Pakistan strikes militant hideouts along Afghan border, killing 26, as tensions spiral

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan carried out airstrikes on militant hideouts along its volatile northwestern border with Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 26 fighters, the government said, in retaliation for a string of deadly attacks that have claimed the lives of soldiers and police officers across the country’s restive frontier provinces in recent weeks.

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Islamabad rewires its budget architecture, freezing provincial shares to plug a trillion-rupee gap

ISLAMABAD: The government has brokered a sweeping fiscal compact with its two most populous provinces, freezing their shares of national tax revenues and redirecting a portion back to the Centre in a financial restructuring that officials say is essential to fund defence priorities and honour commitments to the International Monetary Fund.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Banned Kashmir group’s strike shutters markets; PM urges talks as sedition cases filed

MUZAFFARABAD: Streets fell quiet and markets shuttered across Azad Kashmir on Tuesday as a recently banned civil rights alliance pressed ahead with a strike, while the regional government ordered sedition proceedings against two of its leaders and the prime minister appealed for a return to negotiations.

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