Pakistan

NAROWAL: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Umar Dar returned home after spending two-and-a-half months in jail. Dar, the son of Rehana Imtiaz Dar, the candidate supported by the PTI in NA-71 Sialkot, was released on bail after 75 days. On coming out of jail, a large number of PTI workers garlanded him and showered him with flower petals. They raised slogans …

Relief and rescue efforts were under way in Gwadar on Friday after it received more than 180 millimetres of rain in the past two days, authorities said. On Thursday, the Balochistan government had imposed an emergency in Gwadar and declared it calamity-hit after heavy rains wreaked havoc in the city. Normal life and traffic had remained suspended in Gwadar, Makran and northern …

ISLAMABAD: In a late-night development, PTI announced that Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and Omar Ayub were elected the party’s chairman and general secretary, respectively, after their opponents withdrew nomination papers. Similarly, provincial presidents of Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapters were also announced. An election will now only be held to elect the Balochistan chapter president. In Balochistan, three candidates, …

Amid intense sloganeering, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday elected PTI’s Ali Amin Gandapur as the 22nd chief minister of the province. The PTI leader clinched an overwhelming victory with 90 votes against rival Ibadullah Khan from the PML-N. Gandapur, who had served as a federal minister during the PTI government, was nominated for the coveted slot by imprisoned party …

ISLAMABAD: Three weeks after the general elections, the National Assembly held its inaugural session on Thursday amid noisy protests from both sides of the aisle, as 302 lawmakers took the oath of office on its first day. The session started at 11:14am with outgoing speaker Pervaiz Ashraf in the chair. At the outset, PTI leader Amir Dogar led a group …

BELFAST: A UK law granting immunity to combatants involved in the decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known as “the Troubles” breaches the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a Belfast court ruled on Wednesday. Victims of the violence challenged the law, which received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims’ organisations, the Irish government …

ISLAMABAD: Continuing his arguments as amicus curiae for a second day on Wednesday, retired Supreme Court judge Manzoor Malik described the presidential reference seeking an opinion on revisiting the death penalty awarded to former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as “historical question”, saying it’s for the top court to rectify the miscarriage of justice or simply brush it aside on technical grounds. Justice Malik, …

PESHAWAR: Six militants were killed, and a soldier sustained injuries in an exchange of fire between security forces and militants in North Waziristan, the military’s media affairs wing said on Wednesday. An ISPR statement said the security forces conducted an IBO on reported presence of militants, adding that intense firing took place during the operation. The statement mentioned that as …

GILGIT: The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) has signed a Rs46.5 million cultural preservation agreement for the digitisation and 3D modelling of significant rock carvings within the impact zone of the upcoming Diamer Basha Dam. The eight-month contract, inked in Lahore, encompasses extensive site documentation using terrestrial scanners, alongside the consolidation, archiving, and modelling of scanned data for diverse …

ISLAMABAD: The journalistic community took up their grievances with the Supreme Court on Wednesday, contesting “roving inquiries” conducted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the issuance of summons by a joint investigation team (JIT) on “vague” allegations of conducting a malicious campaign against the superior judiciary. The Press Association of the Supreme Court (PAS) and the Islamabad High Court …