Pakistan

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At least nine people were crushed to death after a massive crowd surge at a Hindu temple in southern India’s Andhra Pradesh on Saturday, state officials said. The stampede occurred as worshippers crowded into the Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple in the city of Srikakulam on Ekadashi, a day Hindus consider auspicious, said Pawan Kalyan, the state’s deputy chief minister. “An inquiry will be conducted into the tragic incident,” Kalyan said in a statement, adding that the temple was run by private individuals. He put the death toll at nine. Andhra Pradesh Governor S. Abdul Nazeer expressed his “profound grief on the death of nine pilgrims in the stampede”. As many as 25,000 devotees crowded into the temple, which can accommodate only about 2,000, leading to the crush, state minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy added, while district officials have been told to provide the injured with medical help. A total of 18 injuries have been reported so far, the collector and magistrate of Srikakulam district Swapnil Dinkar Pundka...

Three people lost their lives in a tragic road accident after a speeding dumper truck rammed into a motorcycle in Lahore’s Defense Phase 6 area on Saturday.

Punjab’s major cities were blanketed in dense smog on Saturday morning, with air quality deteriorating to dangerously high levels across the province.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government assigned portfolios to the newly formed 13-member all-male provincial cabinet on Saturday. The 13-member provincial cabinet picked by KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi took the oath of office a day ago in Peshawar. Many on social media were quick to point out that the new KP government lacked female representation. A notification issued today from the Cabinet Wing of the KP government’s Administration Department said CM Afridi assigned the following portfolios to the 13 members: Provincial ministers: Meena Khan Afridi — local government, elections and rural development Arshad Ayub Khan — elementary and secondary education Fazal Shakoor Khan — public health engineering Amjad Ali — housing Aftab Alam Afridi — law, parliamentary affairs and human rights Syed Fakhar Jehan — excise, taxation and narcotics control Riaz Khan — irrigation Khaleequr Rehman — health Aqibullah Khan — relief, rehabilitation and settlement Faisal Khan Tarakai — labour Aides Muzzammil Aslam — finance adviser...

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung sought Chinese President Xi Jinping’s help in efforts to resume talks with nuclear-armed neighbour North Korea on Saturday, while Xi told Lee he was willing to widen cooperation and jointly tackle the challenges they face. Lee hosted Xi at a state summit and dinner after an annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, marking Xi’s first visit to the United States’ ally in 11 years. Beijing attaches great importance to relations with Seoul and sees South Korea as an inseparable cooperative partner, Xi said ahead of the summit, according to Lee’s office. Lee, who was elected president in a snap election in June, has promised to strengthen ties with the US while not antagonising China and seeking to reduce tensions with the North. “I am very positive about the situation in which conditions for engagement with North Korea are being formed,” Lee said, referring to recent high-level exchanges between China and North Korea. “...

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Saturday that a fisherman from Pakistan was arrested by the Indian Coast Guard and was coerced into carrying out tasks for the neighbouring country’s intelligence agency. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad alongside Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhary, Tarar said that the Indian media was creating a false narrative in the aftermath of the four-day May conflict with Pakistan. The minister said that law enforcement agencies had recently apprehended a fisherman named Ijaz Mallah while he was out fishing in the sea. “In September this year, when he was out fishing, he was arrested by the Indian Coast Guard and after the arrest, he was taken to an undisclosed location and was coerced and forced to do some tasks for the Indian intelligence agency,” he said. “He was told that he would be compensated and if he did not comply, he would have to stay imprisoned for two to three years,” the minister said. “So this common fisherman was eventually released by...

Thousands of civilians are feared trapped and in imminent danger in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher after its fall to paramilitaries, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Saturday, as Germany’s top diplomat described the situation there as “apocalyptic”. At war with the regular army since April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces seized El-Fasher on Sunday, pushing the military out of its last stronghold in Darfur after a grinding 18-month siege marked by starvation and bombardment. Since the city’s fall, reports have emerged of summary executions, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions, while communications remain largely cut off. Survivors from El-Fasher who reached the nearby town of Tawila have told AFP of mass killings, children shot before their parents, and civilians beaten and robbed as they fled. The UN says more than 65,000 people have fled El-Fasher since Sunday but tens of thousands remain trapped. Around 260,000 people were in the city before the RSF’s final assault. “Large nu...

President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday addressed the 78th Independence Day celebrations of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), lauding the region’s historic and ongoing contributions to Pakistan’s development.

President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday said that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) had brought new opportunities to Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). “The CPEC has brought new opportunities for livelihood, trade and connectivity to GB. Our collective task is to ensure that these opportunities reach every valley and every village, creating shared prosperity for all,” he said, while speaking at a ceremony marking the 78th anniversary of the region’s freedom from Dogra rule. “As we celebrate your independence day … let us renew our collective resolve to make GB a model of development, justice equality. Your region offers the best to the rest of the country and the world at large,” he said. He also talked about the people of occupied Kashmir, saying: “While you enjoy liberty and rights under the flag of Pakistan, they continue to face occupation … we stand with them until they too can live in freedom in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the aspirations of the Kashmiri peopl...

A court has issued a written order extending the physical remand of six officers from the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), who were arrested on charges of bribery.

Militants in Pakistan suffered their heaviest losses in ten years during the month of October as security forces intensified counter-militancy operations across multiple regions, according to data compiled by an Islamabad-based think tank. This comes after militants were put on the back foot in September, with 69 attacks recorded and a 52 per cent decline compared to the month of August, as per the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS). In its latest monthly report issued today, PICSS stated that 355 militants were eliminated in October, while 72 security personnel and 31 civilians, including a peace committee member in Bannu, lost their lives. Another 92 security personnel, 48 civilians and 22 militants were injured across the country, the PICSS Militancy Database showed. While the think tank recorded a 29pc rise in militant attacks from 69 in September to 89 in October, overall human losses in these attacks declined by 19pc. The report highlighted that militants kidnapped 55 people la...

The persistent smog crisis continues to blanket South Asia, with Lahore and New Delhi recording dangerously high air pollution levels, posing severe health risks to millions of residents across the region.

The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) is reviewing a major revision in the solar net metering policy, with plans to slash the buyback rate for surplus electricity supplied to the national grid from Rs23 to Rs10 per unit, sources in the Power Division revealed on Friday.

Jordan and Germany said on Saturday that an international force expected to support a future Palestinian police in Gaza under US President Donald Trump’s post-war governance plan should have a UN mandate. Under the US-brokered ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, a coalition of mainly Arab and Muslim nations is expected to deploy forces in the Palestinian territory. The so-called international stabilisation force is supposed to train and support vetted Palestinian police in the Strip, with backing from Egypt and Jordan, as well as secure border areas and prevent weapons smuggling to Hamas. “We all agree that in order for that stabilisation force to be able to be effective in getting the job done, it has to have a Security Council mandate,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said. Jordan, however, will not be sending its own forces to the Strip. “We’re too close to the issue and we cannot deploy troops in Gaza,” Safadi said, adding his country was nonetheless ready to cooperate with the international force...

Officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan said on Saturday that the Torkham border crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been reopened for Afghan refugees returning to their country. Speaking to Dawn, Khyber Deputy Commissioner Bilal Rao confirmed that the Torkham border crossing had been reopened earlier today for the resumption of Afghan refugees’ repatriation. Khizer Shah, the spokesman of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul, and Afghan officials also confirmed the development. “Torkham gate is now open for refugees. We welcome our countrymen,” Qureshi Badloon, head of the Information and Culture in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, told Dawn. The repatriation of Afghan families with or without any travel or identity documents was abruptly suspended on October 11 following border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which continued for days before a ceasefire was formalised in Doha on October 19. Pakistan had closed all its borders with Afghanistan for all types of movement. Since then, a large number of return...

Former PTI leader and ex-federal minister Ali Haider Zaidi on Saturday refuted reports of him “planning a political relaunch”, saying that he had no plans of doing so anytime soon. Zaidi was among the top PTI leadership who quit either the party or politics altogether amid a state crackdown on the party following the May 9, 2023 riots, which witnessed military installations being vandalised in protest of Imran’s arrest earlier that day. “Some [are] suggesting that I’m planning a political relaunch. Let me be clear: I am not planning to enter politics anytime soon,” Zaidi said on X. The first reason Zaidi stated for not rejoining politics was that his “financial circumstances and my personal family obligations” would not allow it. “Secondly, there is no politics in a country where the corrupt, the land grabbers, the extortionists, even those with blood on their hands are gifted power through a rigged election, protected by a compromised judiciary, which even today, fails to deliver justice,” he claimed. “When ...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed on Saturday he apologised to United States President Donald Trump over an anti-tariff ad featuring former US leader Ronald Reagan and had told Ontario Premier Doug Ford not to run it. Trump announced he would be hiking tariffs on Canadian goods by an additional 10 per cent and terminated all trade talks following what he called the “fake” anti-tariff ad campaign. “I did apologise to the president. The president was offended,” Carney told journalists in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, adding trade talks would restart when the US is “ready”. Carney also confirmed that he had reviewed the ad with Ford before it aired, but said he had opposed using it. “I told Ford I did not want to go forward with the ad,” he said. The ad, commissioned by Ford, an outspoken Conservative politician who is sometimes compared to Trump, uses a snippet of Republican icon and former president Reagan saying that tariffs cause trade wars and economic disaster. Carney also called talks wit...

The Torkham border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan was reopened on Friday after 20 days, but only to facilitate the deportation of undocumented Afghan residents from Pakistan, officials confirmed.