Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The main crossing on the Afghan-Pakistan border remained shut Tuesday for the third straight day, officials said, after Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers earlier this week closed the key trade route and exchanged fire with Pakistani border guards.

The closure has added to increasing tensions between the two neighboring countries and concerns for traders, for whom the Torkham crossing is a key commercial artery. Trucks carrying various items also travel to Central Asian countries from Pakistan, through Torkham crossing point and Afghanistan.

ISLAMABAD, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- A group of armed men opened fire at a police station in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi on Friday, police officials said.

According to the local police, no casualties have been reported so far from the attack, adding that the assailants hurled hand grenades before making their way into the police station building.

Security and rescue teams have reached the area and cordoned it off.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

ISLAMABAD, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- In the wake of a deadly earthquake in Türkiye, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif would undertake a two-day visit to the country to show solidarity with and support for its people, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

During his visit from Thursday to Friday, Sharif will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "to personally convey heartfelt condolences on behalf of the entire Pakistani nation over the loss of precious lives and the widespread damage caused by the earthquake," the ministry said in a statement.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A rare public show of division within the ranks of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban emerged in recent days when Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, a powerful government figure, gave a speech seen as implicit criticism of the movement’s reclusive supreme leader.

The Taliban leadership has been opaque since the former insurgents’ takeover of the country in August 2021, with almost no indication of how decisions are made.

MIRPUR [AJK]: Feb 13 (APP): Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas Khan said on Monday that for the first time power had been transferred to the lower level through local government elections which would help solve the problems faced by the people at the grass-roots level.

“The government will provide all-out support to the elected representatives and fully empower them”, he said in a statement.

Sardar Tanveer said he believed in upholding democratic and moral values, however, he would ensure strict discipline in the party.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s police arrested at least 50 suspects in the kidnapping and lynching of a man already detained on charges of blasphemy, officials said Monday.

A mob of hundreds of enraged Muslims descended on the police station in the Nankana district of eastern Punjab province on Saturday. Members of the mob had been alerted that a man identified only as Waris desecrated a copy of Islam’s holy book, the Quran.

ISLAMABAD, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- A polio vaccination campaign is set to kick off from Monday in 39 districts of Pakistan to vaccinate more than 6 million children under the age of five, the Pakistani Health Ministry said.

The five-day polio drive has been primarily initiated after sewage samples in the country's eastern Lahore city tested positive for wild poliovirus last month, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

ISLAMABAD, Feb 11 (APP): Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday called Syrian Arab Republic Prime Minister Hussein Arnous to extend heartfelt sympathies to the brotherly Syrian people on the human and material loss in the wake of recent devastating earthquake.

The prime minister offered all possible support in the relief efforts, PM Office Media Wing said in a press release.

LAHORE, Feb 10 (APP): Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday said Pakistan would extend every possible support to Turkiye in the wake of catastrophic earthquake that killed and injured thousands and urged the people to donate to the Prime Minister’s relief fund.

Talking to media here at the Lahore airport, the prime minister handed over 100 tonnes relief goods including food, medicines and winterized tents for the people of Turkiye.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Hundreds of Afghans, including women and children, dashed toward the Kabul airport after a false rumor spread that flights were leaving for Turkey to help rescue earthquake victims.

Videos and photos posted on social media since Wednesday showed dozens of desperate people running on foot in the darkness and cold towards the airport.