Pakistan

KARACHI: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurang­zeb on Friday expre­ssed the hope for reaching a staff-level agreement (SLA) with the Inter­national Monetary Fund (IMF) by the end of the fiscal year (June 30), adding that there have not been any final discussions with the Fund yet. During an appearance at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) gong ceremony, the finance minister said details …

ISLAMABAD: PTI central leader Asad Qaiser has advised his party’s chief minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to snap all ties with the federal government as the Centre will not accept any of his demands. The advice came a day after KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur met Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in Peshawar and discussed a joint strategy to fight terrorism. “This is …

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday finally withdrew victory notification of former provincial minister Zamarak Khan as member of the Balochistan Assembly from PB-50 (Qilla Abdullah) and announced re-election in the entire constituency on April 21. Pursuant to the orders passed by the Supreme Court, the ECP also withdrew notification for re-election at six polling stations of …

ISLAMABAD: An earthquake of moderate intensity jolted Islamabad and some districts of the adjoining Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Thursday afternoon as there were no immediate reports of casualties or damages. As per the Meteorological Department, the intensity of the earthquake was recorded at 5.3 on the Richter scale and it was reported from Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, and some other adjoining …

ISLAMABAD: Robbers looted up to millions of rupees along with valuables and injured two persons in separate incidents, police said on Thursday. In the first incident, a gang of three gunmen looted Rs 8 million from a man at D-17, they said. Sohail Ahmed, a resident of Lower Dir, along with Najeeb Ullah, came over to Islamabad to pay for …

ISLAMABAD: The Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) on Thursday showed concerns over the alarming number of out of school children (OOSC) in the country and called for urgent steps to formulate a comprehensive framework and strategy to address the challenge. A meeting was hosted by SIFC which was jointly chaired by the minister for federal education and the minister for …

RAWALPINDI: Eight suspects allegedly involved in the May 9 violence were detained on Thursday immediately after being released from Adiala jail on bail. The suspects have been held for 15 days after the Rawalpindi deputy commissioner issued their detention orders under Section 3(1) of the Maintenance of Public Order. The said section empowered the government to arrest any individual over fears that …

LAHORE: After the success of its initial experiment, Pakistan Railways (PR) is planning to introduce premium lounge dining cars in more trains to improve the travelling experience, according to its chief executive officer. While speaking to passengers at an open e-court at PR’s headquarters on Thursday, Amir Ali Baloch said the passengers “widely admired” the service which will now be …

ISLAMABAD: In an apparent bid to avoid a retrial in the cipher case, the counsel for former prime minister Imran Khan and foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday endorsed the cross-examination of key witnesses by state-appointed counsel. The move comes as a surprise, as it contradicts the stance earlier adopted by the PTI legal team, which has maintained that the …

Pakistan and Afghanistan reached certain agreements during trade talks in Kabul, including beginning negotiations on a revised transit trade agreement and implementing a temporary admission document (TAD) for trade vehicle drivers, officials said on Friday. Talks were held amid tensions following Pakistan’s March 18 airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Patika and Khost provinces in “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations”, which Afghan authorities said killed eight people. The Foreign …