Pakistan rejects efforts by any country to establish regional hegemony, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said. Gilani comment was in reference to that of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s on India emerging as a regional and global power during a three-day visit to the neighbouring country July 18-20.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has begun a new term as president of the Opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Tax collection targets cannot be achieved “till big fish are brought into the tax net”, said Pakistan’s tax ombudsman.

Two days after the release of the alleged mastermind of the 2009 terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, a Pakistani court has released three men accused of involvement in the same incident.

The first group of about 10,000 US soldiers due to leave Afghanistan this year have already left, military officials said today, kicking off a gradual drawdown due to be completed in 2014.

Five civilians were killed in one of the deadliest parts of Southern Afghanistan when their mini-van drove over a land mine, a provincial government spokesman said today.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a hugely powerful if controversial figure in southern Afghanistan, was assassinated at his home on Tuesday, officials said.

An explosion ripped through a Pakistani arms depot just outside the capital Islamabad on Monday, killing a soldier and bringing down the roof of a barracks, officials said.

The government is focused on political and economic empowerment of women, said Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. Gilani said: “The empowerment of women will establish their social status and bring about a change to facilitate the process of development in the country.”

A Pakistani commission probing Osama bin Laden’s presence in the country has directed the interior ministry and ISI to ensure that the slain Al Qaeda chief’s wives and children do not leave the country without its permission.