Pakistan

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Suspect accused of impregnating mentally challenged woman

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CM orders command-area expansion and fast-tracks welfare measures for vulnerable citizens

Announces Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Conference in Mardan

Experts stress need for a year-round dengue prevention strategy focused on early surveillance, community engagement

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Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif held a meeting with Jasdeep Singh, head of a US-based Sikh community organization, who is currently visiting Pakistan.

Pakistan and Finland conducted the 6th Round of Bilateral Political Consultations in Islamabad today.

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Senior PTI leader and ex-foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi underwent a successful procedure to remove his gallbladder, lawyer Rana Mudassar Umer said on Tuesday. The senior PTI leader, incarcerated at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail since 2023, was hospitalised at the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute for gallbladder stone complications on October 31, his daughter Meher Bano said. She added that his condition deteriorated while imprisoned and that surgery was “unavoidable”. Speaking to Dawn, Umer said Qureshi’s gallbladder was successfully removed during the procedure. “Shah Mehmood Qureshi will remain under the constant supervision of doctors for a few days,” he stated. “Shah Mehmood Qureshi has appealed to the nation to pray for his speedy recovery.” Meher Bano also spoke to Dawn about the procedure, saying that the procedure was successful and the PTI leader is currently under observation. “The size of the stone inside the gallbladder was quite large, so the surgery took longer than usual,” she explained. ...

The UK government has unveiled unprecedented changes to its asylum system in a bid to deter irregular migration and make deportations easier. How long will it take to implement the measures? Will there be any obstacles, and could the proposals be effective in discouraging small boat crossings, which successive governments have failed to curb? What is the timeline? The policy paper titled “Restoring Order and Control” was announced on Monday by interior minister Shabana Mahmood, who told lawmakers the reforms would discourage migrants from crossing the Channel from France on small boats. Many of the changes will need to be introduced as new legislation and be approved by parliament, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party holds a significant majority. The interior ministry has said it will end its legal obligation to provide support to asylum seekers “in the coming months”. Other changes — including increasing the time refugees must wait before applying for permanent residency from five to 20 years — ...

Disruptions in internet access were widely reported on Tuesday as Cloudflare, a content delivery network and domain name server (DNS) service, reported it was experiencing issues in its global network. Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources, showed that user reports from Pakistan indicated problems with Cloudflare, with complaints beginning around 4:10pm. Problems were also reported with OpenAI, Amazon Web Services, and Facebook. Social media platform X was also experiencing outages, with more than 5,600 reports of issues with the social media platform, as of 06:51am Eastern Time (4:51pm PKT), according to Downdetector. Cloudflare said it was “aware of and investigating an issue which impacts multiple customers”, but how did their service going down cause outages on multiple platforms? What is a DNS service provider? A DNS server is an address book that matches a website’s name (e.g. http://google.com) to its real IP (a set of numbers). For nationwide use, you ...

Raja Faisal Mumtaz Rathore on Tuesday was sworn in as the 16th prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). The oath-taking ceremony was held a day after PPP’s Rathore was announced as the new AJK premier after Chaudhry Anwarul Haq was ousted through a vote of no-confidence (VoNC) in the region’s legislative assembly. The oath was administered by AJK Legislative Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar at the President’s House in Muzaffarabad. The speaker performed the duty on behalf of AJK President Barrister Sultan Mahmood, who reportedly could not travel to the regional capital owing to his health issues. Speaking after the oath, Rathore said, “First of all, I thank God from my heart for bestowing this heavy responsibility on my weak shoulders.” The newly sworn-in premier said fulfilling those duties would not be an “easy task in this extremely difficult era”, but said he believed God gave strength to those entrusted with such tasks. Rathore also thanked President Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Tal...

The launch of an investigation in Italy into allegations that foreigners paid to shoot at civilians during the siege of Sarajevo three decades ago has raised survivors’ hopes that people will be brought to justice. About 11,000 civilians were killed by shelling and sniper fire from Bosnian Serb army positions on hills around the besieged city during the 1992-95 war that followed Bosnia’s declaration of independence from Yugoslavia. Milan prosecutors opened their investigation, a source said, after local journalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni filed a legal complaint over allegations that Italians and other foreigners had paid members of the Bosnian Serb forces to visit and shoot at civilians under what some referred to as “sniper tourism”. Gavazzeni said he had been inspired to look into the allegations after watching a 2022 documentary titled Sarajevo Safari, by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic. Without providing any firm evidence, Gavazzeni said wealthy foreigners paid large sums of money to take part in the...