BEIRUT: Iran’s acting foreign minister Ali Bagheri said on Monday his government was engaged in negotiations with arch-foe the United States hosted by the Gulf sultanate of Oman. Asked about the issue at a news conference during a visit to Beirut, Bagheri said “we have always continued out negotiations… and they have never stopped.” Washington and Tehran have not had diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. The British daily Financial Times reported in March that Bagheri was involved in indirect talks with the United States in Oman in early 2024, against the backdrop of heightened regional tensions over Gaza.…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
WASHINGTON: Amid growing doubts over Tel Aviv’s stance, senior Israeli and US officials admitted on Monday that the Gaza ceasefire plan put forward by US President Joe Biden last week was actually the modified version of a proposal that had already been put forward by mediators. While the White House described the plan as originating from Israel, the Israeli official told NBC News it was an earlier plan to which Israel had made some amendments and changes. Separately, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the proposal was “nearly identical” to the one submitted several weeks ago by Hamas. Hamas on Friday said it viewed…
LONDON: The UK’s Labour Party appears poised for its largest parliamentary majority in a century, it emerged on Monday. According to a YouGov poll, Labour led by Keir Starmer is set to secure a 194-seat majority, marking the biggest electoral victory since 1924 when Conservative politician Stanley Baldwin triumphed with 208 seats. This projection, the first from YouGov since the election was called, signals a dramatic shift in the UK’s political landscape. Labour is expected to win 422 seats, a significant increase of 222 from the 2019 results. This would surpass Tony Blair’s landslide in 1997 and is the highest number…
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alliance was winning a majority of seats in early vote counting trends in the general election on Tuesday, but well short of the landslide predicted in exit polls, TV channels showed. BJP was in first place on 38.68 per cent with half of votes counted, national election commission data showed. The elections for the 18th Lok Sabha, spanning seven phases between April 19 and June 1, amid a scorching heatwave, was finally coming to a close today, as the ballots are counted. BJP-led bloc, called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), is leading with 294 seats at over…
ISLAMABAD: A police constable sustained injuries after being hit by a speeding car driven by a British diplomat on Monday. Police officers told Dawn that after the incident the police impounded the official car owned by the UK High Commission driven by the country’s third secretary. The incident took place at Radio Pakistan Chowk on Constitution Avenue where traffic was being manually managed due to power suspension at the time. A police constable attached with the Security Division was moving towards Radio Pakistan Chowk on a motorcycle from Isphani Road when his side was open to traffic. The diplomat was moving in…
ISLAMABAD: After the federal government failed to pay for the health card service, the residents of Islamabad, Azad Jammu Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan have been deprived of the healthcare facility as opposed to Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa residents. Raja Zafran Bhatti, 41, is a heart patient based in Islamabad. He recently visited Pims for medical treatment but the hospital refused him treatment free of cost, saying he would have to pay for tests and other medical facilities. The hospital management told him that the permanent address on his ID card was Islamabad and the federal government had not paid its dues…
ISLAMABAD: Finally, the electric buses are set to hit Islamabad’s roads as 10 buses will be arriving in the city on Tuesday (today) followed by 20 more in the next 24 hours. “A fleet of 30 buses will reach Islamabad in two days: on Tuesday and Wednesday,” said an officer of the CDA. He said these 30 buses will be operated from Convention Centre on two routes. The first route will be from G-11 Nust station to Pims covering G-10, G-9 and G-8 and the second from Pims, G-7, G-6, G-6, National Library, Bari Imam and Quaid-i-Azam University. The service…
LAHORE: Former President Dr Arif Alvi says the army trial of civilians will eventually defame the army at home and abroad. “It is high time to heal the nation and distance itself from spreading bitterness,” he suggested. Speaking to media persons after a visit to the Punjab Assembly and meeting with PTI-backed MPAs on Monday, Dr Alvi said the PTI had three demands — supremacy of law, release of PTI founder chairman and return of mandate, who genuinely won general elections. He said it had become inevitable to create peace in the wake of constantly heating up political temperature and…
ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has questioned the premier spy agency’s ability to deal with threats of ‘fifth generation warfare’ after it failed to trace X accounts involved in the doxxing of Justice Babar Sattar. The case was initiated after Justice Sattar filed a complaint over a malicious social media campaign in which the personal information of his family, including their US Green Cards, were published on X. An IHC larger bench comprising Justices Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri and Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan took up the case on Monday. Additional Attorney General Barrister Munawar Iqbal Duggal submitted a report…
HYDERABAD: As a tiff between Sindh and Punjab over the distribution of water through the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) continues to simmer, the former has reiterated its claim that the province faced a water shortage in the early Kharif season, despite ample storage available in the country’s reservoirs. This resonated with earlier claims made by Sindh in the last week of May, when it requested Irsa to halt the transfer of water from the Indus zone to the Jhelum-Chenab (JC) zone, saying the practice had put lower riparian Sindh at a disadvantage. It had also questioned Punjab’s decision to…
