WASHINGTON: The congressional committee investigating last year’s deadly assault on the US Capitol turned its attention on Thursday to then-president Donald Trump’s attempts to pressure former vice president Mike Pence to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The House of Representatives select committee called former aides to Pence to testify on efforts by Trump and some of his associates to convince …

AL-HUMAYRAH (Syria): US coalition forces said they captured a senior militant Islamic State group bomb maker in a pre-dawn raid on Thursday that, witnesses said, saw troops in helicopters swoop down on an isolated house in rebel-held northwestern Syria. A war monitor and AFP correspondents said two military helicopters touched down for only a few minutes, and several shots were fired, in …

KANDAHAR: The Taliban’s religious police have put up posters across the southern Afghan city of Kandahar saying that Muslim women who do not wear a hijab that fully covers their bodies are “trying to look like animals”, an official confirmed on Thursday. Since seizing power in August, the Taliban have imposed harsh restrictions on Afghan women, rolling back the marginal …

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Thursday advocated the case for trade and engagement with other countries, especially India and the United States, and noted that Pakistan was isolated on the world stage due to past policies. In his first major foreign policy speech since taking office at the end of April, he touched upon the country’s major relationships and …

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will visit Turkey on June 22, a senior Turkish official told AFP Friday, as Ankara and Riyadh move on from the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It is Prince Mohammed’s first visit to Turkey since the brutal killing of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which shocked the world and dealt a heavy blow …

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global watchdog for combatting money laundering and terrorist financing, is expected to announce today (Friday) whether Pakistan will be removed from or retained on its increased monitoring list, also known as the “grey list”, but the government is hopeful the outcome will be in the country’s favour. The four-day plenary session began in …

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price has condemned the “offensive comments” about Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) by members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On June 5, BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma and another party leader, Naveen Kumar Jindal, had made disrespectful remarks about the Prophet (PBUH) and after worldwide condemnation, the BJP had to distance itself from their statements, …

Three Palestinians were killed and 10 others were wounded on Friday during an Israeli army raid in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. The three men were killed when the Israeli forces opened fire on a vehicle in which they were travelling, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. “Fierce clashes” then ensued in the area, with Israeli troops firing at …

KARACHI: Marred by low turnout, mismanagement on part of the Election Commission and poor performance of the law-enforcement agencies, the by-election in Karachi’s NA-240 turned into a deadly episode on Thursday. Armed attacks, clashes between workers of rival parties and an assault on election camps left at least one man dead and over a dozen people injured amid complaints of …

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has allowed a sales tax reference of JDW Sugar Mills, owned by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s estranged leader Jahangir Khan Tareen, against the Inland Revenue department of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). The mills filed the reference against an order passed by an appellate tribunal of the Inland Revenue on June 29, 2015. Advocate Sultan Ali …