports.

However, President Trump claimed that he had offered Iran no concessions, rejecting media reports that cited US officials saying he was willing to ease sanctions and release frozen funds for “concrete” steps regarding Iran’s nuclear programme.

Axios and CNN both reported, citing unidentified US officials, that Trump was willing to give Iran sanctions relief and free Iranian funds as part of a final deal on the condition that Iran showed “concrete progress” on the nuclear issue.

“This is untrue. I offered them NOTHING,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.

On Tuesday, the Revolutionary Guards said “the US claim that it remains open is false”.

“Sneaking a few hundred barrels of oil through under the cover of darkness — with transponders turned off and at great cost — does not constitute the strait being open,” said spokesperson Hossein Mohebi.

“A truly open strait is one where, as in the past, at least 125 vessels would pass through daily, transporting a minimum of 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products.

“Any vessel attempting to pass through sustains damage — either we strike it, or it hits a mine,” he added.

Meanwhile, Tehran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf threatened fresh attacks, saying no infrastructure in the region would be safe if his country’s security was not guaranteed.

“In a region where we cannot sell oil, no one else will sell oil either; or if our security is not guaranteed, no infrastructure will remain safe,” Ghalibaf, who is also Iran’s parliament speaker, said according to a video released by state TV.

Separately, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) appealed to US midterm voters to reject President Trump’s policies and accept an offer of peaceful coexistence.

The assertions were made on Tuesday in a 25-page open letter addressed to the American people, urging them to oppose US support for Israel and foreign wars and arguing that Iran and the US could coexist if US policy changed.

The letter accused Trump of concealing the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme, which Israel in particular sees as an existential threat, and the effectiveness of Tehran’s blockade of Gulf oil.

IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebi told reporters he did not expect the letter to affect the US administration’s behaviour some five weeks before the elections, but that voters might hear the message.

Oil prices

Oil prices declined on Tuesday as Saudi Arabia resumed oil tanker loadings from its Red Sea port of Yanbu after restarting operations on the East-West Pipeline, improving the outlook for oil exports from the Middle East.

Brent crude futures were down $1.38, or 1.3pc, to $103.88 a barrel at 1703 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was down $2.04 or 2.16pc at $90.58. Brent and WTI are headed for monthly gains of around 15pc and 5.7pc, respectively.

The resumption of Yanbu loadings, halted earlier this month after a drone attack on the pipeline, which weighed on global oil prices, was notified by state oil giant Saudi Aramco as it unveiled its October loading schedule.

“ESA satellite imagery captured over the Red Sea on September 27 shows Saudi Arabia loading nearly 10 million barrels of crude oil at Yanbu and Al Muajjiz,” vessel-tracking firm TankerTrackers.com wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. Al Muajjiz is a terminal south of Yanbu.

The White House has urged the European Union to draw down diesel emergency inventories in a bid to lower global prices, sources said. Several European Union member countries have not released as much oil and refined products from reserves as they promised, President Donald Trump’s administration said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration said on Tuesday it is offering to loan energy companies 40 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, in an effort to control soaring fuel prices that have jumped on the widening war with Iran and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Airline issues

The US has granted Iraqi Airways, the national carrier, a sanctions waiver allowing it to fly to Iran so it can ferry pilgrims travelling between Iran and Iraq’s holy city of Najaf.

The transport ministry said flights were set to start from Najaf in October, “once the necessary organisational requirements have been fulfilled”.

Meanwhile, Turkish authorities have seized a plane belonging to Iran’s Caspian Airlines at Istanbul Airport , with Turkish and Iranian media linking it to an unpaid three-million-euros($3.4 million) debt.

The seizure took place on Monday after passengers had boarded the Boeing 737, which was waiting to take off when officials detained it on the basis of a court-issued seizure order, Anadolu Agency reported.

Separately, Washington sanctioned 10 individuals and entities that allegedly procured weapons and weapons components for Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics, the US Treasury Department’s website showed on Tuesday.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

“UNHCR’s ability to protect and assist refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs) and stateless people is being eroded by a sustained and worsening funding shortfall,” the agency said in a report detailing the human cost of budget cuts.

The agency said its available funding had fallen from $5.2 billion in 2024 to $3.9 billion in 2025, while the number of people it is mandated to protect is hovering around historically high levels.

UNHCR said it needed $8.5 billion this year to protect refugees, but by the end of July had received only 32 percent of that amount ($2.7 billion). This means nearly 8.3 million forcibly displaced people are “at risk of losing access to UNHCR assistance”, the agency said.

“Continued severe funding cuts are pushing refugee support and protection structures towards breaking point in the world’s main displacement situations,” it added. UNHCR said it had undertaken reforms and prioritisation measures to protect its most critical work — but said the scale and persistence of the shortfall meant that even its highest-priority work was now being affected.

“Protection cannot be reduced indefinitely without systems collapsing,” said Dominique Hyde, UNHCR’s external relations chief. “Below a certain threshold, services do not simply reach fewer people; they can stop functioning altogether, leaving those most at risk without the protection they need.” The agency said that in Chad, 319,000 refugees faced registration delays, leaving them without the documentation to access services, while around 233,000 children could lose child protection services.

In Ethiopia, child protection coverage in some areas has diminished by up to 85pc. And in Sudan, tens of thousands of survivors of sexual violence and children at serious risk could lose access to critical protection services, the agency warned.

When registration stops or child protection services disappear, “the very risks that people fled — violence, exploitation and abuse — reappear in displacement”, warned Hyde.

Quarter of workforce cut

Some 117.8 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes at the end of 2025, according to UNHCR — down from 2024’s record 123.2 million.

Of those 117.8 million, 35.6 million were refugees under UNHCR’s mandate, with two-thirds coming from Venezuela, Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan.

UNHCR shed nearly 5,000 jobs in 2025 — more than a quarter of its workforce. The United States — traditionally the world’s top donor — has heavily slashed foreign aid, while other major donors have been tightening their belts.

The Geneva-based agency said funding cuts were undermining its efforts to help people move away from reliance on aid. In Iraq, up to 350,000 refugees and asylum seekers risk losing access to economic inclusion opportunities, it said.

And when people return to their home countries — whether voluntarily or under duress — help is also drying up, said UNHCR. In Syria, 162,500 vulnerable IDPs and returned refugees will not receive initial financial assistance unless funding is received quickly, reducing their ability to rebuild their lives, the agency said.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

As armed guards maintained a cordon around a nearby village, Washington questioned the decision to release on bail five men arrested near the Royal Air Force Fairford base in southwest England.

Three white vans were discovered near the base on Sunday and the men — all London-based Britons in their mid-20s — were detained. Armed police were also visible on Tuesday patrolling around the airfield used by US planes to bomb some targets in Iran.

Police have said officers conducted an extensive examination of the vehicles with the help of “military assets” and forensic experts. They did not disclose their findings. But The Times newspaper and a few other UK media have reported that police found no traces of explosives, easing fears that an attack had been foiled but leaving many questions unanswered.

Rubio claims incident involved a foreign state

A resident in the neighbouring village of Kempsford, Patricia, 60, said it was “very embarrassing that people around the world thought it was a terrorist attack but in the end no — it’s a lot of noise for nothing”.

Announcing the release on Mon­day of the five suspects, the head of UK Counter Terrorism Policing, Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, said the men “absolutely remain under investigation”.

He insisted his officers were kee­ping an “open mind” and considering “every possible angle” in the se­­­­­­­c­­­­­­­­­u­rity scare, including the possible role of “proxies” working knowingly or unknowingly for a foreign state.

Iran’s embassy in London has said it “categorically rejects and strongly condemns” speculation that Tehran was involved.

‘Serious situation’

Adding to the hazy picture, US President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday he was “surprised” that British police had released the five, adding: “I wouldn’t have done that”.

Hours later, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the incident “a very serious situation … that clearly involves the hand of a foreign actor” but declined to provide further details.

On Sunday, Trump had said the UK and US were investigating the sus­­pects “for a long time” and that th­­­ey “were looking to do big damage to our fort”. The security scare became public after a farmer living in the village of Whelford near the air­­base rang police after seeing the th­­­­­­r­­­ee vans blocking a road and a gro­­up of masked men fleeing the scene.

Armed officers arrested the five men on suspicion of explosives offe­nces and, later, “suspicion of prepar­ing a terrorist act” under anti-terror laws. Security at the base had repor­tedly been heightened recently.

Britain gave Washington permission in March to use Fairford for “specific defensive operations into Iran” to destroy Iranian missiles at source. US bombers and other planes have since been seen taking off and landing from the base — the only one on Britain’s mainland used for this purpose.

The lack of clarity over the weekend incident has sparked different unverified theories, with some media reporting allegations that the men could even be fuel thieves. “It’s a bit odd they were here in the middle of the night,” one local said as she did some gardening in the nearby village of Kempsford.

“If they were true terrorists they wouldn’t have released them,” she added, asking not to give her name.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

The group’s ship Aurora found five survivors and the dead bodies in a deflated rubber dinghy in the early hours of Tuesday, the charity said. It rescued another 23 survivors, including a toddler, from an offshore oil and gas platform where they had taken refuge after the shipwreck.

Those rescued reported that at least six people, including three children, were missing, Sea-Watch said on social media, adding the Aurora was now heading to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

“Governments celebrate falling arrival numbers as a success. We see what that success means: at least two dead and six missing, including three children,” said Sea-Watch spokesperson Julia Winkler, calling for a state-run European search-and-rescue programme. Over 22,000 sea migra­nts have arrived in Italy so far in 2026, interior ministry data showed, compared to more than 50,000 repor­ted in the same period of 2025.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

The meeting comes as the kingdom reels from weeks of attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on its tankers, oil facilities, airports and even its capital, after the group took control of the Red Sea coast from Saudi-led Yemeni government forces.

Riyadh has for weeks been reaching out to international allies for help against the Houthis.

The crown prince and the vice president met to “review brotherly bilateral relations and regional developments”, the Saudi Press Agency said, adding the sit-down was also attended by Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman.

Last December, Riyadh accused Abu Dhabi of threatening its national security by supporting southern Yemeni separatists who orchestrated a brief offensive in government-held areas.

But in July, top officials and ministers from Saudi Arabia and the UAE began posting messages on social media about friendship and unity, signalling a rapprochement.

That same month, Yemen’s civil war roared back to life when the Houthis launched a new campaign against Saudi-led government forces, taking over a swath of territory and launching attacks on Saudi soil.

The group has also declared a maritime blockade on Saudi ships in the Red Sea.

Riyadh has been carrying out strikes on the Houthis, while for weeks reaching out to international allies for help.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been at odds on foreign policy for some time, from Yemen and Sudan to the Horn of Africa, where they have supported rival forces.

“They’re going to police themselves,” Trump said after a meeting at the White House that gathered the top leaders in artificial intelligence, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei.

The Republican president, who opposes any constraints on AI lest China outpace the United States in its development, also announced that he would officially rename the technology “super intelligence” by executive order later on Tuesday.

OpenAI launched a new mid-range artificial intelligence model on Tuesday at one-fifth the cost of its flagship offering, one day after scrapping an upgraded version deemed unreliable.

GPT-6.1 Sol ranks below OpenAI’s most powerful model, GPT-6 Astra, released in early September. The company said Monday it had abandoned plans for GPT-6.1 Astra because the model frequently ignored instructions.

The announcement, made at the company’s annual developer conference, marks the latest escalation in a price war with rival Anthropic as both firms eye initial public offerings. OpenAI also announced Dots, an always-on personal agent designed to compete with Meta’s Muse, unveiled last week.

The company acknowledged last week that tools being tested had browsed US federal agency websites without authorisation and attempted to hack one of them.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also criticised the company for being slow to report a June intrusion into a public health portal.

Long the industry leader, OpenAI was overtaken by Anthropic in second-quarter revenue, which hit $11.6 billion against $6.7 billion for OpenAI, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Anthropic is now targeting a stock market listing as early as November, even though it warned investors in its IPO prospectus that AI could pose “existential risks to humanity”, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

OpenAI, valued at $852 billion in March, has not set a date for its own listing.

In mid-September, chief executive Sam Altman ruled out 2026, citing safety, and on Tuesday he told CNBC that “this is a time to put safety and mission first.” OpenAI’s second-quarter operating loss widened to $12.3 billion, including stock-based compensation, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma succeeded King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, whose death last month from cancer at age 34 triggered a feud, with his mother saying a previously undisclosed son was entitled to the throne.

Uganda is a constitutional republic governed by an elected president, but four pre-colonial kingdoms remain as influential symbols of identity and heritage despite not having any political power.

A 21-member committee from the royal Babiito clan selected Kijanangoma, 56, who is Oyo Nyimba’s cousin. A source with knowledge of the succession dispute said that Uganda’s central government pushed through that decision over the mother’s objections.

Kijanangoma took the new royal name Edward Rukidi Nyabongo I in a traditional ceremony that included the slaughter of a bull and sprinkling of a hen’s blood in Tooro’s capital Fort Portal.

Nyabongo I walked to Karuziika Palace between midnight and 3am before taking part in a mock battle for the crown. At Karuziika, young men dressed in tunics, orange shawls and skins held sticks and spears, some prostrating before the king.

Traditional dancers and drummers, some wearing calabashes, entertained guests who included President Yoweri Museveni.

Earlier, Charles Kayondo Kamurasi, the Omusuuga or head of the Babiito clan who had been wielding power since Oyo Nyimba’s death, handed over authority to the new king in a church service at St. John’s cathedral.

“We have a big task to protect our culture, our traditions and customs and good conduct among our people,” Nyabongo I said in his maiden speech, pledging to rally his subjects to protect the environment.

Oyo Nyimba died in the US on Aug 27 while receiving treatment for angiosarcoma, an aggressive cancer. He drew global attention in 1995 when enthroned at age 3 after the death of his father, with images of the toddler king in royal robes and a crown prompting widespread fascination.

Former colleagues of Nyabongo I at the state broadcaster UBC where he worked as a news anchor and editor describe him as humble and down to earth. “Everyone in Fort Portal is happy because of this new king. We are preparing. Women are ironing their masuka. Men are ironing their kanzus,” said Tooro resident Elizabeth Kengonze in the run-up, referring to traditional clothes.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

The Honour 25 — a Palau-flagged oil tanker — had 19 crew members on board, including 10 Pakistanis.

“The naval and ground units of the Puntland Maritime Police Force conducted a planned operation in the Dharin-Bar area of Bandar Beyla district,” the maritime police said in its initial statement.

In another late-night statement, it announced that the operation had concluded and the recovered vessel “is now safe and under the Puntland government’s control”.

During the operation, it said, 21 suspected pirates were apprehended, while operations to locate the remaining members continue.

“Before the operation begun, the pirates on board the ship killed five of the crew. Among those killed were three from Pakistan, one from Myanmar and one from India,” it said.

Four crew members — three Pakistanis and one Indian — were also injured, the statement added.

Reuters earlier reported, citing Puntland’s state television, that the detained pirates would be brought to court.

No further details of the operation were available from any of the official sources.

Dawn contacted the Foreign Office (FO) for further information, but there was no immediate response.

Reports of casualties

Meanwhile, Ayesha Ameen, the wife of a fitter on the ship, told Dawn between sobs that there were reports of casualties among Pakistanis on the ship.

She said that they were not able to confirm the names of the deceased yet, but her husband, Ameen Bin Shams, was reportedly among the injured.

“We don’t know how bad the injuries are,” she said.

“We are trying to establish contact with the ship’s captain on the numbers that we have. But our calls are not being answered.

“As far as we know, the bodies are still on the ship, as are the injured. There is no one to tell us if they will be moved. We are going mad here,” she added.

Initial reports attributed to the crew suggest that there have been five deaths and four people have been injured.

Apart from Pakistanis, the vessel’s crew also included seven Indonesians, an Indian and a Sri Lankan.

After its hijacking in April, months had passed with no progress either in negotiations or the payment of the ransom, said to be around $3 million, for the recovery of the hostages.

The hostages were said to be victims of an “ownership crisis”, as it was not clearly established who owned the ship — the man previously thought to be an owner was later revealed to be more likely a middleman who hired them.

Since its hijack, the crew had made several emotional videos and audio appeals, reporting that they had run out of clean water, food and medicine. Meanwhile, their families launched an international appeal, calling on foreign governments, the United Nations (UN) and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to take coordinated action to help secure the release of their loved ones.

For its part, the FO maintained that it remained “actively engaged” to secure the release of the sailors.

Last month, in a meeting with the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) head, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar pressed for “urgent and effective institutional intervention” for the return of the Pakistani sailors.

The pirates had also contacted humanitarian Ansar Burney, who had also tried to help in resolving the matter.

Ansar Burney — a former human rights minister — is the chairman of the Ansar Burney Trust, a non-profit human rights organisation working in all areas of human and civil rights worldwide. He has previously participated in efforts to free Pakistanis captured by Somali pirates.

After Tuesday’s operation, the Ansar Burney Trust said in a statement that the IMO had contacted it and ensured of cooperation for the return of the injured crew and bodies to their home countries.

It said it was in contact with relevant authorities, international institutions and the vessel’s crew and was making continued efforts for the return of the injured and the bodies.

Somali piracy has seen a resurgence, with at least 15 attacks since April, the highest since 2013.

Additional input from AFP and Reuters

The resumption of Yanbu loadings, halted earlier this month after a drone attack on the pipeline, weighed on global oil prices on Monday as it added to signs of increased flows from the Middle East, from which the US war with Iran has throttled oil shipments.

State oil giant Saudi Aramco notified customers on Monday evening of its October loading schedule from Yanbu, an Asian refining source said. The refiner loaded a cargo from Yanbu late last week.

Drone attacks, which Saudi Arabia blamed on the Houthis, forced the kingdom to shut the pipeline on September 11, halting crude exports from Yanbu. Pipeline operations resumed last Tuesday.

Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Oil products are also being loaded, tracker says

European Space Agency satellite pictures also pointed to a resumption of loading.

“ESA satellite imagery captured over the Red Sea on September 27 shows Saudi Arabia loading nearly 10 million barrels of crude oil at Yanbu and Al Muajjiz,” vessel-tracking firm TankerTrackers.com wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

Al Muajjiz is a terminal south of Yanbu.

“We also observed refined-product loadings. In total, we visually identified 40 tankers, regardless of their activity or proximity to these terminals.”

Two trade sources separately estimated crude loadings from Yanbu at about two million barrels per day since last week.

Oil throughput on the pipeline is about 2m barrels per day, according to an industry source, and around 2.65m bpd according to ship-tracking firm Kpler. This is far short of the pipeline’s 7m bpd capacity.

Throughput will climb to between 3m and 4m bpd in the coming days, Kpler said. A full return to the pre-attack rate of roughly 5.5m bpd could still take another month, it said in a note on Monday.

Crude inventories at the Yanbu terminal rose by roughly 1m barrels on Sept 22, the first build since the attack, according to Kpler.

The restart of crude loading at Yanbu added to signs of rising Middle East oil shipments following a recovery in exports via the Strait of Hormuz.

Crude oil loadings at Egypt’s Sidi Kerir resumed on Sept 22 after a 10-day hiatus, but tankers remain queued offshore as restrictions continue to limit access for much of the commercial fleet, Kpler said in the note.

Her centre-right Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) had dominated the vote, winning 97 out of 395 seats in the House of Representatives — 31 more than the next closest competitor, although the poll was marked by the lowest turnout in two decades.

The royal cabinet said King Mohammed VI has now tasked the 50-year-old, who also served as housing minister, with “forming the new government”.

Speaking shortly after, El Mansouri said in a televised address her appointment was “truly historic”.

“For the first time in our country’s history, a woman is taking on the responsibility of leading the government,” she said. “This is a source of pride not only for me but for all Moroccan women.”

Without an outright majority, the PAM will have to form a coalition with other parties, though the monarch retains broad powers over major policies.

For the new premier, “the work starts today”, she said. “We will first initiate internal consultations within our party before holding discussions with all political groups.”

El Mansouri joined the PAM in 2008, the year it was founded by current royal adviser Fouad Ali El Himma as a counterweight to the country’s Islamist movement.

She was also the first woman to serve as mayor of Marrakesh, winning the office in 2009 before losing it six years later, then retaking it again in 2021.

‘Restore hope’

El Mansouri’s cabinet will have to tackle several pressing issues including unemployment and living costs, as well as persistent social disparities particularly weighing on young people.

The parliamentary vote came just weeks after tens of thousands of mainly young Moroccan migrants rushed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, a crisis that highlighted socioeconomic frustrations among the youth.

It also came a year after a Gen-Z protest movement took to the streets to demand better health and education.

“We are fully aware that this period will be significant and marked by high expectations from Moroccans, particularly young people,” El Mansouri said. “That is why we will have a programme offering concrete and realistic solutions to citizens’ concerns.”

Her party has pledged average annual economic growth of five per cent, inflation of 2pc and the creation of at least 1 million new jobs over its five-year term.

The PAM was followed in the polls by the National Rally of Independents (RNI), which heads the outgoing coalition and won 66 seats.

The right-wing Istiqlal party came third with 65 seats, while the Islamist opposition’s Justice and Development Party (PJD) took 54 seats.

The PJD made significant gains after winning just 13 seats in 2021, having focused its campaign in part on fighting corruption.

Its chief, former prime minister Abdelilah Benkirane, hailed a “victory” but ruled out joining a coalition led by the PAM, which he said was “tainted by fraud”, without providing details.

High school students have since last week staged protests outside their schools over issues including timetables, class sizes and a shortage of teachers, with some blocking entrances with rubbish bins and setting fire to them.

The movement in the lycees, which handle the final years of school in France, started in the Ile-de-France region around Paris, where blockades in some 10 schools were reported by education authorities Tuesday. It has now spread to other cities nationwide.

Masked students gathered outside the Lycee Cesar Baggio in Lille, in northern France, as a bin burned, with police using teargas as clashes erupted, an AFP photographer said.

Teens piled up dozens of bins to prevent entrance to the Lycee Gabriel Guist’hau in the western city of Nantes, while in Paris there was an uneasy standoff between 30 students and a contingent of police at the Arago school.

Similar actions were also reported in cities including Marseille in the south and Lyon in the southeast.

Nationwide demonstrations

At the Lamartine school in Paris around 80 students gathered outside brandishing slogans including “more hours of lessons than sleep” and “8am to 6pm, are we pupils or under arrest?”

The actions came as unions planned a day of nationwide demonstrations and also strikes over the budget of Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron.

Tens of thousands were expected to rally in Paris and other cities, with teachers and fire services striking nationwide although with public transport not badly affected.

“The anger is immense. I warn the government — it must address the demands and revise the draft budget, which is dangerous for the country and is driving us straight into the wall of recession at 200 kilometres an hour,” the head of the hardline CGT union Sophie Binet told BFM TV.

A 17-year-old pupil at the Lamartine school, who asked not to be named, said they had been angered by a lack of resources, overheated classrooms and overly congested timetables.

“We are also there to support our teachers who have a crazy amount of work compared to what they earn,” she told AFP.

Lecornu on Monday said any escalation of demonstrations at high schools would be “irresponsible” and lashed out at the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party for encouraging the protests.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 164 arrests took place on Monday and 180 schools were affected, adding: “We cannot tolerate excesses.”

The cabinet will discuss long-term plans to address flooding and recovery measures on Tuesday, government spokesperson Ekkapob Pianpises told a news briefing.

Bangkok was hit by around 320 mm of rain over two to three days last week, nearly as much as the sprawling low-lying city usually gets in the whole of September.

Although Bangkok’s main airports kept running through the weekend rain and flooding, some baggage handling operations at Suvarnabhumi Airport were severely impacted, with 69 Thai Air Force personnel called in on Monday to support ground operations of flag carrier Thai Airways.

Hundreds of bags were still lined up in hallways inside the airport on Tuesday, according to Reuters photographs.

In a statement on social media early on Tuesday, Thai Airways said 34 of its flights had been delayed on Monday and baggage from 52 flights between September 26 and 27 was being delivered to passengers.

In another social media post, the airline said that it had cancelled eight flights on Tuesday “due to the flooding situation in Bangkok and aircraft rotation”, and warned that additional flight cancellations or schedule changes could occur.

Some 1,267 businesses across 40 provinces have been affected by flooding, including 52 factories and 1,162 small and medium enterprises, according to Thailand’s industry minister Varawut Silpa-archa.

Nationwide, economic damage caused by the flooding was estimated at over $320 million.

The batch is the first of 5,000 Myanmar citizens Kuala Lumpur says agreed to “voluntary” repatriation from detention centres amidst a huge uptick in anti-migrant sentiment in Malaysia.

But advocacy organisations say dire conditions in detention centres may have forced their decisions, and they could face dangerous homecomings in Myanmar where war has raged since 2021.

Neither Malaysia nor Myanmar have officially clarified the number of Rohingya in the first group, and there is concern they may be returned to a country where they face persecution rights groups say amounts to genocide.

Dozens of buses arrived under police escort on Tuesday at the Majlis Perbandaran Manjung stadium near the Lumut naval base in northwestern Malaysia, AFP correspondents saw, where the migrants were to be processed.

They will then be transported to the nearby naval base and taken to Myanmar by ship.

A Myanmar security source, requesting anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to media, said the boats are due to dock at Thanlyin Navy Base just south of Yangon around the end of this week.

Marine traffic websites showed Myanmar’s auxiliary support and hospital ship Than Lwin at anchor just outside the naval base.

Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority, make up two-thirds of the 190,000 Myanmar refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia, according to the United Nations.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced in July that Myanmar had agreed to take back 5,000 members of the Rohingya.

‘Safe’ return promised

The plan was announced after authorities detained more than 100 Rohingya who had gathered outside the UN refugee agency’s office in Kuala Lumpur.

They were seeking help after being threatened with eviction from an informal settlement in northern Penang state.

They were later released after officials confirmed they held valid UN documentation.

Myanmar earlier this month pledged “safe and dignified” returns for its citizens displaced abroad, after criticism from the United Nations and rights groups.

Last week, more than 160 civil society groups in a joint statement called upon the Malaysian government to “immediately halt the deportations,” pending talks with civil organisations about the situation on the ground in Myanmar.

Anwar said he would invite Myanmar’s coup leader-turned-civilian president Min Aung Hlaing for an official visit to help expedite the repatriation process.

But the civil groups urged that “Malaysia’s engagement with the junta must not come at the expense of its own reputation and integrity.”

Malaysia’s home affairs ministry last month said 5,000 individuals will undergo voluntary repatriation as agreed by the Myanmar government.

There were 10,388 Myanmar nationals held at immigration detention depots by mid-August, the ministry said, with not all considered refugees.

Malaysia, which shelters one of Southeast Asia’s biggest refugee populations, is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not formally recognise refugee status.

AFP fact-checkers have found that Rohingya refugees in Malaysia have been targeted by online disinformation campaigns that rights advocates say are fuelling xenophobia and intimidation.

Many of the Rohingya, a mostly Muslim group, escaped Myanmar during a brutal military crackdown in 2017.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar after the offensive, which is the basis of a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.

More than 1.2 million live just over the border in Bangladesh, in the world’s largest refugee settlement, but talk of repatriations from there has yielded little progress.

The report by WAM was the first UAE confirmation of Netanyahu’s visit.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said on Monday that Netanyahu visited at the invitation of the UAE president. It said the visit “focused on strengthening relations between the two countries and on regional challenges”.

Three senior Israeli officials said the meeting on Sunday lasted six hours and focused on Iran.

Earlier this year, the UAE denied that Sheikh Mohamed met with Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister’s office said in May that Netanyahu had “secretly visited” the Gulf country and met with the president.

A source familiar with the meeting said at the time that Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohamed met in Al-Ain, an oasis city in Abu Dhabi along the country’s border with Oman, on March 26.

The visit came weeks after a bombshell Israeli media report that the Emirati president had warned Netanyahu ahead of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which the Israeli premier did not pass on to the security services. Netanyahu has denied the story.

According to Israeli media, Netanyahu flew to the UAE on Sunday to ask Sheikh Mohamed to deny having given him that warning in 2023.

Earlier on Monday, before Netanyahu’s office formally confirmed the destination, Israel’s domestic security service filed a complaint against a TV channel that reported the visit.

“This evening the Shin Bet filed a complaint with the Chief Military Censor, demanding that Channel 12 be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law following a severe censorship violation,” read a statement from Netanyahu’s office, which oversees the security agency.

The publication of his visit “endangered the lives of the prime minister and his wife, as well as the delegation, which included the head of the Mossad” spy agency and other top security officials, the PM’s office said in its statement.

The visit was made public when the premier’s plane was still outside Israeli airspace, it noted.

Mossad, which also operates under the Prime Minister’s office, issued a similar condemnation, according to the statement.

Since coming under attack during the Iran war, the UAE has strengthened its relationships with the United States and Israel, with which it opened ties as a result of the 2020 Abraham Accords. The relationship with Israel gives the UAE a lever for regional influence and a unique channel to Washington.

It is the latest twist in the long-running contentious debate about rule ever since New Delhi revoked held Kashmir’s limited autonomy in 2019.

Omar Abdullah, who heads the occupied state’s government, introduced the resolution, saying that statehood was “our right”.

Members of the Bha­ratiya Janata Party staged a walkout before the vote, with many of them calling the resolution “unconstitutional” and “anti-nati­onal”.

It calls upon the government in New Delhi to ensure “the immediate and urgent restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir”.

The text also referred to resolutions demanding autonomy, passed in 2000 and 2024.

All three are not constitutionally binding.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

Announcing the policy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would restrict visas for individuals “responsible for, or complicit in” impeding the prompt resolution of such cases, as well as their immediate family members.

“Protecting American children abducted across international borders and reuniting them with their parents is a top priority for the Trump Administration,” Rubio said in a statement.

The policy covers foreign government officials, judges, judicial administrators, law-enforcement officials and others who intentionally obstruct efforts to resolve such cases or fail to implement or comply with laws, policies or court orders intended to secure the return of children to their country of habitual residence.

Rubio described the measure as a new accountability tool for pressing countries to meet their international obligations.

The move is relevant to Pakistan because Pakistan is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and is a treaty partner of the United States under the convention. The Hague framework seeks the prompt return of children wrongfully removed from or retained outside their country of habitual residence.

Washington’s new policy specifically refers to officials who intentionally fail to implement or comply with applicable laws, policies or court orders.

The policy is not, however, a blanket measure against any country’s officials or citizens. Its application would depend on the US government’s determination that an individual falls within the criteria announced by the State Department.

The announcement also has significance for India, where cross-border parental-abduction cases have been a longstanding issue in US-India consular relations. India is not a party to the Hague Abduction Convention and is not a US treaty partner under the convention.

The absence of a Hague treaty framework does not mean that Washington has no channels for dealing with such cases. The US State Department has previously engaged Indian authorities on international parental-child-abduction cases.

The new policy could also resonate in the Middle East, where the United States has dealt with parental-abduction cases involving countries outside the Hague framework. Its significance for individual countries will depend on how Washington applies the new policy and whether it identifies officials or others as deliberately obstructing cases.

The policy is potentially significant because it shifts some of the pressure from governments and legal systems to individuals. Rather than imposing a general visa restriction on nationals of a particular country, Washington says it will target people whom it determines have deliberately obstructed the resolution of individual cases. Their immediate family members may also face visa restrictions.

“This policy gives the department a new accountability tool to press non-compliant countries to meet their obligations,” Rubio said.

The State Department, he said, would continue working to prevent international parental child abductions and facilitate the safe return of abducted children to their country of habitual residence.

In July, top officials and ministers in both countries posted about friendship and unity on social media, signalling a rapprochement months after a public fallout between the two countries.

“His Royal Highness Prince Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Minister of Defence, extended an invitation to his brother, His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President of the sisterly United Arab Emirates, Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Presidential Court, to visit the Kingdom tomorrow, Tuesday,” the defence ministry said in a statement on X.

During the July detente, Saudi General Entertainment Authority Chairman Turki Alalshikh posted a picture of bin Salman alongside Sheikh Mansour that he said was taken a few days ago.

The Saudi olive branch came as the kingdom reels from weeks of Houthi attacks on its tankers, oil facilities, airports and even its capital, with the group taking control of the Red Sea coast from Yemeni government forces.

The kingdom has for weeks been reaching out to international allies for help in Yemen.

A source from the Yemeni leader’s office told AFP earlier this week that he requested American support in a call with US President Donald Trump against the Houthis.

The New York Times said the Saudi crown prince called Trump on Sunday seeking help to counter the group’s advance.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

Delhi, a sprawling megacity of 30 million people, is regularly ranked among the world’s most polluted capitals due to a mix of emissions from power plants, heavy traffic, construction activity and the burning of crop stubble.

The construction ban will run from December 10 to January 20 as part of a winter action plan which will include restrictions on vehicular traffic aimed at encouraging residents to use public transport.

“Early implementation of these stringent measures would help prevent the city’s air from reaching hazardous levels during winter,” Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa told reporters.

A study in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2024 estimated that 3.8 million deaths in India between 2009 and 2019 were linked to air pollution. Levels of cancer-causing PM 2.5 microparticles often hit more than 300 micrograms per cubic metre in the city, 20 times the World Health Organisation’s recommended daily maximum.

Government-led initiatives such as partial restrictions on fossil fuel-powered transport and water trucks spraying mist to clear the air have failed to make a noticeable impact.

Under the new plan, Sirsa said “staggered office timings will be imp­l­emented from November 1 to February 28 to reduce peak-hour traffic congestion and vehicular emissions”. Parking fees will also be doubled from November 1 to discourage the use of private vehicles.

“We hope we will do better than last year and keep on improving the situation from year to year,” Sirsa said.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026