“The issue these days is not the plane or Maryam Nawaz’s statement; the real issue is with Maryam Nawaz’s performance and her rising popularity,” Aurangzeb said in a post on X.

She said that it had already been made clear that CM Maryam would bear the expenses of her visit to London.

The chief minister had travelled to London last week to attend the graduation ceremony of her daughter, Mahnoor, and returned to Lahore on Wednesday. The Punjab government insists the CM bore all expenses of the trip.

The development had followed CM Maryam’s remarks that Punjab faced a greater security threat from “neighbouring provinces than from neighbouring countries”.

The remarks were widely panned, with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday passing a majority resolution seeking action against her under Article 6 of the Constitution over the remarks, after suspending the day’s agenda.

However, during the assembly session, KP Information Minister Shafi Jan had resorted to making derogatory and sexist remarks about the Punjab chief minister and senior minister.

Aurangzeb said on Saturday that those using CM Maryam’s statement to “spread hatred among the provinces and division in the nation” should apologise to the public.

Criticising Jan’s remarks, she said his “cheap rhetoric” was in line with the PTI and its leadership’s “detestable tradition of using foul language against women”.

“Unfortunately, these elements have been imposed on KP who are not even aware of the traditions of the proud Pashtuns who respect their mothers, sisters and daughters,” she said.

“Terrorists blow human bodies to pieces with guns and suicide jackets, and their facilitators use language as a weapon to insult humans, especially women,” Aurangzeb said.

Many incidents where AI agents from developers such as OpenAI and rival Anthropic have hacked or attempted to access external systems have heightened concerns over the increasing capacity of AI models and developers’ ability to contain them.

The latest revelation also comes as growing numbers of US lawmakers call for new rules to govern AI systems after dire warnings from two Anthropic researchers that rapidly progressing AI could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future.

AI agents uploaded hundreds of malicious packages to RubyGems on May 11, according to a group of researchers who posted their findings online on Friday, saying they believed “these were authored by internal OpenAI agents”.

OpenAI confirmed the incident.

“Based on our review, our agents used the RubyGems platform to access the internet to carry out benign tasks and retrieve public information. We’ll continue to investigate as part of our broader review of agent activity during training and evaluation,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement.

The agents, which are generally tasked with assignments such as creating reports or filling out spreadsheets, appear to have used RubyGems to access publicly available data as part of a training run, OpenAI said, adding that they are in touch with RubyGems to review the incident.

Latest revelation of attacks by AI agents

IPO-bound rival Anthropic has also reported a string of attacks by its agents. On Wednesday, it disclosed a fourth instance of an AI model hacking external systems during testing.

For OpenAI, which is also gearing up for an IPO, the RubyGems attack would mark at least the third major instance where its agents attacked another company’s infrastructure.

A swarm of OpenAI agents previously hijacked a German-language wiki site and turned it into an improvised messaging platform for cheating on tests, an incident that OpenAI kept secret as it dealt with the fallout from the July hack of the open-source repository Hugging Face.

The AI agents in May tried to steal RubyGems user credentials by exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in the site’s servers, though it is unclear whether the attempt succeeded, the researchers said on Friday.

The agents also exploited RubyDoc.info, a site that generates code documentation, to run their own code on its servers, they said.

AI researchers Spencer Kitts, Thomas Larsen and Sydney Von Arx said it was not clear why the AI agents chose this strategy or whether it was successful as they do not have access to the rest of the AI behavior.

In a blog post on Friday, RubyGems said its own investigation found no evidence the attempts succeeded. It said the company could not determine if the packages in the “spam-publishing campaign” were created or published by AI agents.

A member of RubyGems’ security team in May described the incident — which forced the company to temporarily pause new account registrations — as a “major malicious attack.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported the RubyGems incident on Friday.

The conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, along with global trade turbulence and energy security, will dominate the two-day meeting of the 11-nation bloc.

But Xi’s visit is also being closely watched as his first to neighbouring India since 2019, and the biggest step yet in a cautious thaw between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Xi was given a red-carpet welcome, with an honour guard of soldiers and traditional dancers in colourful dresses.

His arrival comes six years after a deadly 2020 military clash along their disputed Tibetan border, with ties gradually improving through restored flights, visas and high-level contacts.

Beijing said on Friday it was “ready to work with India … by strengthening communication, enhancing cooperation, and properly handling differences”.

The underlying territorial dispute remains unresolved, and both sides retain heavy military deployments along their roughly 3,500-kilometre high-altitude border along Tibet.

‘Substantial harvest’

Xi is due to hold face-to-face talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi later on Saturday, according to New Delhi’s foreign ministry.

“They are looking for ‘early and substantial harvest’ when it comes to the border issue,” said Pradeep Taneja, a China-India expert at the University of Melbourne.

“You cannot have a build-up of your forces on the border … but at the same time say ‘we should continue to have people-to-people relations and economic relationships’.”

Deep mistrust remains, with their contested Himalayan frontier, a widening trade deficit and strategic rivalry still complicating ties.

Dozens of Tibetans protested in New Delhi on Friday — exiles, like their Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since fleeing a Chinese crackdown in 1959 — waving placards against Xi’s visit.

Modi embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday before talks.

Putin, who last visited India in December 2025, is one of New Delhi’s most important strategic partners.

India has navigated the energy crisis caused by the US-Iran war in part by turning to Russia, despite Moscow’s war in Ukraine and pressure from Washington and other Western capitals.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, also in New Delhi on Friday, said that pressure on Iran “has reached a critical and dangerous stage” following the “military aggression by the United States and Israel”.

Modi and Pezeshkian also held talks.

India maintains cordial relations with Iran and Israel, but is also careful to strike a delicate balance in its ties with Washington.

‘Big constraint’

BRICS was created in 2009 as a forum for major emerging economies seeking greater influence in institutions dominated by Western powers.

Modi told leaders that BRICS nations “represent 50 per cent of the world’s population, 40pc of global GDP, and more than 2pc of global trade”.

As well as Iran, BRICS includes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — countries with sharply differing positions on the war launched by the US and Israel in February.

UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi are also to attend.

Brazil is represented by Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva campaigning for a fourth term in October elections.

BRICS foreign ministers failed to agree on a joint statement when they met in New Delhi in May.

“The Gulf conflict is going to be the central fault line this time during the BRICS summit,” said Harsh V Pant of India’s Observer Research Foundation.

“What was seen until last year as an achievement – the expansion of BRICS — today looks like a big constraint on BRICS,” Pant said.

“The district judiciary is the backbone of our justice system and for most citizens, this is the first contact they have with any state institution,” he said while addressing a conference in Islamabad.

“If we aspire to strengthen public confidence in the judiciary, we must continue to strengthen the institutions within which our district judiciary serves,” he said.

He said public confidence in the judiciary was “neither inherited nor proclaimed”, but was earned through integrity, competence, fairness, compassion, and institutions that empowered judges to perform their duties with excellence.

Recalling his visits to judicial posts in remote parts of the country after assuming office, CJP Afridi said he visited Chitral, Gwadar, Sadiqabad, Bahawalnagar and Nagarparkar. He said that during his visits, he realised there was a disconnect between the district judiciary and the National Judicial Policy Making Committee (NJPMC).

The NJPMC was set up under an ordinance in 2002 to coordinate and harmonise judicial policy within the court system and in coordination with the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan.

In his remarks, CJP Afridi said the body had the authority to formulate policies, and sanction projects originating from the district judiciary and financed by the Access to Justice Fund.

He said that projects sent by district courts previously took three to four months to secure approval, while some were never completed due to ballooning costs.

The CJP said the NJPMC subsequently decided to appoint additional secretaries for each province to serve as a “link” between the committee, high courts and the district judiciary. He said a 21-day timeline had also been set for approval of projects and disbursement of finances under the Access to Justice Fund.

In his remarks, CJP Afridi said the district judiciary was asked to submit a “wishlist” of its most pressing needs, which identified four priorities: uninterrupted electricity, internet connectivity, essential facilities for women and clean water.

He said the NJPMC decided to allocate funds for the four projects. He said that Rs900 million had been disbursed from the Access to Justice Fund over the previous 20 years, but Rs3.4 billion was released in one year for the aforementioned four projects.

The CJP said the NJPMC had also taken several steps to improve the working conditions and facilities available to judicial officers across the country.

Justice Afridi said the NJPMC had also introduced changes in the code of conduct for judicial officers and established a set procedure to deal with any “extraneous influence”.

“As far as you are concerned, be assured that you are not alone. This assurance is only for those judicial officers who are honest … if we find out that you are making those approaches, this assurance of the CJP will not be extended to you … I expect that a judicial officer will be independent and not approachable by any extraneous influence,” he said.

The CJP said all tehsil courts in Punjab, Sindh, KP and Islamabad had been solarised. He said Balochistan faced difficulties in transporting solar equipment to remote areas, but the chief justice of the province had assured him that the work would be completed within 30 days.

CJP Afridi said the same facilities should also be available to bar associations, adding that where electricity was available in courts, it should not be restricted to the courtrooms but should also serve the bars.

In his remarks, CJP Afridi also questioned the country’s poor ranking in the Rule of Law Index, which had given Pakistan a “dismal” ranking.

“What is wrong? I went to these remote areas. There is one court in Nagarparkar which has solar power, internet connectivity … a women facilitation centre and there is clear water. If these facilities are provided in the remotest area in Pakistan, what do they talk about in the index?” he asked.

He said five of the eight pillars assessed by the Rule of Law Index related to the judiciary. He said that the NJPMC had decided to provide empirical data on the performance and facilities of the district judiciary.

He said the NJPMC would provide data to the relevant commission before future rankings were compiled so that the situation on the ground could be properly assessed.

The CJP also announced commendations for judicial officers who had demonstrated excellence, with recipients nominated by the high courts.

“I congratulate all the recipients for their continued leadership as we speak of well-being and excellence,” he said.

Justice Afridi also paid tribute to Judge Hakeem Kakar, who was martyred in July en route to Mastung, saying the most meaningful tribute to him and others like him was to “remain steadfast in upholding the rule of law and serving the people of Pakistan”.

He urged Rule of Law Index assessors to consider the sacrifices of judicial officers serving in the country’s remotest areas and offered assistance in facilitating visits to such locations.

“I am proud of you, district judiciary,” he said in conclusion.