NAYPYIDAW: China’s Xi Jinping doubled down on his support for fallen rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday, signing dozens of infrastructure and trade deals and meeting with the Myanmar army chief accused of overseeing a genocide against Rohingya Muslims. The Chinese president’s state visit to Myanmar’s purpose-built capital came as Western investors give a wide berth to the …

The Foreign Office on Saturday summoned a senior Indian diplomat to “reject the mischievous portrayal by India of isolated, fabricated incidents involving Pakistani citizens as minorities’ rights issues”. According to a statement by the FO, the Indian authorities were urged to “refrain from feigning concern for minorities elsewhere for a narrow political agenda”. The statement further said that the Indian …

BALA: An air strike on Saturday by Syrian regime ally Russia killed five civilians, including four members of the same family, in an opposition bastion in the country’s northwest, a monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three children were among those killed after midnight Friday in the village of Bala in the jihadist-run Idlib region. “A man, …

BERLIN: Forces loyal to Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar blocked oil exports from the war-ravaged country’s main ports on Saturday, raising the stakes on the eve of an international summit aimed at bringing peace to the North African nation. The move to cripple the country’s main income source was a protest against Turkey’s decision to send troops to shore up …

SANAA: Yemen’s warring sides opened a new front in their five-year conflict on Saturday — a battle over old and new banknotes that threatens to create two economies in the same state. As of midnight, the Houthi movement which controls the capital Sanaa outlawed the use and possession of crisp new Yemeni riyal bills issued by its rivals in the …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Rehman Malik on Saturday asked the government to link its support to the US-Taliban dialogue with the withdrawal of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) case against Pakistan. Speaking to reporters in the parliament hosue on Saturday, he said the government had been playing a key role in US-Taliban talks selflessly and still the …

LAHORE: An anti-narcotics court on Saturday reserved verdict on a petition by former law minister Rana Sanaullah Khan who sought submission of video evidence and that he be returned his vehicle. The PML-N Punjab president filed a petition in court praying to release his vehicle on supardari. His counsel Advocate Farhad Ali Shah argued that Rana Sanaullah had acted against …

ISLAMABAD: During the last five years, the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) collected over 200,000 samples from medical stores and health facilities and chemical analysis found 446 of them spurious. However, the five-year data showed that with every passing year the number of drugs declared spurious had decreased. Ministry of National Health Services spokesperson Sajid Shah claimed that the …

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday emphasised the need to utilise digital media tool to portray the positive image of Pakistan as well as Islam, besides spreading the voice of oppressed people of India-held Kashmir across the globe. During a meeting with a delegation of youths from different fields, including the digital media, the prime minister recalled his government’s …

LAHORE: A Dolphin Force personnel allegedly shot at and injured a trader during an anti-robbery operation at a shop in Islampura area here on Saturday, taking him for one of the two robbers who had already fled the scene. Identified as Abdul Jabbar, the injured shopkeeper was taken to hospital where his condition is said to be stable. The injured …