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☆ Main Afghan-Pakistani border crossing closed, residents report gunfire
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

KABUL/PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The main border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan was closed on Monday, officials from the two sides said, and residents in the area reported the sound of gunfire near the normally bustling border transit point. It was not immediately clear if Afghan or Pakistani authorities closed the Torkham border crossing, near the Khyber Pass, but it comes after relations between Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and Pakistan have deteriorated sharply. Media reported that the border was closed on Sunday evening but did not give a reason. Clashes between Afghan and Pakistani security forces have also at times closed the second most important crossing between the two countries, at Chaman to the south. A Taliban foreign ministry spokesperson said later Pakistan should raise issues in private and not at public forums.

He added that a government committee was looking into adding secular subjects to madrasas alongside religious study, a development that hasn't been previously reported. Other students and teachers said Islamic education played an important role in their lives, though they hoped to be able to study secular subjects too. He didn't elaborate on the government's plans for religious schools. Reuters was unable to determine the current number of madrasas, and Taliban authorities have not provided figures. "There's deep-seated mistrust of the formal education sector, despite the fact that it too incorporates Islamic education."

☆ IMF giving Pakistan tough time over unlocking funds, PM says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Asif Shahzad | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

"As you know, the IMF mission is in Pakistan, and that's giving us a tough time," he said. "You all know we are running short of resources," Sharif said, adding Pakistan at present was facing an economic crisis. The IMF mission is visiting Pakistan to discuss fiscal consolidation measures the institution needs from Pakistan to clear a 9th review of its Extended Fund Facility, aimed at helping countries facing balance-of-payments crises. Pakistan is in a $6.5 billion IMF programme. An IMF delegation is in Pakistan to restart talks stalled since November for $2.5 billion funds yet to be disbursed.

☆ Blackouts, currency dives and corruption: Pakistan's economy is on the brink of collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Natasha Turak | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Sajjad Qayyum | Afp | Getty ImagesPakistan's economy is on a cliff-edge. These are just the latest shocks amid months of crisis as endemic government corruption, depleted foreign reserves and crippling debt have sent Pakistan's economy spiraling. More than 30% of Pakistan's total foreign debt is owed to China, according to the IMF. An aerial view of the commercial district of Pakistan's port city of Karachi on January 27, 2023. Asif Hassan | Afp | Getty Images

[1/5] Daughter of Irfan Khan, a police officer, who along with other police officers was killed, weeps during a protest by police officers to condemn the suicide blast in a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan February 1, 2023. REUTERS/Fayaz AzizPESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 2 (Reuters) - The suicide bomber who killed more than 100 people at a mosque in a police compound in the Pakistan city of Peshawar this week wore a police uniform and entered the high security area on a motorbike, a provincial police chief said on Thursday. Ansari said the CCTV footage showed the bomber, wearing a helmet and a mask, riding his motorbike through the main checkpoint of Police Lines. He then parked his bike, asked directions to the mosque and walked there, Ansari added. All but three of those killed were police officers, making it the worst attack on Pakistani security forces in recent history.

☆ Pakistan mosque attacker wore police uniform, breached security - police chief
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

ISLAMABAD, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Pakistani police have identified the suicide bomber who attacked a mosque in Peshawar this week, the provincial police chief said on Thursday, adding that the attacker had breached security by wearing a police uniform. The attack, which took place on Monday in a heavily fortified area called Police Lines, killed more than 100 people, all but three of them policemen. Moazzam Jah Ansari, police chief of Khyber Pashtunkhwa province where Peshawar is located, told reporters the bomber was part of a "network" and had driven a motorcycle into the area. Reporting by Asif Shahzad, writing by Sudipto Ganguly; editing by Miral FahmyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Afghan women prosecutors once seen as symbols of democracy find asylum in Spain
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/5] Afghan prosecutor S.M., who left her 4 years old daughter with her grandmother in Afghanistan while escaping to Peshawar, looks down in Islamabad, Pakistan, September 22, 2022. "Most Afghan women and girls that remain in Afghanistan don't have the right to study, to have a social life or even go to a beauty salon," Sharar said. due to fears over her safety and who specialised in gender violence and violence against children said, "I was the only female prosecutor in the province... The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was not in a position to comment on specific cases. "The Government of Pakistan has not agreed to recognise newly arriving Afghans as refugees," UNHCR said in a statement.

Faced with a shortage of US dollars, Pakistan only has enough foreign currency in its reserves to pay for three weeks of imports. Long lines are forming at gas stations as prices swing wildly in the country of 220 million. Pakistan’s currency, the rupee, recently dropped to new lows against the US dollar after authorities eased currency controls to meet one of the IMF’s lending conditions. The country has been spending more on trade than it has brought in, running down its stock of foreign currency and weighing on the rupee’s value. Pakistan's usually bustling ports, like this one in Karachi, have ground to a halt as the country grapples with a severe shortage of foreign currency.

☆ Pakistan Suicide Bombing Death Toll Rises to at Least 100
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Saeed Shah | Waqar Gillani | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The death toll in a suicide bombing in northwestern Pakistan climbed to at least 100 on Tuesday as rescuers pulled bodies out of the rubble of a mosque hit by one of the country’s deadliest terrorist attacks. Emergency crews worked through the night to pull the dead and injured from the debris of the mosque in a large police compound in the city of Peshawar. The compound included police offices and housing.

☆ Pakistan Suicide Bombing Death Toll Rises to At Least 95
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Saeed Shah | Waqar Gillani | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The death toll in a suicide bombing in northwestern Pakistan climbed to at least 95 on Tuesday as rescuers pulled bodies out of the rubble of a mosque hit by one of the country’s deadliest terrorist attacks. Emergency crews worked through the night to pull the dead and injured from the debris of the mosque in a large police compound in the city of Peshawar. The compound included police offices and housing, and many of those killed were police. More than 220 people were injured, officials said Tuesday.

[1/2] People wait for their turn to get fuel at a petrol station in Peshawar, Pakistan January 30, 2023. If we don't have LCs (letters of credit) open right now, we might see shortages in the next fortnight," a senior official at one of the oil companies told Reuters. Oil traders, however, are shunning countries such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka due to an acute shortfall of foreign exchange. State-owned refiner Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and Pakistan LNG Ltd have left a flurry of fuel tenders unawarded in the last couple of months. Pakistan bought only 223,000 tonnes of gasoline in December versus 608,000 tonnes in the same period a year earlier, data from Kpler showed.

☆ Pakistan mosque bombing death toll rises to 87
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Jibran Ahmad | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/5] Chief of Army Staff (COAS) of Pakistan Asim Munir and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visit an injured, after a suicide blast in a mosque, at a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan January 30, 2023. Prime Minister's Office/Handout via REUTERSPESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The death toll in the suicide bombing that tore through a mosque in Pakistan rose to 87 on Tuesday, a hospital official said, a day after the one of the biggest attacks in the unstable South Asian nation. The attack occurred in one of the most fortified areas of the northwestern Peshawar city, which houses offices of the police and counter-terrorism departments. Hospital official Mohammad Asim said that 87 people had been killed, and that 57 people were being treated, seven of whom were in critical condition. Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella of Sunni and sectarian Islamist groups, has denied responsibility.

☆ Pakistan Bombing at Mosque Kills at Least 59
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Saeed Shah | Waqar Gillani | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—At least 59 people were killed by a suspected suicide bombing at a mosque within a police compound in northwestern Pakistan, authorities said. The blast took place at a mosque located in a high security zone in the city of Peshawar on Monday, in a crowd of worshippers gathered for lunchtime prayers, causing part of the structure to collapse. Authorities said most of those killed were police and estimated that more than 160 people were injured.

☆ Pakistan Bombing at Mosque Kills at Least 44
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Saeed Shah | Waqar Gillani | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—At least 44 people were killed by a suspected suicide bombing at a mosque within a police compound in northwestern Pakistan, authorities said. The blast took place at a mosque located at the compound in the city of Peshawar on Monday, causing part of the structure to collapse. Authorities said most of those killed were police and estimated that more than 160 people were injured.

☆ Suicide bomber kills 59 at Pakistan mosque used by police officers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide bomber struck a crowded mosque inside a police compound in Pakistan on Monday, causing the roof to collapse and killing at least 59 people and wounding more than 150 others, officials said. He expressed his condolences to families of the victims, saying their pain “cannot be described in words.”Police said between 300 to 350 worshippers were inside the mosque when the bomber detonated his explosives. Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander for the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. Pakistan, which is mostly Sunni Muslim, has seen a surge in militant attacks since November, when the Pakistani Taliban ended their cease-fire with government forces. Monday’s assault on a Sunni mosque was one of the deadliest attacks on security forces in recent years.

☆ Pakistan Bombing at Police Compound Kills at Least 28
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Saeed Shah | Waqar Gillani | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—At least 28 people were killed by a blast at a police compound in northwestern Pakistan that authorities said they suspected was a suicide bombing. The blast took place at a mosque located at the compound in the city of Peshawar on Monday, causing part of the structure to collapse. Authorities said most of those killed were police and estimated that about 150 people were injured.

☆ Blast kills at least 19 worshippers at mosque in Pakistan's Peshawar
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Jibran Ahmad | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 30 (Reuters) - An explosion in a mosque killed at 19 worshippers and wounded dozens more in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Monday, a hospital official said, and many of the casualties were police officers who had gathered for daily prayers. The mosque was located close to a police housing block, and there were some 260 people inside when the blast occurred, according to police. A two-storey building has collapsed," an eyewitness told local news channel Geo TV, saying he was just outside the mosque when explosion happened. "We received 19 dead and over 90 injured from the Peshawar Police Lines blast," said Mohammad Asim, a spokesman for the city's Lady Reading Hospital, referring to the neighborhood. "A portion of the building had collapsed and several people are believed to be under it," police official Sikandar Khan said.

☆ Suicide bomber kills 28, wounds 150 at mosque in NW Pakistan
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Security personnel cordon off the site of a mosque blast inside the police headquarters in Peshawar on January 30, 2023. Police between 300 to 350 worshipers were inside the mosque when the bomber detonated his explosives. A survivor, 38-year-old police officer Meena Gul, said he was inside the mosque when the bomb went off. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan also condemned the bombing, calling it a "terrorist suicide attack" in a Twitter posting. Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks since November when the Pakistani Taliban ended their cease-fire with government forces.

☆ At least 10 children killed in Pakistan as boat capsizes
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

PESHAWAR, Jan 29 (Reuters) - At least 10 children were killed on Sunday when a boat carrying religious school students capsized in northwest Pakistan, officials said. Around eight students were still missing while seven injured had been taken to hospital, according to local officials in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the accident took place. Kohat's district commissioner Mahmood Aslam said around 50 students from a local religious school, had gathered near Tanda lake for a picnic. Twenty-five had ventured out on the water - which was closed by authorities for recreational trips - on a boat that capsized, he said. The accident came the same day as a bus accident in southern Pakistan that killed more than 40 people.

ISLAMABAD, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Pakistan's energy ministry said on Tuesday it had restored its national power grid nearly 24 hours after a breakdown triggered the worst outage in months, highlighting the frailty of the aid-dependant nation's infrastructure. All 1,112 grid stations were back online, a senior government official told Reuters, adding that electricity would be fully restored across the country once power generation units were back up. The outage, which began on Monday morning during the peak winter season, is the second major grid failure to hit the nation of 220 million people since October, though there are partial blackouts almost daily. Residents in major cities said they now had electricity, but some areas of the country were still without power. China has invested in its power sector as part of a $60 billion infrastructure scheme that feeds into Beijing's "Belt and Road" initiative.

☆ Tens of millions without power after Pakistan suffers major outage
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Much of Pakistan was left without power for several hours on Monday morning as an energy-saving measure by the government backfired. The outage was reminiscent of a massive blackout in January 2021, attributed at the time to a technical fault in the country’s power generation and distribution system. According to the minister, during winter, electricity usage typically goes down overnight. A Metro station is closed after major power outage in Lahore, Pakistan on Monday. Pakistan is grappling with one of the country’s worst economic crisis in recent years amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

☆ Pakistan suffers major power outage after grid failure
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ISLAMABAD, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Pakistan suffered country-wide power cuts early on Monday due to a major breakdown in its national grid, the federal energy ministry said. "According to initial information, at about 7:34 AM (local time) today, the National Grid experienced a loss of frequency, that caused a major breakdown. Power was out in all major cities, including Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar. This is not a major crisis," Dastagir said. Reporting by Asif Shahazad, writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; editing by Sudipto GangulyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Islamabad, Pakistan CNN —A nationwide power outage in Pakistan left nearly 220 million people without electricity on Monday, threatening to cause havoc in the South Asian nation already grappling with fuel shortages in the winter months. It is unclear how long the outage will last and efforts are underway to restore power to various parts of the country. The outage comes as the country’s fragile economy continues to struggle with multiple challenges, including a severe energy crisis. The decision to reduce energy usage came as Pakistan announced its foreign exchange reserves had dwindled to alarmingly low levels. Monday’s power outage is Pakistan’s most widespread power shutdown since 2021, when the nation plunged into darkness for hours after a “sudden plunge in the frequency in the power transmission system.”

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Afghanistan’s Taliban-run government on Saturday ordered all local and foreign nongovernmental organizations to prevent female employees from reporting to work, in the latest restrictive move against women’s rights and freedoms in the country. The order was made in a letter written in Persian by Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, Abdur Rahman Habib, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Economic Ministry, told NBC News. Afghan women protest against a new Taliban ban on women accessing university education on Thursday in Kabul, Afghanistan. Getty ImagesForeign governments, including Muslim-majority Saudi Arabia and Turkey, condemned the university ban, which also led to criticism and protests inside Afghanistan. In the western city of Herat on Saturday, Taliban forces used water cannons to disperse women protesting the ban on university education, Reuters reported.

One hostage, a security official, died during the raid , he said. The army spokesman's comments provided the first detailed official account of the standoff, in which two security personnel were killed when the militants first took over the compound, and two commandoes killed in the ensuing raid. Later other militants at the centre broke into a storeroom where confiscated weapons had been stored. STANDOFFAfter talks failed to resolve a two-day standoff, army commandos stormed the centre on Tuesday. Earlier, residents said they heard explosions coming from the vicinity of the centre on Tuesday as helicopters hovered overhead.

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