Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will take up for hearing next week a petition seeking removal of “biased” members of the federal cabinet to ensure the conduct of free, fair and transparent general elections. The petition, filed by Advocate Syed Azizud Din Kaka Khel and seeking the removal of caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar and some other …

KARACHI: The Sindh Health Department has issued an advisory regarding the potential spread of the dangerous “Nipah” virus, which has affected numerous individuals in India. In the advisory, the medical superintendents, directors, and livestock departments have been advised to exercise caution in a letter sent by Sindh’s director of health to hospitals around the state. The Nipah virus is known …

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court was on Monday informed that there were over 50,000 proclaimed offenders (POs) in the province and 23,000 of them belonged to Larkana division alone. Sindh Inspector General of Police (IGP) Riffat Mukhtar appeared before a two-judge bench, headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha, and filed a report about fugitives in the province. The number …

PESHAWAR: The federal government has decided about the re-verification of mobile phone SIM cards issued across the country. The exercise will start from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including its tribal districts on the Pak-Afghan border, official sources told Dawn. They said the decision about re-verification of SIMs was made during last week’s meeting of the apex committee here. Besides caretaker Chief Minister Mohammad …

PESHAWAR: Government schools in Kafoor Dheri area on the outskirts of the provincial capital have recorded massive dropout rates due to the frequent armed clashes between two groups over a land dispute during the last several months, teachers insist Schoolteachers along with education department officials and local elders on Monday met leaders of the warring parties as a jirga and …

ISLAMABAD: The prediction by a Dutch research organisation of a powerful tremor that may hit Pakistan soon has not only taken social media by storm, but even authorities seem to be taking it seriously. But even as the scientific community insisted that it was not possible to predict earthquakes this way, Iranian media reports suggest that the prediction is being …

ISLAMABAD: The Elec­tion Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday justified the wide variation in the population of various constituencies in the preliminary delimitation scheme, saying parity only had to be maintained between populations of constituencies within a district, not the province. Referring to an analysis by Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), without naming the organisation, the election watchdog said the analysis regarding the preliminary …

Vice Admiral Naveed Ashraf was on Tuesday appointed as the next Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), according to state-run Radio Pakistan. Quoting a spokesperson of the Pakistan Navy, it said the change of command ceremony will be held in Islamabad on Saturday (October 7). Vice Adm Ashraf will replace incumbent Naval Chief Adm Amjad Khan Niazi, who took charge of the Pakistan Navy in 2020. …

KARACHI: The Pakistan Peo­p­les Party on Monday called out its former allies for apparently endorsing a delay in general elections, vowing that the party would not rest until a date for general elections is announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan. After publicly criticising the PML-N multiple times over the past few weeks for allegedly accepting a delay in general elections beyond …

Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Qazi Faez Isa on Tuesday questioned how the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023 could diminish the powers of the apex court. He made the remarks as a full court resumed hearing pleas against the law which requires the formation of benches on constitutional matters of public importance by a committee of three senior …