ISLAMABAD: Security forces killed 29 militants in an intelligence-led ground operation and precision air strikes along the Afghan border overnight, the government said on Sunday, retaliating hours after gunmen attacked a paramilitary camp in Karachi and killed three soldiers.
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Iran, US agree halt to attacks, Doha talks set for Tuesday amid Hormuz standoff
ISLAMABAD: Iran and the United States have agreed to halt military strikes against each other and will meet in Qatar on Tuesday for direct negotiations over control of the Strait of Hormuz, US media reported on Sunday, offering a fragile opening after one of the most dangerous weekends of a conflict that has shaken global energy markets and rattled shipping throughout the Gulf.
PEMRA suspends Geo News for 15 days after part of Muharram broadcast deemed offensive to Muslim viewers
Pakistan’s broadcast regulator on Saturday suspended the licence of Geo News for 15 days, taking the country’s most widely watched Urdu-language television channel off the air after it broadcast footage during a Muharram transmission that authorities said was liable to hurt the religious sentiments of viewers.
Three Rangers martyred as Taliban faction bomb Karachi paramilitary compound; Afghan suspect held
KARACHI: An explosive-laden vehicle driven into the gates of a Sindh Rangers compound in Karachi killed three paramilitary troops and wounded four others on Saturday night, the military said, as a Pakistani Taliban faction claimed responsibility for one of the deadliest militant strikes on a security installation in Pakistan’s commercial capital in years.
The Hormuz ceasefire was ambiguous by design
The agreement signed on June 17 was presented to the world as the architecture of an enduring peace. Less than a fortnight later, it had become a vocabulary test — one that both Tehran and Washington are failing, or refusing to take. Each new drone strike, each fresh round of US airstrikes on Iranian coastal infrastructure, each Iranian missile falling on a Gulf Arab air base is now accompanied by the same claim from both capitals: the other side violated the memorandum of understanding first.
AGP report lays bare scale of Pakistan’s fiscal leakage — from arms licences to oil royalties
ISLAMABAD: The Auditor General of Pakistan has identified financial irregularities, unrecovered revenues and procedural violations running into hundreds of billions of rupees across federal ministries and state-owned enterprises, according to a 399-page audit report that singles out the country’s tax authority and energy sector for the most serious lapses.
Cloudburst devastates Diamer district as Pakistan warns of glacial lake catastrophe
GILGIT: A cloudburst tore through Thore Valley in Pakistan’s northern Diamer district on Saturday, destroying homes, severing roads and leaving dozens of families homeless, as a concurrent heatwave accelerated glacial melt across Gilgit-Baltistan and federal authorities warned of a sharply elevated risk of glacial lake outburst floods through early July.
AJK traders, transporters abandon proscribed JAAC, say movement strayed from economic mandate
MUZAFFARABAD: Traders and transport operators in Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s Muzaffarabad division announced on Saturday they would end weeks of commercial paralysis from Sunday, formally distancing themselves from the proscribed agitation body whose expanding political demands they said had overstepped the concerns of ordinary business.
Militants strike Karachi paramilitary Rangers compound, killing three in rare Taliban-linked assault
KARACHI: Militants rammed a vehicle into a paramilitary base in Karachi on Saturday, triggering a gun battle that killed at least three paramilitary Rangers personnel and four attackers, in the first assault on the country’s commercial capital claimed by a faction of the Pakistani Taliban in years.
Pakistan pushes for developing world voice in digital finance rules at Zurich forum
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top digital assets regulator used a high-profile Zurich gathering of central bankers and financial policymakers this week to demand that emerging economies help write the rules governing tokenized finance, warning that developing nations risk being sidelined as wealthier countries race to set global standards for digital money.