ISLAMABAD: Seven civilians have been killed and three others wounded in twin bomb attacks on passenger vehicles in a remote mountain district of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in an assault deliberately timed to strike not only ordinary travellers but those rushing to their aid.
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Pakistan bets on bond markets as Gulf alliances show signs of strain
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is preparing to raise more than $4.5 billion from international bond markets and foreign commercial banks in the coming fiscal year — a sharp and deliberate pivot away from the bilateral financing arrangements with Gulf states and China that have kept the country solvent for much of the past decade.
Iran shuts Strait of Hormuz again as Israel kills 32 in Lebanon — and the peace deal teeters
ISLAMABAD: Iran announced on Saturday that it was once again closing the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic, citing Israel’s relentless bombardment of southern Lebanon as a violation of the memorandum of understanding signed with the United States only days ago.
Nine dead as torrential rains and flash floods batter Pakistan’s northwest
ISLAMABAD: At least nine people have been killed and seven others injured across Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province after days of heavy rain brought walls and rooftops crashing down on residents, disaster management authorities said on Friday, as officials issued urgent warnings of glacial lake outbursts and flash floods across the region’s mountain districts.
Government and PTI find rare common ground as Fata tax deadline looms
ISLAMABAD: Senior government ministers held rare face-to-face talks with opposition PTI lawmakers on Friday, pledging to lobby the International Monetary Fund to preserve tax exemptions for Pakistan’s former tribal regions that are due to expire at the end of this month — a deadline that has united adversaries across the parliamentary divide in a way little else has managed.
Pakistan shoots down Afghan drone as Kabul’s ‘airstrike’ claims dismissed as propaganda
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has shot down an Afghan Taliban drone that crossed into its airspace on Friday, hours after Kabul claimed its air force had struck Islamic State hideouts inside Pakistani territory — claims Islamabad dismissed as deliberate disinformation from a regime it accuses of sheltering the very groups it claims to be targeting.
Lebanon violence forces postponement of Switzerland summit as fragile Middle East accord faces its first crisis
ISLAMABAD: A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect on Friday afternoon after a morning of deadly fighting in Lebanon threatened to collapse the diplomatic architecture of the most significant Middle East peace effort in a generation.
FM Dar heads to Cairo for fourth R-4 summit as quartet cements role in Middle East crisis diplomacy
ISLAMABAD: The deputy prime minister and foreign minister Ishaq Dar is to travel to Egypt on Saturday for the fourth ministerial meeting of the R-4 group — a fast-emerging diplomatic bloc comprising Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan that has positioned itself as one of the region’s most active mediating forces since the outbreak of war between the United States and Iran.
Petrol pumped below Rs300 as Pakistan claims peacemaking dividend
ISLAMABAD: The government has announced its largest single-day reduction in fuel prices in recent memory, slashing petrol by Rs74 per litre and high-speed diesel by Rs67 per litre — a move Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif presented on Friday as both an economic dividend of easing global oil markets and a vindication of Islamabad’s months-long diplomatic gambit to broker peace between Washington and Tehran.
Supreme Court summons jail officials over Imran Khan’s blocked access to lawyers
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Pakistan moved on Thursday to reassert judicial authority over conditions inside Adiala jail, ordering the prison’s superintendent, Punjab’s home secretary and both the Islamabad and Punjab advocate generals to respond within three weeks to a petition challenging what lawyers describe as the systematic denial of Imran Khan’s right to meet with his legal team.