The longest partial lunar eclipse in 580 years dazzled night skies around the globe on Friday. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the eclipse that lasted 3 hours, 28 minutes and 23 seconds was the longest since February 18, 1440. During the eclipse, up to 99.1% of the moon’s disk was within Earth’s darkest shadow, it said. …

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has requested the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to end SMS charges during the voters’ verification campaign. The election commission has written a letter to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) seeking assistance for the ongoing voters’ verification campaign across the country. The commission stated in the letter that the voters and ECP staffers are …

PESHAWAR: A second successive round of one-under 71 sent Nouman Ilyas to the top of the National Amateur Ranking Golf Championship leaderboard at the end of round two the PAF Golf Course here on Friday. Nouman’s consistency saw him end the day with a five-stroke lead over overnight leader Mohammad Shoaib, who is at three-over 147 after he could only …

BEIJING: An outcry over the whereabouts of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai escalated on Friday as the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) said it was prepared to pull its tournaments out of China over the issue, prompting an influential Chinese state media editor to criticise the organisation for using a “coercive tone”. Former doubles world number one Peng has not been …

ISLAMABAD: At a time when unemployment is rife among the youth, the Pakistan Cricket Board has 23 over-age employees who are all contractual. The matter came to light after Senator Irfan Siddiqui posed a question to Federal Minister for Inter-provincial Coordination Dr Fehmida Mirza, asking her about the number of employees over the age of 60 as well their salaries …

Pakistan recovered from a top-order collapse to beat Bangladesh by four wickets in the first Twenty20 international of their three-match series in Dhaka on Friday. The visitors restricted Bangladesh to a measly 127-7 as the hosts won the toss and elected to bat first at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium. Fast bowler Hasan Ali picked up 3-22 and right-arm medium pacer …

Pat Cummins shaped up as the frontrunner Saturday to take over from disgraced former Australia Test skipper Tim Paine, with the likes of Mark Taylor, Dennis Lillie, and Steve Waugh all singing his praises. The 28-year-old, who has served as vice-captain in both Test and white-ball formats since 2019, is widely seen as being in a two-way race with Steve …

ISLAMABAD: The government is considering complete deregulation of profit margins of petroleum dealers and oil marketing companies (OMCs) with upper caps and initial increase of 15-20 per cent. This is based on the advice of state-owned Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (Pide) but a final decision is expected to be taken by the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCOE) or the …

RANCHI: India cruised to a second straight victory over World Cup runners-up New Zealand on Friday, giving new coach Rahul Dravid and new T20 captain Rohit Sharma their first series win. Set 154 in front of a packed crowd in Ranchi, India crossed the line in the 18th over having lost only three wickets, avenging their eight-wicket hammering by the …

KARACHI: The benchmark index of the Pakistan Stock Exchange remained mostly in the green zone on Friday as investors hailed growth in the large-scale manufacturing sector, which expanded 5.15 per cent in July-September on an annual basis. According to Arif Habib Ltd, the second half saw profit-booking following the announcement of a current account deficit of $1.7 billion in October …