NEW YORK: The US north-east on Monday awoke under a blanket of snow as a powerful winter storm pummeled a vast swath stretching from Pennsylvania through New England, causing widespread disruption in New York City and other major urban centres in the region. The powerful nor’easter is forecast to bring 1 to 2 feet of snow across the region through …

MOSCOW: Russian prosecutors on Monday backed a request to imprison opposition leader Alexei Navalny for several years on old charges, after police detained a record number of anti-Kremlin protesters across the country. On Sunday, demonstrators defied government warnings and rallied from the Pacific port of Vladivostok to the northwestern city of Pskov in a second weekend of mass protest over …

Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma has been left off a list of Chinese entrepreneurial leaders published by state media — the snub underscoring just how far he has fallen out of favour with Beijing. China’s best known businessman was not mentioned in an front-page article published by the Shanghai Securities News. Instead Huawei Technologies’ Ren Zhengfei, Xiaomi Corp’s Lei Jun and …

Hundreds of members of Myanmar’s Parliament remained confined inside their government housing in the country’s capital on Tuesday, a day after the military staged a coup and detained senior politicians including Nobel laureate and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, meanwhile, released a statement calling for the military to honor the results of last …

ISLAMABAD: Helped by National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, the government on Monday hurriedly passed three bills, including the one seeking establishment of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority, amid ruckus by the opposition members. Besides the passage of the bills, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan also laid two ordinances, including the Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has reached another milestone by launching the second phase of vaccination against typhoid in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and Punjab. The campaign started in 12 districts of Punjab and Islamabad as a part of reaching an overall target of 12.7 million children between the ages of nine months and 15 years. In Nov 2019, Pakistan became the first …

GILGIT: Two teams of mountaineers are planning to make another attempt to scale K2 by Feb 5 as the weather is usually sunny. According to a tour organiser, Asghar Ali Porik, a three-member expedition team comprising Iceland’s John Snorri and Pakistani mountaineer Mohammad Ali Sadpara and his son Sajid Sadpara had to return to the base camp from the higher …

LOWER DIR: Security forces thwarted an infiltration attempt by terrorists close to the Afghan border in Lower Dir by killing three of them, official sources said. The security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in an area close to the border, according to a statement issued here by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). The ISPR said the three terrorists namely Abdul …

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has redefined the powers of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for issuing call-up notices to individuals and declared that a person could be summoned only after thorough verification. An IHC division bench, comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, authored the judgement while disposing of a petition filed by Rukhsana Bangash, of …

KARACHI: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Monday claimed that it was in close contact with more than 20 ‘unhappy’ MNAs of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and if any progress was made in talks with them it could cause serious damage to the ruling party in the upcoming Senate elections. Senior PPP leaders made this claim at a news conference here …