KARACHI: Bears took over the trading floor of the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday after Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf nominated candidates for prime minister and Punjab chief minister as it also started contacts with different parties for the formation of coalition governments. Also, the Pakistan Peoples Party’s reluctance to join Shehbaz Sharif’s cabinet despite announcing support to elect him as prime minister drew strong reactions …

ISLAMABAD: With system losses touching a massive 14.5 per cent, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) on Thursday notified up to 9pc reduction in the sale price of Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) for SSGCL and SNGPL for the current month, effective Feb 1, owing to lower international prices. This is the second month in a row that RLNG …

LONDON: Two major world economies — Japan and the UK — have fallen into a recession in the second half of 2023. While Japan’s ‘unexpected fall comes off the back of a contracting gross domestic product (GDP) — its economy also shrank by 3.3pc in the previous quarter, the UK’s decline comes ahead of this year’s expected election for PM …

BRUSSELS: Workers at a Belgian recycling plant made a macabre discovery this week: a human foot amid the waste. Staff at the CETT waste centre, in the southern town of Rochefort, found the appendage on a sorting line Wednesday morning, Thomas Monseu, a company official, said. “We called the police who asked us to stop working,” he said. “Work on …

KYIV: Ukraine has rushed soldiers to the embattled eastern town of Avdiivka, surrounded on three sides by Russian forces, where the military said the situation was “extremely critical”. The announcement of reinforcements came as a Ukrainian rocket strike on the Russian border city of Belgorod killed at least six people, officials there said. Both sides are escalating aerial attacks as …

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike killed a Hezbollah commander and 14 others in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, a security source said on Thursday, raising fears of further escalation. Hezbollah movement and Israel have been exc­han­ging near-daily fire ac­ross the border since Oct 7. In the bloodiest day since then, the Israeli military said in a statement it had killed …

LIMA: Happy Valentine’s Day, you’re under arrest! Two Peruvian women accused of drug trafficking got more than they bargained for on Wednesday when a romantic gesture turned out to be a police raid leading to their arrests. Police footage of the raid showed a giant teddy bear holding up gifts outside the women’s home, while another officer held a heart-covered …

LONDON: Two major world economies — Japan and the UK — have fallen into a recession in the second half of 2023. While Japan’s ‘unexpected fall comes off the back of a contracting gross domestic product (GDP) — its economy also shrank by 3.3pc in the previous quarter, the UK’s decline comes ahead of this year’s expected election for PM …

NEW YORK: A New York judge on Thursday rejected Donald Trump’s attempts to dismiss charges of covering up hush money payments to a porn star, setting the stage for the first criminal trial ever of a former US president to begin on March 25. At the same time, Trump’s representatives attended a separate hearing in Atlanta, pushing to have the lead prosecutor …

DHAKA: Bangladesh Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus said on Thursday that several of his firms were “forcefully” taken over, weeks after his conviction in a criminal case his supporters say was politically motivated. Yunus, 83, is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but has earned the enmity of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who …