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The deal would depend on US President Donald Trump reversing the ban on Ankara's purchase of the latest-generation American fighter jets, the report noted.

State asks High Court to dismiss petition seeking release of detained Gaza doctors

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20-year-old arrested over suspected rape, murder of 6-year-old boy in Karachi

KARACHI: A missing six-year old boy was found raped and murdered near Karachi’s Lea Market on Wednesday, with the police claiming to have arrested a 20-year old suspect who happened to be a neighbour of the victim. Napier police said that the body of the boy was found at Punjab Gali near Spencer’s Eye Hospital, and moved to Karachi’s Civil Hospital for legal formalities. Police surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed said that the body was “decomposed” and there were “multiple bone injuries”. “All samples have been collected for sexual violence and chemical analysis,” she said, adding that the cause of death was “reserved”. Deputy Inspector General (DIG) South Syed Asad Raza told Dawn that although doctors had collected samples to ascertain sexual assault, the arrested suspect had confessed during the initial probe to kidnapping the boy for that purpose. After allegedly killing the boy, the suspect kept the body on the rooftop of his house. It was later thrown from the third floor into an empty plot on Tuesday night, wrapped in a gunny bag, according to the DIG. Residents of the area noticed the incident and opened the bag, discovering the body. The residents informed the police, who rushed to the area. In the meantime, some residents brought the suspect out from his residence and beat him before the police arrived to take him into custody. According to the DIG, the suspect is a 20-year-old bachelor who works as a carpenter and originally hailed from Phool Nagar in Lahore. He was a neighbour of the victim, whose family also belonged to Punjab. The victim was the only son of his parents, who also have four daughters. The city police said in a statement that Napier police received information about the boy’s disappearance on July 6. The police continued searching for him but could not locate him, and a first information report (FIR) was later registered in the case. Late on Tuesday night, police received information about the recovery of the boy’s body. According to the complainant and information provided by area residents, police arrested a suspect for allegedly throwing the body there, the police statement said. According to the FIR, the father said he was a rickshaw driver by profession and lived in Muslimabad. He said that when he returned home on Monday at around 3pm, his daughter informed him that the boy had left to visit a shop at around 2:30pm but had not returned. The father said he searched for his son in the neighbourhood and elsewhere and made announcements from local mosques, but the boy could not be traced. On the father’s complaint, the Napier police registered the FIR under sections 3 (Trafficking in persons) of the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act of 2018 and 364-A (Kidnapping or abducting a person under the age of fourteen) of the Pakistan Penal Code, and launched an investigation. Sindh’s Home Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar also took notice of the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of the boy and sought a detailed report from the DIG South, according to a statement issued by the ministry. Last month, a three-year-old girl was found murdered at her doorstep in Quaidabad. Initial findings of a post-mortem examination confirmed that she had been subjected to “violent rape” before being murdered. Described as “one of the most horrific cases” the police surgeon had seen in her career, the incident shocked the entire city, prompting the Sindh police chief to form a special team to investigate the case.

Iran threatens to close Strait of Hormuz, hit 'twice the number of targets' as US - report

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'Will hit even deeper': Trump warns Iran as Tehran vows 'no American soldier will return alive'

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(RNS) — This week’s photo selection includes funeral ceremonies for the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and more.

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China signals 'new normal' with coast guard patrols off Taiwan's east

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Gaza genocide and arms company profits underpin anti-Nato protests in Turkey

Gaza genocide and arms company profits underpin anti-Nato protests in Turkey Submitted by Alex MacDonald on Thu, 07/02/2026 - 10:21 Turkey's government has instituted a sweeping crackdown and protest ban as Trump attends key alliance meeting Protesters hold placards featuring US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an anti-Nato demonstration in Istanbul, ahead of the Nato summit in Ankara on, 27 June 2026 (Yasin Akgul/AFP) Off As US President Donald Trump flew into Ankara for the 2026 Nato summit, Turkey's membership of the military alliance continues to provoke anger domestically. Opposition to Nato membership is nothing new among leftists in the country, but the ongoing genocide in Gaza and a sweeping crackdown and protest ban that have accompanied the summit have heightened anger over Ankara's hosting of the meeting. A number of international figures, primarily socialists and anti-war activists, gathered in Istanbul on Saturday for a counter-summit opposing Nato. There have been regular demonstrations on the streets of the country, even as the Ankara Governorate imposed a ban on Sunday, set to last throughout the duration of the conference. The Workers Party of Turkey (TIP), a left-wing group with three MPs in the Turkish parliament, organised the Istanbul Anti-Imperialist Peace Summit to present an alternative perspective to the commonly held view in Europe that Nato is the first line of defence for the continent. "The 2026 Ankara Summit marks the threshold of a period in which the working people of Nato member states are left more vulnerable to exploitation and war, despite the forced increase in defence spending," reads the conference's pamphlet, "No to Nato", referring to a new commitment by all alliance members to increase defence spending to five percent of GDP annually by 2035. "It represents the channelling of workers’ wealth into the wars instigated by the US and Israel across the globe, and into the arms industry monopolies that arm them." A spokesperson for TIP told Middle East Eye that a number of those who had planned to attend the conference were denied entry to the country. Arrests Upon their arrival in Istanbul, delegates from the International Peace Bureau, and the youth wings of Germany's Die Linke party, among others, were detained in the airport, their phones confiscated and held overnight before being deported. "These are activists and political representatives who came to attend a public, legal political meeting," said the spokesperson, who did not want to be identified. "Their treatment shows exactly what we have been arguing: the security architecture built around Nato summits is directed not against any external threat, but against people who oppose war." At least 225 people were arrested ahead of the Nato summit, including alleged supporters of the armed leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) and the Islamic State group. Other detainees included academic Emel Memis, LGBTQ rights activist and journalist Yildiz Tar, environmental NGO Tema Foundation representative Nevzat Ozer, independent labour union Umut-Sen spokesperson Burcu Arikan, and Progressive Lawyers Association lawyers Semra Demir and Kursat Bafra. The TIP spokesperson added that a further 17 members of the party were detained during the summit. 'Economic extraction' Turkey's relationship with Nato has been complicated. Originally joining in 1952 - effectively in exchange for sending soldiers to fight in the Korean War - the country's proximity to the Soviet Union made it strategically crucial for the US-led western alliance. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost saw open nuclear conflict, was in part driven by the presence of nuclear weapons in Turkey, aimed at the Soviet Union. Their removal was part of a secret agreement that narrowly averted a potentially world-threatening war. The Incirlik and Konya air bases have played central roles in a number of conflicts, particularly in the Middle East, while Turkey maintains the second-largest army in the alliance after the US. 'Anti-western rhetoric is for domestic consumption - the most vital organs of imperialism run smoothly on Turkish soil' - Workers Party of Turkey For Turkey's governments, NATO was a guarantor of protection against threats from the Soviet Union, armed separatist groups and hostile Middle Eastern governments. For leftists and pro-democracy campaigners, Nato's role extended to the training of far-right death squads, the establishment of clandestine Counter-Guerilla groups and support for a military establishment that always made sure to put hard limits on democratic activity. Khem Rogaly, a senior research fellow at Common Wealth think tank, said that for all its boasting of defending Europe from attack, Nato ultimately operated as a form of "economic extraction" that directed money from European governments to the US military industrial complex. "Political targets for military spending are a means of reshaping economies around military industries," he told MEE. "This can leave profound economic damage as military spending leads to less growth and supports fewer jobs than other forms of public investment." "By forcing Nato members to increase military spending at a massive scale, the new target means that other public priorities, which have much wider economic benefits, are defunded." 'Crocodile tears' Nato's role in the ongoing genocide in Gaza has further inflamed anti-Nato sentiment, sometimes bridging a gap between otherwise hostile leftist and Islamist factions in Turkey. "Not a single Nato mechanism has been used to restrain Israel - on the contrary, the most debated item on the agenda of the Ankara summit is the fuller integration of Israel’s security into Nato strategies," said the TIP spokesperson. They also said the government's repeated criticisms of Israel amounted to "crocodile tears" as trade continued between the two countries - and the much-publicised disputes between Turkey and its Nato allies in recent years largely amounted to political theatre. "Politically, Nato membership gives the government bargaining leverage with Washington and a seat at the imperialist table," they added. "Economically, Turkey's growing arms industry is integrated into the alliance’s supply chains, and rising military budgets mean rising profits for the corporations closest to the regime. The occasional anti-western rhetoric is for domestic consumption, the most vital organs of imperialism run smoothly on Turkish soil." Last week, MEE contacted Nato for comment on the denial of accreditation to journalists seeking to attend the conference - which included reporters from Turkish outlets including Cumhuriyet, Sozcu, Anka, T24 and Medyascope - and was referred to a post on X from a spokesperson in which they said they relied on the "host nation" to determine accreditation. An 'extraordinary ally' A recurring feature of Nato summits in recent years has been anxiety over the possibility that Trump is no longer happy with the alliance. Though he has less than three years left in his term and polling suggests the Democrats will take over after it ends, Trump's regular criticisms of Nato have put pressure on members to try and keep him happy. At the same time, there has been similar anxiety over Turkey's willingness to engage with countries which are seen as Nato's opponents, particularly Iran and Russia, and a number of the alliance's members and its allies, like Israel, have increasingly questioned the country's position. All this has made stage-managing the summit crucial for the organisers. Selim Koru, founder of the Kulturkampf Substack, said the arrest of protesters and banning of demonstrations were a move by an "extremely geopolitics-oriented" government to make sure its people didn't "embarrass" it on the world stage. Trump, Turkey and Nato: What's at stake at the Ankara summit? Read More » "Turkey is the only Nato country the value

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'Associating Islam with violence contradicts its true nature': Global Forum debates Islamic heritage

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