KOHAT: The police seized a big cache of weapons and related spare parts which were being smuggled in a truck from Parachinar to Peshawar and Punjab via Kohat and arrested three smugglers at Gulshanabad here on Thursday. The weapons included 75 12-bore repeaters, 10 shotguns and spare parts of various arms. DSP headquarters Ijaz Khan Abazai told a press conference …

LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari reached the Punjab capital from Islamabad to oversee the party’s preparations for the all-important Dec 13 rally of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) at Minar-i-Pakistan. He has convened a meeting of the party’s Punjab chapter leadership at Bilawal House for today (Friday) to finalise a strategy for mobilising the cadre and making …

LONDON: Britain on Thursday slapped sanctions on The Gambia’s former president Yahya Jammeh as it widened travel bans and economic sanctions for human rights abuses worldwide. The former dictator, whose election defeat to Adama Barrow in Dec 2016 forced him to flee, was one of three from the West African nation on an updated list targeting 10 people across the …

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday asked the secretary Ministry of Climate Change to file a report on the relocation of two Himalayan brown bears to a sanctuary in Jordan. IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah was hearing a contempt of court case against the secretary and the chairman of Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) for not implementing a …

PESHAWAR: Eleven persons died of coronavirus and 410 new cases were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday as positivity rate in Peshawar swelled to 10.6 per cent. Peshawar accounted for six mortalities and 196 new cases in the province, taking its total count of deaths and confirmed incidence to 703 and 19,607 respectively. One case was reported each from Nowshera, …

LAHORE: Despite the rain visibly clearing Lahore’s air, smog levels in high density traffic areas continued to be unhealthy. At the crowded Shimla Pahari area on Thursday, for example, an Air Quality Ind­­­ex of 205 was recorded while on Wednesday it was 175. Provincial Disaster Man­agement Authority’s director operations Nisar Ahmed Sani told Dawn that there were three major contributors to the …

w ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz on Thursday challenged the attachment of properties of the Sharif family in Murree and Chhangla Galli with other properties frozen in connection with the Toshakhana reference because of absconding of her father Nawaz Sharif. Accountability court judge Syed Asghar Ali issued a notice to the National Accountability Bureau and sought …

ISLAMABAD: Mocking opposition parties over what he called hurling empty threats of resigning from the assemblies, Information Minister Senator Shibli Faraz on Wednesday dared them to quit the National Assembly or the Senate. Addressing a news conference here at the Press Information Department (PID), he said the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDM) had played its cards too early and it was …

Prime Minister Imran Khan appointed Hafeez Shaikh as the federal minister for finance, while Sheikh Rashid was handed the interior ministry portfolio in yet another cabinet shakeup, Radio Pakistan reported. Rashid has been replaced by Azam Swati as the railways minister while Ijaz Shah, who earlier held the interior ministry portfolio, has been appointed as minister for narcotics control. This is the …

Dallas County reported 30 more coronavirus deaths Thursday, a day after announcing 33 fatalities. Over the last seven days, officials have said 87 county residents have died from COVID-19. U.S. panel endorses widespread use of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine County officials added 2,088 coronavirus cases — all of them considered new — breaking a six-day streak during which daily new cases …