ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb has claimed that the latest report of the Reporters Without Borders is a charge-sheet against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government. In a statement on Monday, she said Imran Khan’s alleged “authoritarian attitude” and character was defiling Pakistan’s image abroad. Ms Aurangzeb said the global community had unequivocally condemned the government’s suppression of the …

WASHINGTON: Pakistanis in the United States have stepped up efforts to maintain a close relationship between their adopted homeland and the country of their origin amid apprehensions that the US exit from Afghanistan can also jeopardise bilateral ties. Recently, a Washington public relations firm Fenton/Arlook registered for a Pakistani American group under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to “inform …

Israel reported on Monday a decrease in the effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in preventing infections and symptomatic illness but said it remained highly effective in preventing serious illness. The decline coincided with the spread of the Delta variant and the end of social distancing restrictions in Israel. Vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to …

SURFSIDE: Rescuers searched for victims of a collapsed South Florida condo building through fresh rubble on Monday after crews set off a string of explosives that brought down the last of the structure and allowed search efforts to resume. Three more victims were discovered in the newly accessible pile, Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told family members, raising the …

PARIS: Hackers were on Monday demanding $70 million in bitcoin in exchange for data stolen during an attack on a US IT company that has shuttered hundreds of Swedish supermarkets. Researchers believe more than 1,000 companies could have been affected by the attack on Miami-based firm Kaseya, which provides IT services to some 40,000 businesses around the world. The FBI …

Contact has been lost with a passenger plane carrying more than two dozen people in Russia’s Far Eastern peninsula of Kamchatka, local officials said on Tuesday. The An-26 was flying from Kamchatka’s main city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the town of Palana when it disappeared and failed to land as scheduled, Valentina Glazova, a spokeswoman for the local transport prosecutor’s office, …

ISLAMABAD: While the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) warned of re-imposing restrictions in the wake of severe violations of standard operating procedures (SOPs), Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Monday criticised Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif for holding a public meeting in Swat. On the other hand, the NCOC has decided …

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Cha­­udhry said on Tuesday that the “Indian terrorist network” operating in Balochistan had been dismantled and that now the government will set an agenda for dialogue with Baloch nationalists. He said the federal government had planned to execute 131 development projects worth Rs731 billion in Balochistan while the provincial government’s development programme for …

Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood on Tuesday announced that the education ministry, in consultation with local and international stakeholders, has developed an e-portal for the Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) that will let students receive equivalence certificates at their doorstep after completing “simple” formalities. The IBCC issues equivalence certificates for A and O levels, International Baccalaureate Programmes, religious degrees and …

ISLAMABAD: The National Account­ability Bureau (NAB), Rawalpindi, relea­sed on Monday details of people from whom recoveries were made in the fake bank accounts case. Around 172 people, including prominent politicians such as Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, are being investigated by the accountability watchdog in the case. NAB claims that several of those …