ISLAMABAD: Appreciating the Chinese development model, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Thursday Pakistan can become a great nation if it followed that model through hard work and focus on industrial and agricultural growth. “All Pakistanis will also have to pass through this thorny process. There is no other way to earn respect in the world,” the prime minister said …

KARACHI: Since its launch earlier this year, over 50,000 freelancers in Pakistan have signed up with Elevate to receive their earnings from foreign countries. Freelancers are growing rapidly in the country, but most of them complain that banks are charging too much for their services. Elevate, a fintech based in London and Dubai, has secured $5 million in financing to expand further …

KARACHI: Amid growing uncertainty about the economic outlook ahead of the budget unveiling, which has been delayed to June 12, the bearish spell continued at the stock market for the fourth consecutive session on Thursday, dragging the benchmark index below the 74,000 level. Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation stated that stocks closed lower due to concerns about economic uncertainty. Investor expectations for a cautious …

MUZAFFARGARH: A woman was allegedly killed and set ablaze by her in-laws in Jatoi Tehsil’s Mouza Junglewala. Complainant Wajid Iqbal, brother of Samina Bibi, stated that his sister had married Muhammad Asif alias Kalu three years ago. On Wednesday night, while sitting with his cousin and uncle, Wajid heard his sister’s cries for help. He and his relatives rushed to …

PORT SUDAN: A Sudanese pro-democracy activists’ committee on Thursday reported “more than 104” dead in a single day when paramilitary forces attacked a village, as the UN warned of mass displacement and starvation. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been at war with the regular army since April 2023, on Wednesday attacked the central village of Wad al-Noura in al-Jazira state …

WASHINGTON: Boe­ing’s new Starliner capsule and an inaugural two-member Nasa crew safely docked with the Internatio­nal Space Station on Thursday, meeting a key test in proving the vessel’s flight-worthiness and sharpening Boeing’s competition with Elon Musk’s. The rendezvous was achieved despite an earlier loss of several guidance-control jet thrusters, some of them due to a helium propulsion leak, which Nasa …

Indian actor Kangana Ranaut, who was just elected as a member of parliament on a Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) ticket, was slapped by a security guard at Chandigarh airport on Thursday, Dawn reported. Ranaut was travelling to New Delhi days after her Lok Sabha election win from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi constituency. After the security check, Ranaut went to the boarding gate where …

WASHINGTON: A civil rights organisation urged President Joe Biden on Thursday to “indefinitely” halt all weapons deliveries to Israel and pressure the US ally to end its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, sending a reminder that his support for Israel could hurt him among Black voters in November’s election. The call by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) …

Russia alleged on Friday that Ukraine had used US-supplied rockets to kill women and children in a region of southern Russia, and said that Washington was to blame. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the deaths had occurred last week in the Belgorod region after the United States agreed to let Ukraine fire US-supplied weapons into Russian territory for the …

The number of people internally displaced in Sudan due to conflict could soon exceed 10 million, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday, in the world’s largest displacement crisis. Fighting broke out in the capital Khartoum in April 2023 and quickly spread across the country, reigniting ethnic bloodshed in the western Darfur region and forcing millions to flee. “How much suffering and …