Pakistan

Beijing says the launch was routine military training exercise and not aimed at any specific country or target

QatarEnergy to keep Ras Laffan operations at minimum, reduce vessel dockings after LNG tanker attack

The Delhi High Court ruled against Google in the case, ordering it to pay damages of $31,600 and other costs

Five missing after crash; plane spent 10 days in Sharjah for repairs before return flight

AI agents act independently for users, handling tasks from scheduling and shopping to complex business processes

An illustration showing (top, left to right) the President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the Sultan and Prime Minister of Oman Haitham bin Tariq Al-Said, Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, (and bottom) the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian over a map of the Gulf with pre-war ship locator markings showing ships travelling via the Strait of Hormuz FOREWORD The United States-Zionist war of aggression on Iran has been partially halted by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Given the rising cost-exchange ratio because of Iran’s response, US President Donald Trump was looking for a deal. He admitted to the media at the G-7 summit that he “did not want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover”, the president historically blamed for the onset of the Great Depression. Trump also made plain that continuing the war meant global re...

Meta's in-house Iris AI chip will power Facebook and Instagram under its four-generation MTIA programme

ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday left its forecast for Pakistan’s economic growth unchanged at 3.7 per cent and projected inflation at 8.3pc for the current fiscal year, slightly higher than the government’s estimate. In its Asian Development Outlook (ADO) July 2026, the Manila-based lender, however, lowered its growth forecast for developing Asia and the Pacific to 4.9pc for 2026 from 5.5pc in 2025, marking a 0.2-percentage-point reduction from its April projections. Prolonged disruptions to energy markets caused by the Middle East conflict have weighed more heavily on the region’s prospects than anticipated, according to the ADB’s latest economic outlook released on Thursday. The lender maintained its 2027 growth forecast at 5.1pc, reflecting an expected recovery in economic activity as these pressures ease. The ADB’s outlook expects disruptions to global energy markets to ease only gradually despite a framework agreement signed in June. With the impact extending beyond energy to fert...

The 8.47-metre installation, built from 1.36 million LEGO bricks, is on display at Rockefeller Plaza

The United States and Iran traded strikes on Thursday for the second day running as Washington and Tehran battled over the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The latest round of attacks, which the US said was carried out in response to Tuesday’s assault on three cargo ships transiting the strait, came hours after US President Donald Trump said he believed an interim ceasefire with Iran to be “over”. US forces said the latest attacks against Iran were aimed at “their ability to threaten the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz”, citing recent strikes against commerical ships the waterway. “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. The US strikes rattled several cities along Iran’s southern coast and left some areas without power. The US Central Command said later they had struck approximately 90 military targets. Iran responded with a second day of attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain, both home to US mili...

Calls overseas Pakistanis valuable asset, says remittances reflected confidence in govt's policies

Indian leader Narendra Modi said he clinched a uranium supply agreement while visiting Australia on Thursday, securing a fuel source that will play a crucial role in his nation’s nuclear energy ambitions. Faced with an almost-insatiable appetite for electricity in the world’s most populous nation, Modi has outlined plans to substantially scale-up nuclear power generation in coming years. Australia lays claim to around 28 per cent of the world’s uranium resource, but legal hurdles and political sensitivities have hindered exports to India. “We have signed an important agreement today on nuclear energy,” Modi said after talks with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese. “This will pave the way for uranium supplies from Australia to India and give our clean energy objectives fresh momentum.” A joint statement said the arrangement allowed long-term uranium exports for “exclusively peaceful purposes”. The exports would fall under safeguards established by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “The ar...

Indian actor recalls learning live sound on 'Dil Chahta Hai' and embracing creative freedom while filming 'Omkara'

THE powers of the tax machinery are growing more strident but the recovery of actual revenue is getting harder and harder. The new production monitoring system rolled out by the FBR in the last fiscal might provide some technology-led direction to how these coercive powers can be down-blended with enhanced surveillance to yield something more intrusive but less punitive. But it cannot be the mainstay when thinking about the next generation of revenue measures the state must mobilise in order to escape the shrinking confines of its resource envelope. Asking for increased coercive powers for themselves is a standard operating principle for civil servants. In the tax bureaucracy, one can trace this demand back to the mid-1990s, and earlier too perhaps, when the tax authorities first got the powers of arrest. These powers were widened piecemeal through the years and had another layer added on top. This layer was surveillance. To some extent, surveillance powers were always vested with tax officers, but in 2008, t...

The court issues permanent arrest warrants for the absconding co-accused Adil Zaman

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Thursday appreciated Pakistan’s efforts for promoting peace during a meeting with Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi. The meeting between the two came on the sidelines of the fifth United Nations Chiefs of Police Summit (UNCOPS 2026) at the UN headquarters in New York. According to state-run PTV News, the two exchanged views on the regional situation and broader international developments, including Pakistan’s mediation efforts between the United States and Iran and its longstanding role in promoting peace. It added that the UN chief commended Pakistan’s efforts for peace. Earlier, Naqvi had met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Alexandrovich Kolokoltsev, on the sidelines of the summit. The two interior ministers discussed the regional security situation and ways to enhance cooperation in counterterrorism, counter-narcotics, cybercrime and law-enforcement training, the interior ministry said. They also discussed conducting joint police exercises and develo...

The burial ‌in Mashhad in northeast Iran follows a week of mass funeral processions, rallies and mourning ceremonies

The United States and Iran traded strikes on Thursday for the second day running as Washington and Tehran battled over the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The latest round of attacks, which the US said was carried out in response to Tuesday’s assault on three cargo ships transiting the strait, came hours after US President Donald Trump said he believed an interim ceasefire with Iran to be “over”. US forces said the latest attacks against Iran were aimed at “their ability to threaten the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz”, citing recent strikes against commerical ships the waterway. “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. The US strikes rattled several cities along Iran’s southern coast and left some areas without power. The US Central Command said later they had struck approximately 90 military targets. Iran responded with a second day of attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain, both home to US mili...

Peshawar - Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Faisal Karim Kundi on Wednesday said investing in the skills and abilities of young people was an investment in Pakistan’s brighter future, stressing that equipping children with modern education and technical skills was the need of the time.

United States President Donald Trump unexpectedly left Turkiye on Wednesday aboard an older Air Force One rather than the newly renovated Qatari-donated jet that brought him there, but later boarded the new plane in Britain for the flight to Washington. The trip to Turkiye for the Nato summit, the first international travel for the new plane, took place as hostilities escalated with Iran, a country that borders Turkiye. The unexpected plane switch followed months of scrutiny over the luxury gift intended to serve as a temporary replacement while Boeing struggled to deliver long-delayed next-generation Air Force One planes. Critics questioned the cost, security and pace of the retrofit. Trump said on Truth Social that he would use an older baby blue Air Force One plane “for old time’s sake” to fly from Ankara to RAF Mildenhall in Britain while the new plane stopped at the same base so US service members stationed there could tour the aircraft. Video late on Wednesday showed Trump boarding the new Air Force One...