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Monsoon winds are likely to enter Sindh from tonight bringing relief to the heat-afflicted southern province, reports Geo News.
The weather is likely to remain hot and humid in most places of Sindh on Saturday, while a drizzle is expected in some places in coastal areas today, according to the Meteorological Department
Monsoon winds will bring rain with thunder in Tharparkar, Umarkot and Mirpurkhas during July 7-8.
Karachi and Sajawal are likely to experience thundershowers on July 8 and 9.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has issued a royal decree to grant citizenships to scientists, medical doctors, researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and distinguished talents with unique expertise and specialisation in their respective fields.
The announcement was made on Thursday, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
The desert Kingdom, in the midst of modernising the vast country, wants to attract people with unique talents and expertise in their fields that can contribute to the development of various sectors throughout the Kingdom to achieve its Vision 2030 goal.
Vision 2030, which highlights Saudi Arabia’s keen interest in attracting, investing in and retaining exceptional creative minds, was launched in 2016 under the directive of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to a report by Al Arabiya News earlier this year.
It aims at creating a “diversified, innovative and world-leading nation,” through the Kingdom’s deeply rooted cultural heritage and strategic advantages, according to the official webpage of the initiative.
The present announcement follows a similar royal decree which was previously issued in 2021 to grant Saudi citizenships to the first group of select distinguished talent in these fields.
A civil servant robot in South Korea working for the Gumi City Council apparently killed itself leaving many confused on what is being termed the country’s first “robot suicide”.
The incident occurred last Thursday, leaving the tech community puzzled and in mourning.
The ‘Robot Supervisor’, according to the eyewitness accounts, was behaving oddly and out-of-character before its fall. It was discovered shattered at the bottom of a stairwell between the first and second floors of the city council building.
It was employed since August 2023 and performed various tasks including delivering documents, promoting the city, and providing information to residents.
It worked tirelessly from 9 am to 6 pm, even using elevators—a rare feature of its kind.
The robot was developed by a California-based startup for a broader range of duties.
It was seen as a great opportunity by South Koreans but for now the Gumi City Council has decided not to replace the robot, pausing their robot adoption plans and reflecting on the future of automation in the nation.
Following heavy downpours of rain in various cities of Punjab, including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Murree, and Jhelum, many areas experienced power outages.
Rawalpindi imposed a rain emergency on the garrison city.
Torrential rains in several Punjab cities caused water accumulation on highways and roads in Lahore and Gujranwala. Rainwater also entered the ward of Gujranwala’s Medical College Teaching Hospital.
Power supply was disrupted due to 100 feeder trips during heavy late-night rains, resulting in power outages in many areas.
In Rawalpindi, water levels reached five feet at Katarian in Nala Lai and four feet at Golmandi bridge, prompting the declaration of rain emergency.
The Meteorological Department recorded over 30 mm of rain in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
Intermittent rain continued in various cities of Azad Kashmir, including Samahni, Mirpur, Dadyal, Jatlan, and Mangla.
The Meteorological Department forecasts intermittent rain, strong winds, and thunderstorms today in different areas of Azad Kashmir, Islamabad, Upper and Central Punjab, Northeastern Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
It warned of possible flooding in mountain streams until July 7.
The department also warned of urban flooding in Lahore, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Narowal, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, and Peshawar, and landslides in the hilly areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to heavy rains.
The matric results of all nine educational boards in Punjab will be announced on Tuesday, July 9, at 10 a.m.
All the Boards in Punjab will establish results through two channels:
Students with internet access are advised to check their results online on the respective Board’s website. Those without internet access can check their results through their mobile phones by sending their roll numbers via message to a specific “board code.”
The code of all the boards are given as follows:
Faisalabad’s code is 800240.
The code for Dera Ghazi Khan is 800295
Gujranwala: 800299.
Rawalpindi’s code number is 800296.
Lahore: 800291
Bahawalpur: 800298.
Sargodha’s code number is 800290.
Sahiwal is at 800292.
The code number for Multan is 800293
There are nine Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education, each covering a different district
More than 15 peacocks have reportedly died in neighbouring villages of Tehsil Islamkot of Tharparkar district.
Similarly, 15 more peacocks have died in Morano village, Seringho, Kehri Morani, while many others are sick.
Jang reports that residents of the area state that the wildlife department has informed the authorities via a video, yet teams have not been sent for treatment of the animals.
On the contrary, Deputy Conservator Mir Ijaz has said that peacocks are falling ill due to extreme heat, lack of food, and water; and that a team will soon be sent to ensure the treatment of the peacocks.
Keir Starmer from Britain’s Labour has pledged to change UK as the next Prime Minister after his party won big in parliamentary elections on Friday, putting an end to 14 years of Conservative rule in the country.
“The Labour Party has won this general election, and I have called Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on his victory,” a sombre-looking Rishi Sunak said in his speech after the results came out.
Rishi called the results “sobering” as he took responsibility for the defeat.
“Change begins now,” Starmer said in a victory speech.
“We said we would end the chaos, and we will, we said we would turn the page, and we have. Today, we start the next chapter, begin the work of change, the mission of national renewal and start to rebuild our country.”
At a triumphant party rally in central London, Starmer, 61, cautioned that change would not come overnight, even as Labour snatched a great number of Tory seats around the country, including from nine Cabinet members, and former prime minister Liz Truss. Truss lost in her rural constituency by a slim margin of 630 votes.
How did the elections go?
Labour raced past the 326 seats needed to secure an overall majority in the 650-seat parliament.
An exit poll for UK broadcasters published after polls closed on Thursday put Labour on course for a return to power for the first time since 2010, with 410 seats and a 170-seat majority.
The Tories will get only 131 seats in the House of Commons—a record low—with the right-wing vote apparently spliced by Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party.
Esteemed journalist in an article for his platform Zeteo wrote, “Goodbye to the party that helped unleash shameful levels of racism and hate against both migrants and minorities, with not just Brexit but “Go Home” vans and the Rwanda plan; bigoted rhetoric about “swarms” of migrants and citizens of nowhere.”
What will happen to the government?
Sunak will tender his resignation to head of state King Charles III, with the monarch then asking Starmer, as the leader of the largest party in parliament, to form a government.
To-do list for next government
Starmer took over the party post-Brexit in 2020 and had aimed to bring it to the centre again.
Starmer is facing a daunting to-do list, with economic growth anaemic, public services overstretched and underfunded due to swinging cuts, and households squeezed financially.
When it comes to Gaza, he is on the same page as Rishi Sunak, emphasising support for Israel’s right to defend itself while maintaining the recognition of a two-state solution. However, Starmer has said he would review arms sales to Israel but has also not made a pledge to suspend any.
Additionally, Starmer has shown its determination to scrap the UK’s Controversial Rwanda Bill for asylum seekers that was introduced to deport illegal asylum seekers to Rwanda.
A Brazilian citizen fell and died while paragliding in the Shigar district of Gilgit Baltistan on Thursday.
Shigar DC Waliullah Falahi told Dawn that the tourist, identified as Raineri Rodrigo Chaddad, started the adventure from a mountain in Askoli Shigar.
Raineri didn’t have a permit for the activity, and he died on the spot after the fall.
DC asserted that action will be taken against the managing director of the victim’s tour operator who allowed him to take part in the activity without the requisite permit. An autopsy will be carried out shortly.
While Pakistan’s dangerous adventure sports are generally considered safe, the weather can turn quite fast. Three Japanese climbers have been declared dead in less than a month while descending one of the highest mountains in northern Pakistan.
An official notification of a “sale tax invoice” from the Punjab Ombudsman placing an order of five Samsung Galaxy S24 and seven iPhone Pro Max worth Rs. 76 lacs created a stir on social media. Netizens criticised the government for wasting money, but the government claimed otherwise.
A number of X (formerly Twitter) users criticised the government for spending extravagantly on such accessories. Journalist and academic Ali Moeen Nwazish posted on X: “This is exactly why people don’t pay tax in Pakistan. If you want people to pay tax, show that it is being spent on people like their healthcare and education, and not on land cruisers, iPhones, servants, luxuries and plots for the elite bureaucrats, judges and military officers.”
Another user named Osama Yawar shared the notification with the caption, “Is this how taxpayers money is being wasted by officials who can’t even write an email?”
To put more fuel to the fire, a citizen named Sohaib Qureshi, claiming to be an expert on E-Commerce, shared that the company The Laptop Store, with which the Ombudsman has placed an order, is allegedly non-filer. To prove his claim, Sohaib attached a screenshot from the FBR website where the company has no record of tax to its name. “More than one million is a sales tax but this laptop store is non compliant in sales tax,” Sohaib wrote.
Punjab’s Information Minister Azma Bukhari told The Current that Punjab’s Ombudsman is an autonomous body and does not come under Punjab government, “It’s from an autonomous body, not by Punjab government,” she said.
However, the Punjab Ombudsman was reluctant to respond to our request for confirmation of the viral notification. Even after multiple calls, there was no explicit answer, but an inside source revealed that this is a normal process and it seems authentic as it has the signature of the accounts officer of Punjab’s Ombudsman. The same source elaborated that the Punjab Ombudsman has its own budget and works independently. The phones are not for personal use but for official use only.
An account titled Jmhoori Martial Law asked people to explain the difference between Iphone 15 pro max with 512 GB and Samsaung Galaxy with the same storage. “Other Pakistani brands available in Pakistan, do they have better capability to record videos?” the handle asked.
The Ombudsman office is empowered to entertain complaints against any department commission or office of the Provincial Government or a statutory corporation or other institution established or controlled by the Provincial Government but does not include the High Court and the Courts working under the supervision of High Court and Provincial Assembly and its Secretariat, explains the official website as its primary function.
The moon of the new Islamic year 1446 Hijri is likely to be seen in Pakistan on Sunday, July 7.
Thus, the new Islamic year will start in Pakistan on Monday, July 8, and Ashura Days will be on Wednesday, July 17 and 18.
However, the meeting of the central moon sighting committee, which is chaired by Maulana Abdul Khabeer Azad, will be held in Quetta on July 6, while the zonal committee meetings will also be held in the zonal headquarters in Karachi, Islamabad, and Lahore.
In the UAE, the moon of the new Islamic year, 1446 Hijri, is likely to be sighted on Saturday, July 6.
The UAE government has already declared a public holiday on July 7 in the private sector.