ISLAMABAD: US President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a planned military assault on Iran on Thursday evening, announcing in a post on Truth Social that negotiations with Tehran had advanced to the point where the Islamic Republic’s leadership had effectively approved the terms of a deal — a claim Iran had not confirmed as of late Thursday.
Lead
Ruling coalition opens talks to shape new government in Gilgit-Baltistan
GILGIT: Senior leaders of Pakistan’s two dominant political parties convened in this mountain city on Thursday to begin carving out a power-sharing arrangement for the remote northern territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, where a June 7 legislative election left the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party in its strongest position in the region in years — but still short of a governing majority.
Pakistan’s hands are all over this world cup
SIALKOT: The 23rd FIFA World Cup began on Thursday, launching nearly six weeks of football across the stadiums of the United States, Canada and Mexico. The players are from 48 nations. The coaches speak dozens of languages. But the ball they will all chase — the one that will determine who lifts the trophy in New Jersey on July 19 — was made in Pakistan.
Defence minister Asif rebukes banned Kashmiri group as protesters mass near Rawalakot
ISLAMABAD: Defence minister took to the floor of the National Assembly on Thursday to rebuke a banned Kashmiri protest movement, urging it to settle its grievances at the ballot box rather than through marches and confrontation — as that very movement’s supporters massed on the outskirts of a regional capital and a fragile standoff showed no sign of resolution.
Trump threatens to seize Iranian oil hub as US-Iran strikes escalate, ceasefire frays
ISLAMABAD: US President Trump threatened on Thursday to seize Iran’s principal oil export terminal and assume control of its energy sector as American and Iranian forces exchanged strikes for a second consecutive day, pushing a fragile two-month-old ceasefire to the edge of collapse and rattling global oil markets already strained by months of war.
Pakistan again warns India that blocking water flow would amount to an ‘act of war’
ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office again warned on Thursday that any deliberate effort by India to block the flow of water across their shared border would constitute an act of war under the United Nations Charter, issuing another public rebuke as New Delhi increased its aggressive posture over one of South Asia’s most volatile fault lines.
Pakistan’s economy hits record size but misses growth target as Middle East conflict bites
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s economy expanded at its fastest pace in four years in fiscal 2026, hitting a record nominal size of $452 billion, yet fell short of the government’s own growth target as a confluence of floods, US tariff uncertainty and an escalating Middle East conflict weighed on output in the second half of the year.
Pakistan’s Stability Trap
There is a particular kind of economic failure that is hardest to fix: not the dramatic kind, with a collapsing currency and queues at the central bank, but the quiet kind, where just enough has been done to remove the urgency for doing more. Pakistan has arrived, with some effort and genuine sacrifice, at exactly that dangerous place.
US and Iran trade fire across the Gulf, testing a ceasefire neither side has fully honored
ISLAMABAD: The United States and Iran exchanged military strikes early on Wednesday, drawing three American-allied Arab states into the crossfire and threatening to collapse the most significant diplomatic opening between Washington and Tehran in decades, as President Trump alternated between warning that Iran would “pay the price” and insisting that a comprehensive peace deal remained tantalizingly close.
Islamabad locks in June 12 budget date after three delays, coalition wrangling
ISLAMABAD: The Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb will present the federal budget for fiscal year 2026–27 to the National Assembly on Friday, capping weeks of political horse-trading that saw the date shift three times and exposed deep fissures between the federal government and its provincial partners over the division of national revenues.