Day: March 10, 2026

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ruled that secretly collecting information about a private conversation without the consent of the person involved, with the intention of using it for extortion or other illegal purposes, constitutes criminal conduct. In a five-page judgment authored by Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar, the court upheld the acquittal of the accused in a case where the petitioner relied primarily on a clandestine audio recording that allegedly contained a conversation between two accused persons regarding the payment of a bribe of Rs5,000. The judgment states…

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday unveiled several energy conservation and austerity measures to preempt fuel shortages and declared that he would not further increase the prices of petroleum products, seeking to pacify an unnerved public while shouldering the cost of rising prices. The measures announced by the prime minister in a pre-recorded nationally televised speech are aimed at saving fuel and raising funds to partially offset any further increase in the prices of diesel and petrol. The remaining gap is expected to be filled by the Finance Ministry’s…

TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON: Iran signalled a defiant stance with a senior leader saying that he sees no room for diplomacy in the ongoing conflict triggered by joint United States and Israeli strikes, while President Donald Trump insisted that the war was pretty much over. Iranian officials said that ceasefire mediation efforts were irrelevant as long as military confrontations persisted, while the leadership insisted that the country had no intention of harming ordinary Americans even as they warned Washington against targeting civilians. Trump said in an interview with CBS that the US-Israeli…

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has informed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the US-Israel war against Iran would not significantly impact its economy, projecting that the current account deficit may remain around $2 billion and fuel price hike impact on inflation could hardly be 0.3%. The government also does not see any impact on foreign remittances, which have been projected to grow to $43 billion even after war expansion to Gulf countries. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are the largest sources of remittances for Pakistan. The macroeconomic assumptions are…

ISLAMABAD: Leaders of the opposition alliance and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Monday urged the government to immediately withdraw from the Board of Peace, avoid becoming a party to the Iran war and reverse the steep increase in petroleum prices. PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja, senior party leader Babar Awan and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Senator Allama Raja Nasir Abbas made the demand while addressing a press conference in Islamabad. Raja said the Gulf region was facing an extraordinary situation and warned that “barbarity” had been imposed…