Pakistan News

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The United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday that it was quitting Opec, dealing a heavy blow to the oil-exporting cartel and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, at a time when the Iran war has caused a historic energy shock and rattled the global economy. But what is Opec, and how does it impact consumers? What is Opec? Founded in 1960, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) is a bloc of oil-exporting nations that coordinate their oil and gas policies as a means of managing the oil market. The founding members were Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, but in 2016 the group expanded into OPEC+, which now comprises 23 countries. The bloc controls slightly over 50 per cent of global crude production, Jorge León, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, told Reuters . What is the purpose of Opec? Opec’s main purpose is to reduce volatility in oil markets, León said. He used the example of the Covid-19 pandemic, when oil demand dropped by 20 milli...

BANNU: A terrorist was killed early Wednesday when Bannu police repelled an attack on the Mazanga police post, officials said. Police officials said heavily armed terrorists attacked the post in the early hours of Wednesday, but personnel responded promptly and foiled the assault. An intense exchange of fire between police and the attackers continued for some time, leaving one terrorist dead and several others injured. The wounded attackers were taken away by their accomplices under the cover of darkness. Following the incident, Bannu District Police Officer (DPO) Yasir Afridi, along with Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Arshad Khan and teams from the Rapid Response Force and Quick Response Force, reached the scene immediately. They cordoned off the area and initiated a search operation. Police also recovered blood traces from multiple locations, indicating further casualties among the terrorists. During the attack, a constable sustained minor injuries and was shifted to a ho...

An image of United States President Donald Trump will soon appear in some US passports, officials said on Tuesday, shattering another norm as the president aggressively puts his personal stamp on government institutions. There are few precedents anywhere in the world, let alone in a democracy, of displaying sitting leaders’ pictures in passports, and Trump would be the first sitting US president featured in Americans’ travel documents. The State Department said it would offer the limited-edition passport to mark this year’s 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence. The department — which has historically viewed itself as outside US partisan politics — posted on social media a sample of the passport, which features a stern-looking Trump superimposed over the Declaration of July 4, 1776. Trump’s signature — in gold — lies underneath. A second limited-edition passport showed a historic painting of the US Founding Fathers. “As the United States celebrates Ame...

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QUETTA: Five labourers were injured in a grenade attack in the Dalbandin area of Chagai district late on Monday night, police said. According to police officials, unidentified assailants on motorcycles threw a hand grenade at a house, which exploded in the backyard and injured five labourers. “The injured individuals are from Punjab who were working on a daily wage,” police officials said. Security forces rushed to the site shortly after the incident and shifted the injured to Prince Fahad Hospital. Police added that the windowpanes of the affected house and nearby homes were also damaged. An investigation has been launched, and no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. On Feb 16, two people were injured when unidentified individuals threw a hand grenade at a milk shop situated on Khuda-i-Dad Road in Quetta. Last year, an eight-year-old child was killed and five other members of a family, including two women, were injured when a grenade exploded inside a house in...

Britain’s King Charles III met Donald Trump at the White House early Tuesday, kicking off a high-stakes state visit shadowed by transatlantic tensions and a new alleged attempt to assassinate the US president. Behind the warm welcome for Charles and Queen Camilla in front of the cameras lay a deepening rift in the so-called “special relationship” between Washington and London over Trump’s war in Iran. With such tensions simmering, Charles will address a joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday, when he will tell US lawmakers that the long history between the two countries is one of “reconciliation and renewal,” according to a released excerpt from the king’s speech. In mild Washington sunshine, Charles and Trump exchanged handshakes and apparently friendly remarks, which reporters were unable to hear, outside the White House South Portico. First Lady Melania Trump, wearing a primrose yellow suit, gave Charles and Camilla kisses on both cheeks. Camilla was wearing a Cartier brooch...

North Korea is taking advantage of the Middle East war to speed up its weapons development and cement its nuclear status in a world where international norms have broken down, analysts say. Since US-Israeli strikes on Iran began in late February, North Korea has conducted five missile launches, including four so far in April — the most in a single month since January 2024, according to an AFP tally. They follow a pledge by leader Kim Jong Un to bolster nuclear forces, as Pyongyang reaps the benefits of deeper ties with Russia and sharpens its invective against US ally South Korea. The launches “appear to be part of a sophisticated strategy” to balance military upgrades against shifting dynamics between the United States, Russia and China, said Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at the South’s Kyungnam University. “The current global security landscape has transformed into a ‘lawless zone’ where existing international norms no longer function,” he said. “North Korea is exploiti...

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The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner late on Saturday took an unexpected turn when a man opened fire in the hotel hosting the dinner, prompting the Secret Service to rush United States President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania out of the event. The man, who was armed with a shotgun, fired at a Secret Service agent, according to officials, bringing an end to the glitzy media gala as guests rushed to take cover. The suspected shooter has been identified by multiple US news outlets as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, who Trump claimed was acting as a “lone wolf” while addressing a press conference after the incident. Here is how global leaders have reacted to the shooting. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in a post on X, condemned the incident, saying that he was “deeply shocked” by it. “Deeply shocked by the disturbing shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, DC, a short while ago,” the premier said. He expressed ...

Facing severe public criticism for “taxing sunlight”, the Power Division on Sunday directed the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) to abolish the requirement of a licence and licence fee for solar prosumers below 25 kilowatt capacity. In a statement issued on Sunday — a weekly holiday — the Power Division said that on the directives of Power Minister Awais Leghari, it has “formally asked Nepra for a review to abolish the application fee and remove the license requirement for solar consumers of 25 kilowatts and below”. The Power Division recalled that it had previously alerted Nepra about the adverse effects of this decision and requested that it be aligned with the old regulations. Announcing the decision on X, Leghari said, “Our government is pro-solar, pro-consumer, and committed to clean energy. We want to remove unnecessary barriers, reduce costs, and provide as much relief as possible to the people of Pakistan.” Under the previous 2015 regulations, ...

It was meant to be a glitzy night with United States President Donald Trump addressing journalists at a Washington ballroom. But the glamour was shattered by gunshots that left guests diving to the floor, and the US leader was bundled out by security personnel. Trump was seated on the stage at the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner — the first time he attended as president — when loud bangs disrupted the revelry and caused him and others to look up in alarm. AFP journalists attending the event saw chaotic scenes unfolding. Moments after what sounded like gunshots, cries of “Stay down!” and “Get down!” were heard while guests in black tie and gowns — including correspondents, officials in the Trump administration and some members of his cabinet — took cover. Amid the chaos, the president and First Lady Melania Trump were quickly surrounded by US Secret Service agents, their weapons drawn. They quickly rushed Trump off the stage and through a back curtain a...

• Seminaries declared a ‘red line’, with warning of protest movement after May 2 deadline • Govt moves to strengthen madressah registration process, says around 300 unregistered seminaries identified QUETTA: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) Balochistan Emir Senator Maulana Abdul Wasay has announced a boycott of the Bugti-led coalition government’s functions, official meetings, and visits to the Chief Minister’s House, alleging that the provincial government has launched operations against madressas (seminaries) across the province and sealed many of them. Speaking at a press conference on Fri­day, along with Senator Kamran Murtaza and other party leaders, he said that the decision to socially boycott the government was taken in response to actions against seminaries. He said the law under which these actions are being carried out has neither been approved by parliament nor by the provincial assembly. He declared that seminaries are the party’s “red line” and warned that those taking ac...

Too quick. Too big. And so far, too good. They’re making the Oilers look old and slow, these flashy young Ducks. And as a result, they now hold a 2-1 series lead. from Sportsnet.ca https://ift.tt/s2aIXVZ

Chinese startup DeepSeek released a new artificial intelligence model with “drastically reduced” costs on Friday, more than a year after it stunned the world with a low-cost reasoning model that matched the capabilities of US rivals. The AI race has intensified the rivalry between China and the United States, and the White House on Thursday accused Chinese entities of a massive effort to steal artificial intelligence technology. Hangzhou-based DeepSeek burst onto the scene in January last year with a generative AI chatbot, powered by its R1 reasoning model, that upended assumptions of US dominance in the strategic sector. The new version, DeepSeek-V4, “features an ultra-long context of one million words”, the company said in a statement on social media platform WeChat, hailing it as “world-leading… with drastically reduced compute (and) memory costs” in a separate announcement on X. The model’s context length, which determines how much input a model is able to absorb to help ...

The traditional global asset correlations that collapsed when the war in the Middle East erupted remain broken, leaving investors to piece together strategies to trade the road to resolution with a faulty instrument panel. Record highs for Wall Street stocks belie concerns about fraught geopolitics, how long energy supplies might be disrupted for and long-term economic damage. BMO chief FX strategist Mark McCormick reckons the next three to six months will not resemble the “pre-conflict normal”. “The growth factor is recovering, but remains below late-2025 levels, the rates (monetary policy) factor remains elevated, correlations are shifting, and drawdown risk is rising. Something new is forming,” he said in a note. Here’s a look at the disruption to classic correlations in stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities that have traditionally provided a steer on economic trends. A hard test for fixed income Stocks and bond yields usually move together, as investors tend to hed...

When US President Donald Trump this week attacked Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, two of America’s most prominent Black figures, he chose a particularly pejorative insult: “low IQ person”. Trump insults people all the time — online, in speeches, in official statements and directly to the faces of some reporters. But the “low IQ” jab, with distinct racial overtones in the United States, is especially jarring. Trump attacked Jackson — a double Harvard graduate and the first Black woman on the Supreme Court — on Wednesday as “that new, Low IQ person, that somehow found her way to the bench”. He has similarly assailed ethnic minority Democratic lawmakers, including Jasmine Crockett, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Al Green, Rashida Tlaib and Maxine Waters. While personally targeting Ilhan Omar — a Minnesota representative born in Somalia — the president has also broadly branded immigrants from the Horn of Africa nation as “low IQ peo...

Voting began on Thursday in two of India’s politically key opposition-held states, with tens of millions casting ballots in West Bengal and the southern Tamil Nadu. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party in the national parliament, is hoping to make inroads in the opposition strongholds. In West Bengal, which has a population of over 100 million, polling opened in the first phase to elect members from 152 constituencies of the 294-seat legislative assembly. The second phase, covering the remaining 142 seats, will be held on April 29. “Nearly 36 million people are eligible to vote,” said Manoj Agarwal, the state’s chief electoral officer, adding that around 8,000 polling stations had been designated “supersensitive”. Modi’s BJP has waged an aggressive bid to dislodge West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the firebrand leader of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), which has been in power in the state since 2011. Banerjee’...

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met US Chargé d’Affaires to Pakistan, Natalie Baker, in Islamabad, where the two discussed ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold a second round of US-Iran talks, the interior ministry said. According to the interior ministry’s statement, during their “important meeting”, Naqvi and Baker exchanged detailed views on the latest regional situation and discussed diplomatic efforts regarding the possible second round of US-Iran negotiations in Islamabad. Naqvi commended US President Donald Trump’s initiative to extend the ceasefire, calling it a “welcome development” that made significant progress towards reducing tensions. “We also hope for positive progress from Iran’s side,” the interior minister was quoted as saying. The meeting emphasised the need for continuity in diplomatic channels for a lasting resolution to the conflict. According to the ministry, the minister told Baker that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) Fie...

At the 92:10 mark of a game that began on a Wednesday and wrapped up in the wee hours of a Thursday, Wyatt Johnston silenced the crowd in the State of Hockey as the Stars beat the Wild in double overtime. from Sportsnet.ca https://ift.tt/R8jAWJM

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The Sindh government has cancelled the construction contract for the long-delayed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Red Line project in Karachi and will re-award it on an “emergency basis”, Sindh Senior Minister Sharjeel Memon confirmed on Wednesday. The government cancelled the contract for the Mosamiyat–Numaish section of the project. The stalled construction on the Red Line resumed in November after the removal of several bottlenecks following the chief minister’s intervention, but there is still no clear timeline in sight for the project’s completion as thousands of University Road commuters continue to face daily hardships. Speaking to Dawn , Memon confirmed that the contract had been terminated due to delays in the project’s execution by the contractor. He said the contractor was issued several warnings to complete the work within the stipulated time, but failed to comply. The government, he added, tried its level best to accommodate the contractor by resolving issues related to rat...

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LAHORE: Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has granted approval for the province’s first sky glass bridge project in tehsil Kotli Sattian, district Murree, to promote tourism. The decision was made during a special meeting jointly presided over by PML-N President Nawaz Sharif and Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif where progress on the Murree Protection and Rehabilitation Plan was reviewed. The meeting also decided to engage international experts to address the issue of landsliding in Murree. The chief minister directed immediate measures to counter the mid-flow downhill effect and ordered relief and rehabilitation efforts for those affected by landslides in Chatta Mor, Darya Gali, Bansera Gali, Naml, Jhika Gali and adjoining areas. The meeting also granted approval for establishment of three new hospitality zones in Murree’s suburban areas, Shawala, Sozo and brewery, where five-star standard hotels would be developed in collaboration with the private sector. It decided to form a tea...

For a franchise experiencing playoff hockey for the first time ever, the Utah Mammoth certainly understood the assignment. The team flew out of the gates in Game 1 against the Vegas Golden Knights , setting the tone early with their fleet-footed game… and plenty of extra-curriculars.  The Golden Knights brought the glitz. Utah brought the grit. And 60 minutes of chippy, chirpy hockey later, it looks like we’ve got a new rivalry on our hands. This one brought plenty of heat, and lots of hate.  There was no love lost between the Pacific-topping Golden Knights and the league’s newest franchise, which earned a post-season berth in just their second season in Salt Lake City but couldn’t kick things off with a win on Sunday. Vegas’s 4-2 series-opening victory gives them the upper hand for now.  But the rough stuff was the biggest story of this one. Net-front scuffles broke out early and often. Face-washes were plentiful, as were fighting words. There was even a head-butt — ...