Contact has been lost with a passenger plane carrying more than two dozen people in Russia’s Far Eastern peninsula of Kamchatka, local officials said on Tuesday. The An-26 was flying from Kamchatka’s main city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the town of Palana when it disappeared and failed to land as scheduled, Valentina Glazova, a spokeswoman for the local transport prosecutor’s office, …

ISLAMABAD: While the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) warned of re-imposing restrictions in the wake of severe violations of standard operating procedures (SOPs), Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Monday criticised Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif for holding a public meeting in Swat. On the other hand, the NCOC has decided …

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Cha­­udhry said on Tuesday that the “Indian terrorist network” operating in Balochistan had been dismantled and that now the government will set an agenda for dialogue with Baloch nationalists. He said the federal government had planned to execute 131 development projects worth Rs731 billion in Balochistan while the provincial government’s development programme for …

Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood on Tuesday announced that the education ministry, in consultation with local and international stakeholders, has developed an e-portal for the Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) that will let students receive equivalence certificates at their doorstep after completing “simple” formalities. The IBCC issues equivalence certificates for A and O levels, International Baccalaureate Programmes, religious degrees and …

ISLAMABAD: The National Account­ability Bureau (NAB), Rawalpindi, relea­sed on Monday details of people from whom recoveries were made in the fake bank accounts case. Around 172 people, including prominent politicians such as Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, are being investigated by the accountability watchdog in the case. NAB claims that several of those …

ISLAMABAD: The report of a committee formed to hear appeal of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) will be placed before the cabinet at its next meeting for a final word. This was disclosed by Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed while speaking at a press conference here on Monday. He said the counsel for the TLP gave arguments before the panel, which …

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Monday said that India was using Afghan soil for terrorism in Pakistan by providing training and funding to militants. Pakistan is concerned about involvement of India in terrorist activities in the country by using the soil of brotherly country Afghanistan, the president said while talking to the visiting Commander of Turkish Land Forces, General …

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has ruled that by dissolving the local government institutions, the Punjab government had disenfranchised the people who voted for their representatives. The dissolution of the local government system in Punjab has directly come into conflict with Article 17 of the Constitution, read with Articles 140A, 7 and 32, explained a detailed judgement authored by Chief Justice …

ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA)’s technical committee on Monday approved a revised PC-I for installing three sewage treatment plants (STPs) in the catchment area of Rawal Dam. The CDA is going to set up the STPs in rural area of Islamabad to stop contamination of the dam. In the absence of STPs, Rawal Dam receives untreated sewage from unplanned …

l MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Monday reassured Kashmiris that only they had the right to make a decision about their future status. “We don’t think that the decision about the future of Kashmiri people will be taken either by Islamabad or by New Delhi. We believe it’s you who have the right to decide …