Pakistan

King Charles III will give a landmark address to the US Congress on his first state visit this month, marking “shared history” and deep ties, Buckingham Palace said Tuesday. Making his first state visit to the US as monarch from April 27, Charles will address lawmakers from both chambers, accompanied by Queen Camilla, the royal communications team said. Buckingham Palace said the four-day visit would “recognise the shared history of our two nations” as well as the “breadth” of current ties, with “deep people-to-people connections”. The king had faced calls from some British politicians for his US trip to be cancelled or delayed amid open disagreements between Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the Iran war. Starmer on Monday insisted the “very important” visit would go ahead, saying bonds built by the monarchy can “reach through the decades in a situation like this”. US President Donald Trump has posted on his Truth Social platform that the visit “will be TERRIFIC”. US Speaker Mike Johnson ann...

Saudi Arabia has pledged an additional $3 billion in deposits for Pakistan and has extended its existing $5bn facility for a further three years, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb announced in Washington. Pakistan will reportedly return a $3.5bn loan to the UAE this month, putting pressure on its reserves and risking breaches of its International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme targets. He added that the existing $5bn Saudi deposit would no longer be subject to the previous annual rollover arrangement and would instead be extended for a longer term. The finance minister made the announcement while speaking to media representatives in Washington, DC, on the sidelines of the World Bank–IMF Spring Meetings 2026, where he shared key details on Saudi financial support for Pakistan and the government’s external financing strategy. According to the finance czar, the support from the kingdom comes at a “critical time” for Pakistan’s external financing needs and would help “reinforce foreign exchange reserves and stre...

The federal government has announced a nationwide crackdown on the sale of illegal cigarettes, stepping up efforts to curb the growing illicit tobacco market in Pakistan.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department has predicted mainly dry and hot weather across most parts of Pakistan over the next 24 hours.

Donald Trump has indicated that negotiations with Iran could resume in Pakistan within the next two days, raising hopes for renewed diplomatic engagement amid escalating tensions.

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that talks between Washington and Tehran could resume over the next two days and that “we’re more inclined to go” to Pakistan, reported The New York Post. “You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there,” Trump said. “It’s more likely, you know why? Because the Field Marshal is doing a great job. He’s fantastic, and therefore it’s more likely that we go back there,“ he told The NY Post. “Why should we go to some country that has nothing to do with it?” This was after he earlier told the US media outlet that discussions were “happening, but, you know, a little bit slow”, before indicating that a second round of direct negotiations would likely happen somewhere in Europe. According to The NY Post, he contacted them half an hour later and told their reporter to stay in Islamabad “because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there”. He also confir...

ISLAMABAD: Amid fuel constraints, the government on Tuesday formally announced more than two hours of daily loadshedding “during peak hours” to prevent a sharp increase in electricity tariffs. However, K-Electric and Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) are excluded from the loadshedding plan, the Power Division said. “The government has decided to suspend the electricity supply for about 2.25 hours daily between 5:00pm and 1:00am,” the Power Division said in a statement. “This step is aimed at reducing the use of costly fuels and preventing a sharp rise in tariffs,” it added. This stems from the suspension of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports following the force majeure declared by Qatar due to attacks on its gas field amid the US-Israel war on Iran. Qatar is the main LNG supplier to Pakistan under two long-term contracts envisaging up to 1,000 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd). The Power Division said it was capable of meeting full demand but this had negative consequences. “The main challenge at pr...

Israel and Lebanon agreed to direct negotiations following talks in Washington on Tuesday that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had hailed as a “historic opportunity” for peace. The two countries have technically been at war for decades, and Tuesday’s talks have been vehemently opposed by Hezbollah, which announced that it had fired rockets at more than a dozen northern Israeli towns just as the meeting was getting under way. The United States is pressing for a halt to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, fearing it could derail the two-week ceasefire in Washington’s war with Iran after talks with Tehran in Pakistan failed to achieve a breakthrough. Tuesday’s meeting in Washington, the first high-level direct talks since 1993, was mediated by Rubio and involved the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States. “This is a historic opportunity,” Rubio said as he welcomed the ambassadors, acknowledging the “decades of history” complicating the process. “The hope today is that we can outline a fra...

UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday the United Nations has an indication that it is highly probable talks to end the Iran war will restart.

WASHINGTON - The IMF cut its 2026 global growth projection Tuesday, warning that the world economy could be “thrown off course” by war in the Middle East as the conflict roils commodity markets and sparks higher prices.

ISLAMABAD - President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday appreciated the untiring efforts by Pakistan in hosting a dialogue between the United States and Iran, in a meeting held with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif here at the Aiwan-e-Sadr.

ISLAMABAD - Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister (DPM/FM), Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Tuesday met with Deputy Foreign Minister of Turkiye, Musa Kulaklikaya, Assistant Foreign Minister of Egypt, Ambassador Nazih El Naggari, and Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, Prince Dr Abdullah bin Khalid bin Saud Al-Kabeer.

OUR STAFF REPORTER - LAHORE Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has announced the immediate commencement of wheat procurement at a support price of Rs3,500 per maund, along with the distribution of free gunny bags worth Rs6 billion to farmers across the province.

Islamabad - Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said the government is utilising all available resources to ensure public welfare and economic development of the country.

An expose by the BBC has revealed that “serious malpractices” in the children’s ward of a government hospital in Punjab’s Taunsa continued months after the facility was linked to an outbreak of HIV among children, the British broadcaster said. A surge in HIV cases at Taunsa Tehsil Headquarters Hospital was reported in late 2024. “Punjab authorities promised a crackdown – but months later, secret filming by BBC Eye Investigations found that children’s lives were still being put at risk,” the broadcaster said in a press release. The revelations were made in a documentary podcast and have also been detailed in a written report. The BBC said that months after 106 children were infected in Taunsa, health authorities promised a ‘massive crackdown’ and suspended the medical superintendent of THQ in March 2025, but an insider working in the hospital told the broadcaster that nothing had changed. “Acting on evidence provided, the BBC went undercover inside the children’s ward in late 2025. Filmed covertly over several...

Around 250 people, including children, were feared missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsized in the Andaman Sea, the United Nations said on Tuesday. “The trawler, which departed from Teknaf in southern Bangladesh and was on its way to Malaysia, reportedly sank due to heavy winds, rough seas, and overcrowding,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement. Thousands of Rohingya, Myanmar’s persecuted Muslim minority, risk their lives every year fleeing repression and civil war in their country. They travel by sea, often aboard makeshift boats. The Rohingya on board this latest boat were likely leaving huge camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where more than a million refugees forced to flee Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine live in squalid conditions. Rakhine state has been the scene of fierce fighting between the military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic minority rebel group, over control of the territory. The exact circumstances surroundi...

• President says it's more likely that we go back there • Iranian officials say negotiating teams could return • U

Mechanism taking shape amid Gulf conflict, next meeting set for Antalya

Shehbaz briefs Zardari on Iran peace talks

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