Shehbaz Sharif

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in for another term on Monday, despite opposition protests.

As the dust settled from Pakistan’s highly contentious elections, presumptive prime ministerial candidate Nawaz Sharif stepped aside in favor of his younger brother Shehbaz, the former PM who is now likely to receive another term – even though the populist party of his predecessor Imran Khan won the most seats.

Early results in Pakistan’s elections show former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party taking the lead.

Two bombings targeting a political party headquarters and a local government office killed at least 28 people in Balochistan, Pakistan, on Wednesday – the day before a massive nationwide election preceded by outsized political violence and what some have branded state persecution of opposition parties.

The Intercept on Wednesday published a report on a long-rumored Pakistani government document that supports former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s claim that the U.S. government wanted to force him out of office.

Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was arrested on Saturday within minutes of a court sentencing him in absentia to three years in prison on corruption charges.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), an international organization heavily funded by the United States, on Friday reached an agreement with Pakistan to provide $3 billion in short-term financial aid. The Pakistani bond market perked up at news that a potential debt default crisis has been delayed, but not enough to suggest that investors see a bright future for Pakistan’s finances.

Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan on Friday denounced a “reign of terror” by the successor he wishes to unseat, Shehbaz Sharif, as police searched his home for dozens of terrorism suspects he was allegedly harboring. 

Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been clashing with the government of his successor, Shehbaz Sharif, as he tries to return to power while dodging about a hundred corruption investigations, said on Wednesday he expects to be arrested again.

Imran Khan, the former Pakistani prime minister who is running for another term despite dozens of corruption cases pending against him, called for nationwide protests on Saturday night.

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) ruled on Friday that former prime minister Imran Khan must be released on bail for two weeks. The grant of bail came a day after Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that Khan’s violent arrest by a paramilitary police unit on the grounds of the IHC was illegal.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the release of former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday morning, two days after he was arrested in a paramilitary operation at a court in Islamabad.

Islamist former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested outside the High Court in Islamabad on Tuesday.

The Pakistani Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered snap elections to proceed in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, overriding efforts by the administration of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to delay the votes until October.

Pakistani police once again tried to arrest former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday, and as with the attempt last week, his supporters formed a protective ring around his house and drove the police back.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the political party of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, on Wednesday made good on its threat to overload the country’s law enforcement system by defying protest bans in huge numbers and daring the police to arrest them.

Hundreds of members of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party converged on his residence in Lahore on Thursday night to demonstrate against his possible arrest.

A terrorist, preliminarily believed to be affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban, detonated a suicide bomb inside a mosque typically used by police in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Monday, resulting in at least 32 deaths and trapping a still-unknown number of people under rubble.

The vast majority of the population of Pakistan – about 220 million of 240 million people – was left without electricity on Monday after a “widespread breakdown in the power system,” according to the Ministry of Energy.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been working on a political comeback ever since he was kicked out of office with a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in April 2022, notched a victory on Monday by securing a snap election in Punjab, whose population of 110 million makes it the largest of Pakistan’s provinces.

The end of 2022 brings with it a host of campaign seasons across the planet, set to change the way major states are governed and how they interact with each other.

Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan was shot in the leg on Thursday during an apparent assassination attempt. The assailant was subdued by a crowd of Khan’s supporters and handed over to the police.

Police in Pakistan pressed charges against Islamist former Prime Minister Imran Khan this weekend under the nation’s anti-terrorism laws for a speech Khan delivered on Saturday in which he personally named a judge and police officials and threatened not to “spare” them if he returned to power.

The Indian government made some conciliatory statements after a spokeswoman for the ruling BJP party made televised comments seen as critical of Islam’s Muhammad two weeks ago, but as condemnation from Muslim nations and demands for additional acts of contrition keep pouring in, the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing back against its critics.

The newly minted prime minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, used his first speech as the head of the country’s government on Monday to promise China its investments in the country would be safe on his watch.

Chinese state media outlets insisted on Sunday that the ouster of radical Islamist Prime Minister Imran Khan in neighboring Pakistan – a close friend and ally of the Communist Party – would have no effect on bilateral ties.

The Parliament of Pakistan speedily elected Shehbaz Sharif, younger brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to replace the ousted Imran Khan on Monday.