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India scrambles to steady rupee as oil shock bites

India is scrambling to salvage a sinking rupee as surging oil prices linked to the Middle East conflict threaten to disrupt the world’s fastest-growing major economy. The currency has dropped more than 5 per cent since the crisis erupted in February, extending losses from 2025 and making it Asia’s worst-performing major currency in 2026 so far. It hit a record low of over 96 to the dollar on Friday, prompting officials to signal that halting further depreciation is a key macroeconomic priority. India’s central bank has already poured billions of dollars to stabilise the currency, curbed speculative trading and offered a special credit line to oil importers to ease dollar demand. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also urged voluntary austerity measures to rein in dollar-guzzling imports, including cutting down on gold buying and foreign travel for a year. But the pressure persists. “The whole system has been disturbed,” said Dilip Parmar of stockbroker HDFC Securities, citin...
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Hamas confirms killing of military chief after Israeli strike

Hamas’s armed wing chief Ezzedine Al-Haddad was killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza the previous day, the Israeli military and Hamas confirmed on Saturday. The Israeli military and intelligence services have waged an extensive campaign targeting the group’s senior political leaders and commanders in Gaza and across the region. On Friday, the Israeli military said it had carried out an airstrike in Gaza targeting Haddad and confirmed his death on Saturday. “The IDF and the ISA announce that yesterday, in a precise strike in the area of the City of Gaza, Ezzedine Al-Haddad was eliminated,” the military said, referring to itself and the Shin Bet domestic security agency. Two Hamas officials also told AFP that Haddad had been killed in an Israeli strike. “Senior commander… Ezzedine Al-Haddad was assassinated in an Israeli strike targeting a residential apartment and a civilian vehicle in Gaza yesterday,” one senior Hamas official said. ...
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Rising diesel costs from Iran war strain US school budgets

Soaring diesel prices since the onset of the Iran war are draining already tight US school district budgets, making it more expensive to bus students and run generators in a shock officials say they will not be able to afford for long. School districts from Yakima, Washington to Waco, Texas are tapping emergency funding reserves to keep buses running. In remote Alaska, officials are scrambling to secure enough fuel to keep the lights on, according to Reuters interviews. “It’s more than a straw on the camel’s back, it’s like a haystack,” said Yakima Superintendent Trevor Greene. The stress reflects one of many knock-on impacts of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which has disrupted the flow of around a fifth of the world’s oil supplies. Since the war started in late February, fuel prices have posted one of their most rapid climbs on record. The spike has upended economies around the globe. It has caused enough pain in the US to be a political liability for President Donald Trump ahead...
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Probe shows foreigners' involvement in network run by alleged drug queenpin Anmol alias Pinky: Karachi AIG

Karachi Additional Inspector General (AIG) Azad Khan shared details on Friday of probe against alleged queenpin Anmol alias Pinky, saying that investigators had come across information regarding the involvement of foreigners in running the drug network. Anmol had been arrested earlier this week from her apartment in Karachi in a joint raid conducted by police and a civilian intelligence agency in connection with two cases pertaining to the possession of narcotics and an unlicenced weapon. On Wednesday, a court in Karachi granted police her three-day physical remand. The Karachi AIG shared details during a press conference on Friday of the investigation conducted against Anmol thus far, saying that the case could turn out to be a transnational one as investigators had come across information about the involvement of foreigners in the drugs networks allegedly run by the suspect. “We have come across information that some foreigners from African countries are involved in this networ...
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Indian magnate Adani agrees to multi-million-dollar penalty in US court case

Indian billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani has agreed to pay a multi-million-dollar settlement in a US civil court case linked to corruption without admitting guilt, his company said on Friday. The November 2024 indictment in New York accused the industrialist and multiple subordinates of deliberately misleading international investors as part of a vast bribery scheme. Adani was accused of having participated in an estimated $250 million scheme to bribe Indian officials for lucrative solar energy supply contracts. Adani, along with his nephew Sagar Adani, agreed to the “payment of a civil penalty” totalling $18 million, while noting that it came “without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint,” a letter from Adani Green Energy to the Mumbai stock exchange read. The penalty payment comes as US prosecutors are reported to be set to drop charges against Adani, The New York Times reported on Thursday. The Adani letter, which noted that the final judgemen...
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Chinese FM's remarks to Dar on Iran war 'misrepresented', call held with cordiality: FO

The Foreign Office on Thursday said media reports “misrepresented” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent remarks to Deputy Prime Minister and FM Ishaq Dar, affirming the call was held with cordiality. The clarification comes after Chinese state media Xinhua reported that during his call with Dar on Tuesday, Wang expressed hope that “Pakistan can step up mediation efforts ” between the United States and Iran. Addressing a weekly press briefing, FO spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said: “Some reports suggested that the Chinese side urged us to enhance the mediation efforts, implying as if Pakistan was being asked to sort in a ‘do more’ paradigm. So news coverage by some of local newspapers conveyed the same impression. “I wish to place on record that such reports somewhat misrepresent the call in both letter and spirit,” he added, asserting that the call was held with “traditional warmth and cordiality”. Andrabi said FM Wang appreciated “Pakistan’s constr...
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Indian pharma fuels Africa's 'zombie drug' and opioid crisis despite crackdown

They come in blister packs of 10 like any normal painkiller and you can buy them easily in roadside kiosks and street pharmacies across west Africa. Millions of tapentadol tablets from India are helping drive a deadly opioid epidemic ravaging the region, with officials and researchers telling AFP that they are also being added to the “zombie drug” kush. The cheap pills are so strong that no regulatory authority in the world has approved them. Yet an AFP investigation found Indian pharmaceutical firms were flooding west Africa with the pills despite New Delhi vowing to crack down on the trade. Some shipments were even labelled “Harmless Medicines for Human Consumption”. Customs records show millions of dollars’ worth of the high-strength synthetic opioid being shipped from India every month to Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Ghana, where even low doses of the drug are not permitted. With opioids now heavily regulated in wealthier nation...
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