ISLAMABAD: Defence minister took to the floor of the National Assembly on Thursday to rebuke a banned Kashmiri protest movement, urging it to settle its grievances at the ballot box rather than through marches and confrontation — as that very movement’s supporters massed on the outskirts of a regional capital and a fragile standoff showed no sign of resolution.
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Supreme Court acquits two MQM members in 2012 Baldia factory fire, citing gaps in evidence and doubt over JIT report
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday threw out the convictions of two men sentenced to death for their alleged roles in the 2012 Baldia Town factory fire in Karachi — a blaze that killed more than 260 garment workers and stands as the deadliest industrial disaster in the country’s history — ruling that prosecutors had failed to establish their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Pakistan braces for storms and flooding even as Karachi swelters under historic heat
KARACHI: The thermometer read 37 degrees Celsius when afternoon arrived Wednesday in this coastal megacity of some 20 million people, but for anyone stepping outside, that number told only part of the story.
Ten killed, including children, after van plunges into ravine and burns on Islamabad-Murree road
ISLAMABAD: They had set out from Multan in the middle of the night, 23 members of the same family, bound for the cool air and pine-forested hills of Murree. By Wednesday morning, 10 of them were dead — among them children — killed not only by the crash that sent their van tumbling into a roadside ravine but by the fire that followed, and by a sliding door that would not open.
No survivors after army helicopter Mi-17 crashes near Muzaffarabad; inquiry ordered
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan Army Mi-17 helicopter crashed near Muzaffarabad on Wednesday, killing all personnel on board when the aircraft went down during takeoff due to what military officials described as a technical fault, marking the third deadly helicopter accident involving security or government in less than one year.
Global nuclear spending surges to record $119 bln; Pakistan sees second-steepest rise
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s spending on nuclear weapons rose 18 percent last year to an estimated $1.5 billion, outpacing the rate of increase by rival India and ranking as the second-steepest percentage jump among the world’s nine nuclear-armed states, according to a report published on Tuesday by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Pakistan hosts back-to-back military diplomacy as Gulf and Lebanese commanders converge on Rawalpindi
RAWALPINDI: The commander of Bahrain’s National Guard held separate meetings with all three of Pakistan’s service chiefs on Tuesday, as Islamabad positioned itself at the centre of a busy round of military diplomacy with the Middle East against the backdrop of a fragile ceasefire in the US-Iran conflict.
ICC penalises Lord’s and Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium for ‘unsatisfactory’ pitches
LAHORE: The International Cricket Council on Tuesday sanctioned two of cricket’s most storied venues, awarding demerit points to Lord’s in London and Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium after match referees condemned the pitches used for recent internationals as heavily skewed in favour of bowlers.
Pakistani and Lebanese military chiefs hold talks in Rawalpindi amid regional tensions
RAWALPINDI: The commanders of Pakistan and Lebanon’s armed forces met on Tuesday at Pakistan’s military headquarters to discuss deepening defence cooperation and the deteriorating security landscape across the Middle East, a meeting that came as Islamabad has sought to position itself as a diplomatic interlocutor in the widening conflict between Israel and Iran.
Shops shut and streets empty in Azad Kashmir as banned group defies crackdown with long march to Muzaffarabad
RAWALAKOT: The streets of this mountain city in Azad Jammu and Kashmir were quiet on Monday under a second consecutive day of shuttered shops and absent traffic — an uneasy stillness that followed weekend clashes that left eleven people dead, including four law enforcement officers, and that a banned political committee was seeking to channel into a region-wide general strike and protest march.