WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving a group of Muslim Americans who accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of illegally targeting them for surveillance. On Monday, the court issued a statement saying that it will look at the FBI’s use of an informant to collect information from several Los Angeles and Orange County …

WASHINGTON: The US pullout from Afghanistan is more than 50 per cent complete, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, as it approaches its Sept 11 deadline to remove troops. Since President Joe Biden ordered the departure from Afghanistan in April, the Department of Defence has withdrawn the equivalent of approximately 500 C-17 loads of material, the US military’s Central Command (Centcom) …

THE HAGUE: United Nations war crimes judges on Tuesday upheld a genocide conviction and life sentence against former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, rejecting all grounds of appeal against a lower tribunal’s verdict. Mladic, 78, led Bosnian Serb forces during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. He was convicted in 2017 on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes including …

KARACHI: A shutter-down strike was observed and protest rallies were held in many cities and towns of Sindh on Tuesday in response to a call given by Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) against the arrest of its chairman Sanan Khan Qureshi and many of his party colleagues a day earlier. In Karachi, markets, bazaars and shops were closed in Gulshan-i-Hadeed …

ISLAMABAD: The federal government is mulling over new legislation to give legal cover to members of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) board. Last month, the government got an extension to the presidential ordinance under which the incumbent members had been appointed. According to the existing CDA Ordinance 1960, a civil servant cannot be appointed as a member of the board. …

KARACHI: An antiterrorism court acquitted on Tuesday seven leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in cases pertaining to facilitating and listening to the alleged hate speech of London-based party founder Altaf Hussain. Senior leaders including Dr Farooq Sattar, former Karachi mayor Wasim Akhtar, Rauf Siddiqui, Khawaja Izharul Hasan, Salman Mujahid, Qamar Mansoor, Rehan Hashmi along with nearly 200 unidentified …

ISLAMABAD: Justice Umar Ata Bandial on Tuesday stressed the need for strengthening the judiciary and judges instead of demolishing the same by encouraging angry expressions. “The strength of the judge is always his judgement and the clarity of thought while sticking to the already set high principles,” the Supreme Court judge obser­v­­ed, emphasising that the judges should be polite even …

ISLAMABAD: Amid a warning by the opposition against legislation in haste, a standing committee of the National Assembly on Tuesday cleared a bill seeking to amend dozens of clauses of Elections Act, 2017. The NA Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs met for a second consecutive day with MNA Mujahid Ali in the chair. The panel appreciated government efforts to draw …

ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet on Tuesday approved the name of Tariq Malik, who is currently serving at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), for his appointment as National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) chairman following a rigorous selection process. Mr Malik had served in Nadra in the past as well, while the UNDP had picked him from amongst 178 IT …

PESHAWAR: As the Covid-19 cases and mortalities continue to decline, the provincial government has decided to speed up vaccination and give timeline to the public servants to get inoculated besides scaling up public awareness regarding significance of shots against the virus. Health officials said that making vaccination mandatory for employees of the all departments was also part of the strategy. …