ISLAMABAD: The Karachi-based K-Electric has sought approval to charge up to Rs18.6 per unit additional fuel cost from power consumers at an average monthly burden of about Rs2 per unit to mop up about Rs28bn additional funds and clear a backlog of about nine months (July 2023 to March 2024). In a series of petitions filed before the National Electric …

ISLAMABAD: The petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD) prices are set to drop by about Rs5 and Rs9 per litre, respectively, on Tuesday mainly because of a fall in the international prices and import premiums. Informed sources said the prices of petrol and HSD had declined in the international market by about $3 and $5 per barrel, respectively, in the last …

RIYADH: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Hamas to swiftly accept an Israeli proposal for a truce in the Gaza war and the release of Israeli prisoners held by the Palestinian group. After meeting in Cairo, the Hamas delegation left Egypt and returned to Qatar “to discuss the ideas and the proposal… and we are keen to respond …

DUBAI: An Emirati-owned firm suspended operations at a gas complex in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region on Monday after a drone strike that killed four people last week. The Khor Mor complex, owned by Dana Gas, was hit several times in recent years, but Friday’s attack was the first deadly incident. Four workers died and eight others were wounded when the drone struck …

WASHINGTON: Even as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was basking in American adulation, “an officer in India’s intelligence service was relaying final instructions to a hired hit team to kill one of Modi’s most vocal critics in the United States,” The Washington Post reported on Monday, painting a damning picture of New Delhi’s operations on foreign soil and the complicity of its top leadership in …

New York: Columbia University’s president said on Monday that talks with pro-Palestinian protesters over the dismantling of an encampment on the Ivy League campus had failed and urged them to voluntarily disperse or face suspension from school. President Nemat Minouche Shafik said days of talks between student organisers and academic leaders had failed to break a stalemate over the encampment …

MAI MAHIU: Forty-six people died when a makeshift dam burst its banks in Kenya’s Rift Valley in the early hours of Monday, as torrential rains and floods battered the country. Scores of people have been killed over the March-May wet season in Kenya as heavier than usual rainfall pounds East Africa, compounded by the El Nino weather pattern. Residents said …

DHAKA: A Bangladeshi court ordered a nationwide shutdown of schools on Monday due to an ongoing heat wave, one day after the government sent millions of children back to class despite searing temperatures. Extensive scientific research has found climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense. Average temperatures in Dhaka over the past week …

A gunman stormed a mosque in western Afghanistan and killed six people, a government spokesman said on Tuesday, with local residents claiming the Shia community had been targeted. Interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said that “an unknown armed person shot at civilian worshippers in a mosque” in Herat province’s Guzara district on Monday at around 9:00pm (1630 GMT). “Six …

GENEVA: The Taliban faced criticism over their human rights record at a UN meeting on Monday, with Washington accusing them of systematically depriving women and girls of their human rights. However, in an awkward first for the UN Human Rights Council, the concerned country’s current rulers were not present because they are not recognised by the global body. Afghanistan was …