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CAIRO: Palestinians face inflated prices for groceries and batteries, hospitals have turned to smugglers for medicine and equipment, Israeli soldiers and other middlemen are accused of pocketing millions of dollars, and the Hamas-led government takes a cut as the smuggling of goods restricted by Israel into the Gaza Strip has boomed, according to an Associated Press investigation based on court…
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s prime minister said Friday that he wants to increase the country’s oil production to as much as 10 million barrels a day within six years. Crude oil sales account for nearly 90 percent of Iraq’s revenue but its exports have been hurt by the outbreak of the Middle East war between Iran and the United States, which choked off the Strait of Hormuz. Iraq, an OPEC founding member, was…
WARSAW: Britain, Canada, and Australia on Friday condemned as “shameful” Israel’s decision to close an investigation into the death of seven aid workers killed in Gaza in 2024. The World Central Kitchen employees — three Britons, a dual US-Canadian national, a Pole, an Australian, and a Palestinian — died in a drone strike on their vehicle convoy after overseeing the unloading of a food aid…
LEEDS, United Kingdom: Jofra Archer rocked Pakistan with an early double strike as England pressed for an innings victory in the first Test at Headingley on Friday. Pakistan were 59-3 in their second innings at lunch on the third day, still 179 runs shy of making England bat again, after fast bowler Archer removed openers Imam-ul-Haq and Azan Awais. For the second time in the match, Pakistan were…
KARACHI: Pakistan’s push to privatize state-owned electricity distribution companies has drawn fresh interest from Saudi Arabian and Turkish investors, authorities said on Friday, as Islamabad seeks private capital and management to overhaul its debt-burdened power sector.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security forces have killed 49 militants in a series of operations across the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan provinces in recent days, the military said on Friday, amid a sharp escalation in violence across the country’s western region.
ISLAMABAD: Search teams on Friday found the remains of American climber Mallory Geis, the last missing member of a 10-member international mountaineering team that was killed in an avalanche on Broad Peak weeks ago, a mountaineering official and local authorities said. Geis’ remains were found by a team made up of local volunteers, according to Irfan Arshad Khan, president of the Alpine Club of…
ANKARA: Turkiye has issued an international arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of an investigation into Israel’s interception of an aid flotilla for Gaza, Justice Minister Akin Gurlek announced Friday on X. Turkiye has already issued warrants against Netanyahu and other top officials for “genocide” over Israel’s actions in the Gaza war. "We categorically reject…
TEHRAN: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Friday it was time to end the months-long Middle East war with the United States because Tehran was in a position of strength over Washington. Talks between the decades-old foes remain on hold, with both sides in the war started by the US and Israel in February locked in a stalemate. Tehran is keeping the key Strait of Hormuz partially shut and…
RAMALLAH: Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man on Friday in the city of Jenin, in the north of the occupied West Bank, with the military saying he had attempted to stab a soldier. In a separate incident in the southern West Bank, Israeli settlers fatally shot a 17-year-old, the Palestinian health ministry said. In Jenin, 58-year-old Fathi Zidan Hazem, “died from injuries sustained after…
ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Friday called for Pakistani businesses to capitalize on emerging opportunities in global halal markets, as Islamabad eyes greater collaboration with global platforms in Islamic economics and finance.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ordered authorities to move former Prime Minister Imran Khan to hospital from jail, where he has been lodged for the last three years. Since he lost power in a no-confidence vote in 2022, Khan has faced multiple cases on corruption charges, including over state gifts and an accusation of an unlawful marriage.
RAVENNA, Italy: Former Brazil star Ronaldinho, who retired from the game in 2015, said on Thursday that he was making a comeback 11 years later with Italian third-division side Ravenna to try and score “a 300th goal.” The 46-year-old, who won the World Cup in 2002 and the Ballon d’Or in 2005, ended a glittering career when he played his last official match in September 2015 with Brazilian club…
KARACHI: Jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan would not confront the military or army chief Asim Munir if freed, one of his closest aides told Reuters, portraying Munir as able to extend a “healing hand” after a legal breakthrough this week. The comments, which came after Pakistan’s top court ordered Khan to be moved to hospital for treatment, appeared to mark a significant change…
DUBAI: In the early evening of Jan. 24, 2026, 5-year-old Hind Rajab took her final breaths while pleading over the phone for emergency workers to rescue her. “Please come take me, I beg you. Please come. Call anyone to come and get me, please,” she said. Rajab had been traveling with her father and five other relatives from their neighborhood in Tel Al-Hawa in Gaza City after the Israeli military…
QASMISHLI: Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi on Thursday said the integration of the Kurdish administration within Syria’s state institutions was complete, marking the end of the Kurds’ long-held dream of autonomy. The announcement follows months of negotiations between the two sides after a January agreement that called for the full integration of Kurdish civil and military institutions into the…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan was transferred from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail to a private hospital in Islamabad late Thursday for court-ordered medical treatment, his party confirmed, following months of legal battles over his health and access to personal doctors.
JERUSALEM: Israelis began moving into the occupied West Bank settlement of Kadim on Thursday, the local settler council said, the last of four communities from which Israel withdrew more than two decades ago to be repopulated. It came a week after Israel officially reopened neighboring Ganim, in a move emblematic of the current government’s policy of rapid settlement expansion in the occupied…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s parliament on Thursday approved a new law giving the Chief of Defense Forces operational command and control over the army, navy and air force, formally setting out the sweeping powers of a post created last year in the country’s biggest military command overhaul in decades. The Defense Forces Act 2026 establishes a new Defense Forces Headquarters under the “command and…
ISLAMABAD: Iran would first have to acknowledge what it had done to Syria and its people before any future Pakistan-led mediation could help restore ties between Damascus and Tehran, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan Al-Shaibani said on Thursday. Shaibani was speaking to journalists in Islamabad during his first official visit to Pakistan since the December 2024 overthrow of Bashar Assad, whose…