Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has landed in Pakistan for a state visit – his first overseas trip since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28.

His Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar received the Iranian leader at a military base near capital Islamabad on Tuesday.

During his day long visit, Pezeshkian, who is accompanied by a high-level delegation that includes ministers and senior officials, will hold talks with Sharif, and is also expected to meet with Zardari.

Pezeshkian arrived aboard a special aircraft named Minab 168, a tribute to the 168 people killed in an attack on an  Iranian girls’ school by US and Israeli forces in the Iranian city of Minab on the first day of the war in February.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who had arrived separately earlier in the day from Oman, was also part of the delegation.

The Iranians are due to hold bilateral talks with premier Sharif, followed by a delegation-level meeting between the two sides.

According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Senate Chairman Yousaf Raza Gilani, National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will also call on the Iranian leader.

“During the visit, the two sides will review the full spectrum of bilateral relations and explore new avenues to further deepen cooperation across diverse sectors, including trade, energy, border security, people-to-people exchanges, and regional connectivity,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Pezeshkian’s visit follows the crucial first round of talks between the United States and Iran, mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, in the Swiss city of Bürgenstock to end the war on Iran.

As part of the agreement, the US will release $12bn in frozen Iranian funds. The US has also announced a temporary easing of international sanctions on Iran, allowing it to sell its oil and petrochemicals until August 21. The talks concluded with a 60-day roadmap towards a final deal.

[Aljazeera]

Pakistan has entered what its disaster authority is calling a “critical” weather window.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Sunday issued a nationwide alert, warning of thunderstorms, heavy rainfall, urban flooding, and an elevated risk of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) across the country’s northern regions over the next 12 to 24 hours

The alert identified Hunza and Skardu areas in the mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan region in the north and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the northwest among the most vulnerable areas to a possible climate disaster.

Authorities also warned of flooding in capital Islamabad, and other urban areas, including Rawalpindi and its adjoining areas. Provincial and district administrations have been placed on high alert and directed to keep their drainage systems clear.

The NDMA advised tourists and travellers to avoid unnecessary travel during heavy rains. People have also been asked to check weather forecasts and road conditions before visiting the northern regions, where landslides could cause closure of some roads.

The warning came as Pakistan braces for a likely fourth consecutive year  of punishing monsoon, which is expected to arrive later this month.

Last year, monsoon rains in Pakistan killed more than 1,000 people, including 275 children, and displaced three million from their homes.

But it was the historic floods in 2022 –  mainly caused by melting glaciers and submerging nearly a third of the country – that put Pakistan on a global climate crisis watch.

Pakistan contributes less than 1 percent of global emissions, yet remains among the five countries most affected by climate change.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, temperatures this year reached a record 48.5 degrees Celsius (119.3 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking a previous high set in 1971. The heat has accelerated glacial melt, swelling and bursting lakes across the ecologically sensitive region.

Pakistan is home to some 13,000 glaciers – the most in the world after the polar icecaps. And global warming is fast melting them.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), melting glaciers  across Pakistan’s Hindu Kush, Himalayas and Karakoram mountain ranges have formed more than 3,000 glacial lakes in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Of those, 33 have been assessed as vulnerable to hazardous outbursts, with more than 7.1 million people living around them at risk.

GLOFs release millions of cubic metres of water and debris within hours, destroying bridges, farms and entire communities downstream.

In partnership with the UNDP, Pakistan in 2017 launched the scaling-up of the Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Risk Reduction project, known as GLOF-II, covering 24 valleys across 15 districts in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The initiative focused on early warning systems, flood protection infrastructure, and community-based disaster preparedness.

But Zakir Hussain, director general of the Gilgit-Baltistan Disaster Management Authority, told Al Jazeera that the scale of coverage under Pakistan’s early warning infrastructure is widely misunderstood.

The GLOF-II project, he said, covered only 16 selected valleys, not Gilgit-Baltistan as a whole, and within those valleys, only a limited number of sites. In many of the areas hit hardest in 2025, including Ghizer, Diamer and parts of Hunza, no early warning system existed at all.

“The problem there was the absence of coverage altogether,” Hussain told Al Jazeera.

“The one exception is Shishper in Hunza valley. That is the single case where an early warning system was in place but did not generate a warning despite the glacier changing its behaviour. In the other instances, these are very different problems, and we should be clear about the distinction.”

(Aljazeera)

Australian police have seized 2.7 tonnes of cocaine – the country’s largest ever such bust – from an underground bunker system in western Sydney.