Italy will not respond further to US President Donald Trump’s attacks on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, ministers said, pledging to protect bilateral ties that have come under strain in recent weeks after the two leaders traded accusations. Meloni was once seen as a close ally of Trump , but the relationship faltered last month when he told Italian TV channel La7 that she had “begged” him to take a photo with her at a G7 summit in France. She denied the claim and accused him of fabricating the story. With the two leaders due to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit in Ankara on Tuesday and Wednesday, Trump appeared to reignite the dispute when he posted on Truth Social a picture of Meloni looking up at him with the caption “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED”. US President Donald Trump shared a doctored picture with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on July 6, 2026. —Truth Social/@realDonaldTrump The latest provocation raised questions ...
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday again warned the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and the federal authorities against delaying local government (LG) elections, directing them to submit all pending delimitation notifications ahead of the next hearing on July 28. The tenure of LGs in KP ended on March 15 this year. According to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act, 2013, local representatives are elected for a four-year term. The term of the last local government in Islamabad expired in February 2021, and since then, elections have been delayed under various pretexts. As a result, around 2.5 million residents of Islamabad continue to face issues ranging from water shortages to unpaved streets. The ECP took up separate cases regarding the conduct of LG polls in KP and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). In the KP case, the KP chief secretary and LG secretary appeared before a four-member bench headed by Member Sindh Nisar Ahmed Durrani. In the ...