LONDON: Around 46 million voters will head to polling booths across the United Kingdom on Thursday (today) during an election which polls predict will result in a Conservative majority after a tight race. Voters’ key concerns include Brexit, a slow economy, feeble health and social care provision, the climate crisis, and law and order. A fresh poll released by data …

JERSEY CITY: Six people were killed in a furious clash between gunmen and police in Jersey City, New Jersey, on Tuesday, with the mayor saying the outlaws clearly targeted a Jewish market, fuelling growing suspicions the bloodshed was an anti-Semitic attack. But mayor Steven Fulop refused to call it an anti-Semitic attack, saying surveillance video showed the gunmen driving slowly …

NEW DELHI: A commission of inquiry on Wednesday absolved Prime Minister Narendra Modi of any responsibility in the 2002 pogrom of Muslims. The Nanavati-Mehta Commission also absolved the state administration, ministers and police officers from any complicity, direct or indirect, and also ruled out any conspiracy to organise the large-scale riots. It refused to call the riots a result of …

NEW YORK: Greta Thunberg, the teen activist from Sweden who has urged immediate action to address a global climate crisis, was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019 on Wednesday. Thunberg, 16, was lauded by Time for starting an environmental campaign in August 2018 which became a global movement, initially skipping school and camping out in front of the Swedish Parliament to demand action. …

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) asked the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat on Wednesday to help get the staff of its Cardiac Centre regularised. National Health Services (NHS) Secretary Allah Bakhsh Malik has also pledged that he will submit in writing that the Ministry of NHS wants to retain the doctors of the Cardiac Centre. Wednesday’s …

PESHAWAR: A five-member special inquiry team of the Federal Investigation Agency, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has begun a probe into the alleged irregularities in the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit project in line with the Peshawar High Court’s directions. After hearing three petitions related to the bus transit system, a high court bench consisting of Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Ahmad …

LAKKI MARWAT: A prominent Shia leader was gunned down here on Wednesday night. According to an official, an unknown man entered the hujra of Syed Zahoor Abbas Shah Afgar Bukhari in Mohallah Sayyedan after Isha prayers and opened fire on him. He died on the spot. The news of the Shia leader’s murder spread like wildfire and a large number …

ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary body on Wednesday directed the government to ease visa processes for Pakistani expatriates who had immigrated to European countries by declaring themselves as foreign nationals. The Senate Implementation Committee was having a briefing on the assistance provided to such Pakistanis who were now having difficulties visiting their home country. In its previous meeting, members had met to …

ISLAMABAD: A court will hear final arguments on Thursday in the blasphemy trial of a former university lecturer a week after a US religious freedom commission placed his name on its list of global victims, his lawyer said. Junaid Hafeez has been in solitary confinement for fear of being attacked by fellow inmates in jail since his arrest in 2013 …

ISLAMABAD: Artist Meesha Shafi, who is embroiled in a dispute with singer Ali Zafar, has approached the Supreme Court with a plea that the provincial ombudsperson for protection of harassment against women at the workplace should rehear her grievance. In an appeal filed before the apex court on Wednesday, the artist, whose real name is Meera Shafi, requested the Supreme …