Pakistan

Floods kill almost 400 people since Thursday Seven killed in Karachi as heavy rain lashes port city NDMA chairman says nearly 1,000 injured in recent floods mostly in KP Heavy machinery being used to repair infrastructure Rescuers struggling to locate missing.

ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court of Pakistan will again conduct hearing of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan’s bail petition in the May 9 cases today.

Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan has nominated opposition alliance chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai as the new Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly.

ISLAMABAD - A high-level defence delegation led by Mr.

LAHORE - On the second day of her five- day Japan visit, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif announced a series of initiatives to modernize Punjab’s healthcare, industrial, and transport sectors through strategic cooperation with Japan.

The death toll from a collision between a bus carrying Afghan migrants returning from Iran and two other vehicles in western Afghanistan has risen to 76, a provincial official said on Wednesday. “Seventy-six citizens of the country… lost their lives in the incident, and three others were seriously injured,” Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, Herat provincial government spokesman, said in a statement. Police in Guzara district outside Herat city, where the accident took place on Tuesday night, said the bus collided with a motorcycle and a truck carrying fuel, sparking a fire. The bus was carrying Afghans recently returned from Iran to the capital Kabul, Saeedi told AFP on Tuesday. At least 1.5 million people have returned to Afghanistan since the start of this year from Iran and Pakistan, both of which have sought to force migrants out after decades of hosting them, according to the UN migration agency. The state-run Bakhtar News Agency said Tuesday’s accident was one of the deadliest in the country in recent years. Traf...

ISLAMABAD - Federal Minister for Communications Abdul Aleem Khan on Tuesday arrived in Gilgit to review the destruction caused by floods in Gilgit-Baltistan and the northern areas where he inspected ongoing rehabilitation work particularly related to roads and bridges.

Says govt determined to completely eradicate polio from country.

ISLAMABAD - Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Tuesday said that Pakistan Army rescue teams have successfully evacuated 6,903 stranded individuals and provided medical treatment to 6,304 patients in flood-affected areas.

ISLAMABAD - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Islamabad to co-chair the 6th Pakistan-China Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue tomorrow (August 21), the Foreign Office said yesterday.

ISLAMABAD - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Tuesday granted post-arrest bail to an accused who has been in prison for almost two years in a blasphemy case.

The Punjab government has rolled out the CM Punjab Asaan Karobar Loan Scheme, a flagship initiative under the leadership of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif aimed at supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), startups, and aspiring entrepreneurs across the province.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced that he will soon visit the flood-affected areas to review the situation and relief operations.

Internet services across Pakistan have been fully restored after widespread disruption caused by heavy rains, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) confirmed on Wednesday.

The nation is commemorating the 54th martyrdom anniversary of Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas Shaheed today (Wednesday), paying tribute to the youngest recipient of Nishan-e-Haider and the first officer of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to be awarded the country’s highest military honour.

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered an independent probe into the controversial Rs50 billion gas billing dispute involving influential consumer groups and the gas utility sector. The investigation will be led by former federal secretary Shahid Khan, following complaints from industrial and CNG consumers who received sudden bills for past gas dues, dating back to 2015. Sources confirmed that the prime minister has constituted a special inquiry committee to examine the matter. The dispute centres around the Lahore-based Sui Northern Gas Company Ltd (SNGPL), which issued revised bills for the period between April 2015 and June 2022. These bills were based on updated notifications from the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra). According to these notifications, the industrial sector owes Rs14.4bn, the power sector Rs40bn (ultimately payable by electricity consumers), the CNG sector Rs3.8bn, and the fertiliser sector Rs2.4bn. The total payables amount to Rs59.8bn, including Rs51.3bn in different...

ISLAMABAD: The government on Tuesday announced that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s upcoming visit to China later this month will mark the formal launch of the second phase of the China­-Pakistan Economic Corr­idor (CPEC-II), focused on industrial cooperation, after a delay of about five years. “Prime minister’s upcoming visit will mark the formal launch of CPEC Phase-II, with both sides expected to set clear priorities and agree on tangible, measurable outcomes,” said an official announcement quoting Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, focal person on the multi-billion-dollar bilateral initiative, as saying at a high-level meeting. The meeting was convened to review preparations for the forthcoming session of the Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) of CPEC, as well as the prime minister’s scheduled visit to Beijing. While the JCC is expected to meet in October, official sources said the prime minister will travel to Beijing at the end of this month to attend the Shanghai Coope­ration Organisation (SCO) summit (Aug ...

• Country’s internet connectivity drops to 20pc after major PTCL, Ufone outage • Other telcos also experience data service disruptions ISLAMABAD: Heavy rainfall in Karachi caused widespread disruptions to PTCL internet and Ufone services, affecting subscribers across the country. Since other telecom operators purchase wholesale internet from PTCL, users of Jazz, Zong and Telenor also experienced data service disruptions. Netblocks, a global internet watchdog, confirmed a major disruption to internet connectivity across Pakistan, with PTCL being significantly impacted. National connectivity dropped to 20 per cent of ordinary levels. Responding to a query, a PTCL spokesperson acknowledged the issue. “Our teams are diligently working to restore the services as quickly as possible. We regret any inconvenience caused,” the spokesperson said but did not mention the cause for the nationwide outage. Sources in the Ministry of IT and Telecom suggested that the disruption might be due to a technical fault at the landin...

LONDON: A British district council on Tuesday won its bid to have asylum seekers temporarily removed from a hotel that has become the focal point for protests after a resident was charged with sexual assault. Epping Forest District Council took legal action to stop asylum seekers from being housed in the Bell Hotel in Epping, […]

Karachi, Pakistan’s vibrant coastal hub, is gearing up for a dynamic weather shift on August 20 and 21, 2025, with conditions ranging from thundery showers to partly cloudy skies, according to trusted meteorological sources. Residents and visitors should prepare for warm, humid days with potential disruptions from rain and haze. August 20, 2025: Thundery Showers […]