Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Sunday began enforcing an order requiring all female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on-air. The move is part of a hard-line shift drawing condemnation from rights activists.

After the order was announced Thursday, only a handful of news outlets complied. But on Sunday, most female anchors were seen with their faces covered after the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry began enforcing the decree.

Beijing, May 22 (PTI) Pakistan's new Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi will hold talks on Sunday in the Chinese city of Guangzhou to firm-up the all-weather ties between the two countries.

This is Bilawal's maiden visit to China after he took over as Foreign Minister following the fall of Imran Khan government.

Their meeting was being held in Guangzhou as Beijing is currently under semi-lockdown to contain the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the COVID-19.

ISLAMABAD, May 19 (APP): National hockey team manager Olympian Khawaja Muhammad Junaid has said that qualifying for the next year’s World Cup would be the key objective for his side at the Asia Cup.

“The top three teams will secure berths in the FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup in India in 2023. Hence, we are focused only at a podium finish at the event,” Junaid told APP on phone before flying to Indonesia along with the Pakistan team on Wednesday night.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Faced with rising violence, Pakistan is taking a tougher line to pressure Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to crack down on militants hiding on their soil, but so far the Taliban remain reluctant to take action — trying instead to broker a peace.

Last month came a sharp deterioration in relations between the two neighbors when Pakistan carried out airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan. Witnesses said the strikes hit a refugee camp and another location, killing at least 40 civilians. UNICEF said 20 children were believed to be among the dead.

ISLAMABAD, May 18 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Wednesday kicked off a fresh nationwide anti-polio campaign after three new cases of the crippling disease were reported in the country.

"We have launched a new anti-polio campaign with a renewed zeal and focus ... A polio-free Pakistan is our national goal," the prime minister said on Twitter.

Millions of children up to the age of five would be given polio drops by health workers across the country as part of the door-to-door vaccination campaign.

Lahore, May 16 (PTI) The US has made Pakistan a slave without invading it, ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan claimed, asserting that the people will never accept an "imported government."

Khan, the 69-year-old cricketer-turned-politician, was voted out of power last month through a no-confidence motion, which he alleges was plotted by the US with the help of local players over his pursuance of an independent foreign policy.

ISLAMABAD, May 15 (APP): Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman has said that environmental degradation was emerging as a national security threat for Pakistan as it was paying a disproportionate price for climate change impacts derived by the developed world.

Federal Minister for Climate Change in her exclusive talk with APP said the glacial lakes outburst floods and heatwave were certain incidents that were predicted through advisories released in February by the relevant departments where the last alert was issued by the Ministry of Climate Change.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bombing near a security forces vehicle killed three soldiers and three children in northwest Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, while gunmen shot dead two minority Sikhs in Peshawar, officials said Sunday.

A military statement said the suicide bomber triggered his explosives-laden vest near a vehicle on security patrol in a village near the town of Mir Ali in the tribal district of North Waziristan.

Islamabad, May 13 (PTI) Pakistan's President Arif Alvi has written to Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, asking him to form a judicial commission to probe the alleged "regime change conspiracy" to oust former prime minister Imran Khan and to prevent a "political powder keg" from igniting in the country.

Khan, ousted through a no-trust vote on April 10, has accused the US of orchestrating the fall of his government after he decided to follow an independent foreign policy over the issue of Ukraine. The US repeatedly refuted Khan's allegations.

ISLAMABAD, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Thirteen people were injured when a blast went off inside a market area in the capital city Karachi of Pakistan's southern Sindh province late Thursday night, hospital authorities said.

Many among the injured were in critical condition and most of them got wounded after being hit by ball bearings from explosive materials, Shahid Rasool, medical superintendent of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) where all the injured were shifted, told the media.