ADB launches $70 billion push to link Asia’s power grids and digital networks, eyes cross-border trade boost

ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank announced a $70 billion initiative on Sunday to accelerate cross-border electricity trade and digital connectivity across Asia and the Pacific, deploying artificial intelligence to integrate power systems and potentially help resolve chronic shortages in countries such as Pakistan that sit on surplus generation capacity.

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Trump launches ‘Project Freedom’ to free ships trapped in Hormuz as Iran weighs US reply to peace plan

ISLAMABAD: President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the United States will begin an operation Monday to guide hundreds of commercial vessels and their crews out of the Strait of Hormuz, where they have been trapped for weeks by Iran’s effective closure of the vital waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

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Iran signals openness to US talks on nuclear program and Strait of Hormuz but says next move is Washington’s

ISLAMABAD: Iran told the United States on Saturday that the path forward rests with Washington, offering a revised proposal that shows limited new flexibility on reopening the Strait of Hormuz while insisting it remains prepared for either diplomacy or continued confrontation.

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Trump dismisses Iran’s latest peace proposal as ‘not satisfactory’

ISLAMABAD: President Donald Trump on Friday rejected Iran’s newest proposal for ending the US-Israeli war with Tehran, telling reporters he was “not satisfied” with the offer even as he formally notified Congress that hostilities had “terminated” and the 60-day clock under the War Powers Resolution had run out.

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Pakistan predicts below-average rains and scorching heat for 2026 monsoon as El Niño emerges

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Meteorological Department warned on Friday that the 2026 southwest monsoon season is likely to bring below-normal rainfall to most of South Asia and above-normal temperatures across nearly the entire region, driven by the probable development of El Niño conditions over the equatorial Pacific.

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