ISLAMABAD: The foreign ministers of eight Muslim-majority nations issued a joint condemnation on Tuesday of the systematic desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, holding Israeli authorities directly responsible for escalating incursions by far-right settlers and demanding an immediate halt to a deliberate campaign to upend decades of legal and religious precedent at one of the world’s most contested holy sites.
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Security forces kill 17 militants in Balochistan raids following deadly train attack
ISLAMABAD: The military said on Tuesday it has killed 17 militants in a series of intelligence-based operations sweeping across Balochistan, the country’s restive southwestern province, in retaliation for a suicide bombing last month that struck a passenger train near Quetta and left at least 14 people dead.
Trump erupts at Netanyahu in profanity-laced call, halts Beirut strike plans as Lebanon crisis threatens Iran deal
ISLAMABAD: US President Trump called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “crazy,” told him he would be in jail without his protection, and shouted profanities at him during a phone call on Monday, media outlet Axios and others reported, quoting two US officials and a third source briefed on the conversation — a searing confrontation that halted a planned Israeli military assault on Beirut and exposed deepening fractures between two leaders who have long presented their alliance as unshakable.
Pakistan steps up diplomacy as Iran freezes talks with US, straining fragile ceasefire
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign minister placed an urgent telephone call to his Iranian counterpart on Monday, urging Tehran to preserve a fragile regional ceasefire even as Iran announced it was halting indirect negotiations with the United States — a move that raised the specter of a broader collapse in the diplomatic architecture that has kept a wider Middle Eastern war at bay since April.
Imran Khan’s sister denies reports of meeting with former army chief in jail
ISLAMABAD: The sister of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan rejected social media reports over the weekend that a former army chief had visited him at Adiala jail, calling the claims fabricated and charging that they were deliberately seeded to draw public attention away from what she described as the systematic denial of her brother’s legal rights.
Sugar mills seek export approval as surplus swells to 1.3 million tons
KARACHI Pakistan’s sugar milling industry is pressing the government for urgent export clearance, warning that a record domestic surplus is choking cash flows, imperiling farmer payments and threatening to unravel two years of hard-won gains in the country’s sugarcane sector.
Cybercrime agency asks Supreme Court to rescind its own order in high-profile lawyers’ case
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency went to the Supreme Court on Monday to do something unusual: ask the country’s highest tribunal to undo its own order.
EU’s top diplomat praises Pakistan’s back-channel role in averting wider US-Iran war
ISLAMABAD: The European Union’s top diplomat arrived in Pakistan’s capital Monday and offered Islamabad a striking public endorsement: that its behind-the-scenes diplomacy between Washington and Tehran had, on more than one occasion, helped pull the world back from the edge.
Pakistan sets 4 percent growth target as oil shock and IMF shackles crimp ambitions
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has set a 4% economic growth target for the fiscal year beginning July, nudging higher from an estimated 3.7% this year, even as a surge in global oil prices triggered by the US-Iran conflict strains inflation and the government acknowledges it has virtually no money left to fund new development projects.
Islamabad restores early market closures as energy austerity returns after Eid reprieve
ISLAMABAD: The federal government reimposed strict market-closing hours in Islamabad from Monday, ordering shops and malls to shut by 8 p.m. in a renewed push to rein in energy consumption — a measure that had been suspended for weeks to accommodate Eid Al-Adha celebrations, but that traders warn is gutting their livelihoods.