ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s weather authorities warned on Monday that the first organised monsoon spell of the season would sweep across the country from July 1 to 6, bringing heavy rain, flash flooding and the risk of urban inundation to large swathes of the nation still recovering from successive years of devastating floods.
Lifestyle
Imran Khan’s lawyers granted two-week delay to argue graft case appeal
ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Monday granted a two-week adjournment to lawyers for jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to begin arguments in their appeal against convictions in a corruption case, after dismissing contempt petitions the couple had filed against jail authorities.
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.
GLOF threat looms over Pakistan’s north as heatwave accelerates glacier melt, authorities order evacuations
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s disaster management authority on Saturday warned of an acute risk of glacial lake outburst floods sweeping through the country’s mountainous north into the first week of July, directing provincial administrations to ready evacuation sites, place rescue teams on standby and restrict civilian movement near glaciers as an intense heatwave shows little sign of relenting.
Pakistan marks Ashura with massive processions and heavy security presence nationwide
ISLAMABAD: Millions of Pakistanis took to the streets on Friday for Ashura, the most solemn day of the Islamic month of Muharram, as authorities deployed tens of thousands of security personnel across the country — a day after four people died from suffocation during a procession in the southern province of Sindh.
French climber dies in K-6 avalanche; two teammates survive
ISLAMABAD: A French climber died after an avalanche struck a three-member international team attempting to scale K-6, a 7,282-metre peak in Pakistan’s remote northern Karakoram range, a tour operator said on Wednesday, the latest fatality to hit the country’s high-altitude climbing season.
Nine dead as torrential rains and flash floods batter Pakistan’s northwest
ISLAMABAD: At least nine people have been killed and seven others injured across Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province after days of heavy rain brought walls and rooftops crashing down on residents, disaster management authorities said on Friday, as officials issued urgent warnings of glacial lake outbursts and flash floods across the region’s mountain districts.
Pakistan gets $700 million ADB loan to fix one of Asia’s most underpenetrated insurance markets
ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank has approved a $700 million policy-based loan to restructure Pakistan’s chronically underdeveloped insurance sector, the Manila-based lender said, as Islamabad accelerates a push to modernise financial markets that remain almost entirely dominated by banks.
PCB overhauls player contracts in bid to revive test fortunes
LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board unveiled a sweeping overhaul of its central contract system on Monday, restructuring the financial framework that governs the country’s professional cricketers into five distinct categories while granting dedicated Test specialists the rare freedom to play first-class cricket abroad — a concession that represents, in the board’s own framing, a deliberate wager on the long-term health of the longest format.
Monsoon storms kill ten across Pakistan as climate funding falls far short of crisis scale
ISLAMABAD: At least ten people have been killed and more than 40 injured across Pakistan after a 72-hour spell of monsoon rains, severe thunderstorms and flash flooding swept through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces, leaving a trail of collapsed roofs, overturned vehicles and inundated valleys.