MUZAFFARABAD: A month-long protest movement led by a banned rights alliance, the Joint Awami Action Committee, barreled toward a government deadline this week with no sign of a breakthrough, as the group and police continued to clash over the death toll from the weekend’s latest bout of violence and neither side showed any appetite for talks.
Politics
Pakistan emerges as quiet broker in effort to reunify Libya
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has opened a quiet, previously unreported channel of mediation between Libya’s rival eastern and western power centers, according to two Pakistani officials familiar with the matter, a role that would mark a striking expansion of Islamabad’s diplomatic reach if it produces results, Reuters reported.
Military top brass pledges resolve on water rights, cross-border threats amid rising tensions with India, Afghanistan
RAWALPINDI: Pakistan’s senior military leadership pledged Monday to take “all measures necessary” to secure the country’s water rights under the Indus Waters Treaty, according to a statement from the armed forces’ media wing, as tensions with India over the decades-old water-sharing agreement continue to simmer.
In Lahore abduction case, a minister’s family name and a scramble to contain the fallout
LAHORE: The car was supposed to be headed for the airport. That, at least, is what the man driving it had told the two women in the back seat, according to Lahore police: that a ransom had been paid, that they were free, that their ordeal was over.
Clashes erupt in part of Azad Kashmir amid regionwide strike, protests
MIRPUR: A general strike shut businesses across Azad Kashmir on Sunday and protesters clashed with police in several towns, as demonstrations organised by a banned political group entered their second month and a month-long internet blackout showed no sign of ending.
Pakistan, Turkey renew pledge to hit $5 billion in trade
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Turkey on Saturday recommitted to a long-standing goal of raising bilateral trade to $5 billion, as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used a day of meetings here to widen cooperation on energy, mining, technology, and regional diplomacy.
Pakistan poised to host next round of US-Iran nuclear talks
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is positioning itself as the venue for the next round of technical negotiations between the United States and Iran, according to diplomatic sources, with talks expected to resume July 11 even as the two governments continued to hurl insults at each other during the funeral proceedings for Iran’s assassinated supreme leader.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives for a handshake for photographers with Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar at the State Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 25, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
US backs Pakistan’s right to self-defence as UN splinters over terrorism strategy
ISLAMABAD: The United States on Thursday reaffirmed its support for Pakistan’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks, as a UN vote this week exposed rare discord over the world body’s flagship counterterrorism strategy, with Washington breaking two decades of consensus to vote against the text.
Sharif, Munir pay Pakistani respects to Khamenei as Iran opens week of funeral rites
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir paid their respects on Friday at the coffin of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Tehran opened a week of funeral rites for the man who led the Islamic Republic for nearly four decades.
Imran Khan’s PTI party to skip Kashmir vote, backs protesters over ‘politics of power’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party founded by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, said on Thursday it would boycott the upcoming general election in Azad Kashmir, citing weeks of civil unrest, arrests of political workers and a blockade of food supplies to the region.