AL ULA: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Monday with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler before heading to Israel as part of efforts to stop the Gaza crisis spiralling into a regional conflict. Blinken was expected to discuss Red Sea attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbour, during his talks with Crown Prince …

WASHINGTON: The US State Department has informed Congress of its commitment to enhancing its capacity to process applications of Afghan refugees stranded in Pakistan. This initiative, which be­­g­an in July 2023 on a limi­ted scale, aims to address the plight of Afghan refug­e­­es seeking asylum in Pakistan. “The State Department continues to work with Pakistan to expand that processing capacity,” …

GAZA STRIP: Israel killed a top commander of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, a security source said on Monday, as Washington’s top diplomat visited the Middle East seeking to avert a widening of the Gaza conflict. On Monday, the Lebanese group announced the killing of its “commander” for the first time, naming him as Wissam Hassan Tawil. A security official in Lebanon, …

GAZA STRIP: Two relatives of the director of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau were killed in an Israeli air strike on Monday, the health ministry in the territory and family members said. Brothers Ahmed al-Dahdouh, 30, and Muhammad al-Dahdouh, 26, were travelling in a car when it was hit in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, the ministry said, adding …

ISLAMABAD: The services sector exports in November contracted year-on-year for the first time during the current fiscal year, according to data compiled by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The services exports fell to $631.93 million in November marking a 15.85 per cent decline from the $750.95m in the corresponding month last year. Contrary to this, merchandise exports reversed the trend …

ISLAMABAD: The World Economic Forum (WEF) launched on Monday the Global Cooperation Barometer to measure the state of global cooperation. The barometer indicates that global cooperation was resilient in multiple dimensions from 2012 until 2020 but overall cooperation declined by 2 per cent from 2020 to 2022. The Global Cooperation Baro­meter, developed in collaboration with McKinsey and Company, uses 42 …

The death toll from the powerful earthquake that flattened parts of central Japan on January 1 passed 200 on Tuesday, with just over 100 still unaccounted for, authorities said. The 7.5 magnitude quake destroyed and toppled buildings, caused fires, and knocked out infrastructure on the Noto Peninsula on Japan’s main island Honshu just as families were celebrating New Year’s Day. Eight days …

Japan’s Nikkei share average closed at a 33-year high on Tuesday, as investors snapped up chip-related stocks tracking an overnight Wall Street rally in technology shares. The Nikkei rose 1.16 per cent to finish at 33763.18, its highest since March 1990. Of the 225 stocks in the index, 156 shares advanced. The broader Topix index rose 0.82pc to 2,413.09. Chip-related …

RAWALPINDI: The Election Commission Rawalpindi Chapter on Monday finalised 2,777 polling stations in Rawalpindi and Murree districts, and declared 560 of them sensitive. Deputy Commissioner Dr Hassan Waqar Cheema, who is the district returning officer, told Dawn that the polling stations had been finalised for the elections scheduled to be held on Feb 8. However, he said that the polling scheme, which …

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa observed on Monday that by hearing the long-pending presidential reference — seeking to revisit the 1979 controversial death sentence awarded to former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) — the Supreme Court is concerned with the repute of the person, posterity, history, and determining whether such an exercise sets a good precedence for future courts. …