KARACHI: For a country that spent the better part of a decade treating cryptocurrency as something close to contraband, Pakistan’s turn toward embracing it has been swift. Parliament passed the Virtual Assets Act in March. The State Bank followed in April, clearing licensed banks to open accounts for crypto businesses. A new federal regulator has begun issuing licenses to global exchanges. By some estimates, tens of millions of Pakistanis, and perhaps as many as 40 million, now hold digital assets worth billions of dollars.
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PIA taps Ethiopian Airlines veteran in bid for revival
KARACHI: Pakistan International Airlines has shortlisted Tewolde Gebremariam, the former chief executive of Ethiopian Airlines Group, to lead the recently privatized national carrier, according to a Bloomberg News report on Friday that cited a person familiar with the matter.
Funding gap threatens final push to eradicate polio, global health officials warn
ISLAMABAD: For nearly four decades, the campaign to wipe polio from the face of the Earth has been a study in incremental, hard-won progress: a disease that once paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children a year narrowed, country by country, until only two remained where it still spreads on its own. Now, with the finish line closer than it has ever been, the people running that campaign say they are running out of money to reach it.
Security forces kill 75 militants in widening Balochistan offensive
QUETTA: Security forces have killed 75 militants in a widening counterterrorism campaign across the restive southwestern province of Balochistan since July 5, officials said on Friday, as the government presses a large-scale crackdown following a string of separatist attacks that killed dozens of people earlier this month.
World Bank approves $375.9 mln for Pakistan power grid upgrade
ISLAMABAD: The World Bank has approved $375.9 million in financing to help Pakistan modernise its national power transmission network, the lender said on Friday, the first tranche of a decade-long programme aimed at easing chronic outages and expanding the use of clean energy.
More wreckage found as hunt for missing Pakistani flight crew stretches into third day
KARACHI: The search for five crew members of a cargo plane that vanished into the Arabian Sea earlier this week stretched into a third day Friday, as Pakistani authorities reported finding additional wreckage but no sign of the missing crew.
With births outpacing plans, Islamabad turns to military’s Munir for help
ISLAMABAD: Three years into a losing battle against one of the world’s fastest-growing populations, Pakistan’s government has drafted an unlikely ally into the effort: Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, the country’s top military officer.
Two dead in Poonch gunfire as banned Kashmiri alliance sets new deadline
RAWALAKOT: At least two people were killed and several others wounded before dawn Thursday when law enforcement personnel exchanged gunfire with protesters near Kotehri village, four kilometers outside Rawalakot, as security forces worked to clear a month-old road blockade for a convoy of food-laden vehicles.
‘The Islamic Republic of Japan’
There is a version of this story in which US President Donald Trump stands in Ankara, flanked by the assembled grandees of the Atlantic alliance, and says something statesmanlike about Patriot missile defence systems. There is another version — the one that actually happened — in which he does that too, but somewhere in the middle invents a country.
US, Iran trade fresh strikes as Tehran buries slain leader, testing fragile truce
ISLAMABAD: The United States and Iran exchanged another round of strikes this week, the most serious escalation since the two countries signed an interim peace agreement last month, as Tehran buried its assassinated supreme leader and mediators in Islamabad scrambled to keep a fragile ceasefire from collapsing entirely.