One of ousted Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan's lawyers was elected on Saturday as chairman of his party, allowing it to take part in a national vote scheduled for February as the former cricketer is in jail and barred from taking part.
Barrister Gohar Ali Khan had been nominated by Khan himself to be the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI).
The Election Commission of Pakistan had directed PTI to hold the party poll for a new chairman if it wanted to participate in the election on February 8 and retain its bat election symbol.
The PTI will face former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's party as its main opponent. But the barrister chosen on Saturday will not necessarily become the prime minister, should the party win.
Another of Khan's lawyers, barrister Ali Zafar, said that choosing Gohar Ali Khan as replacement was just a babysitting arrangement for the party.
The 71-year-old former cricket star has been embroiled in a tangle of political and legal battles since he was ousted as prime minister in April 2022. He has not been seen in public since he was jailed for three years in August for unlawfully selling state gifts while in office from 2018 to 2022.
He is also on trial in an official secrets case along with his party's vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Khan has denied all the charges against him, as has Qureshi, a former foreign minister.
One of Afghanistan's worst earthquakes killed more than 800 people and injured at least 2,800, authorities said on Monday, as helicopters ferried the wounded to hospital after they were plucked from the rubble of homes being combed for survivors.
Israel pushed tanks deeper into Gaza City and detonated explosives-laden vehicles in one suburb as airstrikes killed at least 19 people on Monday, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.
India's Narendra Modi told Vladimir Putin on Monday that India and Russia stood shoulder to shoulder even in difficult times after the Kremlin chief cast the Indian prime minister as his "dear friend" and gave him a lift in his armoured limousine.
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged leaders to leverage their "mega-scale market", while Russian President Vladimir Putin showed support for Xi's ambition for a new global security and economic order that poses a challenge to the US during a regional summit on Monday.
South Korea has suspended a military radio broadcast that transmits to North Korea as part of measures aimed at easing tensions with Pyongyang, Seoul's defence ministry said on Monday.
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