Pakistan News

MEMBERS of civil society clash with police, on Tuesday, during a song march for victims who were killed during the recent student protests in Bangladesh over quotas in government jobs.—AFP DHAKA: Bangladesh will ban the country’s largest religious party Jamaat-i-Islaami and its student wing Shibir in the wake of this month’s deadly nationwide unrest , road transport minister Obaidul Quader told reporters on Tuesday. Representatives of Bangladesh’s governing coalition “unanimously decided to ban Jamaat and Shibir, taking into consideration their past and present activities,” said Quader, who is also general secretary of the ruling Awami League. Jamaat is already banned from contesting elections but the new order would outlaw the party and prevent it from holding any public gatherings. Party leader Shafiqur Rahman condemned the order as “illegal, beyond jurisdiction and anti-constitution”. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday condemned the “use of excessive” force agai...

WASHINGTON: Discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians rose by about 70 per cent in the United States in the first half of 2024 amid heightened Islamophobia due to Israel’s aggression in Gaza, the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said on Tuesday. Human rights advocates have reported a global rise in Islamo­phobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism since the eruption in October of the Israeli invasion which has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis. In the first six months of 2024, CAIR said it received 4,951 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents, a rise of nearly 70pc compared with the same period in 2023. Most of the complaints were in the categories of immigration and asylum, employment discrimination, education discrimination and hate crimes, CAIR said. In 2023, CAIR documented 8,061 such complaints in the whole year, including about 3,600 in the last three months after Israel invaded Gaza. Alarmin...

• Naeem warns may not pay next month’s bills after consultations with traders, civil society • Announces sit-in outside Governor House in Karachi on Wednesday RAWALPINDI: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Naeemur Rehman on Monday said the sit-in organised at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi was the first phase of their movement as after the acceptance of their demands regarding inflation and inflated power bills, the religio-political party would commence the second phase which would focus on “changing the system”. The JI leader was addressing the participants of the sit-in as well as the women-led demonstration organised by the party in Rawalpindi on Murree Road where its sit-in has been going on for the past four days despite rain or shine. Hafiz Naeemur Rehman warned that the JI in consultations with traders, industrialists, and civil society would consider the option of not paying the electricity bills for August, fearing those would be even more inflated compared to the July bills. “Send us ...

Landslides in India triggered by pounding monsoon rains have killed at least 36 people with hundreds more feared trapped under mud and debris, officials said on Tuesday. The southern coastal state of Kerala has been battered by torrential downpours, and the collapse of a key bridge at the disaster site in Wayanad district has hampered rescue efforts, according to local media reports. “Thirty-six deaths have been confirmed in connection with the landslide in Wayanad,” district official D.R. Meghasree told reporters. Kerala state health minister Veena George told the Press Trust of India news agency that “many” others had been injured and were being treated in hospital. Images published by the National Disaster Response Force show rescue crews trudging through mud to search for survivors and carry bodies on stretchers out of the area. Homes were caked with brown sludge as the force of the landslide’s impact scattered cars, corrugated iron and other debris around the disaster site. ...

The Olympic men’s triathlon has been postponed due to poor quality in the Seine River, World Triathlon, the sport’s governing body, announced Monday. The event was originally scheduled to take place on Tuesday, but is now scheduled to take place Wednesday on the same day as the women’s triathlon. “Paris 2024 and World Triathlon reiterate that their priority is the health of the athletes. The tests carried out in Seine today revealed water quality levels that did not provide sufficient guarantees to allow the event to be held,” World Triathlon said in a press release said. “Despite the improvement on the water quality levels in the last hours, the readings at some points of the swim course are still above the acceptable limits.” The sport’s governing body, World Triathlon, its medical team and city officials are banking on sunny weather and higher temperatures to bring levels of E. coli and other bacteria below the necessary limits to stage the swim portion of th...

Scheduled events include beach volleyball, volleyball, and basketball. from Sportsnet.ca https://ift.tt/1EsIXlA

A deadly rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has added to concerns that Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah could be sucked into a full-scale conflict — something they have both previously indicated they want to avoid but for which they have also said they are ready. Israel said on Sunday it would strike hard at Hezbollah after accusing the group of killing 12 children and teenagers in a rocket attack on a football field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah denied any responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since Hamas’ October 7 assault sparked the onslaught in Gaza. This is the background to hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah: Why are they fighting? Hezbollah began trading fire with Israel on Oct 8, a day after Hamas attacked communities in southern Israel and sparked the Gaza offensive. Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, says its attacks aim to support Palestinians who are und...

WASHINGTON: The 100-day sprint to the US election began on Sunday, the final act in a campaign transformed by an assassination attempt and the stunning exit of President Joe Biden. After weeks of infighting and despondency over Biden’s candidacy, Democrats have largely consolidated behind Vice President Kamala Harris, radically reshaping a race that was fast becoming Republican nominee Donald Trump’s to lose. Republican strategist Matt Terrill said Harris’s uniting of the Democrats had ensured a photo finish on Nov 5 — a ballot that will largely be decided by around 100,000 swing voters in a handful of battleground states. “It comes down to those independent, undecided voters. Inflation, immigration, the economy and crime — those are the issues they care about,” he told BBC News . Election campaigns typically last almost two years, but the 2024 edition has effectively become the shortest in modern history “Right now, I think, former president Trump is doing quite well on those i...

Maggie Mac Neil has started her bid to make history. The 24-year-old from London, Ont., is looking to become the first-ever female swimmer to defend her Olympic title in the 100-metre butterfly, the race she won at the last Summer Games in Tokyo, though she didn’t know it initially since she wasn’t wearing her contact lenses. When the results did come into focus for Mac Neil, she dropped her jaw and said: “Oh my god.” Her gold medal in Tokyo was the first for Canada at the last Games, and Mac Neil won one of every colour there, with a silver in the 4×100-m freestyle and bronze in the 4×100-m individual medley. In her second Olympics, which Mac Neil also says will be her last, she hit the pool in her marquee event Saturday for 100-m butterfly heats and semifinals, with the event’s final set for Sunday at 2:40 p.m. ET. Mac Neil, who tied for fourth in the semis, won silver in the event at the 2023 world championships. Before she set off for Paris, Mac Neil sat down with Sportsnet to t...

KARACHI: A young woman was allegedly axed to death in the name of honour by her maternal grandfather in Marfani Goth within the remit of the Awami Colony police station on Saturday evening, police said. Korangi-SSP Tauheed Rehman Memon said that Shahzadi, 20, was killed by her grandfather Mohammed Sharif inside their home near Bagh-i-Korangi. The Awami Colony police claimed to have arrested the suspect and recovered the axe. He informed the police that she had married of her own free will in Jamshoro a year ago. The suspect brought her back home, where he allegedly killed her. “The police are treating it as a case of killing in the name of so-called honour,” Memon said. The body has been shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for a post-mortem examination. Earlier this week, a free-will couple was shot dead in the Manghopir area in the name of so-called honour. The police had said that relatives of Saira Luqman had allegedly killed her and her husband, Adil, in the Ami...

Continued heavy rainfall from Tropical Storm Gaemi triggered a landslide that killed 12 people in southern China, causing flash floods in the northeast and railway disruptions elsewhere, state media reported on Sunday. Cyclonic winds from Gaemi , downgraded from a typhoon, had mostly dissipated by Sunday, but many parts of China remained under alert for flooding risks caused by earlier rains. Forecasters warned that the remnants of Gaemi’s vast cloudbanks could still dump rain on already waterlogged cities. The 12 were killed in the landslide near Hengyang city in Hunan province on Sunday morning that trapped 18, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Six injured survivors were rescued. Hunan provincial authorities issued a flood warning as heavy rains continued through Sunday. Two officials, including the deputy mayor of Linjiang city in Jilin province, went missing during flood rescue efforts, CCTV said, citing city authorities. More than 27,000 people in northeast China were evacuate...

A Bangladeshi student group has vowed to resume protests that sparked a lethal police crackdown and nationwide unrest unless several of their leaders are released from custody on Sunday. Last week’s violence killed at least 205 people, according to an AFP count of police and hospital data, in one of the biggest upheavals of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure. Army patrols and a nationwide curfew remain in place more than a week after they were imposed, and a police dragnet has scooped up thousands of protesters including at least half a dozen student leaders. Members of Students Against Discrimination, whose campaign against civil service job quotas precipitated the unrest, said they would end their weeklong protest moratorium. The group’s chief Nahid Islam and others “should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn”, Abdul Hannan Masud told reporters in an online briefing late Saturday. Masud, who did not disclose his location because he was in hiding f...

Heavy rain disrupted the first full day of medal action at the Olympics on Saturday as attention turned to sport after a spectacular but soggy opening ceremony. A total of 14 golds were due to be up for grabs, with the first to come in the mixed-team 10-metre air rifle finals, taking place around 10:30 am local time. But that number was swiftly reduced to 13 early on Saturday as the wet weather which deluged Friday night’s audacious opening ceremony along the River Seine continued to cause headaches. The men’s street skateboarding competition, due to take place at the Place de la Concorde in the historic heart of Paris, was postponed until Monday due to rain overnight, organisers said. The spectre of disruption also loomed over the opening rounds of tennis at Roland Garros, where only two of the 12 courts have roofs. Torrential rain had lashed participants and spectators in Friday’s amphibious opening ceremony, where around 7,000 athletes paraded along the Seine in an armada o...

RAHIM YAR KHAN: A plaque shows the size of Walhar forest but due to lack of irrigation water the plantation has reduced drastically. (Right) Trees have been stolen from the forests of Liaquatpur tehsil. — Dawn RAHIM YAR KHAN: With almost a month into this year’s monsoon, no plantation drive has been launched in the district by the District Forest Division despite high temperature of 47 degrees Celsius, which feels like 52, in June and July. This is not the least, the number of trees in forests at six different locations in the district are gradually shrinking due to timber theft and dryness caused by inadequate irrigation, resulting in environmental degradation. The Rahim Yar Khan Forest Division consists of one sub-division and six forest ranges with a total staff of 166 employees. There are six plantations, including Walhar Reserved Forests (RFs) in Sadiqabad tehsil spread over 4,632 acres gross area and 3,250 acres planted area. The remaining plantations are in Liaqatpur tehs...

PESHAWAR: Security forces claimed to have killed a close associate of terrorist commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur in an operation in North Waziristan on Friday. A statement by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said an intelligence-based operation was conducted on the reported presence of terrorists in the area. Following an intense exchange of fire with security forces, one of the terrorists, whom the ISPR identified as Razzaq, was gunned down. The deceased terrorist was the alleged facilitator of a suicide attack in North Waziristan in May where seven sec­urity personnel, inc­luding two officers, embraced martyrdom. A group affiliated with Hafiz Gul Bahadur had claimed responsibility for the attack. The ISPR added that Razzaq was also involved in the targeted killing of Malik Sher Muhammad, grandson of Faqir of Ippi, who was gunned down in his car along with his companions in January 2023. A sanitisation operation was being conducted to eliminate any other terrorist foun...

There will be plenty of flag-waving fans from all over the world. And COVID-19 testing, hopefully, won’t be a Games-defining activity. After a fanless (and delayed) 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and a 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in which there were almost no international fans, a more familiar version of the Games is on tap for Paris. Gone are the worries about testing positive for COVID-19 and being immediately banned from competing or travelling — though the virus clearly still could affect competition, as evidenced by five Australian water polo players testing positive in the Olympic Village this week. It’s also the first Olympics not in Asia since the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, meaning the majority of big events will be in daytime hours for potential bigger audiences in the Americas. Paris is six hours ahead of Eastern Time. “Heading into Paris, I’m looking for a completely brand new experience,” said Canadian beach volleyball player Melissa Humana-Paredes. “I’m so lucky t...

France’s high-speed rail network was hit by “malicious acts” including arson attacks that have disrupted the transport system, train operator SNCF said on Friday, hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. A source close to the investigation told AFP that the attacks were coordinated acts of “sabotage”. “This is a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network,” SNCF told AFP , adding that many routes will have to be cancelled. “SNCF was the victim of several simultaneous malicious acts overnight,” the national train operator said, adding that the attacks affected its Atlantic, northern and eastern lines. “Arson attacks were started to damage our facilities,” it said, adding that traffic on the affected lines was “heavily disrupted” and the situation would last through the weekend as repairs are conducted. Trains were being diverted to different tracks “but we will have to cancel a large number of them”, the statement said. The southeastern line was ...

On the water, perched on rooftops and operating AI-augmented cameras, French security forces have mounted a colossal operation to prevent an incident ruining the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics on the river Seine on Friday evening. The figures tell only part of the story of the efforts made to protect the river parade, the first time a Summer Olympics has started outside a stadium. About 45,000 police and paramilitary officers will be on duty, along with 10,000 soldiers and 20,000 private security guards. The total area that needs securing measures more than six kilometres (four miles) along the Seine and will contain around 300,000 ticketed spectators, as well as hundreds of thousands of other residents and tourists in overlooking buildings. A no-fly zone 150 kilometres wide around Paris will be enforced an hour before the ceremony starts at 7:30pm (1730 GMT), grounding or diverting all aviation at one of Europe’s busiest airport hubs. A French Air Force helicopter carr...

SHANGLA: A woman was axed to death by her son after a verbal altercation in the Belkanai area of Kana Tehsil, here on Wednesday. DPO Imran Khan told journalists that Jehan Bar, the brother of the slain woman, informed the police that his sister Mumtaza Bibi was married to Riaz Muhammad about 22 years ago and they were having some domestic disputes. On the day of the incident, the deceased woman was at her home when her son Akhtar Nawaz, at the instigation of his uncle Muhammad Ayaz, axed her to death, the complainant reported. According to a preliminary investigation by police, the slain woman had asked accused Akhtar Nawaz not to go out with his uncle, which infuriated him and he attacked his mother with an axe, killing her on the spot. Police officials said that a case under section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code had been registered at Olandar police station and both the accused were arrested. Further investigation into the crime is underway, the police added. Despite the prese...