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Tensions surrounding Pakistan's jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan have escalated after his three sisters alleged they were "brutally" assaulted outside Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail when they sought a meeting with him.

Three top officials of the engineering company renovating the tower complex have been arrested in a suspected case of manslaughter.

Firefighters were still dousing a devastating fire Thursday which ripped through a Hong Kong high-rise complex, killing at least 55 people and leaving hundreds missing according to authorities.

Pakistan's military is entering one of its most powerful eras, and that too without directly seizing power, with army chief Asim Munir taking charge as the country's first Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) on Thursday.

Environment group warns of ‘major risk’ to groundwater, which supplies 90% of Northern Territory water supplyGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA plan by fossil fuel company Santos to expand gas exploration in the Beetaloo basin has been criticised by environmentalists who fear it may mark the beginning of a fracking rush in the Northern Territory.Santos has published plans to drill 12 fracking wells at Tanumbirini Station, a 5,000 sq km cattle station about 340km south-east of Katherine. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Many industries on new council are ‘associated with significant health harms’, one academic saysGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastCheap and unhealthy foods are set to become further entrenched in the Australian diet, according to health experts, who warn the federal government is developing a national food policy with heavy influence from profit-driven food and agriculture industries.Dr Matt Fisher from the University of Adelaide’s Stretton Institute’s health equity department said the policy could “compromise crucial public health considerations”. Continue reading...

Three men arrested as 26 rescue teams on site at Wang Fuk Court residential apartment complex in Tai Po districtA visual guide to the fireThe death toll has risen again to 44, fire officials say.Officials said they are still having difficulties proceeding into the upper floors in some of the buildings in the residential complex as the fire continues. Continue reading...

PM says: ‘We kept to our manifesto in terms of what we’ve promised. But I accept the challenge that we’ve asked everybody to contribute’Ask the Guardian your budget questionsShare your views on the new ‘mansion tax’Budget calculator: find out if you are better or worse offThe Conservative party is attacking the budget on the grounds that Rachel Reeves is putting up taxes supposedly to fund more spending on benefit claimants. Even though the rationale for this claim is questionable, the Tories were making it before the budget was announced, and Kemi Badenoch firmed it up last night, claiming it was a “Benefits Street budget”.On LBC this morning, asked if the budget meant “alarm clock Britain paying for Benefits Street”, Reeves said she did not accept that. She said 60% of the families that would benefit from the removal of the two-child benefit cap (the most expensive welfare announcement in the budget) were in work.I don’t think children should be punished by this pernicious policy any longer. And the cost to society of this is huge, the cost for councils of temporary accommodation, when people can no longer afford the rent, putting families in B&Bs, kids having to move to school all the time because parents have moved from B&B to another lot of temporary accommodation, and there’s costs for years to come, because all the evidence shows that kids that are growing up poor are less likely to get into work and more reliant on the welfare state in the future for them.So this is a good investment in those kids, to give them the chances that I want for my kids, and everyone wants for their kids. It also saves money for taxpayers on that accommodation, on those additional health costs, and ensuring that those kids grow up to be productive adults. Continue reading...