GAZA STRIP: At least 61 Palestinians were killed in overnight Israeli bombardment taking the death toll up to 31,645 people, the health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday, as Israel was preparing to send negotiators to new truce talks in Qatar. Israel’s security cabinet and the smaller war cabinet were to meet to “decide on the mandate of the delegation …

President Vladimir Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia’s election on Sunday, cementing his already tight grip on power in a victory he said showed Moscow had been right to stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine. Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who first rose to power in 1999, made it clear that the …

RAWALPINDI: The Punjab Home Department has directed the city police officer and the deputy commissioner to send notices to the managements of Chinese installations (non-CPEC) to disengage self-recruited security guards forthwith or get them trained by government-approved institutions. The project managements of non-CPEC installations were to be issued a deadline of one week to get their security guards trained from …

ISLAMABAD: As the federal capital faces an acute housing crisis due to a population boom, the Capital Development Agency (CDA) seems least interested in the development of at least six residential sectors which are expected to add as many as 20,000 plots to the burgeoning housing market. Due to various reasons, the development work in E-12 and C-16 is barely …

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday granted a one-year extension to Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar Sidhu. The prime minister had sent the advisory of the Air Chief Marshal’s extension to President Asif Ali Zardari and granted him extension after his approval. However, no official statement was issued on the development. ACM Zaheer Babar is a four-star air …

UNITED NATIONS: Voting trends in the February 8 elections demonstrated that there is a strong desire for change among the Pakistani youth, according to a senior US diplomat. The remarks by Elizabeth Horst, a senior US diplomat overseeing Pakistan affairs at the State Depart­ment, came during a seminar held on the sidelines of an ongoing UN debate on the nexus between gender …

ISLAMABAD: The government has finalised technical and operational details for providing online digital land record services to overseas Pakistanis through its foreign missions abroad and is set to formally launch the programme next month, starting from Saudi Arabia, to attract foreign inflows. This initiative will expand to other countries with large Pakistani diasporas such as the UAE, US, and UK …

KARACHI: The coalition of convenience between PTI and the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) remains strained due to conflicting statements from leaders of both parties. While more PTI leaders, in retrospect, are calling the alliance a mistake, the SIC head has warned that such statements would damage Imran Khan’s party. Now, PTI leader Walid Iqbal has also joined the likes of …

KARACHI: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has cast fresh doubts on the participation of individuals who were members of the caretaker set-up in the upcoming Senate polls, saying that the Constitution does not allow it. However, the government maintains that the constitutional provision in question only applied to the general elections and not the Senate polls scheduled for April 2. Those …

LAKKI MARWAT/ PESHAWAR/MOH­MAND: Police continued to brave attacks from militants in multiple districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over the weekend, even as President Asif Ali Zardari vowed to eliminate terrorism from the country, saying the blood of martyrs will not go in vain. After seven troops, including two officers, were martyred in North Waziristan’s Mir Ali area on Saturday, militants targeted a police …