Pakistan Financial News

Pakistan Cricket Board has named 22-year-old Fatima Sana as their captain, replacing Nida Dar for the upcoming ICC Women's T20 World Cup in UAE from October 3-20. The 37-year-old Nida is going through a lean patch and the team under her suffered T20I and ODI series defeats in England before making a semi-final exit in the Women's Asia Cup last month. The selectors however have retained Nida in the squad that has at least 10 players who appeared in the last edition of the global showpiece.

Islamic State has described the 26-year-old Syrian man taken into custody after a stabbing rampage in the western German city of Solingen as a «soldier» of the group. Though largely crushed by a U.S.-led coalition several years ago, IS has managed some major attacks while seeking to rebuild. They include an assault on a Russian concert hall in March that killed at least 143 people and two explosions in the Iranian city of Kerman in January that killed nearly 100 people.

BSF has sought the deployment of an additional battalion to check the onslaught of cross-border drones carrying drugs and ammunition and curb infiltration along the Punjab front of the India-Pakistan border. The force currently has about 20 battalions to guard the more than 500-kilometre-long front, out of which 18 are «actively deployed» at the border while the rest are mobilised in view of the requirements at the Attari integrated check post in Amritsar and the Kartarpur corridor at Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district. The drone menace that started around 2019-20 along this front is dominant in the border districts of Amritsar and Tarn Taran. One more Border Security Force (BSF) battalion has been sought to better secure the Punjab border, a senior officer told PTI.

accidents in Pakistan, Al Jazeera reported, citing local authorities. 12 people were killed on the Makran Coastal Highway in the southwest province of Balochistan, Pakistan's Interior Ministry said on Sunday, while a rescue official said 24 people were killed when a bus plunged into a deep ravine near Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). The first accident occurred overnight, when a bus carrying Shia pilgrims returning from Iran for religious commemoration veered off the road.

Pakistan has extended an invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with other leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), for the upcoming Council of Heads of Government (CHG) meeting in October this year, reported The Times of India. However, it is unlikely that Modi will visit Islamabad, though it remains to be seen if he will delegate a minister to represent India, as has been done in the past, considering the strained relations between the two nations, the report added. Pakistan is set to host the CHG meeting on October 15-16, as it currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the council, the second most important decision-making body within the SCO, following the Council of Heads of State. While Modi regularly attends the heads of state summits, he skipped the recent one in Kazakhstan due to a scheduling conflict with a Parliament session in early July.

dire need of food, a fifth of them on the edge of famine. It is to ignore a looming migration crisis as Afghans try to leave for anywhere offering hope of a job. It is to ignore the ravages of climate change, which is worsening the country’s periodic droughts.

IMF's approval. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and his team had a virtual meeting with Dr Adnan Chilwan, Group CEO of Dubai Islamic Bank, on Thursday, the Dawn newspaper reported on Friday. On Wednesday, a similar interaction was held with Mashreq Bank President and Group CEO Ahmed Abdelaal. Both meetings had been arranged to «discuss the economic outlook and explore investment opportunities in Pakistan». For the current fiscal year, Pakistan has pitched about USD 20 billion in foreign borrowing in the budget, besides another USD 3 billion rollover from the UAE that was reported separately for the balance of payments. With this much borrowing, Pakistan's reserves are estimated to grow to about USD 19-20 billion by the end of the current fiscal year.

Jay Shah, the current secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), has emerged as the leading candidate to succeed Greg Barclay as the International Cricket Council (ICC) chair. The BCCI is confident that Shah will be elected unopposed, given the widespread support he has received from various cricket boards, which have expressed their desire for him to lead the global cricket body, a top source from the board has confirmed. To secure his nomination, the ICC requires a proposer and a seconder. Reports indicate that England and Australia are likely to back Shah's candidacy, further solidifying his bid for the top position.

virus is slowly increasing its count across the world, and has already reached where it should not be, crucial parts of South Asia and the Indian Subcontinent, which is one of the most densely populated regions in the entire world, with cases already having been reported in Pakistan and India, with the origins of the same coming in from the Middle Eastern regions.

Arranged Marriage, he said in an interview that he had always thought that Punjabi was India’s first language, until he landed in India and found out otherwise. Now, something opposite happened to me when I landed at the Heathrow Airport in London in July, knowing fully well that English was the first language of the people living in the United Kingdom. But the only language I could hear around me at Heathrow was Hindustani—the lingua franca of the people of North India and Pakistan.

cyber terrorism for his alleged role in spreading misinformation that led to widespread rioting in the U.K. earlier this month, a senior police investigator said Wednesday. The suspect was identified as Farhan Asif, 32, a freelance web developer, said Imran Kishwar, deputy inspector general of investigations in Lahore, the capital of eastern Punjab province. The man is accused of spreading misinformation from YouTube and Facebook about the British teenage suspect in a stabbing attack that killed three girls and injured 10 other people July 29 at a dance class in Northwest England.

ICC T20 World Cup match in New York between arch-rivals India and Pakistan has received a «satisfactory» rating from the governing body of the sport. The highly-anticipated match between these two arch-rivals at New York's Nassau County International Stadium was a low-scoring thriller. After being cleaned up for 119 runs, with Rishabh Pant scoring 42, Pakistan could manage only 113/7 in their quota of 20 overs, with Jasprit Bumrah bowling a game-changing spell of 3/14 in four overs. The drop-in pitches in New York were under scrutiny throughout the tournament because of low-scoring matches and uneven, unpredictable bounce. During the Sri-Lanka South Africa clash, SL could score only 77 runs in 19.1 overs and SA chased down the target in 16.2 overs.

RAWALPINDI: Bangladesh is pinning its hopes on all-rounder and former lawmaker Shakib Al Hasan to «do something special» against pace-heavy Pakistan in the opening test of the two-match series, starting Wednesday. "(Shakib) played this game for so long, so he knows his role," Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto said on the eve of the first test match at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. «He knows how to prepare himself, so I am not thinking about his political career and I hope he will do something special in this series. He's a professional cricketer and we all treat him as a cricketer, to be very honest.»

training launch of its surface-to-surface ballistic missile Shaheen-II, the army said. «The training launch was aimed at training of troops, validating various technical parameters and performance evaluation of different sub-systems incorporated for improved accuracy and enhanced survivability,» the army said in a statement. The military provided no further technical information. The training launch was witnessed by senior officers from the Strategic Plans Division, Army Strategic Forces Command, scientists and engineers of strategic organisations. The Director General Strategic Plans Division appreciated the technical prowess, dedication and commitment of scientists who contributed towards this achievement.

Union Health Ministry has instructed airports and land port authorities at Bangladesh and Pakistan borders to remain vigilant for international passengers displaying Mpox symptoms, news agency PTI reported. Three hospitals in New Delhi—Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Safdarjung Hospital, and Lady Hardinge Medical College—have been designated as nodal centers for the isolation, management, and treatment of Mpox patients. State governments have been asked to identify similar facilities under their jurisdiction. P K Mishra, principal secretary to the prime minister, convened a high-level meeting on Sunday to assess the country's preparedness for Mpox. Officials reported no current Mpox cases in India. According to the current assessment, the risk of a large outbreak with sustained transmission is low.

Gujarat Police, undertook searches in multiple states on Monday as part of a money-laundering probe linked to alleged unauthorised streaming of ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 matches by a «betting» website. The federal agency said in a statement that 20 premises in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru (Karnataka), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) were covered by its officials and those from the Ahmedabad cyber police department in the case against the «magicwin» web portal. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) case, filed under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), stems from an Ahmedabad police FIR, which stated that a website — magicwin.games — had unauthorisedly hosted, streamed and broadcast matches during the world cup. The broadcast rights for the tournament were given to Star India Private Limited by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the ED said.

mpox in Pakistan announced last week was not the new strain spreading through Africa, health officials said Monday. The mpox diagnosis in a 34-year-old man recently returned from a Gulf country was declared by health officials on Friday, while testing over the exact strain was carried out. «The virus has been classified as Clade 2b,» the health ministry said in a statement on Monday.

economic recovery at risk. Since July, internet networks have been up to 40 percent slower than normal, according to one IT association, while documents, images and voice notes have been disrupted on WhatsApp, used by tens of millions of people. Digital rights experts believe the state is testing a firewall — a security system that monitors network traffic but can also be used to control online spaces.

Cricket Council (ICC) announced the match schedule on Sunday for the upcoming ICC U19 Women's T20 World Cup 2025 in Malaysia. Sixteen teams from around the world will take part in the 41-match event where the future stars of women's cricket will announce themselves over 15 days of competition from 18 January to 2 February 2025. Over and above these exciting matches will be 16 warm-up fixtures played from 13 to 16 January, in preparation for the main event, as per the ICC. The second edition of this exciting tournament comes on the back of a successful inauguration in South Africa in 2023 where India beat England by seven wickets in a thrilling final to be crowned the first-ever winners. It will also be the hosts, Malaysia's first appearance in the U19 Women's T20 World Cup as well as Samoa's first appearance in an ICC World Cup event.

religious hatred towards minorities, particularly Hindus, in Bangladesh following the fall of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government. Attacks against minority groups, including the approximately 12 million Hindus, have resulted in many casualties. A number of groups in Bangladesh have held protest marches, including those representing Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. While the situation is returning to an uneasy normal, what is surprising is almost no world leader spoke out against it. Would the international community's response have been different if the victims had been Muslims, Christians, or Jews instead of Hindus? With increasing polarisation around the world on a range of issues, the most visible and widening split is now based on religion, notably between Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic faiths.

Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman could be extradited to India where is wanted for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack carried out by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists. «The (India US Extradition) Treaty permits Rana's extradition,» the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said in its ruling on Thursday. Ruling on an appeal filed by 63-year-old Rana, a panel of judges of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court in the Central District of California's denial of his habeas corpus petition challenging a magistrate judge's certification of his as extraditable to India for his alleged participation in terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Rana, currently lodged in a jail in Los Angeles, faces charges for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai attack and is known to be associated with Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the terror incident that hit India's financial hub in 2008.