PESHAWAR: With around 10,000 foreigners likely to begin landing at the Bacha Khan International Airport after evacuation from Afghanistan this week, the district administration took control of 10 hotels in the provincial capital on Friday to accommodate them on their way to the respective countries. The administration claims that it is ready to receive transit passengers on an hour’s notice. …

US Senator Lindsey Graham said on Friday that Pakistan must be part of a “sustainable solution” to the conflict in Afghanistan. His remarks came following a discussion on the region with Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Asad Majeed Khan. “Any sustainable solution in Afghanistan must include Pakistan,” the US senator wrote on Twitter, calling the region “very complicated” and the …

ISLAMABAD: As part of the Digital Pakistan initiative, all emergency response numbers will be merged into 911 helpline across the country. The Ministry of Information Technology has finalised the roadmap for the launch of a unified emergency helpline to be called PEHEL-911. The pilot project is set to be launched in Islamabad with backup at Lahore. IT Minister Syed Aminul …

THATTA: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Friday claimed that the “unwise and ill-planned” economic policies of Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government had ruined the country resulting in rapid unemployment, shrinkage of livelihood resources, making people homeless and displaced. Addressing a press conference at Malkani House Makli, the PPP chief said it was crystal clear and known to the …

BANGKOK: A Thai police chief at the centre of a manhunt over accusations he tortured and suffocated a drug suspect to death surrendered on Thursday. Thai police raided the Bangkok mansion of 41-year-old Thitisan Utthanaphon — nicknamed ‘Joe Ferrari’ — on Wednesday and found 13 luxury cars, local media reported. National Police confirmed during a late night press conference on …

WASHINGTON: US inte­lligence agencies remain divided on the origins of the coronavirus, but believe China’s leaders did not know about the virus before the start of the global pandemic, according to results released on Friday of a review ordered by President Joe Biden. According to an unclassified summary, four members of the intelligence community say with “low confidence” that the …

DHAKA: At least 19 people were killed and dozens remain missing as a boat packed with passengers and a sand-laden cargo ship collided on Friday in a lake in eastern Bangladesh, officials said. The boat was reportedly carrying some 60 passengers when the incident occurred on a lake in the town of Bijoynagar, local government administrator Hayat-ud-Doula Khan said. The …

The US military has said that it carried out a drone strike on Saturday at an ISIS- Khorasan (ISIS-K) group in eastern Afghanistan, killing a “planner” of this week’s terrorist attack at the Kabul airport. “US military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner,” Captain Bill Urban, spokesperson for the US Central Command, said in a …

RAWALPINDI: Angela Ageler, US Charge d’ Affairs to Pakistan, called on General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), at GHQ, on Friday. During the meeting, matters of mutual interest, regional security and recent situation in Afghanistan were discussed in detail. The army chief said that Pakistan has no favourites in Afghanistan and its sole aim is to …

WASHINGTON: The United States will continue to be a “very generous” donor of humanitarian aid to the Afghan people and will aim to prevent any of its assistance from passing through Taliban coffers, State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Friday. The United States is taking steps to allow humanitarian work to continue in Afghanistan despite US sanctions on the …