Why we're on strike - and how we're going to win

I've just gotten off a call with Paul Finch, the president of the largest union in the Canadian province of British Columbia.  I met Paul a couple of years ago at the LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference in Tbilisi, Georgia.

It was just 07:30 in the morning and Paul took time off from leading his union in a huge and important strike to talk to us.

Click here to listen to the interview.

In my opinion, it was a master class in how to explain to the public why your union was on strike.

And to let us in on the union's strategy for winning.

The interview is just 11 minutes long and it's available here and on your favourite podcasting platforms.

Please listen and share widely.

***

In the last two weeks we've launched two major online campaigns.  Your support has been incredible. 

• Our campaign in support of workers in Sri Lanka who produce clothing for NEXT has 2,143 supporters.  With your help, we can grow that by a lot and bring pressure on a company that claims to treat its workers ethically. (NEXT is actually a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative.)  Click here to learn more and to show your support.
• And just this week we launched a campaign in support of Turkish clothing workers whose German employers are engaging in union-busting.  That campaign already has 3,985 supporters after just three days online.  Let's ramp up the pressure.  Click here to learn more and to show your support.

And please share this message with your friends, family and fellow union members.

Thank you!

Eric Lee

LabourStart

GENDER APARTHEID

Afghanistan bans 679 books from university campuses — most are by women and Iranian authors

The Taliban regime also banned 18 courses from university curricula, including courses on gender and human rights.

Images Staff
20 Sep, 2025

DAWN


In another blow to free expression in Afghanistan the Taliban government has banned 679 books from university campuses, 140 of which are by female authors. The move comes as part of a wider law which also bans lessons on human rights and sexual harassment, the BBC reported on Friday.

In a letter sent to universities across the country, the deputy academic director of the Ministry of Higher Education, Ziaur Rahman Aryoubi, said a panel of scholars and experts had found the texts to be in violation of the government’s interpretation of Islamic law. Eighteen university courses have also been banned in the country, with six being about women, including Gender and Development, The Role of Women in Communication, and Women’s Sociology. A further 201 other courses remain under review.

Al Jazeera reports a full list of banned books is yet to be issued, with more titles expected to be added. This present list contains books on most subjects, including constitutional law, Islamic political movements, human rights, women’s studies and Western political thought

Restrictions on women in Afghanistan are some of the harshest in the world, with girls barred from studying beyond primary school and being required to cover their faces when outside their homes. Much of the world has refused to recognise the Taliban regime in light of these abuses of women’s rights, with Russia being the first — and so far only — country in the world to lend the Taliban their recognition in July.

Of the banned books, 310 originate from Iran as the Taliban lock horns with Tehran over the latter’s expulsion of Afghan citizens in recent months. A member of the committee reviewing books at the education ministry told the BBC the step was taken to “prevent the infiltration of Iranian content” into the curriculum.

A professor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the BBC that Iranian books were important for Afghan academics as the “primary link between Afghanistan’s universities and the global academic community”. He said their blacklisting creates a “substantial void” in higher education, which teachers are trying to fill by writing their own material in line with the Taliban’s many limitations.

GENDER APARTHEID

When women need permission to heal, everyone pays

Denying women the right to make decisions about their own bodies weakens households, burdens the healthcare system and constrains national growth.

Eeman S Qureshi

Published September 26, 2025

PRISM/DAWN

Maryam, a 28-year-old university lecturer and researcher, lives with endometriosis — a condition that causes debilitating pain. She has made multiple visits to the doctor, knows the procedure required to fix the pain and has the money for it as well. Yet, her days and nights are spent in agony because a private hospital in Lahore, located in her neighbourhood, refuses to treat her.

Why? Because she does not have a man’s consent — her ‘non-existent’ husband’s. Maryam is unmarried, and so, she continues to suffer.

Unfortunately, Maryam’s story is not unique. Across Pakistan, women are routinely told to get a man’s approval before receiving medical care, from reproductive health to diagnostic procedures and even emergency surgeries.

Such practices by healthcare providers don’t just reflect a larger societal thinking, but also disempower women, beginning with households and eventually seeping deeper into the system.

Gatekeeping healthcare

As per the 2024 UN National Development Report, only 12 per cent of women in Pakistan can themselves decide about getting medical treatment in case of a health issue, while 17pc said the decision was taken by the head of the household. Another 28pc said that the matter was decided upon in consultation with other women of the family. On the other hand, a staggering 42pc of women said that everyone in the house, except for the patient in question, got to decide whether a medical treatment was necessary.

This gatekeeping is even more severe in rural areas, where access to basic healthcare is scarce

But what seemingly looks like social or moral injustice — which it definitely is — is also an economic crisis in disguise. When women are denied bodily autonomy, it is not just a violation of their rights; it is also a denial of economic agency. And when half the population of the country is excluded from making decisions about their own health, the cost is borne by not just women, but by their households and by the country at large. This cost is counted not only in lives lost, but in lost productivity, higher poverty, and stalled national growth.

According to 2025 estimates by the World Health Organisation, 27 mothers and 675 babies under a month old die every single day from preventable complications in Pakistan. That accounts for over 246,000 newborn deaths, nearly 10,000 maternal deaths, and 190,000 stillbirths annually. While maternal mortality has fallen, from 276 deaths per 10,000 live births in 2006 to 155 in 2024, we still rank among the worst in South Asia.

A system built to fail

The denial of healthcare autonomy is not simply a result of outdated thinking, but is in fact enabled by a structural failure in our healthcare system. There is no national law requiring spousal consent for adult women, yet the absence of a clear enforcement framework allows hospitals to impose their own arbitrary rules, thus infantilising women.

These arbitrary practices thrive within a broader system that is chronically underfunded and blind to gender-specific needs. Pakistan’s public health spending has hovered around 1pc of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the last five years.

Source: Finance Division, Government of Pakistan

This chronic underinvestment has left rural clinics understaffed and urban hospitals overcrowded and costly. Despite high maternal and neonatal mortality rates, there is limited state-level investment in gender-sensitive infrastructure, staff training, or outreach. Reproductive health services — particularly for conditions like endometriosis, PCOS, or miscarriage — are rarely available at the primary healthcare level, despite their prevalence.

Even when legal frameworks exist to support women, access is far from guaranteed. Pakistan’s penal code permits abortion to save a woman’s life, and in early stages for “necessary treatment”, yet stigma, moral policing, and provider bias routinely block care. Without enforcement and sensitivity training, legality remains meaningless for those who need it most.

When facilities are accessible, cultural norms pose another barrier. Women are more likely to seek medical care from female healthcare providers, yet only 46.9pc of registered doctors are women. For patients, a shortage of female doctors deters care-seeking among female patients, particularly where purdah norms prevail.

Unsurprisingly, Pakistan ranks last on the global gender gap index calculated for 146 countries by the World Economic Forum in 2025, and ranked 131st in health and survival, though a slight improvement from its 132nd place in 2024. These are not just rankings — they are reflections of how we’ve built our systems and who we have left out.

The price of denied autonomy

When women are unable to access timely medical care, their participation in the economy suffers. Untreated health issues, particularly reproductive ones, can lead to chronic conditions, lost workdays, and long-term dependency.

According to data by the International Labour Organisation, Pakistan’s female labour force participation is among the lowest in South Asia — rising from 13.95pc in 1990 to just 21.67pc in 2019 — with the lack of reproductive health access being a key, though often overlooked, contributor. Women experiencing undiagnosed or untreated reproductive health issues may be forced to withdraw from both formal and informal employment.

Moreover, women also shoulder disproportionate out-of-pocket medical costs, and delayed treatment often leads to health complications, requiring costlier interventions or prolonged care. Women from underprivileged backgrounds, especially in rural areas, may resort to borrowing, asset sales, or foregoing treatment altogether — further perpetuating cycles of poverty.

On a macro level, a high fertility rate, 3.6 births per woman in 2024, combined with weak maternal health indicators, means Pakistan risks missing its demographic dividend — the economic growth potential that arises when a country has a relatively large working-age population and fewer dependents.

If women, especially young and healthy ones, are unable to access timely healthcare or participate in the labour force due to poor reproductive health outcomes, this window of opportunity closes before Pakistan can reap its full benefits. Countries such as Bangladesh and Indonesia have leveraged investments in women’s health and education to grow their economies. Pakistan, without similar investments, may fail to capitalise on its expanding working-age population.

What needs to change

For women in Pakistan, the right to decide about their own health is far from guaranteed. A national protocol affirming that every adult woman can give informed consent for her own medical care is long overdue — one that leaves no room for interpretation and penalises institutions that flout it.

But legal clarity alone won’t help if care remains out of reach. Reproductive health services for common, and often debilitating conditions like PCOS, miscarriage care, and endometriosis are concentrated in big city hospitals. At the primary healthcare level, these are either missing or handled without privacy, dignity, or trained staff. Raising public health spending above the current 1pc of the GDP and earmarking resources for women’s health could make these services accessible to millions.

At the same time, it is important to understand that the people providing healthcare matter just as much as the facilities. Training healthcare workers to provide respectful and non-judgmental care, especially for young, unmarried, or marginalised women, would restore trust in a system many avoid until it is too late.

Retaining female doctors is equally crucial. While they make up the majority of medical graduates, unsafe workplaces, rigid schedules and and the lack of support drive many out of the profession. Flexible hours, secure facilities, and re-entry programmes would keep them in service and improve access for female patients.

Perhaps, the hardest shift will be in social attitudes. Women should not have to justify a hospital visit, nor seek permission to protect their health. Public awareness campaigns, built on empathy, could help dismantle these norms and affirm that adult women are capable decision-makers.

Denying women the right to make decisions about their own bodies weakens households, burdens the healthcare system, and constrains national growth. This is not just a health crisis or a gender issue — it is a national development failure.

The question is no longer whether women should have autonomy. The question is: how much longer can Pakistan afford the cost of denying it?

Header image: A doctor checks a woman at a makeshift hospital in the Rajanpur district of Punjab. — AFP

This year’s nominees for the International Emmys include documentaries on Gaza, Diljit Dosanjh’s film

Two different documentaries on the war on Gaza are nominated for separate awards, while Dosanjh is nominated for Best Actor.

Images Staff
26 Sep, 2025
DAWN

The nominations for this year’s International Emmy Awards are out and two powerful documentaries on the impact of Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza are in the running. The awards will be announced at a gala event in New York City on November 24.

In the current affairs category, an episode from the 38th season of Dispatches, an investigative journalism series from Britain’s Channel 4 has been nominated. Titled Kill Zone: Inside Gaza, the episode tells the story of the war through the eyes of children, journalists and doctors. Shot by 12 Palestinian filmmakers on the ground, The Guardian called it a “harrowing, heartbreaking programme” and IMDB gave it a rating of 8.4.

In the news category, Al Jazeera’s Gaza, Search for Life is among the contenders this year. The network’s show Fault Lines had two episodes based on stories from Gaza, Starving Gaza and All That Remains, nominated for the News Emmys earlier this year, while a third episode on immigration in Central America, Children of the Darien Gap, won the Outstanding Hard News Feature — Long Form and Outstanding Editing awards.

Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh is also in the running for an International Emmy for his performance in the film Amar Singh Chamkila. Directed by Imtiaz Ali, the Netflix biopic follows the life of Punjabi singer Amar Singh Chamkila — played by Dosanjh — from the start of his career as a part of another singer’s entourage, to his successful solo career and 1988 assassination; the film has also been nominated for the Best TV Movie award.

Malala pledges $100,000 to help Palestinian refugees in Gaza and Egypt

The Nobel laureate visited Cairo and met survivors of the war on Gaza.

Images Staff

26 Sep, 2025
DAWN

Nobel laureate and activist Malala Yousafzai was in Cairo this week, meeting Palestinian refugees who have had to leave Gaza in the wake of Israel’s brutal military campaign. She visited the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (INARA), an organisation providing Palestinians shelter, medical care, education and mental health support. Yousafzai met several children at INARA-run facilities and announced a $100,000 grant for the organisation from her Malala Fund.

The activist posted about her experiences on Instagram, recalling stories from the children she’d met. Having worked extensively with children, said this was “the first time where every child I met had been physically wounded, lost a close family member or saw their home bombed”. She said Palestinian children were the “hardest hit by Israel’s genocide”.

Yousafzai mentioned meeting a three-year-old girl who lost her siblings when she fled Gaza with her mother. A teenager she met said all she wanted was to see her father again. Another teenager, who had received therapy from INARA, was so traumatised by the events she saw unfolding that she couldn’t speak until she received mental health support.

The Nobel laureate ended her post with a note on how this crisis can only end once the war stops. “While we work to support children like those I met this week, we must continue demanding an end to the genocide,” Yousafzai said, urging leaders to pressure Israel into ending its siege of Gaza, opening checkpoints for aid shipments and implementing a permanent ceasefire.

“Palestinian kids deserve a future, and they deserve our support,” the activist said.

This announcement comes almost a month after Yousafzai pledged $3 million for girls’ education and women’s rights in Afghanistan. That grant went to 10 different organisations working both in Afghanistan and abroad to support Afghan girls and women.

Meanwhile, Israel’s war on Gaza has entered day 721, with over 65,400 killed and almost 167,400 wounded. Israel has criticised a wave of recognition for a Palestinian state this week at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address the meeting today ( Friday).

Israel threatens to stop Gaza-bound aid flotilla despite global appeals


September 25, 2025

MIDDLE EAST MONITOR

A general view of the ships, anchored in a bay off the coast of Italy, while the Global Sumud Flotilla continues its preparations for departure towards Greece’s Crete, on September 16, 2025. [Niccolo Celesti – Anadolu Agency]

Israel renewed its threat on Thursday to block a Gaza-bound aid flotilla from reaching the enclave, claiming the territory lies within a “combat operations zone,” Anadolu reports.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, carrying humanitarian aid and activists from multiple countries, has been sailing toward Gaza for days in a bid to challenge Israel’s 19-year blockade.

“Tel Aviv will not allow ships to enter a combat zone,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned on the US social media company X.

He repeated Israel’s claims that it enforces a “legal naval blockade” — an allegation disputed by rights groups such as Amnesty International, which called the blockade collective punishment and a violation of international law.

Saar claimed that Israel had accepted an Italian proposal to unload the flotilla’s cargo in the Greek Cypriot Administration before transferring it to Gaza, alleging that the organizers refused and proved their “real aim is provocation and serving Hamas.”

Early on Thursday, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto urged the flotilla organizers to accept Rome’s plan to deliver aid via the Greek Cypriot Administration and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, though the flotilla has not publicly responded.

READ: Spain joins Italy in dispatching navy vessel to back humanitarian flotilla for Gaza

The activists maintain their effort is both humanitarian and symbolic, describing arrival in Gaza as a direct challenge to Israel’s naval siege.

The flotilla includes dozens of ships and hundreds of international participants, among them Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Since March 2, Israel has fully closed Gaza’s crossings, blocking food and aid convoys and deepening famine conditions in the enclave. Only limited supplies are sporadically allowed in, and many are looted by armed groups that Gaza authorities accuse Israel of protecting.

On Wednesday, flotilla organizers said nine of their ships experienced 12 explosions caused by drones, without naming the party behind. Israel, which has repeatedly threatened to stop the flotilla, has remained silent.

Israel has previously intercepted Gaza-bound ships, seizing and deporting activists, including vessels named al-Dhamir, Madleen and Handala earlier this year. But this is the first time in years that dozens of ships are sailing together in a coordinated attempt to break the blockade of Gaza, home to 2.4 million Palestinians.

The Israeli army has killed more than 65,500 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave uninhabitable and led to starvation and the spread of diseases.

Greece is aiding Netanyahu government’s genocidal project: Former Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis



Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu in Athens, Greece on 2 January 2020

 [Yiannis Liakos/Anadolu Agency]


September 25, 2025 

MIDDLE EAST MONITOR


Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has accused Athens of “violating International Law to aid and abet the Netanyahu government’s genocidal project” after a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla was attacked by drones off southern Crete, Anadolu reports.

Varoufakis, a prominent author, opposition politician, and commentator, said on the US social media company X that he had spoken to the crew of the Family, the main vessel of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was struck on the night of Sept. 23 by “a swarm of drones with explosives and CS (tear) gas.”

The flotilla, he said, had requested urgent help from the Greek Coast Guard to repair damage and provide protection while sailing through Greece’s Search and Rescue area.

“Remarkably, nauseatingly to be precise, the Greek Coastguard turned both requests down!” he said.

“Such is the determination of the Greek government to aid and abet Israel’s genocide in Gaza and, more generally, its ethnic cleansing of Palestine, that the Greek authorities took the step of refusing assistance that the Law of the Sea obliges them to provide.”

According to Varoufakis, the refusal highlights how “readily, in a bid to satisfy (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu, the Greek government has forfeited not only its responsibilities but also its sovereignty.”

READ: Pro-Palestinian group protests outside Israeli-linked hotel in Greece

Under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, he added, “a long process by which Greece has become a satellite of the last Apartheid State is now complete,” referring to Israel’s policies of discriminating against and oppressing Palestinians.

He also pointed to wider evidence of complicity. On the night of the flotilla attack, Varoufakis claimed, a Beechcraft King Air 350 spy plane took off from the US Air Force base at Souda in northwestern Crete and flew south.

The aircraft, he said, belongs to the US leasing company Metrea Special Aerospace ISR and had previously been used to monitor Gaza from a British base in the Greek Cypriot Administration.

“One thing is clear from all of the above,” Varoufakis added.

“Through a mixture of omission and commission, the Greek government is violating International Law to aid and abet the Netanyahu government. Our party, MeRA25, will fight this government on the streets, in the workplaces, across a country – Greece – which refuses to be counted as complicit with Israel’s genocide.”

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza. The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave all but uninhabitable and led to starvation and the spread of diseases.

Bolivian president accuses US and Israel of ‘practicing genocide’

September 25, 2025 

MIDDLE EAST MONITOR

Luis Arce, Bolivia’s president, during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, US, on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025. [Photographer: David Dee Delgado/Bloomberg via Getty Images]


Bolivian President Luis Arce addressed the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, launching a harsh critique of the US. He accused Washington of causing pain and death globally and said that a “genocide is currently being practiced by the decision of two countries,” referring to Israel and the US, in Gaza, Anadolu reports.

“Today, the echoes of war drums are sounding,” Arce said, specifically targeting Washington. He argued that Donald Trump and other powerful sectors in the US have an “obsessive desire” to cause pain and death around the world.

The Bolivian president asserted that the “threat of death stalks Latin America and the Caribbean.” He said the US Southern Command has mobilized in the region with “war potential,” including missiles, planes, helicopters, and submarines.

According to Arce, the US argues it is in the region to “fight drug trafficking and organized crime,” but claimed that, “if it were true, it would begin to confront both of these issues in its own country.” He said that the deployment is actually a pretext to promote the “militarization of a region” and to carry out an “intervention in Venezuela … which possesses extremely important natural resources, especially oil, which the North intends to control.”

He said the US military operations seek to “attempt to regain control of Latin America and the Caribbean, based on undermining democracy, promoting militarization, and employing other colonialist tactics.”

Arce said that the world continues to bear the consequences of wars, blockades, and unilaterally imposed sanctions, which he believes contradict the UN’s founding principles.

He cited the economic blockade against Cuba as a prime example, referring to the millions in losses caused by the six-decade-long unilateral action by the US government. Arce said the blockade stemmed from “imperialism’s rejection of the region’s first socialist revolution.”

“The threat of death also runs through the Middle East,” Arce said, referring to the violence in the Gaza Strip, with the participation of Israel and the US, “which want to accelerate the displacement of the Palestinian people in the shortest possible time.”

A world in ferment

Abbas Nasir 

Published September 21, 2025
DAWN
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

THE thought that your plan is perfect, given the amount of thinking that has gone into its making, is delusional because there are factors out of your reach that can blow the best of plans off course.

We were driving to Leeds, UK, for a family commitment. It is about 2,300 kilometres away from where we live in Javea, Spain, a small town on the Mediterranean coast, midway between Valencia and Alicante.

In my relatively younger days, we thought nothing of driving a thousand kilometres in a day. But now, in my not-so-young days, my family does not agree to any plan that involves such long drives. We drive about 600 km at most and make night stops after being on the road for no more than six to seven hours.

Our night stops decided, accommodation booked, we thought we’d be happily on our way. But the French had other ideas. They vehemently safeguard their rights and, despite voting in a Conservative president committed to curtailing public expenditure, resent any cuts that impact their lives, healthcare plans, pensions, retirement age, to name just a few.

So, when their government presented a plan in parliament aimed at addressing what it said was a 44 billion-euro hole in the finances, the first casualty was the prime minister, who was voted out — not the same significance as in our parliamentary democracy, because France’s president is all-powerful, with the power to appoint one prime minister after another, which he promptly did.

America’s unconditional support to Israel is forcing a rethink in the Middle East and beyond.

An impromptu strike call was given by some parties and unions last week, which was partially successful. Then, this past Thursday, all the main unions joined in the strike call and pledged to shut down the country.

Since our arrival date was not flexible and neither was our departure, we decided to drive from our home in Spain to Clermont Ferrand in France, a distance of 1,100 km because we could not take the chance of being stranded due to the strike at our original night stop in Perpignan, just across the border from Spain — a town where Spaniards used to drive to watch films which the censors would block during the Franco dictatorship in their country.

Our amended plan meant staying two nights in Clermont Ferrand, which is home to the famous Michelin Tyres with a huge manufacturing unit and research laboratory situated here. Our drive took us through the picturesque Massif Central via the Norman Foster-designed Millau Viaduct (the world’s tallest bridge), which we saw being constructed when we first drove through the area in 1995. We stayed at one of the motorway (called autoroute in France) hotels for two nights.

After the 10-hour, 1,100 km drive, when we finally got to the room, a shattered me received my good friend and Dawn Magazines editor Hasan Zaidi’s ‘this is huge’ WhatsApp message, sharing a link, carrying the story of Pakistan’s mutual defence agreement with Saudi Arabia.

For as long as I can remember, the two nations have had very close defence ties, with Pakistani troops based in Saudi Arabia in the past for not just training their army but also acting as a reserve force in an internal security role. Even then, I have never read anything nearly as categorical as “an attack on one will be considered an attack on both”.

After Chinese mediation in recent years led to not just de-escalation in tensions between traditional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, but also declarations of brotherhood, this defence accord can’t really be directed at Tehran.

In fact, it followed Israel’s missile attack on Qatari soil, apparently targeting the Hamas negotiating team said to be discussing a US proposal for hostage release and ceasefire in Gaza. Israel remained unapologetic and said it would again target its enemies wherever they were.

The attack seems to have brought home the realisation to the Arab Gulf leaders that the security umbrella the US extends to their states excludes protection from Israeli aggression as a totally different set of standards govern the conduct of the genocidal apartheid state.

“Pakistani military might, Saudi financial heft to redraw Gulf security map,” read the six-colu­­mn headline in The News, summing up the developm­ent. Whether the Gulf security map would be re­­drawn via this agreement will become clearer when the details emerge. But it has been signal­led that Saudi security won’t rely on a single sou­r­­ce, which proved unreliable in Qatar’s case. Qa­­tar was attacked despite being home to the US Ce­­ntral Command’s largest base in the Middle East.

Even the details, if made public, are unlikely to shed light on, for example, a nuclear umbrella for the kingdom. Equally, many Pakistanis would be keen to find out what kind of response the next possible aggression from India on our soil would evoke from Saudi Arabia. India is Saudi Arabia’s second-largest trading partner, while Saudi Arabia is India’s fifth. Riyadh has pledged tens of billions of dollars in investment in India.

But America’s unconditional support to Israel is forcing a rethink not just in the Middle East ; it is leading to realignments beyond as well. Who knows if the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s collective or indivisible security may, in the end, appear more appealing to the wealthy Arab Gulf states than reliance on the US, which has shown it supports Israeli ambitions at the expense of other allies, including those in the Gulf.

In fact, when the Muslim leaders’ emergency meeting in Qatar was calling upon the US to exerc­ise its influence over Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was inaugurating the excavation of a tunnel (an ‘archaeological site’) which will end near the Al Aqsa Mosque and for which many Palestinians have been forcibly evicted from their homes in Jerusalem. Against this backdrop, the US-end­orsed Gaza genocide continues, billions around the world who oppose it are powerless to stop it.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2025

Pakistan will have to adapt to floods as the new normal, says expert

Dialogue Earth speaks to water resource management expert Muhammad Ehsan Leghari on how severe flooding can be better managed even as the country remains vulnerable to it.

Farahnaz Zahidi 

Published September 20, 2025
DAWN

With millions displaced and close to a thousand people dead, the Pakistan floods that have been ongoing since June are worryingly reminiscent of the floods that devastated the country in 2022.

As the country fights to keep its head above the rising floodwaters, many questions abound. Could the damage so far have been contained? How has climate change contributed? Has India’s release of floodwater — which it had warned about — exacerbated the loss and damage of its lower riparian neighbour? Have the floods been down to bad governance, or a lack of preparedness?

To understand these matters, Dialogue Earth spoke to Muhammad Ehsan Leghari, an expert on water resource management and member for the Sindh province at the Pakistani water regulator, the Indus River System Authority. He discussed the factors that have contributed to the unprecedented floods in Pakistan, what has and hasn’t worked for flood control, and how the country can manage future floods effectively. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What are the main natural and human-made factors that cause recurrent floods along the Indus River and its tributaries, particularly the massive inflows in the Punjab rivers?

As the geographer Gilbert F. White noted in 1942, “Floods are ‘acts of God’, but flood losses are largely acts of man”. Human choices in building and managing floodplains can turn natural hazards into disasters. The world, including Pakistan, has been slow to adopt behavioural adjustments alongside engineering, often implementing solutions poorly or unnecessarily.

There are some key factors, generally, regarding the exacerbation of flood impacts. Weak governance turns emergencies into disasters, as seen in recent deaths from floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other parts of Pakistan. Lack of rational spatial or land-use planning exacerbates urban and riverine flooding. Top-down planning ignores real issues and experiences for most Pakistanis. Political and bureaucratic elites prioritise “brick-and-mortar” development that increases flood and hazard impacts.

Intense monsoons with 200 to 300mm rainfall that had been forecasted, glacial melt and storms, predicted amid northern heatwaves, are natural factors that caused the floods. But human-made factors cannot be ignored: deforestation increases runoff, and urbanisation and encroachments block natural flows. Similarly, the Ravi Urban Development Authority’s paving of floodplains along the Ravi River in Punjab turned absorbent areas into concrete, inviting devastation by turning them into river paths.

Reports like Pakistan’s 2025 Monsoon Prediction, the National Adaptation Plan and the updated Climate Change Policy highlight reduced river capacity from bridges and encroachments. They’ve urged resilience through wetlands and habitat restoration, but have been ignored.

The 2025 inflows have been a result of exceptional upstream rains, Himalayan melt, and India’s dam releases amid heavy rainfall that overwhelmed Punjab’s flatlands, displacing over 2m people and impacting more 3.6m, with millions more at risk as waters reach Sindh. This exposes systemic issues: encroached plains displace water onto communities, costing billions. Enforced zoning is needed to break the cycle.
How do glacial melt and changing monsoon patterns contribute to flooding in Pakistan?

They drive unpredictability. Accelerated melting in the Himalayan, Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges due to warming heightens during heatwaves, synchronising with erratic, concentrated rains that overload the Chenab and Sutlej rivers in Punjab. The province faces riverine overflows, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh see flash and urban floods.

With Pakistan contributing to less than one per cent of global emissions, it’s an unjust hit when the country suffers from climate extremes, and in turn, $2 billion in losses. Pakistan will have to adapt to this new normal via basin monitoring, integrating it into development paradigms.

How effective are barrages, embankments and canals in managing floods? Do they worsen downstream flooding?

Controlled systems often increase downstream floods and droughts. Punjab mostly managed its headworks (structures at waterway diversion points) and barrages well during 2025 peaks, ensuring safely passing overflows. But Head Panjnad, a barrage where five rivers converge, faced aggressive flood waves, as forecasts by the Flood Forecasting Division had forewarned us. Punjab has rehabilitated most of its barrages; Sindh is upgrading its Guddu and Sukkur barrages.

However, these hydraulic structures can cause bottlenecks, blocking river paths and causing breaches, shifting burdens without adequate warning. Our infrastructure is old and inadequate, fostering a false sense of security for nearby developments. The solution is to shift strategy: live with floods, remove bottlenecks, let rivers flow and nourish floodplains. In addition, we must combine nature-based solutions — such as restoring floodplains — and controlling overflows with modern technology like automated barrage gates and AI forecasting.

What role does silt and sediment buildup in rivers and barrages play in increasing flood risks?

It raises riverbeds. Sediment buildup has elevated the River Indus riverbed, reducing the river’s flood handling capacity by 17.75pc. Research has shown that over a 24-year period, this issue, combined with diminished water flow, has decreased the river’s capacity to manage high water levels by nearly half. Without management, sediment buildup causes spills, erosion, breaches and waterlogging.

It’s a cyclical issue: earlier deforestation upstream caused more soil to wash into the river, and the continued failure to manage this sediment has made recent floods, such as those in 2025, much worse, costing billions and impacting thousands of people. We need basin-wide sediment strategies such as integrated watershed management for the Indus, involving India and Afghanistan.

How is climate change expected to alter the intensity and frequency of floods in the Indus River basin over the next 20–30 years?

Climate change will increase the intensity and frequency of floods in the basin over the next few decades. This will mainly be caused by more intense monsoon rains, surging glacier melt and rising sea levels that block drainage in Sindh. It will lead to a new normal of more severe flooding, such as that seen in the 2010, 2022 and 2025 events. That means increased losses and vulnerability, with models predicting even more economic and human damage. Research from the World Weather Attribution supports the overall trend of rising flood vulnerability.

To counter this, a combination of nature-based solutions like restoring wetlands to help absorb floodwaters and engineering solutions are needed, along with improved governance across the entire river basin.

Which groups or regions in Punjab have been most vulnerable to floods, and what local strategies could reduce their risk?

In my opinion, with around 4m people affected, the low-lying districts along the Sutlej, Chenab, Ravi and Indus rivers, especially Multan, Jhang, Layyah, Dera Ghazi Khan, and Bahawalnagar, have borne the brunt of recent floods. Urban risk zones include cities like Sialkot, Rawalpindi, Chakwal and Lahore; they face serious flood threats due to drainage and planning challenges.

If we seriously want to safeguard these regions, several measures will have to be taken, such as rebuilding and maintaining concrete embankments, in addition to offering seasonal relocation incentives for local people, deploying mobile and veterinary health units, and mobilising elder-led evacuation plans that draw on ancestral knowledge. Also, empowering communities through bridging skills gaps [in disaster preparedness] can lower risks drastically.

Are flood warning systems in Pakistan good enough, and if not, how can they be improved?

While flood warning systems have gotten better since 2010, they still need improvement. There is a definite lack of preparedness. Currently, one of the main problems is poor communication. Warnings don’t always reach rural areas, and sometimes they aren’t broadcast in local languages or communication channels. We also have accuracy issues: the information is not always reliable or delivered in real time. This is occasionally made worse by a lack of shared data between countries, as seen in the 2025 events involving India, particularly the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty in April.

To improve these systems, we need to take steps such as using 24/7 monitoring and expanding communication through community radio and text message alerts, and ensure better coordination between all groups involved, especially at the community level. Most importantly, we need to shift from a top-down, reactive approach, to a bottom-up, community-driven one that empowers local people, especially the most vulnerable.

Did India release water that caused Punjab’s floods, and if so, was Pakistan warned?

India released excess dam water — including from the Bhakra dam upstream of Pakistan’s Punjab province — worsening monsoon surges. Under the Indus Water Treaty, India should have restored effective communications mechanisms. Pakistan implies that India may have used water as a weapon; however, warnings came earlier through diplomatic channels — the first since the Indus Waters Treaty suspension — on humanitarian grounds.

What should Pakistan prioritise in order to mitigate floods?

Pakistan should prioritise rainwater harvesting, urban water reuse, developing green building codes, restoring its wetlands and floodplains, watershed management and forestation, which together can cut flood peaks by 10-20pc. A 2023 Dutch white paper also stresses integrated resilience through three methods: water “reuse” (spreading so as to recharge groundwater) and “retention/reduction” (via cross-drainage and flood channels), as well as the concept of “removing”, or making space for the river through bridge redesign and bund removals, rather than resort to mega-dam projects.

Dams are not the solution. They bring high costs, ecological damage, displacement, and can even worsen floods. We saw this in 2025, when water was released from India’s full dams on the Ravi and Sutlej rivers into encroached plains, and the part of the Chenab river without dams surged to 1m cusecs (cubic flow per second). Dams are widely seen as anti-poor, anti-environment and unjust.

Which province has suffered the most in the floods of 2025?

Nationwide, since late-June, there have been over 900 monsoon-related deaths, and as of September 11, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has had the most fatalities (504) from flash floods, landslides and cloudbursts. From August 14 to 16, cloudbursts triggered flash floods in the province. Buner, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was worst hit, with at least 380 deaths. Shangla, Swat and Swabi, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saw similar destruction. Intense rain, deforestation, valley blockages and unregulated construction turned debris deadly, showing an urgent need for mountain-area planning and regulation.

Punjab faces the biggest infrastructure and agricultural losses. Sindh has suffered the longest inundation and displacement due to its flat [and poorly draining] terrain. The terrain drives impacts; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s slopes are deadly, while Punjab and Sindh bear economic and geographically spread-out damage [due to being relatively flat]. The whole country is in need of multidimensional recovery.

What are the risks to Sindh, as the lower riparian province?

Sindh’s lower riparian status exposes it to unmanaged upstream floods. But despite that, it lacks input on water releases or land use. In the province, rains amplify to become disasters due to its flat terrain with no flood escape routes, forcing river flows to reclaim floodplains through devastating breaches and prolonged inundation.

What are the biggest governance or policy gaps preventing effective flood management in Pakistan?

The main obstacle is weak governance. More than 400 flood path obstructions were identified in 2011 in a government report I worked on, which mapped over 350 coordinates. Flood responses are often fragmented and reactive, while agencies like the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and its provincial counterparts remain disconnected from communities.

Irrigation departments are under-resourced and politicised, and the 10-year Flood Plan IV has stalled. Spatial planning rules are poorly enforced, and elite development projects by the Ravi Urban Development Authority tend to overshadow public safety. Mandates remain unclear, with overlapping institutions and unresolved inter-provincial disputes. To move forward, Pakistan needs clearly defined roles — who is responsible, when, how and at what cost.

Header image: Flooding in the Lasi Goth area of Karachi, Sindh province, in September 2025 (Image: Pakistan Press International / Alamy)

This article was originally published by Dialogue Earth and has been republished with permission.