Pakistan

Karachi, November 3 - The government has decided to borrow Rs3.5 trillion from the banking system till the coming January as it still needs resources to finance budget deficit despite growth in nontax revenue, it was learnt. The government aims to sell domestic debt up to the end of January 2021 to finance the budget deficit that stayed at Rs440...

October 27 - major explosion at a madrassa has rocked a colony in Pakistan’s Peshawar. Local reports say at least seven people have died while 70 others have suffered injuries in the powerful blast at a madrassa in Dir Colony of Peshawar. "The blast took place in a madrassa where unknown people had planted explosives in a plastic bag," a...

Islamabad, October 26 - Pakistan's prime minister has written a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeking a ban on Islamophobic content on the site, warning of an increase in radicalisisation amongst Muslims, the government said on Sunday. In the letter, shared by the Pakistani government on Twitter, Imran Khan said that "growing Islamophobia" is encouraging extremism and violence across...

October 22 (Daily Times) - Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz Wednesday said the government is employing optimum diplomatic channels to ensure early repatriation of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif from London. Addressing a news conference, he said since there is no extradition treaty with the United Kingdom that is why the government has formally requested...

Kabul/ Jalalabad, October 21 (Reuters) - At least 15 Afghans were killed and more than a dozen injured in a stampede that occurred in an open ground where thousands of Afghans had gathered on Tuesday to secure visas from the Pakistan consulate in eastern Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday. Sohrab Qaderi, a provincial council member in eastern Jalalabad city, where...

October 20 (AFP) - Pakistan said Monday it would lift a recent ban on the video-sharing app TikTok after assurances that "immoral" content would be blocked. The Chinese-owned platform, which is wildly popular among the country's youth, was banned earlier this month over what authorities in the ultra-conservative Islamic country deemed "immoral, obscene and vulgar" content. But the Pakistan Telecommunication...

October 19 (International The News) - Pakistan's biggest TikTok sensation, Jannat Mirza, announced earlier that she is leaving the country for good. The news left Mirza's massive following of over 10 million devastated, making them wonder about the reason she is moving abroad. While interacting with a fan over the matter, Mirza revealed she is heartbroken over the 'sick mentality'...

Karachi, October 19 (International The News) - The Pakistan Democratic Movement's (PDM) second jalsa against the government has started at Karachi's Bagh-e-Jinnah, as the Opposition eyes ousting Prime Minister Imran Khan. The PDM's central leadership is expected to address the gathering. This includes JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz, former prime...

October 16 (Independent) - “Couple of Faisalabad” is the title of the Facebook profile shared by Muhammad Nasir and his wife Shagufta, who have become famous in their eastern Pakistani city for wearing matching outfits every day for the last 37 years. Together now for 38 years, the couple say it took them that first year to come up with...

October 10 (The Verge) - Pakistan’s telecom regulator has banned TikTok, claiming the app failed to remove “immoral” and “indecent” content. The ban comes just over a month after the regulator, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, banned dating apps, including Tinder and Grindr, for the same reason. TikTok had been installed 43 million times in Pakistan, according to the analytics firm...