ISLAMABAD: The Finance Ministry disputed a report that portrayed a fuel levy as the linchpin of the country’s $7 billion International Monetary Fund program, pushing back as street protests over gasoline prices force the government onto the defensive just as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif seeks to keep the loan on track.
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KP minister vanishes after gunmen storm his car in broad daylight
PESHAWAR: Masked gunmen opened fire on a provincial minister’s car and dragged him away on a Pakistani motorway in broad daylight, in an incident that has plunged the country’s restive northwest into a fresh political turmoil and will now be examined by judges after his family went to court demanding his return.
FM Aurangzeb ties crypto push to cheaper remittances, debt relief
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is moving to establish a regulated framework for virtual assets, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said, as the government looks to blockchain and tokenization to lower remittance costs, expand credit to small businesses and widen access to financial services.
Pakistan joins Arab-Islamic bloc in warning Israel over stalled Gaza peace plan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has joined seven other Muslim-majority nations in issuing a stark warning to Israel, demanding it “immediately fulfil its outstanding commitments” under the first phase of the US-brokered plan to end the war in Gaza, as the fragile truce shows mounting signs of collapse.
Pakistan’s top court rules dowry payments are a wife’s unconditional legal right, not a bargaining chip
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ruled that the Islamic dower a husband owes his wife under her marriage contract is a mandatory legal entitlement rather than a payment he can attach conditions to, in a judgment that also orders an overhaul of how the country’s marriage registrars record and enforce such payments.
Security forces killed six militants in Balochistan raid
QUETTA: Security forces killed six suspected militants and detained nine others during a raid in a remote part of Balochistan on Tuesday, the country’s state broadcaster said, in the latest action of a counter-insurgency campaign that has intensified sharply across the province in recent weeks.
Two police officers shot dead guarding polio team in Balochistan attack
QUETTA: Two police constables were shot dead on Tuesday while guarding a team of female polio workers in the restive south-western province of Balochistan, in the latest attack on officers protecting vaccinators in one of the last countries where the disease remains endemic.
Courts confront police over crackdown on Imran Khan’s party before Islamabad march
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s judiciary moved to confront police over an escalating crackdown on the country’s main opposition party on Tuesday, as courts in both Islamabad and Lahore heard a cluster of urgent petitions alleging illegal raids, unlawful detentions and the disappearance of a sitting member of parliament, days before a planned march on the capital.
JI halts Islamabad fuel march after PM Sharif’s personal appeal, but warns patience is running out
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif has persuaded one of the country’s most disciplined religious political parties to pause a march on the capital, but only after conceding, in a phone call placed from New York, that his government’s fuel relief package has not gone far enough to satisfy protesters angered by months of rising petrol and diesel prices.
Army chief reviews northwest security after Kohat police compound attack
PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s military chief travelled to the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday to review the country’s response to a wave of violence that has left dozens dead and triggered cross-border airstrikes into Afghanistan, as tensions between the two neighbours edged closer to open conflict.