Pakistan

Continuing its selling momentum from the previous day, the stock market registered a decline of over 925 points on Friday, a day after the government raised fuel prices. By 4:11pm, the KSE-100 index shed 925.80 points against the previous day’s close of 42,237.91 to fall to 41,312.11 — down 2.19 per cent. The benchmark index closed at 41,339.11 points, down by 898.8 …

State Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik on Friday said raising the fuel prices by Rs30 was a “difficult decision”, but taken to “save the country from bankruptcy and destruction” a day after the government instituted the measure to revive a stalled IMF bailout programme. “We made a difficult decision to save the country from destruction and bankruptcy and to bring stability,” Malik …

The Supreme Court on Friday directed the federal government to bring the recent changes in the rules of the Exit Control List (ECL) within the “ambit of the law” within a week, cautioning that it would issue an order if its directive was not followed. On April 22, the government introduced significant changes to the rules controlling citizens’ exit from the country …

PESHAWAR: A 57-member jirga comprising sitting and former parliamentarians and elders from the erstwhile tribal region left for Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Wednesday for talks with the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The Afghan Taliban’s interim government is facilitating peace talks between Islamabad and the TTP whose leadership is already in Kabul. Prior to the jirga’s visit senior officials held several …

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Wednesday gave the police one week to produce Syeda Dua Zohra Kazmi, the girl allegedly kidnapped from Karachi, and her husband. Earlier, a police officer told the court that the last location of the runaway couple was Azad Kashmir. He said more time was required to reach the couple and produce them before the …

ISLAMABAD: The Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) has claimed that the brother of former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser was illegally possessing a mega entertainment zone and bowling club in F-9 Park for the last two years. The facility, spread over three acres, has become one of the main attractions for visitors to the park, particularly on weekends as there is …

ISLAMABAD: The government will deploy Frontier Constabulary (FC) as an anti-riot force to help Islamabad police maintain law and order as the government looks to block PTI’s next long march on the capital with full force. The decision was made in a meeting chaired by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Wednesday to enhance the operational capacity of the Islamabad police and FC. …

ISLAMABAD: The PTI financial expert who appeared before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday in connection with the foreign funding case appeared to admit that funds from the party’s central accounts were, in fact, transferred to provincial accounts that had earlier been disowned by the party. The PTI claimed it had no official connection to these ‘unauthorised’ accounts …

PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi on Thursday resigned as special assistant to the prime minister (SAPM) after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had stopped him “temporarily” from performing his duties. In a letter dated June 1, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, addressed to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Abbasi said that he would be “unable to perform at present” and …

HYDERABAD: Amid acute water scarcity in the country, the two major provinces refused to budge an inch on the issue of river water flows at their barrages despite the recent flow measurements by Wapda’s International Sedimentation Research Institute (ISRIP) at Taunsa and Guddu. Sindh officials accuse their counterparts in Punjab of not agreeing to independent evaluation by the ISRIP that …