ISLAMABAD: Security forces have killed 48 militants over the past week in a series of intelligence-guided operations in North Waziristan, the military said Saturday, as the army pressed a sweeping counterterrorism campaign in tribal districts that have long been among the country’s most volatile.
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Karachi man arrested in alleged drone supply ring for outlawed TTP
KARACHI: The counterterrorism officials announced on Saturday the arrest of a Karachi man they say was secretly procuring commercial drones, explosive material and electronic components for the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, acting on directions from his brother, a wanted militant currently sheltering in Afghanistan.
Finance minister Aurangzeb says budget marks shift from stability to export-led growth
ISLAMABAD: Finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Saturday mounted a vigorous defence of his Rs18.77 trillion federal budget for fiscal year 2026-27, saying the government had exhausted the fiscal space available to it in pursuing an ambitious pivot from economic stabilisation toward export-driven growth.
Budget changes little
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has presented his government’s third consecutive IMF-compliant budget, and the central fact about it is the simplest one: nothing in its design points toward growth. The deficit target of 3.6 per cent of GDP and the 4 per cent growth projection sit comfortably within the Fund’s parameters, as they were always going to. That is not a criticism of the finance ministry’s competence. It is a description of what an IMF programme is for. The Fund’s mandate is external balance, not expansion. A government operating under it can manage a crisis. It cannot, by the terms of the arrangement, choose to grow faster than the programme allows.
Petrol prices cut for fifth consecutive week
ISLAMABAD: The government has reduced the price of petrol by Rs4 per litre and high-speed diesel by Rs2 per litre, with the new rates taking effect from Saturday.
President Zardari clears final legal hurdle for PIA privatization
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday approved the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (Conversion) (Repeal) Bill, 2026, removing the last legal obstacle to the transfer of the national carrier’s assets, liabilities and management control to a private consortium.
Death toll reaches 20 as protesters scatter before dawn in Azad Kashmir – report
RAWALAKOT: They came by the thousands, converging on the eastern edges of this mountain city from across the rugged districts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. By midnight Thursday, they were gone.
Pakistan says US-Iran peace text is finalised — even as Washington and Tehran trade contradictions
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Friday that the United States and Iran had reached agreement on a final text for a peace deal to end more than three months of armed conflict — even as the two sides offered sharply conflicting accounts of what that deal actually contained, casting uncertainty over one of the most consequential diplomatic developments of the year.
Pakistan budget: Stability preserved, growth deferred
ISLAMABAD: Finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb presented a Rs18.77 trillion federal budget on Friday that raises defence spending by almost a fifth, set an ambitious revenue target and offers modest tax relief to the salaried middle class — all while leaving the country’s deeper structural failings largely untouched.
Budget delivers what the IMF wants, not what the people need
Pakistan’s budget today will be framed as the dividend of two years’ hard stabilisation work. A day earlier, the economic survey supported that framing: GDP grew 3.7 percent, the economy reached a record Rs126.87tn ($452.1bn), inflation fell from 23.4 percent to single digits, and the fiscal deficit narrowed to levels the finance ministry calls the best in decades. By the standard measures of macroeconomic management, Pakistan has had a good year, and the finance ministry is not wrong to say so.