WASHINGTON: Secre­t­a­ry of State Michael Pompeo announced on Mon­day that the United States had designated Pakis­tan, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turk­m­enistan, Nigeria, Nor­th Korea, Myanmar and Eritrea as “countries of part­ic­ular Concern” (CPC) under its International Religious Freedom Act. The statement accused these countries of “engaging in or tolerating “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom”. Secretary Pompeo also …

KARACHI: An accountability court on Tuesday indicted former ports and shipping minister Kamran Michael among 12 suspects in a case pertaining to Rs11.733 billion corruption through alleged illegal allotment of land belonging to the Karachi Port Trust Officers Cooperative Housing Society to private persons. In February 2019, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had arrested Kamran Michael, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz …

SANGHAR: A youth was bludgeoned to death by a group of his community members serving in the police department in Shahpur Chakar town on Tuesday. The deceased was identified as Asif Imran Umrani. Soon after the incident, the bereaved family along with other members of the Umrani community took to the streets and held a sit-in at the nearby section …

LARKANA: The family and relatives of two girls, who claimed to have been criminally assaulted and were being blackmailed, held a demonstration outside the Rehmatpur police station on Tuesday over alleged release of the two suspects named in the FIR of the case. The two suspects were arrested after Larkana SSP Masood Ahmed Bangash took notice of the media reports …

LAHORE: The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has unearthed a mega scandal of the registration of used, smuggled and stolen vehicles — mainly trucks and buses — on the basis of fake army auction vouchers for several years by a gang comprising officials of the Punjab excise and taxation department and private persons. The anti-graft watchdog that launched its investigation in 2017 …

ISLAMABAD: While a comparative data analysis of the first and second waves of novel coronavirus shows that the first wave was more lethal in Pakis­tan, health experts believe the ongoing wave may prove deadlier as the virus has mutated itself. However, the government cla­ims that both waves affected the masses in the same way, with the only difference being that …

ISLAMABAD: While employees of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) have been blaming Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan for conflict of interest, the latter claimed that was no longer working with Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital (SKMCH) Lahore and Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) Peshawar. He claimed that he had obtained an extended leave from …

ISLAMABAD: In a landmark move, the Pakistan Information Commission (PIC) has informed the defence ministry that information about income, income tax, assets, perks, privileges, post-retirement benefits and plots allotted to officers of the armed forces is public information and not sensitive information. The commission issued these guidelines to the defence ministry on Monday while deciding 34 appeals filed by Women’s …

ISLAMABAD: A meeting of the Election Commission of Pakistan’s scrutiny committee tasked with conducting fresh audit of accounts of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) ‘as soon as possible’ has been put off indefinitely, according to informed sources. The committee was scheduled to meet on Wednesday (today), but the meeting was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the sources said. A new …

South Africa cricket team will tour Pakistan early next year after a period of 14 years to play two ICC World Test Championship fixtures and three Twenty20 Internationals, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced on Wednesday. The Proteas will first come to Karachi on January 16 where they will start the tour off with the first Test at the National …