World News Headlines

The US military could slow down its withdrawal from Afghanistan due to the gains made by the Taliban, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday. Kirby stressed that President Joe Biden´s deadline of a full withdrawal by September remains in place, but added that the pace could be adjusted based on conditions. "The situation in Afghanistan changes as the Taliban continue to conduct these attacks and to raid district centers as well as the violence, which is still too high," he told reporters. "If there needs to be changes made to the pace, or to the scope and scale of the retrograde, on any given day or in any given week, we want to maintain the flexibility to do that," he said. "We're constantly taking a look at this, every single day: what´s the situation on the ground, what capabilities do we have, what additional resources do we need to move out of Afghanistan and at what pace." "All of these decisions are literally being made in real ti...

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and Pakistan men’s national cricket team batting coach Younis Khan today mutually agreed to part ways, a statement released by the PCB said Tuesday. Younis was appointed last year in November on a two-year contract until the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022. Commenting on Younis's departure, PCB Chief Executive Wasim Khan: “It is sad to lose an expert of the stature and experience of Younis Khan. Following a series of discussions, we both have reluctantly but mutually and amicably agreed that it was time to move in different directions. “I want to thank Younis Khan for his contributions during his short stint as the Pakistan men’s national cricket team’s batting coach and hope he will remain available to assist the PCB by sharing his vast knowledge with the emerging cricketers.” Both PCB and Younis Khan have agreed not to make any further comment on the reasons for the former captain’s departure. Pakistan men’s national cricket team will travel t...

The federal cabinet on Tuesday gave a go-ahead to the import of one million tonnes of wheat to meet rising demand of the commodity in the country. Briefing the media on the decisions taken by the cabinet in today’s meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the chair, Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry said that the approval to import more wheat was given due to the ballooning population. He said the meeting approved the appointment of Aslam Khan as the chairman of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). It deferred its decision on issuance of prohibited arms licences and appointment of the CEO of the Sukkur Electric Power Company, he added. Besides, Fawad said the cabinet approved the draft Public Property Encroachment Bill 2021 and appointment of the executive director of the National Vocational and Technical Training Commission. He said the government will bring in a new law to remove encroachments from its pricey properties. The information minister claimed t...

A woman who had to leave her university employment and allegedly attempted suicide after multiple harassment complaints on the citizen portal were not entertained by FIA has finally got relief from Prime Minister Imran Khan, reported on Tuesday. Prime Minister Imran Khan while taking notice of the incident has directed DG FIA to immediately suspend the concerned officials who did not entertain five harassment-related complaints from the woman on the portal. The prime minister also directed strict action against the officials. The PM Office said that the woman had to leave her university job owing to harassment while she also allegedly committed suicide over lack of response from the FIA authorities. It emerged that complaints were lodged between 16 December 2019 to 13 June 2021, however, the officials neglected them despite reopening the matter twice. The issue came to the light after the woman reached out to Prime Minister House along with her husband. Taking notice of the matt...

Pakistan continues to record a decline in COVID-19-related deaths and new cases, as the country recorded 1.69% positivity rate over the past 24 hours. According to data released by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 27 more people succumbed to the disease during this period, taking the nationwide death toll to 22,034. Pakistan recorded COVID-19 positivity rate of 1.69 per cent as of the total 39,017 samples tested for the presence of the infection, 663 were declared positive. This brings the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 949,784. With 1,204 people getting their health back during the past 24 hours, the overall number of the recovered stands at 894,352. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the country has carried out 14,187,441 tests to diagnose the deadly disease.  GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology said on Monday final results from a late-stage study of their monoclonal antibody confirmed it significantly reduced hospitalization and death...

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday chaired the 47th meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) and approved the National Electricity Policy 2021. According to details, the session headed by Imran Khan was attended by federal ministers, chief ministers and other concerned officials. Briefing media about the decisions take in the meeting, Federal Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar said that the Council of Common Interest has approved National Electricity Policy 2021 with a consensus of all provinces. “The new electricity policy has been approved for 10 years,” he said, adding that people will get cheaper and environment-friendly electricity under the new power policy approved by the CCI. Criticising the previous government, the federal energy minister said that the policy should have been approved 15 years ago. He said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government was working on various options to resolve the issues in the power sector including the circular debt. “Had we put i...

Multan Sultans scored a victory over Islamabad United by 31 runs on Monday and reached the finals of the sixth edition of the Pakistan Super League. The Sultans had won the toss and set a 181-run target for United at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium. The loss for the Shadab Khan-led side means that they will either face Karachi Kings or Peshawar Zalmi in the Eliminator 2. The winner of Eliminator 1, which will take place later in the day, will face the United in Eliminator 2. Sohail Tanvir got an early break through for the Sultans as he bowled Colin Munro in the second bowl of the first over for a duck, putting pressure on the United. In the third over, Imran Khan Snr's direct hit at non-striker's end dismissed Muhammad Akhlaq (10), as he struggled to get across the pitch. In the fifth ball of the same over, Tanvir capitalised on the pressure that the team had put on United, as he got the wicket of skipper Shadab Khan (0), with a nice catch by Shan Masood at the cover d...