Author: News Desk

A delay in the audit process of state institutions has worried the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) Ajmal Gondal told a meeting of the Publics Account Committee (PAC) on Wednesday. The development comes as discussions began this week between the IMF and Pakistan for the first biannual review of the $7 billion Extended Fund Facility to address governance and corruption vulnerabilities. While addressing today’s meeting, AGP Gondal disclosed that the IMF had expressed its concerns over nearly 600,000 pending audit paras. “The IMF has demanded early settlement of audit cases of institutions,”…

In response to a terrorist attack on the Bannu Cantonment in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, security forces eliminated 16 terrorists, including four suicide bombers, while five soldiers were martyred, the military’s media wing said on Wednesday. According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the attack occurred on Tuesday evening when terrorists attempted to breach the high-security zone by ramming two explosives-laden vehicles into the perimeter wall of the Bannu Cantonment. The ISPR stated, “Troops engaged the intruders with precision, eliminating all 16 terrorists, including four suicide bombers.” In the ensuing firefight, five soldiers embraced martyrdom in…

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Tuesday announced the men’s squad for the upcoming tour of New Zealand – Salman Ali Agha will be captaining the T20 International team while One Day International (ODI) captain, Mohammad Rizwan, will continue to lead the team in that format. However, a notable change in the T20 team is the exclusion of the country’s star batter Babar Azam and wicketkeeper Rizwan. Pakistan will play five T20s and three ODIs during the tour. The team announcement comes amid widespread criticism of the national team’s poor performance in the…

LAKKI MARWAT / NORTH WAZIRISTAN: Three policemen and a soldier were martyred and six wounded in Karak and North Waziristan over the past two days. On Wednesday night, terrorists attacked a police post in Bahadarkhel area of Karak, a police official confirmed, adding that the assailants used light and heavy weapons during the attack. He added that cops were deployed at the post loca­ted in the mountainous area on the Bannu-Hangu border. They “responded effectively and engaged the militants for two hours”. According to the official, the assailants atta­cked from…

ISLAMABAD: In order to address climate change and mobilise finance, experts have called for reforms in the public and private sectors to rake in much-needed funds req­uired to address climate change, particularly adaptation. On the first day of DawnMedia’s Breathe Pakistan International Climate Change Confe­rence, World Bank Global Director for Climate Change Valerie Hickey underscored the need for the removal of superfluous subsidies through policy reforms, such as mobilising domestic finance through taxes and expenditure. “…the mother of all policy reforms that will mobilise climate finance for which plumbing is absolutely critical is…

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has devised a new strategy to ‘register’ Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) after its previous efforts to ensure compliance failed to yield the desired results. The regulator has decided to introduce a new licensing category under which companies can apply for permits to provide VPN services. The move would eventually address the problem of what officials call unregistered VPNs, as all but those proxies provided by licensed companies would be dee­med unregistered and blocked. With licensed service providers, authorities would be able to monitor the VPN traffic, as anonymity…