Author: Theph

Confusion reigned at airports across the United States on Friday, as a rare grounding of all US flights stranded hundreds of thousands of frustrated travellers with no end to the delays in sight.

In New York’s busy LaGuardia airport, Janice Llewellyn was on the verge of tears: the chaos could mean she will miss her daughter’s wedding in Toronto.

The 61-year-old Llewellyn was desperate to find an alternative route, telling AFP: “I may lose my mind.”

“My husband flew all the way from England to get to the wedding,” she said. “Oh gosh! I wish they had another flight, I wish I could get another flight, like, now.”

At the airport in Las Vegas, some fliers were told their journeys were delayed due to wind.

One airline staffer said the ground stop would last eight hours. Another said 24 hours.

Government officials have said the grounding was due to a major communications outage and not due to any “nefarious attack.”

But that didn’t help travellers understand what comes next.

The shambolic lack of information led many passengers to form long lines at rental car counters in a mad dash for travel alternatives.

Joseph Anderson said he was trying to get back to Oakland from Vegas and was considering driving — but said, “if the whole country is stopped, that means the highways are going to be jammed too.”

And the 72-year-old retired Air Force veteran said his already-checked luggage was captive, meaning “we’re kind of stuck.”

“I would hope the communication can be better from the FAA,” he said.

Friday the 13th

The ground stop comes less than two weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday, the busiest travel moment of the year in the United States.

And it falls ahead of a particularly busy weekend for professional and college sports — teams and their fans are also stuck.

Back in New York, Tiara Johnson had been heading to Orlando for a weekend concert, and any hope that she would make it was growing dim.

“You think you’re gonna be there in three hours, but your whole evening is kind of done!” the 50-year-old told AFP.

“But hey, they say it’s Friday the 13th!”

Harried passengers stared at their phones, calm but annoyed, wandering the airport terminal without clear direction.

Hagit Levy Shalev, 54, was zen.

She booked a new flight for Saturday morning, meaning her work trip would last a little longer.

“I’ll get there,” she laughed. “One more extra day away from the kids!”

Source: dawn

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan on Friday called for an immediate end to military provocations in the Gulf and renewed regional diplomacy as the United States, Iran and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries exchanged sharply conflicting accusations at a UN Security Council meeting on attacks against shipping and threats to maritime security.

The debate highlighted growing concerns that the confrontation could disrupt international trade, energy supplies and food shipments while increasing the risk of a wider regional conflict.

Addressing the Council, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative, Ambassador Syed Haider Shah, condemned attacks against Gulf countries and called for respect for their sovereignty and territorial integrity, protection of civilians and commercial shipping, and restoration of normal maritime traffic.

He specifically condemned Houthi militia attacks and threats against Saudi Arabia, including strikes targeting civilian infrastructure and vessels engaged in lawful trade. He reaffirmed Pakistan’s support for the kingdom’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.

Highlighting the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandab Strait, Ambassador Shah warned that threats to maritime navigation endangered seafarers, disrupted international commerce and worsened energy and food insecurity, particularly in vulnerable economies.

He called for the protection of commercial vessels and their crews, respect for freedom of navigation and safe, unimpeded delivery of humanitarian supplies.

Lasting peace, he said, required addressing the underlying causes of regional conflicts through a framework based on common security, peaceful coexistence and mutual prosperity. He urged all parties to end attacks, maintain communication channels and support diplomatic initiatives, including the UN secretary-general’s good offices.

The United States and Iran offered sharply contrasting accounts of the crisis, each blaming the other for the growing threats to maritime security.

Iranian Ambassador Gholamhossein Darzi accused Western members of the Council of ignoring the origins of the confrontation and attempting to reverse the roles of aggressor and victim.

He identified what he described as unprovoked wars launched by the United States and Israel on June 13, 2025, and February 28, 2026, as the root causes of the current insecurity.

Recalling the attacks on Iran, he said they violated international law and targeted the country’s supreme leader, government officials, nuclear scientists and civilian infrastructure. He put the Iranian death toll at 5,000, including 254 children, and described the attacks as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“The insecurity surrounding the Strait of Hormuz is a direct consequence of these acts,” Ambassador Darzi said.

While insisting that Iran remained committed to peace in the Persian Gulf, he argued that the presence of foreign military forces was itself a major source of instability and a threat to maritime safety.

He rejected Security Council Resolution 2817 (2026), calling it politically motivated and accusing it of ignoring the origins of the crisis, denying Iran’s right to self-defence and failing to identify those responsible for the aggression.

Tehran had not closed the door to diplomacy, he said, but Washington must end its military actions, provide credible guarantees against their repetition and lift what he called unlawful coercive measures against Iran.

The US representative, Ambassador Jennifer Locetta, presented a sharply different picture, accusing Iran of aggression against its neighbours and threats to international shipping.

“The regime attacks its neighbors, fires on commercial ships, arms terrorist proxies, and defies this Council at every turn,” she said.

Iranian missiles, drones and what she described as unlawful mines in the Strait of Hormuz, along with attacks in the Bab el-Mandab Strait, threatened global energy and food security.

Citing Security Council Resolution 2817, which demanded that Iran stop attacks on shipping and neighbouring states and had attracted 136 co-sponsors, she said Tehran was defying the international community.

“Iran ignores this Council. It ignores the overwhelming opinion of the international community,” she said.

Ambassador Locetta also accused the Houthis of attacking Saudi airports and energy installations with Iranian backing and imposing an illegal, self-declared embargo on maritime traffic through the Bab el-Mandab Strait.

She said the group’s actions violated Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 2216 (2015), and urged Council members to hold Iran accountable.

The GCC presented its own account of the attacks against its member states. Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi said Gulf countries had faced more than 7,000 Iranian missiles and drones since February 28, targeting airports, ports, oil and gas facilities, power stations, water desalination plants and residential neighbourhoods.

The attacks had caused deaths and injuries, extensive damage to property and infrastructure, and serious environmental repercussions in the Arabian Gulf, he said.

Describing the strikes as flagrant violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of GCC members, Mr Albudaiwi said they threatened international peace and security and required Security Council action to ensure they stopped and were not repeated.

Earlier, speaking on behalf of the GCC, Bahrain’s Ambassador Jamal Fares Alrowaiei welcomed mediation efforts by Oman, Qatar and Pakistan and reaffirmed the bloc’s commitment to diplomacy and de-escalation.

“The security of the GCC States is indivisible,” he said, insisting that Gulf countries must participate in any negotiations concerning regional security.

The competing positions underscored the difficulty of securing a diplomatic settlement, despite growing concern over the wider consequences of continued attacks and restrictions on shipping.

The debate centred on restoring freedom of navigation, ending attacks on commercial vessels and civilian infrastructure, protecting seafarers and ensuring humanitarian access. Speakers also stressed the need for mediation, including efforts to facilitate US-Iran talks, and a negotiated settlement of broader regional and nuclear-related disputes.

Pakistan reiterated its commitment to working with Gulf countries and international partners to promote de-escalation, maritime security and lasting regional peace and stability.

Source: dawn

The US grounded all flights for several hours Saturday, sparking travel chaos across the vast country, after what government officials said was a major communications outage caused by decades old technology.

The nationwide stop left hundreds of thousands of passengers in limbo, with some pulled off planes moments before departure by airline staff who appeared in the dark about unfolding events.

The incident marked only the second time such an alert had been issued in US airspace since the 9/11 attacks.

Federal Aviation Authority officials lifted the groundstop after around four hours, with President Donald Trump’s administration saying there was no evidence the outage was the result of foul play.

“This is a legacy system problem,” said Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. “We have old, old switches, old routers.

“We use 1980s little copper lines. It’s an old system that went down, and went down everywhere. It got overloaded.”

Duffy on Thursday had formally asked Congress for $30.1 billion in funds to upgrade and modernise the US Air Traffic Control System.

As the groundstop was lifted he repeated his plea.

“I’m going to say it a million times: the Congress has to give the resources to the president so he can finish this bill,” he said.

6,000 flights canceled

With almost 6,000 flights canceled including some international routes according to FlightAware, the recovery from the stoppage was expected to take some time.

Footage from airports around the country showed gates full, with planes waiting on taxiways.

Passengers thronged concorses, desperate for information about an outage that had thrown their travel plans into chaos.

“We’re trying to debate whether or not we need to reschedule or drive or what, but if the whole country is stopped, that means the highways are going to be jammed too,” said Joseph Anderson, 72, who was trying to fly from Las Vegas to Oakland, California.

US airspace is among the busiest in the world, and is ramping up to its most frenetic as the Thanksgiving holiday moves into view.

A nationwide groundstop is highly unusual; there was one such stop in January 2023 when a pilot notification system failed, but the only other national stop happened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, when no aircraft took to the skies for days.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stressed there was no evidence of any hostile action on Friday.

“We’ve seen zero evidence that this was a cyber attack or (AI) attack,” he told a press conference.

He also ruled out any connection with the outage that affected Microsoft this week, knocking email systems offline for millions of users, public services and businesses worldwide.

Confusion and delays

The stop sparked chaos and misery at airports around the country.

At New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Tiara Johnson said she had been trying to get to Orlando for a concert with a friend.

“They just keep delaying it…So it started out at 7:55. Then it went to 8:30, 9:30. Now it’s at 10:30. So we don’t know when it’s gonna leave,” she told AFP.

“I feel very frustrated because you know, you come to the airport and then all of a sudden your whole plans have changed and you don’t know when you’re leaving. We’re kind of stuck.”

Travelers were left in the dark on the groundstop, with some saying they had been told their flight was delayed because of wind, while others were left to gather what information they could.

Boards at the airport continued to show departures leaving as normal, while mobile boarding passes held by those stuck on the ground appeared to show their flight was underway.

Stranded passengers were scrambling to find alternatives, with long lines forming at rental car counters at the airport in Las Vegas.

Susan Sardina said she had boarded her flight back to Orange County, California when staff told passengers there was a problem.

“We were already on our flight to leave and we were told to get off,” she told AFP as she stood in a lengthy queue for a rental car.

For those looking on the bright side, the delay was a chance to extend a break.

Kathy Sommers was on her way home from visiting friends in Las Vegas when her flight got canceled.

“We’re blessed that our friends are coming back to pick us up,” she said. “So one more night to play cards.”

Source: dawn

LAHORE: A private transport company had to sack a conductor who pushed a woman off a bus when she was trying to board the vehicle at a terminal here on Friday, after a video of the episode went viral, grabbing the attention of the Punjab government.

Some passersby recorded video of the incident and shared it on social media, triggering public outrage and the government’s reaction.The video shows the woman was trying to board the bus when the conductor pushed her. It shows the woman again attempting to enter the bus, but the conductor pushes her off the vehicle. This time, she falls onto a parked motorcycle.

Social media users condemned the conductor’s behaviour and demanded action against him, as well as the transport company – Faisal Movers Group.

Taking notice of the incident, Punjab Minister for Transport and Mass Transit Bilal Akbar Khan said the conductor had been sacked by the transport company.

CM, minister take notice as episode’s video goes viral

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention. This is a serious injustice. The conductor has been dismissed from his job. The Transport Department condemns the conductor’s inappropriate behaviour and apologises for it. No one has the right to humiliate another person,” the minister said in a post on X, sharing a termination letter issued by Faisal Movers Group’s human resources department on Nov 13, sacking the conductor.

According to the letter, the company terminated the services of Ali Rizwan, an employee deployed at BRT Lahore, with immediate effect, on disciplinary grounds.

Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz also took notice of the incident, saying dismissal from service was not sufficient. She directed the police to take further action against the conductor.

“He [conductor] was not employed to push members of the public around. He should be apprehended, taken to the woman’s home and made to apologise publicly,” she said in a post on X.

She added that as the incident took place in Lahore, directives have been issued to DIG Faisal Kamran for further action.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2026

Source: dawn

PAKISTAN Railways has become synonymous with the image of a decaying organisation: accident-prone, loss-making and inefficient. Not many are willing to admit that mismanagement, unsteady wagons, rickety tracks and 18th-century mindset have reduced the Railways to a near-death existence.

Even when it reluctantly continues to chug, rattle and rumble, everyone knows that it is managed and operated in a way not much different from a lorry adda across the road. The only option left seems to lie in the old Dakota Indian tribal wisdom: “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.”

Pakistan Railways has simply run out of steam. A meltdown was only natural. Managerially, technically and financially bankrupt, it finds it impossible to transport passengers and goods safely and efficiently. It is headed by a bureaucrat and a politician. While declaring a railway emergency, the only actions the minister in charge could think of were punishments received by schoolchildren. Come to work on Sundays, no leave for three months, send daily reports (homework) to the ministry and use trains for travelling on duty.

Even a novice would immediately figure out the pointlessness of these measures. A better informed and competent management would have suggested identifying root causes, taking actions to prevent their recurrence and verifying them for their effectiveness.

Imagine a railway in the year 2026 that cannot use even a basic email system for its routine internal and external communication (a disease proudly shared by the entire government of Pakistan.) Reportedly, an experimental email was recently sent to 40 senior officials of the Railways. Thirty-nine never responded, while one was responded to by a clerk saying that a reply was not possible due to the absence of the boss.

Pakistan Railways needs non-political & professional management.

Compare the sense of responsibility and ethics that differentiate Pakistan Railways from the rest of the world. Following the train derailment at Hatfield, UK on Oct 17, 2000, which killed four passengers, the Railtrack CEO Gerald Corbett took less than 24 hours to tender his resignation. Mohsen Aghaie, the head of the Iranian Railways was quick to resign after a train collision that killed 44 people in Iran in November 2016, describing his departure as a matter of social responsibility and sympathy for the survivors.

Pakistan Railways, on the other hand, met with 448 railway disasters between 2021 and 2025, leaving 169 dead and over 400 injured or crippled for life. Not a single Railways chairman even remotely contemplated a resignation. There is no record of any official above grade 19 ever having been held accountable.

No wonder the lack of accountability has helped the Railways perfect the art of digging progressively deeper pits and incurring bigger losses each year. It incurred a financial loss of Rs47.49 billion in 2022, Rs48.2bn in 2023, Rs51.38bn in 2024 and Rs61.19bn in 2025. What crime have the people of Pakistan committed to carry such loss-making and life-extracting burden on their shoulders?

Track-related derailments, unmanned crossings and train collisions are the three most cited reasons for the repeated railway accidents. Pakistan Railways management has been negligent of not addressing these issues. A quick root cause analysis and effective corrective actions could have fixed these issues for good. Not equipped to either think or act on modern professional lines, it has finally come to an expected dead end.

Can a clueless bureaucratic structure that allows hu­­man waste to fall directly on railway tracks, from stationary and moving tra­ins, be entrus­t­­ed to underta­ke the task of running a Railways system?

Pakistan Ra-ilways needs to replace its current setup with a completely non-political, non-bureaucratic and professional management. It needs a world-class occupational health and safety system. It needs a proactive hazard identification and risk assessment programme to fix its fragile tracks, its 1,416 unmanned crossings, and its archaic communication system.

For all this, the Railways does not need billions of dollars. It needs billions of neurons. Every developed country’s railway has a system called Occupational Health and Safety Management System based on national or international standards such as ISO 45001.

Pakistan Railways appears to have no clue of any such system. Being an occupational health and safety engineer, may I humbly offer to spend two months (as an entirely pro bono activity) to help Pakistan Railways set up such a world-class safety management system.

The writer is an industrial engineer and a volunteer social activist.

naeemsadiq@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2026

Source: dawn

GILGIT: Heavy snowfall and rain continued to cause hardships for residents of Gilgit-Baltistan on Friday, leaving a large number of passengers, tourists, vehicles and cargo containers stranded at Khunjerab Pass on the Pakistan-China border.

Three containers reportedly skidded off the Karakoram Highway (KKH) after the road became slippery. Their drivers were rescued. Gilgit-Baltistan Minister for Tourism Naiknaam Karim was also among the stranded passengers and expressed concern over the lack of facilities and machinery to clear snow on the Pakistani side.

A GB police official told Dawn that snowfall was continuing at Khunjerab Top, leaving several vehicles and dozens of containers carrying imported goods from China stranded for hours.

In a press release, the GB police spokesperson said heavy snowfall was continuing from Dhee Headquarters to Khunjerab Top, while accumulated snow had made the road hazardous for travel.

Tourists and travellers were advised to avoid unnecessary journeys and refrain from travelling towards Khunjerab until weather and road conditions improved. Stranded passengers complained that the government and relevant organisations had not started clearing the road for traffic.

The police spokesperson said a Chinese container had overturned after skidding on the snow-covered road. Local travellers and personnel of the Khunjerab Security Police launched a rescue operation and safely pulled the driver out of the vehicle. He remained unhurt.

Motorists were advised to avoid unnecessary travel during heavy snowfall and contact the police helpline at 15 before setting out to obtain the latest information about road conditions.

The stranded passengers said the area, situated at an altitude of over 15,000 feet, posed additional difficulties because of the risk of oxygen shortage and other problems.

In a video message, Minister Naiknaam Karim said snowfall had also occurred on the Chinese side, but the road had been cleared for traffic.

“However, after entering the Pakistani side, we found the road at Khunjerab Top covered with approximately four inches of snow and ice. Several vehicles, including two to three cars, have skidded due to slippery road conditions,” he said.

He regretted that the road had not been cleared and appealed to the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) to immediately deploy machinery to prevent further accidents.

Meanwhile, the Ghizer-Shandur Road was completely blocked to all types of traffic following a landslide at Hopper Pari after heavy rain on Thursday night.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2026

Source: dawn

ISLAMABAD: Asad Meh­­mood, son of JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Reh­­man, on Friday skipped the second notice issued by the National Accountabi­li­­ty Bureau (NAB) and did not appear before its investigation team in a case involving alleged irregularities in appointments during his tenure as a federal minister in 2022-23.

A source in the bureau told Dawn that as Asad Mehmood had not complied with the first notice issued on Nov 10, the NAB Rawalpindi/Islamabad Regional Office had served him a second notice, asking him to appear before its team on Friday. “How­ever, Asad Mehmood def­ied the second summons and did not visit the NAB office,” the source added.

According to sources, the anti-graft watchdog will soon serve a third notice on the former minister and, in case he ignores it, NAB could take stern action, including his arrest.

In such cases, NAB usually serves second and third notices on the accused and, if all three are ignored, the anti-graft watchdog takes punitive action, including the arrest of the accused.

Under the NAB notice, Asad Mehmood was req­uired to appear before the investigators to explain his position on alleged irregularities in 4,252 appointments at Pakistan Post during his 2022-23 tenure as federal minister.

Asad Mehmood had served as a federal minister during the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government in 2022-23.
Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2026

Source: dawn

QUETTA: The Balochistan Assembly on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution recommending the introduction of basic Arabic as a compulsory subject in all government primary schools across the province.

The resolution was moved by JUI-F MPA Shahida Rauf, who said teaching basic Arabic would help students understand commonly used Quranic words and their meanings, enabling them to develop a better understanding of the Holy Quran from an early age.

The resolution called for a simple, standardised and grade-wise curriculum covering basic Arabic vocabulary, grammar and commonly used Quranic expressions. It also stressed the need for trained teachers, quality textbooks, appropriate teaching materials and effective monitoring.

It recommended that the provincial government introduce the initiative through a phased programme, taking into account students’ ages, mental abilities and educational needs, with regular reviews of its implementation.

During the discussion, MPA Dr Abdul Malik Baloch recalled that legislation had been passed in 2013 to promote education in mother languages. He urged the government to implement that law alongside the proposed Arabic language programme.

Following the discussion, the Assembly unanimously approved the resolution, recommending the introduction of compulsory basic Arabic education in government primary schools throughout Balochistan.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2026

Source: dawn

• Delay could push global price tag from $36bn to $73bn; De Croo urges IMF, wealthy nations to back crisis-hit economies
• China reportedly rules out hosting 2028 COP33 climate summit

ANTALYA: Act now against the devastating effects of El Nino or pay double later, the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warned on Friday as delegates debated how to finance climate action at the COP31 talks in Turkey.

“The needs to hedge the impact of El Nino are $36 billion if you do it now,” the agency’s chief, Alexander De Croo, said in an interview in the Turkish resort of Antalya. “If you don’t do it, the cost will be $73bn. So the cost would be two times as high.”

El Nino heats Pacific Ocean waters every two to seven years, disrupting global wind patterns and rainfall. This exceptionally strong cycle has already battered economies worldwide.

“Not acting is the most expensive climate policy that you could have,” De Croo warned, urging major players such as the International Monetary Fund to help vulnerable developing nations mitigate the damage.

Developing countries want more financial support from wealthier nations historically responsible for global warming, though De Croo acknowledged rich governments face heavy debt burdens and war costs.

Still, he argued vulnerable nations have had no time to recover from compounding crises: the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, “and now El Nino, and now the cost of financing”.

A UN report this week noted African Development Bank estimates of $10bn to $20bn in regional damage, while the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean projected cumulative GDP losses of at least 2pc over three years, pushing 4.8 million people into poverty.

While De Croo pressed for immediate adaptation investments and policy reforms to lower capital costs across 47 partner nations, questions over long-term global climate leadership also surfaced on the sidelines of the Antalya summit.

Separately, China has decided against hosting the UN’s annual climate talks in 2028 after considering the possibility in recent months, sources familiar with the issue said Friday on condition of anonymity at COP31.

Beijing’s decision leaves the door open for another Asia-Pacific nation to organise COP33, as it is the region’s turn to host. India withdrew its offer in April without specifying a reason, while South Korea has previously expressed interest.

Asked about the decision, first reported by The Guardian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said he was unaware of the situation, adding that China remains committed to “promoting the global green and low-carbon transition”.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2026

Source: dawn