KARACHI: Caretaker Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar stated on Saturday that the interim government’s “proactive measures” to encounter external and domestic challenges have stabilised the economy. She added that the process of transforming the economy is underway in the country, acknowledging that structural reforms in every sector takes time. While addressing members of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce …

KARACHI: Despite maintaining stability for over two months, currency experts have warned that the exchange rate may face shocks in March. A currency dealer in interbank market said that many factors would converge to determine the future of exchange rate by end of March. Market experts have emphasised that the third quarter economic performance will determine the outlook for the …

Varanasi, where Hindus travel to cremate their dead by the Ganges river, is the latest flashpoint in a running battle to claim centuries-old Islamic monuments for the country’s majority faith. Campaigners have found an ideological patron in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who last month inaugurated a grand new temple on the site of a mosque notoriously demolished by Hindu zealots decades earlier. …

BERLIN: Around 200,000 people took to the streets in Germany on Saturday, most of them in the capital Berlin, as nationwide protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party entered their fourth week. Protests also took place in cities such as Mainz, Dresden and Hanover, in a sign of growing alarm at strong public support for the AfD. Roughly …

PARIS: Three people were injured on Saturday in a knife attack at Paris’s Gare de Lyon railway station, a major travel hub, police said, adding that a suspect with psychiatric problems had been arrested. The man, a Malian national living in Italy, went on a stabbing spree at 7.35am (0635 GMT) at the station, which operates domestic trains as well …

SEOUL: South Korea summoned Russia’s ambassador on Saturday to protest “rude and ignorant” remarks after Moscow’s foreign ministry blamed Seoul for rising tensions on the peninsula. Nuclear-armed North Korea has this year declared Seoul its “principal enemy”, closed agencies dedicated to reunification and outreach, and threatened war over “even 0.001 millimetres” of territorial infringement. Russia has recently formed closer ties …

MOSCOW: A Ukrainian attack on the eastern occupied city of Lysychansk killed at least 15 people and wounded 10 others, Moscow-installed authorities said Saturday, adding that there were likely more dead in the rubble underneath a bakery that was struck. Lysychansk, in the Lugansk region, fell to Russian forces after a brutal battle six months into Moscow’s offensive in 2022. …

NEW DELHI: India will remove its troops in the Maldives by May, the Maldivian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, as the two countries seek agreement on a pullout that has strained ties. The roughly 80 soldiers stationed in the Indian Ocean archipelago will be replaced by civilians, officials from both countries said. As global powers jostle for influence in the …

DOHA: Israeli air strikes killed almost 100 Palestinians in the Gaza cities of Rafah and Deir Al Balah on Friday night and Saturday, health officials said, as residents of the enclave feared Israel would expand its ground offensive into those last remaining areas where people have sought shelter. Rafah is on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt and more than half …

WASHINGTON: The United States launched air strikes in Iraq and Syria against more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and militias it backs, reportedly killing nearly 40 people, in retaliation for a deadly attack on US troops. The strikes, which included the use of long-range B-1 bombers flown from the United States, were the first in response …