Attorneys for Britney Spears and her father Jamie Spears sparred on Thursday over how he should share power with a financial company newly appointed as his partner in the conservatorship that controls her money. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny overruled an objection of Jamie’s attorney, Vivian Lee Thoreen, who argued that he should not yield previously granted rights and powers …

PARIS: Russia and France on Thursday urged Iran to show restraint after it started producing uranium metal in a new breach of limits laid out in Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. The UN’s nuclear watchdog in Vienna reported that Iran has started producing uranium metal in defiance of a 2015 deal with world powers on which ex-US president Donald …

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Moscow is ready to sever ties with the European Union (EU) if the bloc hits it with painful economic sanctions, according to extracts of an interview posted on the ministry’s website on Friday. Relations between Russia and the West have come under renewed pressure over the arrest and jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei …

ISLAMABAD: Justice Yahya Afridi on Thursday wondered why the government had moved the presidential reference before the Supreme Court to seek its opinion on a matter which already stood answered through a previous verdict. “Are you setting a rule or a precedence that when there is a dispute between judgements of two different benches you would require a clarification through …

ISLAMABAD: Over 200 government employees, including some trade union leaders, who had been picked up by the police on Wednesday during a violent protest, were released on Thursday evening, hours after signing of an agreement between their representatives and the government. Sources told Dawn that some of the union leaders, who had been arrested by the capital police under 3MPO (Maintenance of …

KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Thursday directed the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to refund (unfreeze) the ‘unclaimed’ money deposited in a private bank by slain Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in order to start the process of transferring the funds to the government treasury. The Taliban leader was killed in a US drone attack in 2016. The judge …

ISLAMABAD: The chief justice of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday reminded the regulatory bodies of lawyers — the Pakistan Bar Council and Islamabad Bar Council — of their statutory obligation and urged them to discharge their responsibilities to ensure the rule of law. IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah, in a detailed letter written to the chairman of the …

ISLAMABAD: With a view to removing a legal hitch in the holding of long-overdue local government elections in the provinces, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday called for official publication of the results of Census 2017 before March. Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja chaired a meeting on the conduct of local government elections in Balochistan and Khyber …

PESHAWAR: A teenager shot dead an Ahmadi homeopathic doctor in Bazidkhel area of the city here on Thursday, police said. An official of the Inqilab police station told Dawn that the deceased belonged to the Ahamdi faith. A police spokesperson identified the slain man as Abdul Qadir who was shot dead by an accused identified as Ihsanullah, 18. The locals …

LAHORE: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday called Prof Sajid Mir to tell him that he should get ready to contest the Senate election on the PML-N ticket as the party has decided to field him. This is for the fifth time Prof Sajid Mir, chief of Jamiat Ahle Hadith, will contest the Senate election on the PML-N ticket. …