Pakistan

Two women were killed, while four people were injured after the jeep they were travelling in plunged into a ravine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Mansehra district, police said on Thursday. Shenkiari Station House Officer Muhammad Saqib told Dawn.com that a jeep heading towards the Jabori area fell into a ravine due to landslide debris following heavy rains on the road. “The local people rushed to the scene after the accident and retrieved the victims from the ravine. Two of them were [found] dead,” he said, adding that four others were injured in the incident, including three children and a driver. He also said that the dead bodies and the injured were taken to the Shenkiari Rural Health Centre, while two of the injured were later taken to the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital for further treatment. Fatal accidents are common on roads in the mountainous regions of the country due to traffic rule violations, treacherous terrain, and poor infrastructure. Earlier this month, two people were killed and 24 others sustaine...

ISLAMABAD: As part of efforts to deepen ties, enhance economic diplomacy and boost tourism cooperation, Uzbekistan Airways is increasing the number of regular flights between the two countries. The Uzbek embassy in Islamabad said on Wednesday that Uzbekistan and Pakistan continued to strengthen their friendly relations and expand cooperation across multiple sectors. In this process, transport and logistics, particularly air connectivity, played a crucial role. Starting October 28, the frequency of flights on ‘Tashkent-Islamabad-Tashkent’ route will be doubled, from once a week to two flights per week. Currently, Uzbekistan Airways operated flights twice a week — on Wednesdays and Fridays — on the ‘Tashkent-Lahore-Tashkent’ route, and once a week (on Saturdays) on the ‘Tashkent-Islamabad-Tashkent’ route. Due to consistently high demand, with flights running at full passenger capacity and tickets selling out several days in advance, the airline had decided to expand its flight schedule. The Embassy of Uzbekista...

New York prepared to mark the devastating attacks of Sept 11, 2001 on Thursday, 24 years after the deadly plane hijackings that claimed almost 3,000 lives and forever changed the United States. Vice President JD Vance was expected to attend memorial events at Ground Zero in Manhattan, where the World Trade Centre’s twin towers were destroyed in coordinated attacks that also saw a jetliner crash into the nerve centre of American military power, the Pentagon in Washington. Another jet, Flight 93, crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside when passengers overran the hijacker and took control of the aircraft. This year’s gathering takes place against a backdrop of sharp political division both in the city and nationally. New York is in the grip of an unprecedented mayoral election campaign in which socialist Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani is facing off against former governor Andrew Cuomo and sitting mayor Eric Adams. New Yorkers go to the polls on November 4. It was unclear which of the mayoral candidates w...

India’s Neeraj Chopra and Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan will battle for javelin gold in Tokyo next week, the latest chapter in a brotherly rivalry which has soured since a deadly military conflict between their countries. The Tokyo Olympic champion, Chopra, and his successor in Paris, Nadeem, will line up at the athletics world championships for their first encounter since the nuclear-armed neighbours engaged in a four-day conflict in May, their worst since 1999. Chopra, who took Olympic silver behind his great rival a year ago, had often spoken about his friendly relations with Nadeem despite the tensions between their countries. After Nadeem won gold and Chopra stood alongside him on the podium in Paris, Nadeem’s mother Raziah Parveen said: “Winning and losing is part of sport, but they are like brothers.” Chopra’s mother Saroj said she took some solace in Nadeem beating her son because the Pakistani “is also our boy”. But publicly at least that changed after the conflict. The 27-year-old Chopra, who will defen...

PM Shehbaz Sharif says flood danger not yet over as deluge moving towards Sindh Cabinet condemns derogatory social media content against Armed Forces Approves resumption of new gas connections.

LARKANA - Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited Aqil Agani and Moria Loop embankments of the Indus River in Larkana on Wednesday, where irrigation officers briefed him about the flood water situation in details.

ISLAMABAD - Muhammad Ajmal Gondal, Auditor General of Pakistan, paid a farewell call on President Asif Ali Zardari at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Wednesday.

MULTAN - Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif announced financial assistance for flood-hit families during her visit to Jalalpur Pirwala.

ISLAMABAD - Bahrain’s Interior Minister, Lieutenant General Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, on Wednesday visited Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior on Wednesday, where he was warmly received by Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi.

Seven die as heavy rain triggers flooding in Karachi.

LAHORE - The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday summoned the Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to appear in person along with the complete record on September 15 in a contempt of court case.

ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday issued a notification to temporarily suspend the rules for increasing court fees and securities.

ISLAMABAD - Days after quitting the National Assembly’s parliamentary committees, incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Wednesday directed the party senators to resign from the committees of the Senate.

ISLAMABAD - United Nations Security Council emergency meeting has been summoned today in New York to discuss the situation arising out of the Israeli attack on Qatar.

Punjab’s agricultural economy has been hit hard by the recent unprecedented floods, which have destroyed vast swathes of standing crops and vegetables across the province.

The 77th death anniversary of the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is being observed across the country today (Thursday) with deep respect and a renewed pledge to uphold his guiding principles of “unity, faith and discipline.

RAWALPINDI - Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU) hosted a landmark ‘Capacity Building Workshop’ under the Excellence in Higher Education collaborative project, aiming to align Pakistani universities with international academic standards.

ISLAMABAD - A four-member larger bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) Wednesday deferred hearing in a petition filed by Dr Fowzia Siddiqui seeking the release of her sister, Dr Aafia Siddiqui, from a US jail.

KARACHI: The industrial sector in Karachi was significantly impacted on Wednesday as heavy rains and flooding paralysed key industrial areas. According to industry leaders, industrial output remained subdued as workers failed to report for duty due to safety concerns and transportation issues. Faisal Moiz Khan, President of the North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry (NKATI), stated that nearly half of the 4,500 industrial units in the area remained closed. Workers were reluctant to return after the torrential rains in the third week of August left several people stranded in factories late into the night. Additionally, around 100-125 factories in sectors A to D in F.B. Area, including export-oriented units, suffered damage as the swollen Lyari River inundated production facilities, destroying raw materials and finished goods worth millions of rupees. Moiz pointed out that the overflow from Thado Dam had submerged roads leading to the Super Highway, exacerbating the city’s already struggling infrastruc...

National Paigham-i-Aman body is a subcommittee of National Committee on Narrative Building Senate committee alarmed by misuse of Peca by provinces ISLAMABAD: The government has notified a special panel — comprising clerics, religious leaders of non-Muslim communities and senior officials — to counter extremism, hate speech, terrorism and sectarianism in the country. The Ministry of Information has set up the National Paigham-i-Aman Commit­tee (NPAC), which will draft a unified national stance against extremism and terrorism. The NPAC, a subcommittee of the National Committee on Narrative Building (NCNB), has been tasked with devising a unified national narrative that promotes peace, harmony and religious moderation. The NCNB, which was notified earlier this month, is a 20-member body that includes the information ministers of all four provinces, GB and AJK, as well as federal minister. It also includes representatives of the military, intelligence agencies, the foreign and IT ministries, as well as the PTA ch...