Aleema Khan (centre), sister of the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party, Imran Khan, addresses supporters during a protest against the killing of Zara Shahid Hussain, a leading member of PTI, outside the mausoleum of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Karachi yesterday. KARACHI: The party of former Pakistani cricket hero Imran Khan secured victory in a repeat election held i

MAZAR-I-SHARIF: A suicide bomber struck outside government buildings in northern Afghanistan yesterday, killing 14 people including a local politician in the latest attack to target provincial officials. Emergency services rushed to the scene and took the wounded to hospital after the bomber, who was wearing police uniform, blew himself up next to Rasoul Mohseni, the head of Baghlan’s

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s incoming prime minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday threw his support behind peace talks with the country’s Taliban insurgents, saying it would be a top priority for his new government. “If Taliban have offered us an option to have dialogue then we should take it seriously,” Sharif said while addressing his party’s newly elected parliamentarian

RAWALPINDI: A Pakistani court yesterday granted bail to former military ruler Pervez Musharraf over the murder of Benazir Bhutto, an official said, but the retired general remains under house arrest. Musharraf has been detained in his farmhouse on the edge of Islamabad since April 19 on charges of conspiracy to murder two-time prime minister Bhutto, who was killed in a gun and bomb attack i

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan yesterday congratulated Samina Baig on becoming the first woman from the country to reach the summit of Mount Everest. The 22-year-old Baig, from the small town of Shimshal in the Hunza valley in Pakistan’s mountainous north, scaled the 8,848-metre peak early on Sunday after a gruelling expedition in rough weather. Karrar Haidri, member executive council of Pak

  KHAR: Gunmen attacked a polio vaccination team in part of Pakistan’s restive tribal regions yesterday, killing a policeman who was providing security, officials said. The attackers opened fire as the team was going to administer polio drops in Kalam town in Bajaur district, one of the seven tribal areas along the Afghanistan  border, local administration official Suhai

ISLAMABAD: Two Pakistani ministers in charge of water and power explained what can be done to end power cuts of up to 20 hours a day in parts of the country enduring temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius and above — absolutely nothing, it seems, except raise prices. The power shortages have sparked violent protests and crippled key industries, costing hundreds of thousands of jobs in a c

Students take part in a lesson at a school in Kabul, Afghanistan, yesterday. Reports state that about 8.3 million Afghan students are enrolled, but more than 4.5 million children of school age remained deprived of education. 

Supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan protest against the killing of Zara Shahid Hussain (right), a leading member of the PTI, in Lahore, yesterday. KARACHI: Under tight security, Pakistani officials yesterday held a repoll in a district of violence-plagued Karachi, despite the killing of a senior politician in the city

A soldiers with the 10th Mountain Division of the US Army patrols the streets as he walks past a traditional Afghan bread shop in Ghazni city, yesterday.  KABUL: Taliban attacks killed at least ten Afghan policemen yesterday, officials said, in the latest violence against the force which is due to take more security responsibility from Nato troops before their withdrawal next year.

ISLAMABAD: Not all roads lead to Raiwind, where country’s incoming prime minister Nawaz Sharif resides, as some still lead to Model Town. That’s the road army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took when he called on Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore on Saturday. It was a significant move, even though it is being classified as an unofficial visit. While the media o

ISLAMABAD: Nobody could have even imagined that the incarcerated former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf would be so powerful. The proof of that is found in certain strange events which tell that however hard his opponents may try, they may not be successful in getting him punished. Ever since April 6, when the Islamabad High Court (IHC) cancelled his bail and he was made to flee fro

Some of the wounded Afghan children lie in a ward of a hospital in Kandahar late on Friday. KANDAHAR: Two car bombs exploded on Friday in a sprawling housing development in southern Afghanistan linked to the family of President Hamid Karzai, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 60. The twin blasts occurred minutes apart in Aino Mina, an upmarket complex on the outskirt

ISLAMABAD: In a surprising development, the lawyer who had filed a petition in the judges’ detention case has withdrawn his complaint against former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf. The decision by Advocate Chaudhry Mohammad Aslam Ghumman came a day before the hearing of the case yesterday by the Islamabad Anti-Terrorism Court at Gen Musharraf’s Chak Shahzad farmhouse whi

KABUL: The Afghan parliament yesterday cut short a debate on a bill to protect women from violence after complaints from some traditionalist MPs that it was against Islamic teaching. The Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) law, which was passed by a presidential decree in 2009, is seen as a benchmark piece of legislation marking progress since the fall of the Taliban regime nearly

KARACHI: They are 48. It has been three months since they arrived in Karachi, and this big, bad metropolis they have been flung into is new to them, but they are accepting it as home. In an orphanage which houses some 145 children, these 48 usually stick together. They take time to open up. Living in the orphanage in the posh Defence area of Karachi, these young people who are not orpha

BEIJING: Pakistan is set to become the fifth Asian country to use China’s domestic satellite navigation system which was launched as a rival to the US global positioning system, a report said yesterday. The Beidou, or Compass, system started providing services to civilians in the region in December and is expected to provide global coverage by 2020. It also has military applications.

  MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan: A Chinese man working on an energy project in Pakistan-administered Kashmir was held yesterday after hundreds of protesters attacked his offices over the alleged desecration of the Quran, officials said. Lee Ping, administration manager of a Chinese consortium building the Neelum Jhelum Hydropower project, was accused by Pakistani workers of throwing the holy

Supporters of religious party Ahl-i-Sunnat Wal Jamaat shout slogans during a sit-in in Islamabad, yesterday. They were protesting against what they said was rigging in some polling stations during the general election.

PESHAWAR: Twin bomb attacks yesterday killed at least 13 people outside mosques in northwest Pakistan, where the party of cricket star Imran Khan is forming a coalition government, officials said. The blasts targeted the two mosques in the Baazdara area of northwestern Malakand region, senior local administration official Amjad Ali Khan said. “The two blasts killed at least 1