ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has again pressed the United States and Iran to return to a fragile ceasefire framework it helped broker in June, as the conflict between Washington and Tehran flares anew and threatens to draw in Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure and the wider shipping routes of the Middle East.
Politics
PIMS fire: report blames ‘systemic failure’ as electrical fault named likely cause of 14 newborn deaths
ISLAMABAD: A government inquiry into the fire that killed 14 newborn babies at a hospital in Islamabad has concluded that the disaster was the product of “systemic and institutional failure”, with a localised electrical fault the most probable trigger for a blaze that overwhelmed a nursery in a matter of minutes.
Three militants killed in Balochistan drone strike
QUETTA: Security forces killed three militants, including a field commander, in a drone strike in Balochistan’s Mastung district, state media reported on Monday, the latest in a weeks-long escalation of military operations across the restive province.
Bhutto-Zardari says Malaysia PM’s remarks expose India’s Pahalgam narrative
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former foreign minister has seized on an interview given by Malaysia’s prime minister to an Indian broadcaster, casting it as vindication of Islamabad’s long-standing rejection of accusations that it orchestrated last year’s attack on tourists in Kashmir.
IHC bars use of state machinery ahead of PTI’s Sept 27 protests
ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court has ordered the country’s four provincial governments to keep public resources and government machinery out of a mass protest planned for later this month by the party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.
PTI, JI close ranks as govt bans public gatherings ahead of twin marches on Islamabad
ISLAMABAD: Two major opposition forces moved into open alignment on Sunday, with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf declaring its support for Jamaat-e-Islami’s month-long campaign against a fuel levy, as authorities in Islamabad and Punjab responded to the prospect of simultaneous mass marches on the capital with a sweeping security clampdown.
India’s women follow men’s lead in refusing Asia Cup trophy from ACC chief Naqvi
India’s women cricketers refused to collect the Asia Cup trophy from the head of Asian cricket’s governing body on Sunday night, plunging the presentation ceremony in Dubai into confusion and repeating a snub delivered by their male counterparts a year earlier.
Sharif pledges solidarity with Saudi Arabia as Houthi strikes, pipeline attack rattle region
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif telephoned Saudi Arabia’s crown prince on Sunday to condemn a string of attacks that battered the kingdom’s energy sector over the preceding week, as Riyadh grappled with both a missile and drone barrage from Yemen’s Houthi rebels and a still-unclaimed drone strike on one of its most important oil pipelines.
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah addressing a presser in this undated photo courtesy of APP.
Pakistan’s new-provinces debate escalates as coalition tensions simmer
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s fragile ruling coalition sought to project unity at the weekend even as a fractious debate over redrawing the country’s provincial map threatened to expose deepening rifts between its two main partners.
JI sets Sept. 20 Islamabad march in fuel-levy showdown
Jamaat-i-Islami, one of Pakistan’s oldest Islamist parties, said it will march on Islamabad on Sept. 20 unless the government scraps a fuel levy that has become the flashpoint for the country’s broadest street protests since Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took office, escalating pressure on an administration already navigating a fragile International Monetary Fund program.