ISLAMABAD: Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (MPCL) on Friday announced a gas discovery in a very prospective, highly security sensitive and unexplored region of Kohlu District in Balochistan. “The discovery is of significant importance for future exploration as it has revealed valuable information about the existing petroleum system of the area,” said MPCL, the operator of the block with 95pc interest …

KARACHI: Conventional banks lag far behind Islamic banks in lending to the private sector, with conventional banks still in the negative zone at the end of the seventh month of the current fiscal year, FY24. The latest data from the State Bank of Pakistan, issued on Friday, indicates that conventional banks continue to experience net debt retirement instead of lending …

NEW DELHI: A French journalist who had been in the crosshairs of India’s rightwing Hindu nationalist government for her reporting on Kashmir, and the alleged mishandling of the Covid-19 emergency, was expelled on Friday. Vanessa Dougnac had been the longest serving foreign correspondent in India. She announced her departure on Friday after the Indian government issued a two-week revocation of …

JAKARTA: Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto was on course to win the presidential election by a wide margin, election commission results showed Friday, with 50 percent of votes counted. The official result is not expected until late March but early indications all point to the 72-year-old ex-general being anointed successor to popular outgoing leader Joko Widodo. But both of his …

CAIRO: Egypt is constructing a walled camp in the Sinai Peninsula to receive displaced Palestinian civilians from the Gaza Strip, a US media report and an Egyptian human rights monitor said on Friday. But Israel said it had no plans to move civilians there, as it prepares an offensive in Rafah, in Gaza’s far south. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) …

LOS ANGELES: The special counsel probing claims that Hunter Biden used his father’s power and prestige to secure millions of dollars in bribes from a Ukrainian firm has charged a one-time FBI informant with lying, according to a federal indictment. Alexander Smirnov, 43, is accused of fabricating claims that the US president’s son demanded the money to protect Burisma — …

BRUSSELS: Digital companies will have nowhere to hide after the EU’s landmark content law enters into full force from Saturday, with the risk of heavy fines for any violations. The new rules, known as the Digital Services Act (DSA), kicked in last year for the world’s largest platforms, inclu­ding Facebook and TikTok, but will now apply to all except the …

Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable opponent, collapsed and died on Friday after a walk at the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony where he was serving a three-decade jail term, the Russian prison service said. The death of Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, robs the disparate Russian opposition of its most courageous leader as Putin prepares for an …

BERLIN: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a security deal with Germany on Friday in Berlin, hailed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz as a “historic step” anchoring sustained support for Kyiv in its raging battles against Russia. Hours later, Zelensky and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron also signed a similar security pact calling for French military and civilian aid for Kyiv in …

NEW YORK: A judge ruled on Friday that Donald Trump must pay $354.9 million in penalties for fraudulently overstating his net worth to dupe lenders, handing the former US president another legal setback in a civil case that imperils his real estate empire. Justice Arthur Engoron also banned Trump from serving as an officer or director of any New York …