KARACHI: Karachi’s colonial-era prison is adorned with murals of rural Pakistani life, painted by convicted murderers and kidnappers locked away from the world but learning their craft inside its walls.
A rehabilitation art and music program has seen some inmates sell their work for several thousand dollars at exhibitions supported by the local arts council, according to prison chiefs.
“Before I was jailed, it was another life with no responsibility and immaturity,” Mohammad Ijaz told AFP from the prison studio.
“But I have found the true meaning of life since being jailed. They have taught us that life is full of colors and the colors themselves speak.”
Ijaz, who declines to give details about his conviction under a penal code covering kidnapping and abduction, says he is about halfway through a 25-year sentence.
Despite being locked up, he has earned huge sums from his art depicting horses — funding his mother’s pilgrimage to Makkah and his sister’s wedding.
“In the beginning, my family didn’t believe me that I had become an artist,” said the 42-year-old, who now teaches other prisoners. “When they saw us in the exhibition, they were happy.”
The art program was launched at Karachi Central Jail in 2007, and aims to reform inmates serving long sentences or those on death row.
Prisoners can also learn languages such as Arabic, English or Chinese, as well as hand embroidery and beadwork.
“Engaging them in constructive pursuits kind of polishes them,” senior prison official Ammad Chandio told AFP. “It helps them reflect upon their past, what crime, what sin or what violation of law they had committed.”
“Any art that is being produced inside the correctional facility, it is actually the property of the inmates, and any proceeds that come from the sale of these products, the property of those inmates.”
Prisons across Pakistan are often dangerously overcrowded with limited access to water, sanitation and food, but central jails in major cities generally receive better funding.
“Efforts to rehabilitate prisoners should be at the fore, the purpose of penal punishments is to help them become better citizens,” said Sarah Belal, executive director of Justice Project Pakistan.
Mehtab Zakir is serving a murder sentence handed down five years ago but his family still depends on him for financial support.
“I know I haven’t wasted time here, at least we have learnt something,” said the 34-year-old. “I feel happy when I finish a painting and it gives me confidence that at least I can do something.”
Pakistani inmates in Karachi sell art, transform lives in prison rehabilitation program
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Pakistani inmates in Karachi sell art, transform lives in prison rehabilitation program

- Prisoners charged with serious offenses say they have learned about the colors of life after being thrown in jail
- The rehabilitation program also provides opportunities to inmates to learn languages like Arabic, English or Chinese
Slashed US aid showing impact, as Congress codifies cuts

- Nearly 500 metric tons of high-nutrition biscuits, meant to keep alive malnourished children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, were incinerated after expiration in Dubai
- But State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce took a more defiant tone on Thursday, saying the biscuits represented less than one percent of US global food aid
WASHINGTON, US: The United States’ destruction of a warehouse worth of emergency food that had spoiled has drawn outrage, but lawmakers and aid workers say it is only one effect of President Donald Trump’s abrupt slashing of foreign assistance.
The Senate early Thursday approved nearly $9 billion in cuts to foreign aid as well as public broadcasting, formalizing a radical overhaul of spending that Trump first imposed with strokes of his pen on taking office nearly six months ago.
US officials confirmed that nearly 500 metric tons of high-nutrition biscuits, meant to keep alive malnourished children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, were incinerated after they passed their expiration date in a warehouse in Dubai.
Lawmakers of the rival Democratic Party said they had warned about the expiring food since March. Senator Tim Kaine said that the inaction in feeding children “really exposes the soul” of the Trump administration.
Michael Rigas, the deputy secretary of state for management, acknowledged to Kaine that blame lay with the shuttering of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which was merged into the State Department after drastic cuts.
“I think that this was just a casualty of the shutdown of USAID,” Rigas said Wednesday.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, however, took a more defiant tone Thursday, saying the biscuits represented less than one percent of US global food aid, using figures that appeared to come from before Trump’s cutbacks.
“We will not be lectured about the issue of food aid or what we do for the rest of the world,” she said.
The Atlantic magazine, which first reported the episode, said that the United States bought the biscuits near the end of Biden administration for around $800,000 and that the Trump administration’s burning of the food was costing taxpayers another $130,000.
For aid workers, the biscuit debacle was just one example of how drastic and sudden cuts have aggravated the impact of the aid shutdown.
Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president for global policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, said that large infrastructure projects were shut down immediately, without regard to how to finish them.
“This really was yanking the rug out, or turning the the spigot off, overnight,” she said.
She pointed to the termination of a USAID-backed Mercy Corps project to improve water and sanitation in the turbulent east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Work began in 2020 and was scheduled to end in September 2027.
“Infrastructure projects are not things where 75 percent is ok. It’s either done or it’s not,” she said.
The House of Representatives is expected late Thursday to finalize the end of funding for what White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called “$9 billion worth of crap.”
It includes ending all $437 million the United States would have given to several UN bodies including the children’s agency UNICEF and the UN Development Programme. It also pulls $2.5 billion from development assistance.
Under pressure from moderate Republicans, the package backs off from ending PEPFAR, the anti-HIV/AIDS initiative credited with saving 25 million lives since it was launched by former president George W. Bush more than two decades ago.
Republicans and the Trump-launched Department of Government Efficiency, initially led by tycoon Elon Musk, have pointed to projects they argue do not advance US interests.
“We can’t fund transgender operas in Peru with US taxpayer dollars,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters, an apparent reference to a US grant under the Biden administration for the staging of an opera in Colombia that featured a transgender protagonist.
The aid cuts come a week after the State Department laid off more than 1,300 employees as Secretary of State Marco Rubio ended or merged several offices, including those on climate change, refugees and human rights.
Rubio called it a “very deliberate step to reorganize the State Department to be more efficient and more focused.”
Senate Democrats issued a scathing report that accused the Trump administration of ceding global leadership to China, which has been increasing spending on diplomacy and disseminating its worldview.
The rescissions vote “will be met with cheers in Beijing, which is already celebrating America’s retreat from the world under President Trump,” said Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Pakistan mulls routes as it eyes new ferry service between Gwadar and Gulf region

- The country has been looking to capitalize on its geostrategic location to boost transit trade and investment
- Five private firms submit proposals as officials review technical and financial aspects of ferry operations
KARACHI: Pakistan has been mulling routes for a ferry service it plans to launch to connect its southwestern Gwadar port with the Gulf region, the country’s maritime affairs ministry said on Friday.
The statement came after a meeting presided over by Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Junaid Anwar Chaudhry to review matters relating to the proposed ferry service.
Officials at the meeting reviewed technical and financial aspects of ferry operations, according to the ministry. Five privately-owned firms submitted their proposals, showing growing interest of the private sector.
“The ferry service will promote regional connectivity and trade,” Chaudhry was quoted as saying by his ministry. “It is expected to ease movement of passengers and goods from Gulf countries.”
Gwadar, situated along the Arabian Sea, lies at the heart of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), under which Beijing has funneled tens of billions of dollars into massive transport, energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan.
Pakistani officials say the geostrategic location of the southwestern Pakistani coastal town in the Balochistan province offers the shortest trade route to the Gulf and landlocked Central Asian states, highlighted its potential as a regional transshipment hub.
During the meeting, Chaudhry telephoned Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti and discussed provincial cooperation with him, according to the maritime affairs ministry. Bugti assured his full cooperation for the project.
“The ferry service will highlight Gwadar on the international maritime map,” Chaudhry added.
The development comes amid Pakistan’s efforts to capitalize on its geostrategic location to boost transit trade as it slowly recovers from a macroeconomic crisis under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program.
The country also plans to cut container dwell time at its seaports by up to 70 percent to improve trade competitiveness and ease congestion, while it last month reduced port charges for exporters by 50 percent at the second largest Port Qasim.
Pakistan says mobilizing all resources to ensure public safety after rains kill nearly 180

- Heavy rains this week flooded several cities as Pakistan braces for a tough monsoon amid erratic and extreme weather changes
- PM Shehbaz Sharif has called for formulating a coordinated plan to prevent losses in view of growing intensity of weather events
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Thursday that the government was mobilizing all resources to ensure public safety as rain-related death toll jumped to 178 since late June.
The statement came after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited the NDMA’s the National Emergencies Operation Center and called for formulating a coordinated plan to prevent losses in view of growing intensity of cloud bursts, heavy monsoon showers and flash floods.
Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province has been the hardest hit with 103 deaths, followed by 38 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 20 in Sindh, 16 in Balochistan and one in Azad Kashmir since June 26, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
“Despite the challenges posed by the ongoing rains, we’re working round the clock to ensure everyone’s safety,” Naqvi said on X.
“Rescue teams are on alert, drains are being cleared, and all resources are being mobilized.”
He urged people to follow adviseries and promptly report any emergencies to authorities.
On Thursday, Army Aviation helicopters carried out rescue operations, evacuating 40 people to safety from hard-to-reach areas in Punjab’s Jhelum district.
“Widespread thunderstorm with isolated heavy falls and torrential rains were expected Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Lahore, Sahiwal, Bahawalpur, Multan and DG Khan divisions, according to the NDMA.
The authority said the wet spell was likely to subside by Saturday.
Monsoon season brings South Asia 70 to 80 percent of its annual rainfall, arriving in early June in India and late June in Pakistan, and lasting through until September.
The annual rains are vital for agriculture and food security, and the livelihoods of millions of farmers. But increasingly erratic and extreme weather patterns are turning the rains into a destructive force.
In 2022, record-breaking monsoon rains combined with glacial melt submerged nearly a third of Pakistan, killing more than 1,700 people and displacing over 8 million. In May, at least 32 people were killed in severe storms, including strong hailstorms.
US designates Pakistani group’s offshoot as ‘terrorist’ over Kashmir attack

- The attack sparked heavy fighting between nuclear-armed Asian neighbors India, Pakistan in the latest escalation of a decades-old rivalry
- India is an increasingly important US partner in Washington’s effort to counter China’s rising influence in Asia, while Pakistan is a US ally
WASHINGTON: The US government designated The Resistance Front, considered an offshoot of the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, as a “foreign terrorist organization” over the April 22 militant attack in India-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday.
The Resistance Front, also known as Kashmir Resistance, initially took responsibility for the attack in Pahalgam before denying it days later.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, listed as a “foreign terrorist organization” by the United States, is a group accused of plotting attacks in India and in the West, including the three-day deadly assault on Mumbai in November 2008.
TRF’s designation by Washington as a “foreign terrorist organization” and “specially designated global terrorist” enforced President Donald Trump’s “call for justice for the Pahalgam attack,” Rubio said in a statement.
Rubio called TRF, which emerged in 2019, a “front and proxy” for Lashkar-e-Taiba. It is considered an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a Delhi-based think tank.
The attack sparked heavy fighting between nuclear-armed Asian neighbors India and Pakistan in the latest escalation of a decades-old rivalry. New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, which denied responsibility while calling for a neutral investigation. Washington condemned the attack but did not directly blame Islamabad.
Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based South Asia analyst and writer for Foreign Policy magazine, said in designating TRF, “Washington is flagging its concern about the terrorist attack that provoked the recent India-Pakistan conflict, and siding with New Delhi’s view that the group is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba.”
He added: “This can be a shot in the arm for a US-India relationship looking to rebound after a few tough months.”
On May 7, Indian jets bombed sites across the border that New Delhi described as “terrorist infrastructure,” setting off an exchange of attacks between the two countries by fighter jets, missiles, drones, and artillery that killed dozens until a ceasefire on May 10.
The ceasefire was first announced by Trump on social media after Washington held talks with both sides, but India has differed with Trump’s claims that it resulted from his intervention and his threats to sever trade talks.
India’s position has been that New Delhi and Islamabad must resolve their problems directly and with no outside involvement.
India is an increasingly important US partner in Washington’s effort to counter China’s rising influence in Asia, while Pakistan is a US ally.
Both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan claim Muslim-majority Kashmir in full while ruling only parts of the Himalayan territory, over which they have also fought wars.
Pakistan seeks deeper UK health ties, targets reform in disease control, maternal care

- Syed Mustafa Kamal meets high-level British High Commission delegation to discuss Pakistan’s health challenges
- Minister calls for need to address waterborne diseases in Pakistan, saying they account for 68 percent of all illnesses in country
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Health Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal this week reaffirmed the government’s commitment to reform the health sector, eyeing greater collaboration with the United Kingdom (UK) in line with Islamabad’s health priorities, state media reported.
The UK remains a key funder of global development efforts in Pakistan. According to the UK government’s website, it is supporting control and eradication of communicable diseases in Pakistan through its contributions in Global Health Initiatives, including Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), Global Alliance for Vaccination (GAVI) and Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).
A delegation led by Acting British High Commissioner Jo Moir met Kamal on Thursday to discuss Pakistan’s health challenges, including a high burden of both communicable and non-communicable diseases.
“A delegation from the British High Commission on Thursday met with Federal Minister for Health, Syed Mustafa Kamal to explore avenues for aligning the United Kingdom’s support portfolio with Pakistan’s national health priorities,” state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported.
“The minister reaffirmed the government’s strong commitment to reforming the health sector and welcomed continued collaboration in critical areas such as maternal and child health, immunization, and health systems strengthening,” the report added.
Kamal stressed the importance of shifting Pakistan’s focus from preventive and promotive health care by strengthening primary health care systems to reduce the strain on tertiary care facilities, APP said.
He called for the urgent need to address waterborne diseases in Pakistan, saying they account for 68 percent of all illnesses in the country. The minister called for tackling the crisis by ensuring the provision of safe drinking water and improved sewage systems across Pakistan.
Kamal raised concerns about Pakistan’s high fertility rate, describing it as a “national issue requiring immediate attention.”
“He encouraged efforts to balance population growth through collaboration with stakeholders, including religious scholars and development partners,” the report added.
Moir appreciated Kamal’s efforts and shared details of the UK’s ongoing support for Pakistan in the health and population sectors, the state-run media said.
She also highlighted plans to design a media campaign based on research findings, focusing on health and population awareness, APP said.