ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Friday announced Prime Minister Imran Khan’s two-day visit to Sri Lanka that has been hit by a controversy over the cancellation of his planned speech to the country’s parliament. A statement issued by the Foreign Office said that Mr Khan would visit Sri Lanka from Feb 23 to 24 on the invitation of Sri Lankan Prime Minister …

LONDON: A group of Uber drivers are entitled to worker rights such as the minimum wage, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled on Friday in a blow to the ride-hailing service that has ramifications for millions of others in the gig economy. In a case led by two former Uber drivers, a London employment tribunal ruled in 2016 that they were due …

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden declared on Friday the “transatlantic alliance is back” in a powerful speech seeking to re-establish the United States as leader of the West against what he called a global assault on democracy. The address to the annual Munich Security Conference — held by video link because of the pandemic — dovetailed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s …

ISLAMABAD: Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa on Friday re-emphasised Pakistan’s commitment to Afghan peace process. He was talking to US Centcom Commander Gen Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., who called on him at the General Headquarters. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) quoted Gen Bajwa as having told Gen McKenzie that “Pakistan is committed to efforts for peace …

SRINAGAR: A Kashmir freedom fighter gunned down two policemen on a busy street in the disputed territory’s main city Srinagar on Friday, the latest in a string of deadly attacks around a visit by 24 foreign ambassadors. In total, the surge in violence left three police officers and three freedom fighters dead, with the latest killings coming just hours after …

Three separate explosions in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday killed at least five people and wounded two others, a police official said, amid a surge in violence in the war-torn country. Kabul police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz said the first two explosions took place 15 minutes apart and a third targeting a police vehicle took place two hours later. No group has …

KARACHI: The National Drought Mon­itoring Centre, part of the Pakistan Mete­orological Department (PMD), has warned that drought-like conditions currently prevailing in parts of Sindh and Balochistan may exacerbate and cause water stress in cultivated lands due to limited supply of irrigation water for Rabi crops. According to an advisory issued by the centre on Thursday, the situation has emerged due …

ISLAMABAD: In order to resolve the longstanding issue of traffic gridlocks in the middle of the city, the civic agency is all set to start construction of an interchange at the junction of 7th Avenue and Srinagar Highway near Aabpara. The CDA has received bids from two companies and a consortium of three other firms. The civic agency opened technical …

SIALKOT/NOWSHERA: While poll-related violence claimed lives of two persons in Punjab, the victory of a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz candidate from a stronghold of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa came as a big surprise for the ruling party as it failed to retain the provincial assembly seat it won in 2018. Polling for by-elections on two National Assembly seats, in Daska …

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration’s Agriculture Department on Friday distributed around 1,200 poultry birds among deserving women under Prime Minister’s ‘Backyard Poultry’ initiative. The initiative was aimed at addressing stunted growth in poor households, providing nourishment, supplementing family incomes through sale of organic eggs, besides creating job and making women to participate in poverty alleviation, Director Agriculture Waqar …