ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government is negotiating with Netflix and other global streaming services to secure greater visibility for the country’s films and television dramas, while separately developing a state-backed digital platform to carry Pakistani content abroad, a senior minister said, reviving a long-running debate over why a domestic entertainment industry with a vast international following has landed so few original commissions from the world’s dominant streaming companies.
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Gilgit-Baltistan moves to create glacier protection agency as flood warnings mount
GILGIT: The government of Gilgit-Baltistan announced on Saturday that it will establish a new authority dedicated to protecting the region’s glaciers, a step officials described as essential to confronting the accelerating effects of climate change in one of the most glaciated landscapes outside the polar regions.
Media regulator ends Geo News suspension, but warns network faces license revocation for any repeat violation
ISLAMABAD: Geo News, one of Pakistan’s most-watched television networks, resumed broadcasting shortly after midnight Sunday, ending a 15-day suspension that the country’s media regulator said was necessary after the channel aired religiously sensitive imagery during a special Muharram program last month.
Pakistan warns of glacial flood danger as heat, rain converge on northern peaks
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani weather officials on Saturday warned that a fresh storm system moving into the country’s northern mountains this week could trigger sudden, destructive flooding from glacial lakes, the latest in a string of alerts this summer as the region grapples with a punishing combination of heat and rain.
Pakistan braces for weekend of flooding, landslides as monsoon rains intensify
ISLAMABAD: The federal government ordered disaster management authorities into a state of heightened readiness on Friday, as meteorologists forecast a weekend of heavy rain, windstorms and thunderstorms likely to trigger flash flooding, landslides and dangerous river surges across the country’s northern and mountainous regions.
Pakistan’s top court reverses course on Nasla Tower demolitions, faults justices for overreach
ISLAMABAD: A landmark ruling this week from Pakistan’s newly formed Federal Constitutional Court has upended nearly a decade of court-ordered demolitions across this sprawling port city, finding that the country’s Supreme Court exceeded its authority when it launched a sweeping campaign against illegal construction that eventually claimed one of Karachi’s most recognisable buildings.
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.
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.
Bahria Town official, retired colonel convicted in money laundering case
ISLAMABAD: A retired army colonel who serves as vice chief executive of Bahria Town was convicted on Thursday for a second time in less than a year, this time for illegally moving money abroad to finance projects for the sprawling real estate developer, as investigators continue to unravel a financial network built around one of the country’s most powerful property empires.