Pakistan

From creating 10 million jobs to building an Islamic welfare state and restoring Pakistan's tattered image abroad, new premier Imran Khan is facing a problem of his own making: runaway expectations raised by his lofty rhetoric.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai has called for the rebuilding of 11 schools torched by suspected Islamic extremists in northern Pakistan.

At least 28 people were killed and 35 wounded in a suicide attack near a polling station in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, officials said, as millions voted in a nationwide election Wednesday.

Accusations of military interference, encroaching extremism and a series of deadly attacks have cast an alarming shadow over Pakistan's hopes for a rare democratic transition of power in next week's election.

A suicide bomber killed 132 people at an election rally in southwestern Pakistan in the second election-related attack on Friday, officials said, amid growing tensions over ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif's return ahead of the July 25 vote.

The bombing was the most deadly attack in Pakistan in over three years and is the third incident of election-related violence this week.

Disgraced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was in custody on Saturday, a day after the deadliest attacks in Pakistan's troubled election campaign killed more than 130 people, including a candidate.

Pakistan authorities locked down parts of Lahore Friday for the return from London of former premier Nawaz Sharif, who faces possible arrest and a 10-year prison sentence ahead of already tense elections his party insists are being rigged.

The Pakistani Taliban on Wednesday claimed responsibility for an overnight suicide bombing at a campaign rally that killed a secular politician and 20 others, two weeks before the country's nationwide elections.

The U.S. military said on June 14 it carried out a strike targeting a senior militant leader in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province, where Pakistani Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah is believed to be hiding.

It began with hushed conversations in hotels dotted around Asia, and resulted in a nearly unthinkable book: "Spy Chronicles", a secret collaboration by former intelligence chiefs of India and Pakistan that has caused uproar in Islamabad.