KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s King Al-Sultan Abdullah will consult with other senior royals on proposals by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, the palace said on Saturday, after sources said the premier had asked the king to declare a state of emergency. Muhyiddin met with the king on Friday to present the emergency proposals that include a suspension of parliament, the sources with …

WASHINGTON: Five journalists of an American broadcasting service recently lost their jobs for publishing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s election message in Urdu. Normally, such deviations would have been ignored but the 2020 elections are different. A close contest between President Donald Trump and Mr Biden means that all votes count, even that of Pakistanis, the single largest country group within America’s …

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Saturday said that the way towards reduction in violence in Afghanistan lay in progress in the ongoing intra-Afghan dialogue. He was talking to Speaker of Afghanistan’s Wolesi Jirga Mir Rahman Rahmani. “Progress in the intra-Afghan negotiations would help in reduction in violence leading to a ceasefire,” an FO statement quoted the foreign minister …

SANETA: Delhi’s smog crisis headed for a new toxic peak on Saturday but farmers are refusing to stop the stubble burning that is widely blamed for the poisonous clouds engulfing the Indian capital. Air pollution in parts of the city reached “severe” levels on Saturday — a day after US President Donald Trump described Indian air as “filthy” — with …

PARIS: A number of countries tightened anti-coronavirus measures on Saturday, with France extending a curfew and Belgium bringing forward its own, as Germany’s death toll passed 10,000 and the US reported 80,000 infections in a single day. In the Belgian capital Brussels, authorities moved up their curfew by an hour, and in Poland, President Andrzej Duda tested positive for Covid-19. …

WEST BEACH: President Donald Trump voted in his adopted home of Florida before hitting the campaign trail for rallies in three swing states on Saturday, joining more than 54 million Americans who have cast early ballots at a record-setting pace ahead of the Nov 3 election. Trump voted at a library in West Palm Beach, near his Mar-a-Lago estate, after …

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) on Saturday welcomed the Supreme Court’s detailed judgement and reasons explained in it on the basis of which it had quashed the presidential reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa. The PBC, mother institution regulating affairs of the legal fraternity, also called for immediate resignations of President Arif Alvi, Law Minister Dr Farogh Naseem and Special Assistant …

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Political Communi­cation Shahbaz Gill on Saturday said PML-N leader retired Capt Muhammad Safdar’s arrest from a hotel in Karachi was an “orchestrated drama of opposition” that was enacted after it failed to convince Prime Minister Imran Khan to grant relief in cases against its leaders. Speaking at a press conference, the PM’s aide said …

LAHORE: The mainstream opposition parties — the PML-N and PPP — have asked Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Arif Alvi to step down after the Supreme Court’s detailed verdict in the Justice Isa case. “No justification is left for the premier and the president to stick to their offices after the apex court’s decision in the justice Isa case,” PML-N Vice …

KARACHI: A reporter of a news channel, Ali Imran Syed, who went missing from an area near his home in Gulistan-i-Jauhar on Friday after reporting details along with CCTV footage of a raid by law enforcement agencies on a hotel for the arrest of an opposition party leader, reached back home safely on Saturday evening, according to his family and …