GENEVA: Regular rail service through the world’s longest tunnel began on Sunday, carrying passengers deep under the Swiss Alps from Zurich to Lugano.
The famed Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) had a ceremonial opening in June, attracting European leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande for its maiden ride.
The Swiss national rail service (SBB) had announced that Sunday would mark the start of normal commercial traffic through the 57-kilometer (35-mile) GBT, which took 17 years to build, at a cost of over 12 billion Swiss francs ($11.8 billion, 11.2 billion euros).
The Swiss news agency ATS reported that the first regular passenger train to use the GBT pulled out of Zurich at 6:09 am (0509 GMT) and arrived in Lugano at 8:17 am, with the tunnel passage shaving a full 30 minutes off the previous travel time for the same route.
“It’s Christmas,” SBB chief Andreas Meyer was quoted as saying by ATS after the journey was over.
The ambitious GBT project has won praise across Europe for its pioneering efforts to improve connectivity from Rotterdam to the Adriatic.
The Swiss funded tunnel was largely made possible by technical advances in tunnel-boring machines, which replaced the costly and dangerous blast-and-drill method.
The GBT has surpassed Japan’s 53.9-kilometer Seikan tunnel as the world’s longest train tunnel.
The 50.5-kilometer Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and France has been bumped into third place.
World’s longest tunnel opens regular service in Switzerland
World’s longest tunnel opens regular service in Switzerland
Pakistan anti-graft body says in talks with UAE to curb money laundering, illegal assets holding
- Many Pakistanis reportedly own luxury homes and commercial properties in the UAE despite not working or having any businesses in Gulf country
- A team of Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau will soon visit Dubai to sign an MoU with Emirati authorities for cooperation against corruption
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) said on Tuesday it was in talks with its counterparts in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to curb money laundering and illegal offshore asset holdings through mutual legal assistance.
Pakistan has a large diaspora in the UAE, who are a major source of foreign remittances to the South Asian country, while many Pakistanis reportedly own luxury homes and commercial properties despite not working or having any businesses in the Gulf nation.
In 2018, the Supreme Court of Pakistan was presented a report, compiled by chartered accountancy firm A.F. Ferguson, that stated that Pakistani nationals owned properties and assets worth $150 billion in the UAE, in a case relating to illegal offshore assets.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, senior NAB officials said they have recently signed multiple mutual legal assistance agreements with foreign governments as they announced a record recovery of Rs6.213 trillion ($22 billion) ill-gotten money in 2025.
“A team of NAB officials will travel to Dubai in the coming weeks to sign an MoU with the UAE Accountability Authority (UAEAA) for joint cooperation against corruption,” NAB’s Director General (Operations) Amjad Majeed Aulakh said, adding that both sides have already held several rounds of talks to finalize the agreement.
Asked if Pakistan planned to crack down on individuals who purchased assets in the UAE using illicit funds, Aulakh said the anti-corruption watchdog was already tracing and repatriating assets stashed abroad via INTERPOL, the Global Operational Network of Law Enforcement Agencies (GlobE), and the Asset Recovery Interagency Network – Asia Pacific (ARIN-AP).
The Bureau’s total recoveries reached Rs11.524 trillion ($41 billion) over the past three years, with 2025 alone accounting for more than half of that amount, according to NAB Deputy Chairman Sohail Nasir. These recoveries included around 2.98 million acres of encroached state and forest land.
The watchdog is also strengthening its capacity to handle sophisticated financial crimes, including the use of cryptocurrency to evade monitoring, officials said.
“We are working on enhancing our capacity,” Aulakh said. “However, those using crypto for money laundering or corruption are eventually caught when they attempt to convert it into movable or immovable assets.”
Such investigations are increasingly supported by artificial intelligence-assisted tools, blockchain analysis and digital forensics, he added.
