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ISLAMABAD - Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said yesterday that Pakistan and the United States were actively engaged in talks for a win-win conclusion.

QUETTA: The body of a 14-year-old student, Muhammad Musawir Kakar, who was kidnapped for ransom on November 15, 2024 has been recovered by the police, Quetta DIG Aitzaz Ahmed Goraya said on Friday. He revealed that Afghan nationals were involved in the kidnapping. They abducted the boy with the help of local accomplices and later handed him over to the extremist group Daesh, also known as IS, which demanded a ransom of $12m from the victim’s father. The DIG added that after killing the boy, the kidnappers buried his body in the Maro Isplinji area of Mastung district. The grave was located by the police. The body appeared to be over two months old, he said, adding the postmortem report revealed the boy was shot in the chest and head. His identity was confirmed through DNA testing. “We tracked down the kidnappers, raided multiple locations, and eliminated some of them, but unfortunately, we were unable to ensure the safe recovery of the boy, for which we are deeply sorry,” said DIG Goraya. He added that the inv...

Dwayne Golden sentenced to nearly eight years for defrauding investors in EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin schemes totaling over $40 million. A man at the center of a massive crypto Ponzi scheme will spend nearly eight years behind bars after a federal judge handed down a 97-month prison sentence in Brooklyn on Friday. Dwayne Golden, 57, was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering for his role in orchestrating scams through three digital asset firms, EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin, which defrauded investors out of more than $40 million, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced. Federal prosecutors said Golden and his partners promised guaranteed returns from crypto trading that never took place. Instead, funds were funneled into repaying earlier investors or lining the conspirators’ pockets, classic hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme. Read more

Иран готовил покушение на Дональда Трампа перед выборами в 2024 году. Об этом 27 июня написала The Washington Post, ссылаясь на готовящуюся к публикации книгу Джоша Доуси, Тайлера Пейджера и Айзека Арнсдорфа "2024: Как Трамп вернул Белый дом и демократы потеряли Америку".

ISLAMABAD - Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, NI (M), Chief of Army Staff (COAS), engaged with the probationary officers of the 52nd Common Training Program (CTP) of the Civil Services Academy during a session held at the Army Auditorium.

ISLAMABAD - The Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court Friday, by accepting the review petitions, ruled the former ruling Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) is ineligible for reserved seats for women and minorities in the national and provincial assemblies.

Speaker of the Punjab Assembly, Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan, on Friday suspended 26 members of the provincial assembly for 15 sessions over serious breaches of parliamentary rules and disorderly conduct during house proceedings.

The ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the cease-fire, and Iranian state television reported that they were for 60 people in total, including four women and four children

NEW DELHI: India is vigilant of developments in its neighbourhood that “have a bearing” on its “interest and security”, the external affairs ministry said of a recent trilateral meeting between Pakistan, Bangladesh and China, adding that it factors in the “evolving context” in its bilateral relations with these countries. According to The Wire, during a trilateral meeting in Kunming, China, on June 19 involving Chinese vice foreign minister Sun Weidong, Bangladesh’s acting foreign secretary Ruhul Siddique and Pakistan’s additional foreign secretary Imran Siddiqui, the three sides agreed to explore cooperation in a number of sectors including trade, ‘maritime affairs’, health and the environment. Asked for comment on the meeting during the ministry’s weekly press briefing on Thursday, spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that “we maintain a constant watch on the developments in our neighbourhood that have a bearing on our interest and our security”. “Our relations with individual countries, while they stand on th...

ISLAMABAD - The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Friday called upon Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs), district administrations, and relevant departments to remain on high alert and activate contingency plans as widespread rain and thunderstorms are expected to impact large parts of the country within.

ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that resolution of the Israel-Iran conflict will open the doors for peace and prosperity in the region.

Небольшое совпадение изменит ваши планы — и вы удивитесь, насколько к лучшему. Главное — не попытаетесь вернуть всё «как было» из упрямства.

Американский президент Дональд Трамп 27 июня сделал несколько комплиментов нелегитимному президенту страны-агрессора России Владимиру Путину. Брифинг транслировал Белый дом.

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Religious Affairs has been ordered to refund Rs36 billion to aspiring pilgrims who couldn’t perform Haj this year. The money would be returned to over 67,000 Pakistani pilgrims who were supposed to go on Haj through private tour operators but couldn’t over delays in payments. The sub-committee of Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs on Friday directed the ministry to fully reimburse the victims. The sub-committee’s convener, Senator Aon Abbas Buppi, announced that Rs36.43 billion held in Saudi Arabia must be refunded by August 15. There should be no deductions whatsoever, including currency exchange losses or service charges, Mr Bappi emphasised. Religious Affairs Secretary Dr Attaur Rehman informed the committee that Pakistan was allotted a quota of 179,210 pilgrims for the Haj in 2025 by the Saudi government. Of this quota, 90,830 slots were allocated to private Haj operators. However, the Saudi government later revised its policy to only allow operators with a group of ...

• CB’s ruling overturns SC’s July 12, 2024 majority judgement; restores Peshawar High Court’s original verdict • Seven judges accept review petitions by ECP, PML-N et al; three judges ‘partially allow’ them • 77 reserved seats in national and provincial assemblies will be distributed among other parties • Ruling coalition can now comfortably achieve two-thirds majority in NA ISLAMABAD: The Constit­utional Bench (CB) on Friday overturned the Supreme Court’s earlier judgement in the reserved seats case — effectively taking away reserved seats from the PTI and handing them to their rival parties in the national and provincial legislatures. The decision, handed down by a majority of seven judges, supersedes the July 12, 2024 majority judgement by eight judges, which had declared the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) eligible for reserved seats for women and non-Muslims in the assemblies. “[B]y majority of seven namely Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan, Justice Musarrat Hilali, Justice Naeem Akhter Afghan, Justice Shahid Bila...

• Losses of Rs342bn in six months seen as ‘Rs1.9bn daily drain’ on public finances • Circular debt crosses Rs4.9tr; unfunded pensions, weak governance deepen fiscal strain ISLAMABAD: With relentless financial haemorrhaging of nearly Rs342bn in just six months, the cumulative losses and unfunded pension liabilities of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have crossed Rs7.5tr — almost three times the country’s defence allocation of Rs2.55tr for FY26, and over seven times the upcoming year’s Public Sector Develop­ment Programme (Rs1tr). The Ministry of Finance informed the Cabinet Commit­tee on State-Owned Enterprises (CCoSOEs) on Friday that total SOE losses now exceed Rs5.8tr — nearly one-third of the recently passed Rs17.5tr federal budget for 2025-26. Presided over by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurang­zeb, the meeting was briefed by the Central Monitoring Unit of the Finance Division on the biannual performance of federal SOEs for the period July to December 2024. The report outlined the worsening state of SOEs, in...

SWAT/PESHAWAR - Eleven tourists were swept away due to flash floods in the Khwaza Khela area of district Swat on Friday.

Lahore - Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz said on Friday that those who tried to minus Nawaz Sharif had themselves been marginalized.