PARIS: France on Friday urged Iran to curb nuclear activities of unprecedented gravity as US and European envoys met to discuss efforts aimed at reviving the troubled 2015 Iran nuclear deal. US envoy Robert Malley joined counterparts from France, Britain and Germany at the meetings in Paris, at what the French Foreign Ministry called a critical time in efforts to …

BALUKHALI: Gunmen killed seven people and wounded at least 20 on Friday in a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, police and a medic said, in an attack that heightens tensions after the recent shooting of a prominent community leader. The attackers shot and stabbed people attending a religious school in the camp, a regional police chief said. Four people died …

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday left for a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia to attend the launch ceremony of the ‘Middle East Green Initiative (MGI) Summit’ being held in Riyadh, according to the Foreign Office (FO). The prime minister left with Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Energy Minister Hammad Azhar and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate …

LONDON: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, 95, was back at her desk at Windsor Castle on Friday after she spent a night in hospital for the first time in years for what Buckingham Palace termed “preliminary investigations”. The world’s oldest and longest-reigning monarch stayed in hospital overnight on Wednesday, but returned to Windsor Castle, to the west of London, the following day, …

MOSCOW: Sixteen people were killed and one person was missing after a fire broke out at a Russian explosives factory southeast of Moscow on Friday, local authorities said. The blaze took place in the village of Lesnoy, 300 kilometres from the capital in the region of Ryazan. Authorities originally said 15 people had died, but later said one man who …

BRUSSELS: European leaders gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel a standing ovation on Friday at her last EU summit after a 16-year reign that helped guide the bloc through major ups and downs. Merkel has attended a staggering 107 EU summits that saw some of the biggest twists in recent European history, including the eurozone debt crisis, an inflow of Syrian …

ISLAMABAD: The opposition and treasury benches in the National Assembly were locked in a debate on Friday, with the opposition assailing the government for following “flawed economic policies” and the latter defending them. Devaluation of Pakistani rupee against US dollar remained a key point during the debate, which continued during the question hour and beyond. Khawaja Mohammad Asif, the PML-N …

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has dismissed a set of petitions challenging the procedure adopted by the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) to conduct the National Medical & Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT) for 2021. The PMC conducted the MDCAT from Aug 30 (2021) to Sept 30 on a daily basis. The petitioners/students applied for the test and had been allotted …

KHYBER: Thousands of Afghans made a beeline for Torkham border crossing early on Friday morning when the news about resumption of cross-border pedestrian movement spread in most parts of the neighbouring country. Sources in Torkham told Dawn that the number of aspiring Afghans was so high that Pakistani authorities had to deploy additional security personnel to prevent crowding and panic at the …

MIRAMSHAH: Two soldiers were martyred and two others injured in a terrorist attack in North Waziristan tribal district on Friday. One terrorist was killed in the exchange of fire. Officials said that fighting between security forces and terrorists broke out near Miramshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan. The injured security personnel were taken to a paramilitary forces-run hospital in Miramshah. …