ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Com­­mittee on Interior has sought a detailed report about the escape from the country of spokesman for the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Ehsanullah Ehsan. Senator Javed Abbasi raised the issue during a meeting of the committee presided over by its chairman Rehman Malik on Monday. He wondered how such a high-profile person who was said to …

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Monday gave a last chance to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for formally contesting the bail petitions filed by former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal. Barrister Zaffarullah Khan, the counsel for Mr Abbasi, argued before an IHC bench comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Lubna Saleem Pervez …

A Lahore anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday accepted a plea seeking the simultaneous hearing and verdict of six cases against the chief of the proscribed organisation Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), Hafiz Saeed, and his associates. Deputy Prosecutor General Abdul Rauf Wattoo told DawnNewsTV that in total six cases against the said individuals were pending before the same court, adding that in four of …

The Islamabad High Court on Tuesday demanded an explanation from an Islamabad city magistrate for including sedition charges in the first-information report (FIR) registered against the 23 activists who had been detained for protesting outside the press club against the arrest of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) leader Manzoor Pashteen. During the hearing today, IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah was told that Islamabad …

The Lahore High Court on Tuesday rejected Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz’s bail plea in a case concerning illegal assets and money laundering. The PML-N leader was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in June of last year. The high court’s decision comes days after it granted post-arrest bail to Hamza in the Ramzan Sugar Mills …

The Islamabad High Court on Tuesday declared the presidential ordinance for the dissolution of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) as null and void and reinstated the employees of the council. In a short order announced in court, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani also ordered the dissolution of the newly-formed Pakistan Medial Commission (PMC) declaring it to be illegal. Editorial: No more …

MIAMI: The US-European Solar Orbiter probe launched on Sunday night from Florida on a voyage to deepen our understanding of the Sun and how it shapes the space weather that impacts technology back on Earth. The mission, a collaboration between ESA (the European Space Agency) and NASA, successfully blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at 11:03 …

Chinas top handset makers are answering Washingtons unintended call, and that could hurt Google Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi and Vivo, have joined together to build a shared platform to rival the Play store, Reuters reported earlier this month. It could threaten some 5 per cent of the topline at the $1 trillion parent Alphabet, and the de-facto US dominance of Android. …

BEIJING: The number of deaths from China´s new coronavirus epidemic jumped to 902 on Monday after the hardest-hit province of Hubei reported 91 new fatalities. In its daily update, Hubei´s health commission also confirmed another 2,618 new cases in the central province, where the outbreak emerged in December. There are now more than 39,800 confirmed cases across China, based on …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has expressed serious concern over the financial crunch being faced by the public sector universities due to reduction in the budget of higher education by the government. In a statement issued by the party on Sunday, the PPP chairman “condemned” huge cuts in the higher education budget compelling the public sector universities …