Category: Uncategorized

  • Number of repatriated Afghans exceeds four lakh

    The deportation of illegally residing Afghans from across the country continues with another 2,473 Afghan citizens returning to Afghanistan yesterday alone.

    This included 232 families travelling in around 126 vehicles. Whereas on December 7, 2,473 Afghans were sent back, including 825 men, 523 women and 1,125 children.

    Samaa News reports an additional figure of 2,055 Afghan citizens who have returned among whom were 426 women and 1,045 children.

    Anadolu Agency reports that over 460,000 undocumented Afghan refugees left Pakistan last month while according to the latest UN figures, 1.3 million Afghans are registered refugees and 880,000 have legal permission to stay in Pakistan.

  • Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid

    Israel strikes Gaza after failed UN ceasefire bid

    Israel pressed its offensive against Hamas in Gaza on Saturday after the United States blocked an extraordinary UN bid to call for a ceasefire in the two-month war.

    Hamas and the Palestinian Authority swiftly condemned the US veto as the Hamas-run health ministry put the latest death toll in Gaza at 17,487 people, mostly women and children.

    An Israeli strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, while five others died in a separate attack in Rafah, the ministry said Saturday.

    Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas over its unprecedented attack on October 7 when militants broke through Gaza’s militarised border to kill around 1,200 people and seize hostages, 138 of whom remain captive, according to Israeli figures.

    Vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to rubble and the UN says about 80 percent of the population has been displaced, with dire shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine reported.

    “It’s so cold, and the tent is so small. All I have are the clothes I wear, I still don’t know what the next step will be,” said Mahmud Abu Rayan, displaced from Beit Lahia in the north.

    A UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate cease-fire was vetoed by the United States on Friday.

    US envoy Robert Wood said the resolution was “divorced from reality” and “would have not moved the needle forward on the ground.”

    Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the cease-fire “would prevent the collapse of the Hamas terrorist organization, which is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and would enable it to continue ruling the Gaza Strip.”

    Hamas slammed on Saturday the US rejection of the cease-fire bid as “a direct participation of the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing.”

    Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said it was “a disgrace and another blank cheque given to the occupying state to massacre, destroy and displace.”

    The veto was swiftly condemned by humanitarian groups, with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) saying the Security Council was “complicit in the ongoing slaughter.”

    Israel’s military said Friday it had struck 450 targets in Gaza over 24 hours, showing footage of strikes from naval vessels in the Mediterranean.

    The health ministry reported 40 dead near Gaza City in the north, and dozens more in Jabalia and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

    Humanitarian Catastrophe

    Following two months of conflict and bombardment, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Friday “the people of Gaza are looking into the abyss.”

    “People are desperate, fearful and angry,” he said.

    “All this takes place amid a spiralling humanitarian nightmare.”

    Many of the 1.9 million Gazans who have been displaced by the war have headed south, turning Rafah near the Egyptian border into a vast camp.

    With the death toll of medical workers in the conflict mounting, more than a dozen World Health Organization member states submitted a draft resolution on Friday that urged Israel to respect its obligations under international law to protect humanitarians in Gaza.

    They called for Israel to “respect and protect” medical and humanitarian workers exclusively involved in carrying out medical duties, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.

    Only 14 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were functioning in any capacity, according to United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA.

    With the civilian toll mounting, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday that Washington believes Israel needs to do more to protect civilians in the conflict.

    “We certainly all recognize more can be done to… reduce civilian casualties. And we’re going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end,” he said.

    The death toll also rose in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces shot dead six Palestinians on Friday, the territory’s health ministry said.

    Israel said Friday it has lost 91 soldiers in Gaza.

    It said two others were wounded in a failed bid to rescue hostages overnight, and that “numerous terrorists” were killed in the operation.
    Hamas claimed a hostage was killed in the operation, and released a video purporting to show the body, which could not be independently verified.

    Hamas rocket parts, launchers and other weapons as well as a one-kilometer tunnel were found at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, the army said, as it warned residents to move west.

  • Minor child worker Rizwana’s first day at school

    Minor child worker Rizwana’s first day at school

    Rizwana, 13, a domestic worker who was assaulted by the wife of a civil judge, has started her education.

    Sarah Ahmed, chairperson of the Child Protection Bureau, stated that the girls studying in Child Protection School welcomed Rizwana on her first day.

    She added that along with education, Rizwana will also be taught cooking, given psychological counselling, and her medical monitoring will also continue.

    The young domestic worker, beaten up during employment by the wife of a civil judge in Islamabad, was under treatment in Lahore General Hospital for five months. Rizwana was brought to the facility from Sargodha with injuries on her head, face and back.

    According to the medical report, due to lack of timely treatment, Rizwana’s wounds were infected with worms, the girl had 15 injury marks on her body including her head, while her internal organs were also affected.

  • Israel drops leaflets containing ayats from The Quran on Palestinians

    Israel drops leaflets containing ayats from The Quran on Palestinians

    Residents of Khan Yonis in the besieged Gaza Strip have received leaflets quoting a verse in the Quran which states “The flood overtook them as they were wrongdoers.”

    The witnesses say that the Israeli army has showered the leaflets through a plane in the area, the latest focus of Israeli military’s ground offensive.

    Journalist Aamer Tabsh in Khan Younis says he saw Israeli planes drop thousands of fliers.

    Tabsh says residents are convinced the reference to the epic flood of Noah in the Quran and the Bible “means that something much worse is coming.”
    Some are linking it to Hamas’ name for its October 7 onslaught against Israel, “Al Aqsa Deluge,” or flood.

    Al-Jazeera points to recent reports that the Israeli forces are considering flooding Hamas’s subterranean tunnel network with seawater to force out its fighters.

  • Three suspects involved in online sexual harassment arrested

    Three suspects involved in online sexual harassment arrested

    The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has arrested three suspects involved in online sexual harassment from Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

    According to a spokesperson of FIA, the men, identified as Muhammad Umar, Muhammad Javed and Jibran Khan, have been arrested from different areas of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

    The spokesperson said the accused have been found involved in sharing pictures and videos of the affected women on social media.

    The accused also kept demanding money under threat of sharing objectionable material.

    The spokesperson further says that investigation has been initiated with the arrested accused.

    Mobile phones and objectionable materials have been recovered from the accused.

  • IHC orders DG ISI to submit a report on Bushra-Khosa audio leak

    IHC orders DG ISI to submit a report on Bushra-Khosa audio leak

    The Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Nadeem Anjum has been ordered by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to submit a report on who is responsible for an alleged audio leak between the former first lady Bushra Bibi and her lawyer, Latif Khosa, Geo has reported.  

    The court also asked the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to do  forensics of the leaked audio between Bushra Bibi and Latif Khosa to know about the origin of its release.  

    Justice Babar Sattar of the IHC said during a hearing of a plea filed by Latif Khosa that a copy of the petition be sent to DG ISI, seeking a report on who is behind the audio leak.

    The court also issued notices to FIA, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), seeking their response on the matter.

    The hearing was then adjourned till December 11.

    Later, while leaving the courtroom, Justice Sattar said, “Big Boss is listening to everything, you must know this.”

    He then went on to ask who was recording the audio, in reply to which Khosa said, “Everyone knows who records.”

  • Pakistan zoo shut down after mystery tiger attack

    Pakistan zoo shut down after mystery tiger attack

    AFP – Lahore: A zoo in Pakistan has been shut down after a man was mauled to death by tigers in an attack discovered during routine cleaning, officials said Thursday.

    The body was found on Wednesday morning in Bahawalpur’s Sherbagh Zoo in the eastern province of Punjab after staff spotted one of the three tigers with a shoe in its mouth.

    “The zoo is closed right now as we determine how the man got in,” Ali Usman Bukhari, a senior officer of the province’s wildlife department, which operates the zoo, told AFP.

    The condition of the body suggests the attack happened late Tuesday night.

    “The autopsy report has not been released, however evidence gathered from the enclosure points towards him being alive when he was attacked by the tigers,” Bukhari said.

    “The tigers did not go out of the den to attack the man, he jumped into their enclosure,” he said.

    “If we find a security lapse, we will address it. If need be, we will hire private security guards.”

    The victim has not been identified and no family member has come forward to claim the body.

    Speaking to media outside the zoo after the body was discovered on Wednesday, senior local government official Zaheer Anwar said all staff had been accounted for.

    “Our assessment so far is that this appears to be a lunatic, because a sensible person would not jump into the den,” he said.

    “You can see the den is secured. There are stairs behind the den, maybe he jumped from there.”

    The three tigers present in the den when the body was discovered have been restricted to a smaller space while evidence is collected.

    The zoo was built in 1942 by the ruling royal family of the former princely state of Bahawalpur and costs adults 50 rupees (18 cents) to enter.

    Pakistan’s zoos are generally in a poor condition and frequently accused of disregarding animal welfare.

  • In a rare move, UN secretary-general invokes Article 99 on Gaza

    In a rare move, UN secretary-general invokes Article 99 on Gaza

    The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, calling on the Security Council to declare a ceasefire to put a stop to Israeli atrocities committed in Gaza.

    Invoking Article 99 is one of the few powers that the Charter gives the UN Secretary-General.

    In a letter written to the council’s president, Guterres cites the responsibility of the 15-member Security Council that has the obligation to maintain international peace and security, stating that the situation in Gaza and Israel “may aggravate existing threats to the maintenance of international peace and security.”

    He added that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza can have “potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region.”

    UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric explained that the move has been taken “given the scale of the loss of human life in Gaza and Israel, in such a short amount of time.”

    He described the use of Article 99 as a “dramatic constitutional move” made by Guterres in the hope that it would put more pressure on the Council – and the international community at large – to demand a ceasefire between the warring parties.

    “I think it’s arguably the most important invocation”, Dujarric told reporters at UN Headquarters, “in my opinion, the most powerful tool that he [the Secretary-General] has.”

  • Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani among thousands of Afghans holding Pakistani passport

    Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani among thousands of Afghans holding Pakistani passport

    The News has uncovered, through Ministry of Interior sources, that the name of Afghanistan’s Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani is among the list of thousands of Afghan citizens who had Pakistani passports until recently.

    Sirajuddin Haqqani was issued a Pakistani passport for five years, which he used to visit many countries; including Qatar where he negotiated with the American government, which led to the Doha Agreement and the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan.

    Two officials who issued passports to Haqqani have been arrested, one of whom had retired from service when the proceedings against him began.

    An official acquainted with the record-cleansing operation said 30,000 to 40,000 passports issued to Afghan nationals have been blocked.

    Passport offices in various cities issued passports to Afghan citizens, including Karachi and Thatta in Sindh. Without naming the cities of Balochistan and KP, the official said that passport offices established in different cities have also been found involved in the matter.

    Geo reports that Haqqani’s case was unveiled when a Peshawar-based journalist was on the same flight that Haqqani took to Doha. At the immigration counter, Haqqani had shown a Pakistani passport as his travel document. The aforementioned journalist was surprised to see him with that passport. But it was in August this year when the journalist drew the attention of the passport authorities in Pakistan about what he witnessed during a discussion. The information proved to be correct.

    An inquiry was then conducted into the matter which revealed that the passport was issued from Peshawar during the PTI regime.

    The passport-issuing officer said he was contacted by a man who identified himself as a senior military official from an intelligence agency and asked to issue a travel document for Haqqani.

    When the passport officer was asked to find out the identity of the army officer, he said that he was not sure who the man actually was as he had given instructions over the phone. After that, departmental action was initiated against the passport officer and also against the employee who had printed the passport.

    Reportedly both the persons are in jail. This is also confirmed by the information received from Saudi authorities.

    Initially, the Saudi authorities raised the issue with the government of Pakistan that Afghan citizens have obtained Pakistani passports to get jobs in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government provided copies of passports, and as the government took notice of the case, it was found that the number of such cases is, in fact, more than 12,000. The passports of these individuals were revoked and those found to have used forged documents were deported to Afghanistan.

  • Nawaz Sharif meets Chaudhry Shujaat after 15 years

    Nawaz Sharif meets Chaudhry Shujaat after 15 years

    In a significant political development, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) head Nawaz Sharif visited Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain at his residence after a gap of almost 15 years.

    According to the sources of Geo News, the meeting lasted for almost 40 minutes, with both leaders discussing the possibility of a political alliance for the upcoming general elections on February 8 next year.

    PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and other leaders, including Maryam Nawaz, Rana Sanaullah, Ayaz Sadiq, and Azam Nazeer Tarar, also attended the huddle.

    PML-Q leaders Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain, Salik Hussain and Shafay Hussain were also in the meeting.

    The gathering occurs amidst heightened political engagement, with parties actively conducting election campaigns and forming electoral alliances to strengthen their position in the polls.

    Nawaz, a three-time former prime minister, came back to the country in October after nearly four years of exile in London. His return was aimed at energising his supporters in preparation for the elections.

    Earlier, the PML-N supremo succeeded in wooing electables from Balochistan to join his party ranks and also forged an electoral alliance with  Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P).