Pakistan

Illegally receive financial assistance; depts to make deduction from salaries

Hours after an Iranian delegation departed Islamabad, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and said that Pakistan was committed to serving as an “honest and sincere facilitator”. In a post on the social media platform X, PM Shehbaz said that he had a “warm and constructive” call with the Iranian president on the evolving regional situation. “I appreciated Iran’s continued engagement, including the high-level delegation to Islamabad led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, whom I had the pleasure of meeting earlier today,” he said. “I reaffirmed that, with the support of friends and partners, Pakistan remains committed to [serving] as an honest and sincere facilitator — working tirelessly to advance durable peace and lasting stability in the region,” he said. According to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the phone call lasted 50 minutes, with the two leaders exchanging views on the “current regional situation and ongoing efforts to promote peace and stabilit...

Shafi pays tribute to PTI founder on the occasion of the party’s 30th foundation day

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ISLAMABAD: The capital administration on Saturday night allowed all types of public and goods transport to enter the city, while also revising business timings. The administration said all bus stands across the city were operational, except Faizabad. It said that the Faizabad bus terminal would remain closed until further notice. The administration also opened hiking trails in the federal capital. It said that it had also opened all parks, including Daman-i-Koh and Lake View, to the public. Separately, the administration issued a notification revising business timings. The notification partially amended the second order issued in this regard on April 16. Changes were made in the timings of all sports facilities and clubs, including gymnasiums. Earlier, the closing time was 8pm but it has now been extended to 10pm. The notification issued from the office of Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Irfan Nawaz Memon said that all the shops, markets and shopping malls shall close at 8pm throughout the week, including Satur...

Hajj flight operations from Allama Iqbal International Airport are proceeding efficiently under the Saudi-supported Makkah Route Initiative, providing pilgrims with a more convenient and streamlined departure process.

Consultations on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s international activities and regional security were held at the level of Deputy Foreign Ministers of SCO member States in Moscow, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Lahore has launched an automated system for conducting practical examinations for the first time, marking a major step toward digitising the education assessment process.

President Asif Ali Zardari, on Saturday, termed the successful launch of Pakistan’s indigenously developed Electro-Optical Satellite (EO-3) under the auspices of SUPARCO as a historic development.

Ishaq Dar held a telephonic conversation with Hakan Fidan to discuss ongoing diplomatic efforts and regional peace initiatives.

KARACHI: For the second consecutive day, rescue workers on Saturday carried out a search operation to recover an 11-year-old boy feared to have drowned after being swept away while swimming in a major water line in Scheme 33. The boy, Zahid Mohammed Khan, was swept away around 2pm on Friday while swimming in the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC)’s line in Scheme-33 near Al-Azhar Garden. Lifeguards from Rescue 1122 and the Edhi Foundation searched until Friday night, but were unable to recover the boy. Subsequently, the operation was paused due to a lack of visibility. On Saturday, Rescue 1122 Spokesperson Hassanul Haseeb Khan told Dawn that officials resumed the search operation at two separate locations, near Samama Shopping Mall and Continental Bakery in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, with the help of the district administration but the boy was not found. He referred to other incidents that had occurred in the vicinity in the recent past, saying the bodies were later recovered at the aforementioned location...

The US State Department has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it says are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including AI startup DeepSeek, to steal intellectual property from US artificial intelligence labs, according to a diplomatic cable seen by Reuters. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models”. “A separate demarche request and message has been sent to Beijing for raising with China,” the document states. Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones as part of an effort to lower the costs of training a powerful new AI tool. This week, the White House made similar accusations. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. OpenAI has warned US lawmakers that DeepSeek was targeting the ChatGPT maker and the nation’s l...

The Foreign Office (FO) said on Saturday that Pakistan had successfully launched an indigenous electro-optical satellite from China’s Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre, terming it a “significant milestone”. “The Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) has successfully launched its indigenous electro-optical satellite (EO-3) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre, marking another significant milestone in the nation’s space capabilities,” it said in a statement posted on the social media platform X. “Beyond its core imaging mission, EO-3 carries advanced experimental payloads aimed at validating next-generation space technologies. These include a multi-geometry imaging module for enhanced imaging accuracy, an advanced energy storage system, and an onboard AI-powered data processing unit to enable real-time analysis and intelligent decision support,” it said. It said that the addition of EO-3 to Pakistan’s Earth Observation satellite fleet “significantly enhances national capabilities i...

ISLAMABAD - The federal government on Friday once again jacked up the prices of petrol and high speed diesel by Rs 26.

ISLAMABAD: A local court on Saturday rejected the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency’s (NCCIA) request for the physical remand of journalist Fakharur Rehman and instead sent him to jail on judicial remand. Rehman was arrested a day earlier under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca). According to an NCCIA first information report (FIR) dated April 20, the journalist was one of the nine accused of spreading “false and misleading information against state institutions” through the social media platform X. On Saturday, Rehman was produced before the court of District Magistrate Yasir Mahmood. During the hearing, defence counsel Ahad Khokhar argued that the prosecution had failed to clearly establish the extent of Rehman’s alleged role. He maintained that the journalist had merely quoted statements made by a religious scholar in a post on X and had not expressed any personal opinion. The defence further contended that thousands of social media users had shared the video in question, wondering why ...

ISLAMABAD: State-run Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) has approved a revised bid of $18.4 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) from TotalEnergies for delivery between April 27 and 30, while rejecting all other bids, it emerged on Saturday. TotalEnergies had initially bid $18.88 per mmBtu but later revised its offer downward to $18.4 following negotiations. After internal consultations, the authorities rejected all other bids for the first half of May, anticipating the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. On Friday, PLL had received four bids at $17.997 to $18.88 per mmBtu for delivery between April 27 and May 8. A total of four bids were received from three bidders, and three were declared the lowest. Vitol Bahrain’s bid of $18.54 per mmBtu was declared the lowest for the May 1–7 delivery window, while OQ Trading was the lowest bidder at $17.997 per mmBtu for the May 8–14 period. However, both bids were rejected. PLL had on Thursday floated urgent tenders for the import of three LNG cargoes for delivery between ...

India will bid to host the 2038 Asian Games in Ahmedabad, the country’s Olympic chief told Reuters on Saturday, in its latest push to stage elite multi-sport events. The world’s most populous nation will stage the 2030 Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad and is also bidding for the 2036 Olympic Games in the western Indian city. “Indian Olympic Association has already sent an expression of interest to OCA (Olympic Council of Asia) for organising the 2038 Asian Games in Ahmedabad,” IOA President P. T. Usha told Reuters by telephone from China. “I met the OCA president and other functionaries here and they are all happy and want to support us.” Former Olympian Usha is in China to attend the Asian Beach Games in Sanya. “They had an EC (executive committee) meeting here where they discussed it. They will be sending an evaluation committee to India very soon,” she added. India hosted the inaugural Asian Games in 1951 in New Delhi and again in 1982 in the capital city. The country hosted the 2010 Commonwealth Games, whi...

The Taliban government said on Saturday that Afghans who fled to Qatar, fearing reprisals over their collaboration with US forces, may return home “with full confidence”. The administration of US President Donald Trump, which has made a sweeping crackdown on immigration a signature policy, had given a March 31 deadline to close a camp where more than 1,100 Afghans were staying at a former US base in Qatar. Afghans have been going through the base for processing while seeking to move to the United States, fearing persecution by Taliban authorities for having worked with US forces before they withdrew and the Western-backed government collapsed in 2021. “According to media reports, a number of Afghan nationals who had been awaiting US visas in the State of Qatar have been asked to choose between the repatriation to Afghanistan or resettlement in a third country,” foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a statement posted on X. “Afghanistan constitutes the shared homeland of all Afghans and it invi...

Ishaq Dar held a telephone conversation with Badr Abdelatty to review the regional situation and ongoing peace initiatives.

Abbas Araghchi met with Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on Saturday in a high-level diplomatic engagement aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and Iran.