WASHINGTON: The first batch of US-built F-16 fighter jets are already being transferred to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands and will be flying over Ukrainian skies this summer, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. Blinken, speaking at an event on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, said a robust package for Ukraine will be unveiled over the next couple of days that will build a clear and strong bridge for Ukraine’s NATO membership. “I’m also pleased to announce that as we speak, the transfer of F-16 jets is underway, coming from Denmark, coming from…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
BEIJING: China is building almost twice as much wind and solar energy capacity as every other country combined, research published Thursday showed. The world’s second-largest economy is the biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that drive climate change. China has committed to bring carbon emissions to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060. It has endured several waves of extreme weather in recent months that scientists say are rendered more severe by climate change. China currently has a total of 339 gigawatts (GW) of capacity under construction, including 159 GW of wind and 180 GW of solar.…
Some dairy farmers are resisting Michigan’s nation-leading efforts to stop the spread of bird flu for fear their incomes will suffer from added costs and hurt rural America. The government’s restrictions, which include tracking who comes and goes from farms, are rekindling unwanted memories of COVID-19 in Martin and other small towns in central Michigan. The state has two of the four known cases in humans, all dairy workers, since federal authorities confirmed the world’s first case in US cattle in late March. The state has tested more people than any of the 12 states with confirmed cases in cows,…
Oil prices edged higher on Thursday as crude stocks fell after US refineries ramped up processing and as gasoline inventories eased, signalling stronger demand. Brent futures rose 35 cents, or 0.4% to $85.43 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 36 cents, or 0.5%, to $82.47 a barrel. US crude inventories fell by 3.4 million barrels to 445.1 million barrels in the week ended July 5, far exceeding analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.3 million-barrel draw. Gasoline stocks fell by 2 million barrels to 229.7 million barrels, much bigger than the 600,000-barrel draw analysts expected…
WASHINGTON: The United States unveiled stricter rules Wednesday on steel and aluminium imports from Mexico, moving to prevent China-origin goods from avoiding tariffs. The election-season actions by President Joe Biden’s administration mark the latest in a series of efforts to guard against excess industrial capacity in China, which Washington has warned could bring a flood of unfairly priced goods to other markets. Steel arriving via Mexico will qualify for duty-free benefits only if melted and poured in that country, or in the United States or Canada, White House National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard told reporters. Otherwise, they will face tariffs of 25 per cent.…
DERA MURAD JAMALI/KHUZDAR: Two people, including a woman, were killed and two others injured in an armed attack on a house in the Usta Muhammad area of Nasirabad division on Wednesday. According to police, three armed men barged into the house in Goth Lakhmir and opened indiscriminate fire, killing a man and a woman, and injuring two other women before fleeing the scene. The deceased were identified as Bhutta and Lala Khatoon Khosa, while the injured were Mona and Gul Naz. A senior police officer said the killing was the result of an old enmity. Separately, four people, including two…
ISLAMABAD: Two of the seven judges hearing the military courts case have opposed the July 8 order of the bench, impleading the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) and the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) in the case, with one saying the matter at hand was purely a question of law. Headed by Justice Aminuddin Khan, a seven-judge bench had allowed the applications of the LHCBA and LBA by holding that there was no harm in accepting these applications, as senior counsels will assist the apex court in reaching a right conclusion while hearing the intra-court appeals (ICA) against the Oct 23,…
GILGIT: A week after the death of a Japanese climber who fell into a crevasse while descending the 7,027-metre Golden Peak, some local climbers and high-altitude porters from the Hoper Valley of Nagar district managed to retrieve and hand over his body to his colleagues. The 65-year-old climber, Onishi Hiroshi, fell into the crevasse near Camp-2 after summit of Golden Peak on July 3. Mukhtar Hussain, Jafar Hussain, Abbas Ali, Saleem, Mustafa and other high-altitude porters brought the body to the Hoper Valley after tireless efforts over the past six days. They handed over the body to Japanese colleague climbers in Hoper.…
LAHORE: The federal government’s decision to allow Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to tap phone calls has been challenged in the Lahore High Court. Citizen Mashkoor Hussain has filed a writ petition through Advocate Nadeem Sarwar, saying the federal government issued a notification permitting the Inter-Services Intelligence to tap phone calls. He pleaded that call-tapping is a serious invasion of an individual’s privacy. With the growth of highly sophisticated communication technology, the right to hold telephone conversation, in the privacy of one’s home or office without interference, is increasingly vulnerable to abuse. The petitioner argued that to enjoy protection of law and to be…
ISLAMABAD: Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) was banned by the caretaker government over “compliance issues”, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar told a Senate panel on Wednesday. He was responding to a query raised by Senator Ali Zafar during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Information. “There is no restriction on Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and LinkedIn, which are being used by the common man [for] posting all kinds of content,” he noted. Mr Tarar said the Ministry of Interior had submitted its response to the high court on the matter, adding that the courts would now take a decision in this…
