Pakistan News

LONDON: Son Heung-min’s late winner fired Tottenham Hotspur into the Premier League’s top four with a 2-1 win over Luton Town as Chelsea twice blew a lead against 10-man Burnley in a 2-2 draw on Saturday. An action-packed afternoon also saw Newcastle United come from 3-1 down to stun West Ham United 4-3 and Fulham hit back for a 3-3 draw at bottom-of-the-table Sheffield United. Spurs have now come from behind to win in four of their last five home games and needed another second-half turnaround to keep their challenge for a return to the Champions League next season on track. Tahith Chong’s strike after just three minutes gave Luton a shock lead, but the Hatters ended the day in the relegation zone as their winless run extended to 10 games. An Ange Postecoglou half-time substitution again made an impact for Tottenham as Brennan Johnson’s cross was turned into his own net by Issa Kabore just six minutes after the Welsh international’s introduction. Son had missed a number of chance...

A recent report compiled by the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP) has revealed that of the 126 judges in Pakistan’s superior judiciary, only seven are female. The upper tier of judiciary includes the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Federal Shariat Court, and the five high courts. The report, titled Women in the Justice Sector , aims to report the statistics of women working in Pakistan’s judicial sector, highlighting judges, lawyers, prosecutors and other personnel, read an LJCP press release on Friday. As per the report, currently there are 3,142 judges and judicial officers working across of the country. Out of these, 2,570 are male and 572 are female, 18 per cent of the total working judges. The report further reveals that there are currently 126 judges working at the upper tier of the judiciary, which includes the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Federal Shariat Court, and the five high courts. Out of these 126 judges, 119 are male judges, while only seven are female ...

Malaysian authorities have arrested three people suspected of supplying firearms to a 36-year-old man carrying an Israeli passport, who was detained this week at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, police said on Saturday. The man, arrested with a bag containing six handguns and 200 bullets, had arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport from the United Arab Emirates on March 12 using what authorities believed to be a fake French passport, Inspector-General of Police Razarudin Husain told a press conference late on Friday. The suspect turned over an Israeli passport upon questioning by police, Razarudin said, adding that the man, who has not been publicly identified, had ordered the weapons after arriving in Malaysia and paid for them with cryptocurrency. The Israeli embassy in Singapore did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Malaysia and Israel do not have diplomatic relations . Police did not rule out the possibility that the man could be a member of Israeli intel...

MUZAFFARGARH: Two nine-year-old girls were raped in separate incidents at the District Headquarters Hospital Layyah and Kot Addu. A mentally challenged minor girl was raped at the DHQ Hospital, Layyah, on Thursday evening. The nine-year-old girl belonged to Chak 515-TDA of Kot Addu who was visiting the hospital with her family. A CCTV footage showed the victim child being taken away by the suspect, identified as a 15-year-old resident of the General Bus Stand. According to a police spokesperson, the suspect was a sweets vendor and he lured the girl by giving her toffees. He raped the victim within the boundary wall of the hospital. After the incident, City police arrested the suspect with the help of modern technology and CCTV footage. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz had taken notice of the incident and ordered the inspector general of police (IGP) and the South Punjab additional IG to take immediate action and submit a report to her. On her instructions, Layyah District Police Offi...

His soldier son toured Afghanistan with insurgents in his crosshairs, but American traveller Oscar Wells has a different objective — sightseeing promoted by the interim Taliban government’s fledgling tourism sector. “It is a unique place, it touches my heart,” the 65-year-old Indiana farmer told AFP , praising “its magnificent mountains” with “people living in the old way”. Marvelling at the 15th century Blue Mosque in northern Mazar-i-Sharif, Wells is among a small but rising number of travellers coming to Afghanistan since the war’s end . Decades of conflict made tourism extremely rare, and while most violence has now abated, visitors are confronted with extreme poverty, dilapidated cultural sites and scant hospitality infrastructure. They holiday under the austere control of Taliban authorities, without consular support after most embassies were evacuated following the fall of the Western-backed government in 2021. They must register with officials on arrival in each province,...

Pakistan and Afghanistan reached certain agreements during trade talks in Kabul, including beginning negotiations on a revised transit trade agreement and implementing a temporary admission document (TAD) for trade vehicle drivers, officials said on Friday. Talks were held amid tensions following Pakistan’s March 18 airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Patika and Khost provinces in “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations”, which Afghan authorities said killed eight people. The Foreign Office had confirmed the strikes, saying they were aimed at the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, which was responsible for multiple terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, including one on security forces in North Waziristan that martyred seven soldiers. On Thursday, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a weekly press briefing that Commerce Secretary Mohammad Khurrum Agha visited Afghanistan from March 24-27 to discuss bilateral trade and transit with his Afghan counterpart Nooruddin Azizi. ...

VANCOUVER — Against a strong, playoff team, the Vancouver Canucks didn’t quite play playoff hockey.  Which is why they’re still waiting to officially be a playoff team themselves. The Canucks’ battled the Dallas Stars evenly at five-on-five on Thursday. But they took five penalties — the most power plays Vancouver has surrendered in a month. The penalties became a massive factor because the Canucks weren’t very successful at killing them, allowing the Stars’ power play to score twice and make the difference in Dallas’ 3-1 win at Rogers Arena. Although there was contentious non-call and ponderous, unsuccessful coach’s challenge after Jason Robertson appeared to contact the puck just above shoulder height prior to Dallas’ first power-play goal, taking five penalties in an intense, tight-checking way will not keep the Canucks in the playoffs long if they are equally undisciplined next month. Consecutive losses by the Canucks against Dallas and Los Angeles, another team that smoth...

The Supreme Court on Thursday conditionally allowed military courts to pronounce reserved verdicts in cases pertaining to civilians held for their alleged involvement in the May 9 riots. It directed that judgements be announced in cases in which the nominated suspects could be released before Eid. The court issued the directives as it heard a set of intra-court appeals (ICAs) against its Oct 23 unanimous ruling nullifying the military trials of civilians involved in the May 9 riots. A six-member bench — led by Justice Aminuddin Khan and including Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Syed Azhar Hasan Rizvi, Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Irfan Saadat Khan — presided over the proceedings. The case pertains to the trial of more than 100 civilians for their alleged role in attacks on army installations during the riots that followed ex-premier Imran Khan’s arrest on May 9 last year. In a widely praised ruling last year, a five-member SC bench — comprisi...

The Philippines will implement countermeasures proportionate and reasonable against “illegal, coercive, aggressive, and dangerous attacks” by China’s coastguard and maritime militia in the South China Sea, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Thursday. “We seek no conflict with any nation, more so nations that purport and claim to be our friends, but we will not be cowed into silence, submission, or subservience,” Marcos said on Facebook. He did not specify what the countermeasures would include. The Philippines has been furious in the past year over what it calls repeated aggression by China’s coastguard and allied fishing vessels around disputed features located inside Manila’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The latest flare-up occurred last week when China used a water cannon to disrupt another Philippine resupply mission to the Second Thomas Shoal for soldiers posted to guard a warship intentionally grounded on a reef 25 years ago. China, which claims almost the entire S...

The Foreign Office (FO) said on Thursday that there was no doubt that Tuesday’s suicide attack in Bisham — which claimed the lives of six people including five Chinese nationals — was “orchestrated by the enemies of Pak-China friendship”. The five Chinese engineers — and their Pakistani driver — were killed in the suicide bombing on Tuesday while travelling between Islamabad and a hydroelectric dam construction site in Dasu, in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The bus was attacked in the Bisham city of KP’s Shangla district. The attack prompted China to demand a thorough probe into the deadly blast and security for its citizens. In response, Islamabad announced a swift probe to hold the “perpetrators and accomplices” accountable. According to police, the bus was travelling from Islamabad to Kohistan when it came under the attack on Karakoram Highway. “It was a suicide attack on the Chinese convoy and an explosive-laden vehicle approaching from Kohistan hit the bus,” Bisham Sub Divi...

The United States has stated that “helping Pakistan address its energy shortage crisis is a priority” for Washington. The Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline is a long-term project between Tehran and Islamabad, and has faced delays and funding challenges for several years. In February, the government had decided to start building an 80-kilometre segment of the pipeline, extending from the Iranian border to Gwadar, to ward off $18bn potential penalties from Tehran. On Tuesday, Washington had said that it did not support the gas pipeline project from going forward and cautioned about the risk of sanctions in doing business with Tehran. The remarks had come after Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik had said that Islamabad would seek exemption from US sanctions over the gas pipeline project. “We will seek exemption from US sanctions. Pakistan cannot afford sanctions in the gas pipeline project,” Malik had told journalists during an informal chat. This was in contrast to the stance put forward ...

In India’s general elections, scheduled for April-May 2024, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to repeat, if not outdo, its 2019 performance. In those elections, the party and its allies garnered 45 per cent of the vote share and won over 300 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. Few observers had anticipated this scale of victory, subsequently attributed to factors ranging from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s persona, the BJP’s superior party organisation and higher levels of financial endowments, and its skillful blending of Hindutva, nationalism, and social welfare. In the 2024 elections, the BJP is aiming to cross the 400-seat mark, building on the fervor created by the January 2024 inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. As the elections approach, we can expect analysts to mull over the same questions: why do people vote the way they do? What motivates voters, in India and elsewhere, to vote overwhelmingly for some parties and ignore others? Are voters rational en...

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Calls emerged from various quarters on Wednesday for a probe into allegations made by six Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges against interference in judicial affairs by the country’s intelligence apparatus. On Tuesday, six IHC judges — out of a total strength of eight — wrote a startling letter to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) members, regarding attempts to pressure judges through abduction and torture of their relatives as well as secret surveillance inside their homes. The letter addressed to SJC members — Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, Supreme Court Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Munib Akhtar and IHC CJ Aamer Farooq and Peshawar High Court CJ Mohammad Ibrahim Khan — also questioned if there existed a state policy to “intimidate” and coerce judges. The six judges also supported the demand of the former IHC judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui , for a probe into the allegations of interference by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) operatives. The IHC Bar Association (IH...

Five Chinese nationals and one Pakistani were killed in an attack on their convoy in Bisham tehsil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Shangla, according to the regional police chief and a station house officer (SHO). Reuters quoted Mohammad Ali Gandapur, the regional police chief, as saying that a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a convoy of Chinese engineers which was on its way from Islamabad to their camp in Dasu. “Five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver were killed in the attack,” Gandapur said. The provincial police had reached the spot and started relief operations. The rest of the people in the convoy have been protected, Gandapur said. Bisham SHO Bakht Zahir, while talking to Dawn.com , also confirmed that the incident claimed six lives, of which five were Chinese engineers and one was a Pakistani. He said it was a “suicide blast” and the authorities concerned were collecting evidence. Security arrangements were tightened at the spot and the bodies we...

The Pakistan cricket team is set to visit Australia for a white-ball series scheduled for November this year as Cricket Australia (CA) on Tuesday released its international schedule for the 2024-25 season. In a press release, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said that the tour — which will mark the start of Australia’s white-ball schedule for the summer of 2024-25 — would comprise six games in total. It said that three one-day internationals (ODIs) and as many T20Is will be played across six venues from November 4 to 18. “Pakistan will be returning to Australia after a gap of almost one year, after having competed in the Benaud-Qadir Trophy which comprised three Test matches played across Perth, Sydney and Melbourne in December 2023-January 2024,” the PCB said. The cricket board further said that the ODI series would begin on November 4 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before moving to Adelaide and Perth on November 8 and 10, respectively. Pakistan last played an ODI series on Au...