Pakistan revives austerity drive, halves official fuel use, bans foreign trips as oil shock deepens
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan ordered a 50% cut in fuel allocations for government vehicles and imposed a three-month freeze on official foreign travel, reviving an emergency austerity regime it abandoned less than three months ago as renewed fighting in the Middle East disrupts the shipping lanes that carry most of the country’s imported energy.
Pakistan’s tough talk for Saudi Arabia keeps hardening, testing an untested defence pact
KARACHI: Pakistan will defend Saudi Arabia “to any extent,” a senior military spokesman said on Thursday — the toughest yet in a run of statements from Islamabad that have hardened by the day as the kingdom faces its heaviest barrage of Houthi drone and missile strikes in the current hostilities.
Rights lawyer Imaan Mazari and husband re-arrested shortly after Supreme Court ordered their release
ISLAMABAD: A human rights lawyer and her husband were back behind bars within hours on Thursday, after Pakistan’s Supreme Court suspended the 17-year prison sentences that had made their case a rallying point for press freedom campaigners and UN officials.
BITES
- Mobile broadband services restored
- LPG prices rise by 29.2pc for February
- Cabinet swells to 75 members
- Govt allows TCP to import wheat via all ports
- World Bank approves $200 million in loan for Punjab’s farm development project
- PM Sharif’s party decides to get tough on hecklers
- Apex court overturns PHC ban on poultry exports
- Shahbaz Gill declined bail
- IHC disposes of PTI employees petition against FIA notices
- Rupee plumbs new lows against dollar
- Punjab gets new policy chief
- Loans under Mera Ghar scheme to continue
- Senior army official shot dead in Balochistan rescue operation
- Bani Gala Firing: Man shot, wounded by PTI leader’s gunman
- Turkish commander calls on CJCSC
- Inquiry commission to probe reasons of energy crisis
- ANP set to fly Sharif’s coop
- Member Communist Party of China calls on COAS
- CHE to be renamed, HQ shifted to Karachi
- Pakistan to import high-quality Afghan coal in rupees
- IHC chucks plea to interfere with legislation
- Saudi Arabia confers King Abdulaziz medal on General Bajwa
- Interior Minister no-show at drugs case hearing
- Pakistan hopes early, successful visit by FATF team
- Pakistan commiserates with Afghanistan over quake, flood destruction
Pakistan to seek bigger China swap line, awaits US reserve deal within two months – report
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will push to expand its currency swap arrangement with China beyond its current 30 billion yuan ceiling when the facility comes up for renewal in 2027, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said, as the South Asian nation works multiple fronts to shore up foreign exchange reserves still stretched thin by years of external borrowing.
Punjab chief minister defends use of state jet for daughter’s graduation
MULTAN: Maryam Nawaz, the chief minister of Punjab province, has launched a robust defence of her use of a provincial government aircraft to attend her daughter’s graduation ceremony in London, telling critics she “does not owe” them an explanation while simultaneously producing what she described as a receipt for the trip on her mobile phone.