Pakistan

Lahore, Mar 31 (PTI) In a setback to the Pakistan Army, the Lahore High Court on Friday suspended handing over more than 45,000 acres of state land on a 30-year lease to the military in the Punjab province.

Punjab’s caretaker government last month allotted 45,266 acres of state land on lease to the Pakistan Army in three districts -- Khushab, Bhakar and Sahiwal -- of Punjab province for the "corporate agriculture farming" on the latter’s "request".

ISLAMABAD, March 31 (Reuters) - Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Friday China had rolled over a $2 billion loan that matured last week, providing relief during the South Asian nation's acute balance of payment crisis.

Locking in a rollover had been critical for Pakistan, where reserves have dipped to just four weeks' worth of imports and talks over an International Monetary Fund bailout tranche of $1.1 billion have hit a stalemate.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Taliban militants in a pair of attacks killed four police officers by targeting a police vehicle with a roadside bomb and wounded six in an attack on a police station in northwest Pakistan early Thursday, police and the insurgents said.

The bomb killed four officers in a police vehicle carrying reinforcements sent to respond to the attack on a police station in Lakki Marwat, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Six officers were wounded in the attack at the police station.

ISLAMABAD, Mar 29 (APP): Pakistan on Wednesday said that its foreign policy was centered on peace, stability and economic development.

Addressing the 18th Meeting of Secretaries of Security Council of SCO Member States through zoom link, Secretary National Security Division Engineer Aamir Hassan, who headed the Pakistan delegation, reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to the objectives of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

ISLAMABAD, Mar 29 (APP): The New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada has called on the Canadian government to boycott the G20 events in Kashmir and Chandigarh, Punjab, and ban Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and officials from traveling to Canada for abusing minorities and hurling threats against Canadian lawmakers.

The demand was supported by the World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO), according to media reports.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Calls mounted Wednesday for the Taliban to free a girls’ education activist arrested earlier this week in Kabul, as a government minister defended the detention.

Matiullah Wesa, founder and president of Pen Path — a local nongovernmental group that travels across Afghanistan with a mobile school and library — was arrested in the Afghan capital on Monday.

Islamabad, Mar 28 (PTI) Pakistan's government on Tuesday night introduced a bill in the parliament to curtail the discretionary powers of the chief justice, hours after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that "history would not forgive us" if parliament did not enact laws to curtail the powers of the country's top judge.

Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar presented 'The Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023', which was approved by the Cabinet earlier in the evening.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — An Afghan rights activist who has campaigned for girls’ education has been arrested in Kabul, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said Matiullah Wesa, founder and president of Pen Path — a local nongovernmental group that travels across Afghanistan with a mobile school and library — was arrested in the Afghan capital on Monday.

Local reports said Taliban security forces detained Wesa after his return from a trip to Europe.

ISLAMABAD, Mar 25 (NNN-APP) – The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), said that, its foreign exchange reserves have increased by 280 million U.S. dollars.

During the week ending on Mar 17, the total foreign exchange reserves of the SBP rose to around 4.6 billion dollars, the SBP said in a statement.

Last week, “the SBP received 500 million dollars, as the government of Pakistan’s commercial loan disbursement,” the statement said, adding that, “after accounting for external debt repayments, the central bank’s reserves” had recorded this increase.

ISLAMABAD, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Thursday that its foreign exchange reserves have increased by 280 million U.S. dollars.

During the week ending on March 17, the total foreign exchange reserves of the SBP rose to around 4.6 billion dollars, the SBP said in a statement.

Last week, "the SBP received 500 million dollars as the government of Pakistan's commercial loan disbursement," the statement said, adding that "after accounting for external debt repayments, the central bank's reserves" had recorded this increase.