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ISLAMABAD: Fifteen members of the Punjab Assembly, belonging to the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, met Prime Minister Imran Khan at his Banigala residence on Saturday and expressed their “full confidence” in the PM and Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. While the PML-N rejected reports of any such meeting, PM’s special assistant Naeem-ul-Haque confirmed the development in a late-evening Twitter posting, saying: “The hopes of PMLN MPAs from Punjab continue to get shattered with their party as was obvious in their today’s meeting with the PM.” He confirmed that 15 MPAs of the PML-N met the PM at Banigala for one and a half hours. “CM Punjab had brought them over. They expressed full confidence in PM and the CM.” However, Mr Haque did not mention the names of any of the 15 PML-N MPA. PML-N’s information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb rejected reports of a meeting between Mr Khan and some lawmakers from her party, claiming that it was a “stunt that had been pulled by the PTI to diver

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LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) barred Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former Punjab Education and Sports minister Rana Mashood from flying abroad at Lahore airport early Saturday, reported ARY News. Sources relayed Rana Mashood was offloaded from a private airline’s aircraft by immigration officers of FIA at 2am because of his name being on a blacklist over his involvement in alleged embezzlement of funds of the Punjab Youth Festival. He was to fly to the United States. After being offloaded from the aircraft, he was allowed to leave the airport, they added. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has launched a probe into alleged misappropriation of millions of rupees of the Punjab Youth Festival in 2011 and 2012. It is likely to investigate the PML-N leader in this case. Earlier, on June 21, the bureau had arrested former DG Sports Board Punjab Usman Anwer in the case. He has been accused of violating Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPR

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LAHORE: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani concluded his two-day long visit of Pakistan, and headed back to his country on Friday. As per details, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar accompanied the Afghan President to see him off on the Lahore airport. The CM told Ghani that his visit would give a new life to Pak-Afghan relations. “Pakistan and Afghanistan are Islamic brotherly countries and we share same values,” Buzdar added. In the tenure of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pak-Afghan relations witnessed significant improvement, Buzdar said. The Punjab CM also gifted Ghani an album of pictures of his Lahore’s visit. On the occasion, the Afghan president expressed gratitude to the chief minister for his present and hospitality. He said, “Pakistan gave me lots of love and I am taking along pleasant memories of here.” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had reached Lahore on Friday on the second leg of his visit to Pakistan. He was welcomed to the city with full state protocol with high ranking g

KARACHI: In less than a month, the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has faced a second incident, this time at Beijing airport, when the emergency chute of its Boeing 777 was activated, forcing the airline to offload 50 passengers aboard that section of the flight. In the first incident that took place earlier this month at Manchester airport, a passenger had mistakenly activated the emergency exit door of an aircraft, resulting in offloading of over three dozen passengers and a delay of seven hours in departure to Islamabad. The latest incident took place when the PIA flight (PK-853) for Tokyo-Beijing-Islamabad sector was parked at Beijing airport and “at the time of loading of in-flight meals the emergency slide got activated”, said a spokesman for the PIA on Friday. “This incident caused a delay of nearly three hours in departure,” he said, adding that the PIA considered safety as its foremost priority and as per standard operating procedure it had to offload nearly 50 passen

LEEDS: Pakistan are still resonating with emotion after reviving their World Cup aspirations with back-to-back victories. A little over a week ago, some of the players didn’t want to leave their hotel rooms out of fear of a backlash that incessantly followed them after the India defeat. But two big wins on, few players from the same lot strutted into Birmingham New Street Station on Thursday, exchanged handshakes with fans before boarding the train with their respective families to Leeds, the venue of Friday’s match against Afghanistan Of course, their progress to the semi-final will still be dictated by games not involving them, but Pakistan can claim to have changed their vibrant style of play once again heading into the easier (on paper) of their must-win contests. The left-arm quicks are menacing again, Shadab Khan can draw an error even from the unflappable Kane Williamson, Babar Azam finishes off tough chases and Haris Sohail is the middle-order power-unit he was supposed to h