Pakistan

QUETTA: Traffic between Quetta and Kandahar was suspended on Friday after a landslide at Khojak Pass on the Quetta-Chaman national highway in the wake of heavy rains and flash floods. Trade and other commercial activities with Afghanistan were affected as a result and a large number of trucks carrying transit goods were seen stranded in the Shella Bagh area of …

ISLAMABAD: Unbridled power to prime minister in determining the constitutional and fundamental right of his party parliamentarians would result in a culture of civil dictatorship, observed Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail of the Supreme Court in his dissenting note on the presidential reference seeking interpretation of Article 63A of the Constitution. The apex court, in its verdict by a majority of …

The Lahore High Court heard on Saturday — a public holiday — a petition seeking to either quash 18 cases filed against detained journalist Imran Riaz Khan, or consolidating them all into a single first information report (FIR). Justice Ali Baqar Najafi took up the petition, which was moved by lawyers Shazib Masud, Mian Ali Ashfaq, Rana Abdul Maruf Khan …

ISLAMABAD: The country reported 693 Covid-19 cases on Friday, with the national positivity rate touching 3.28 per cent, according to official statistics. The data released by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) showed that 21,137 tests were conducted over the past 24 hours. The number of patients on critical care remained unchanged at 165. However, the city-wise positivity ratio …

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Saturday blamed former prime minister Imran Khan for the “spurious and mala fide” drugs case against him and said that he had spoken to Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa about the Anti-Narcotics Force’s (ANF) role in this regard. Sanaullah was arrested in the case in July 2019 under the previous PTI government by the …

Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday said that he will not seek criminal charges against PTI supporters who heckled him at a restaurant in Bhera yesterday, pointing out he had left the matter in the “people’s court” but lamented the “culture of hatred” that he said was introduced by Imran Khan. Iqbal was jeered at and heckled …

Karachi and other areas of Sindh witnessed heavy rainfall coupled with strong winds and thunderstorms on Saturday increasing fears of urban flooding as the monsoon system across the country has intensified. According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), heavy showers lashed DHA, Clifton, II Chundrigar Road, Ibrahim Hyderi, Korangi, Saddar, Sharae Faisal, Malir, and Stargate after 10am today. The monsoon …

MANSEHRA: Five members of a family, including a man and his son, were killed when a pickup van plunged into a deep ravine in Karo area of Lower Kohistan on Thursday. “The bodies of all five dead have been retrieved from the ravine and shifted to the nearby health facility,” Lower Kohistan district police officer Zulfiqar Khan Jadoon told mediapersons. …

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman on Thursday briefed the United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry over telephone about the hazardous impacts of climate change being faced by Pakistan. Mr Kerry expressed the desire to continue working together for tackling climate change issues, says a press release. The minister underscored that Pakistan was consistently placed …

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Thursday signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) regarding fiscal responsibility after the federal government agreed to address its ex-Fata funding and other issues. The centre had agreed in the Memorandum of Economic and Fiscal Policies inked with the International Monetary Fund last month to present a MoU duly signed by provinces for the provision …