World Today

The rupee slipped to an all-time low against the dollar, falling by 3.02 per cent in the interbank market on Thursday, apparently after the political situation deteriorated further.

The violent protests provoked by the PTI chairman’s arrest entered the third day on Thursday, as an accountability court in Islamabad handed over the custody of Imran Khan to NAB for eight days in connection with the Al Qadir Trust case.

The PKR was being traded at Rs299 per dollar in the interbank market around noon, a decline of Rs.8.78 from yesterday’s close of Rs290.22.

The open market reported the dollar rate at Rs301, around Rs4 higher than the previous day.
Malik Bostan, chairman, Forex Association of Pakistan, said the political unrest in the country, Pakistan’s absence on the staff level agreement meeting agenda by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as yesterday’s report of decrease in remittance by 12pc were behind the steep decline in the local currency.

Bostan added that these factors have decreased buyer confidence and the importers were panic buying.

Pakistan’s absence on the IMF agenda meeting means that the country may not get the loan tranche by June, which increases it’s chances of default.

Analysts and researchers said the exchange rate would further deteriorate in the coming weeks since the worsening political situation had provided valid reasons for donors like the IMF to stay away until and unless the situation calms down.

ISLAMABAD: In a shocking incident, Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony M***i Abdul Shakoor passed away in a road accident in the federal capital, the capital's police said Saturday.

Police told Geo News that the incident occurred shortly around iftar (evening) when the federal minister was headed towards Secretariat Chowk from a local hotel.
In a statement, the capital's police said the minister was driving the car himself when a Hilux Revo — with five people onboard — smashed his vehicle at the driver's side.

The federal minister was shifted to Polyclinic Hospital in the federal capital, but due to severe internal bleeding, he succumbed to his wounds, the police said.

Senior police officers, according to the police, have arrived at the scene of the crime, and the people in the vehicle that smashed the federal minister's car have been arrested. Two of the five men are injured.

Islamabad Inspector-General Dr Akbar Nasir Khan, Minister for Information Marriyum Aurangzeb, and other federal ministers have also reached the hospital, where Shakoor breathed his last.

Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, Pakistan's spectacular opening pair, rewrote record books as they smashed most 50+ partnerships after taking New Zealand's bowlers to the sweepers in the second T20I of the five-match series in Lahore on Saturday.

This was the 19th 50+ partnership between the skipper and the wicket-keeper-batter in T20Is — the most by any pair in this format.
They are followed by India's Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul with 15 partnerships of 50+.

Israeli troops have fatally shot a 15-year-old Palestinian boy and wounded two other people during an arrest operation in a West Bank refugee camp, as tensions continued to escalate in the occupied territories.

Mohammed Balhan was shot in the head, chest and abdomen in the Aqabat Jabr camp near Jericho, according to local Palestinian official Hani Obeidat, who called it an “unjustifiable crime”. A video showed him lying dead on a stretcher in the hospital, his head bandaged and his mother wailing as she leaned over his body..

The attacks come after a major rocket barrage on Israel from Lebanon, which the Israelis blamed on Hamas.Tensions are high after Israeli police raided Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque on consecutive nights earlier this week.

The mosque is Islam's third holiest site, and the Israeli raids have triggered violent confrontations with Palestinians inside and caused outrage in the wider region.